THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS IN PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT

POLITICS, METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION

 ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

150

THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS

IN PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT
Politics, Metaphysics and Religion
EDITED BY
G.A.J. ROGERS, J.M. VIENNE
AND Y.C. ZARKA

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 THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS IN
PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT
POLITICS, METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION

edited by

G. A. J. ROGERS
University of Keele, Keele . United Kingdom

J. M. VI ENNE
Universite de Nantes. France

and

Y. C. ZARKA
CNRS Paris . Fran ce

Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Cambr Idge Platonlsts In phi losophical context : po l t t t cs ,

metaphysics. and relIgion I edited by G.A.J . Rogers. J.M. Vlenne.
and Y.C . Zarka.
p. cm . (Arch Ives Internatlonales d 'htstoire des Idees =
Internat ional ar ch ives of the hIstory of Ideas; 150>
EnglIsh and French .
Includes b IblIograph Ical references and Index .

1. Cambr idge Platon lsts. 2 . Philosophy, Engllsh--17th century.

3 . England--Intellectual llfe-- 17th century. I. Rogers . G. A. J.
<Graham Alan John). 1938- II. Vlenne. Jean-MIchel. III. Zarka,
Yves Char les . IV. Ser Ies : ArchIves Internattonales d'h tsto ire des
i dees; 150 .
B1133.C2C292 1997
141' . 2 · 094209032- - dc2 1 97 -10318

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001 10.1007/978-94-015-8933-8

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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Contributors vii

Abbreviations viii
Introduction ix
Jean Michel Vienne

PART ONE

Chapter I The Other-Worldly Philosophers and the Real World :

The Cambridge Platonists, Theology and Politics
G. A. J. Rogers 3
Chapter II Liberte et Verite: Politique et morale dans la
correspondance hollandaise de More et de Cudworth
Luisa Simonutti 17
Chapter III Critique de Hobbes et fondement de la morale chez
Cudworth
Yves-Charles Zarka 39

PART Two

Chapter IV The Heritage of Patristic Platonism in Seventeenth-

century English Philosophical Theology
David W. Dockrill 55
Chapter V John Smith et Ie Portique
Jacqueline Lagree 79
Chapter VI Cudworth, Boethius and the Scale of Nature
Sarah Hutton 93
Chapter VII Ralph Cudworth, un platonisme paradoxal: La Nature
dans la Digression concerning the Plastick Life ofNature
Ala in Petit 101
Chapter VIII Ixe$"v; et Relation : Du platonisme al'empirisme
Jean-Michel Vienne 111

PART THREE

Chapter IX The Role of Illuminism in the Thought of Henry More

Robert Crocker 129

v
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter X "La Nature est un art". Le vitalisme de Cudworth et de More

Jean-Louis Breteau 145
Chapter XI Force, Motion and Causality: More's Critique of Descartes
John Cottingham 159
Chapter XII Cudworth versus Descartes : platonisme et sens commun
dans la critique des Meditations
Marialuisa Baldi 173

PART FOUR

Chapter XIII Les differentes lectures du System de Cudworth par

G. W. Leibniz
Andre Robinet 187
Chapter XIV Platonic Idealism in Modern Philosophy from
Malebranche to Berkeley
Stuart Brown 197

ApPENDIX

Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript n? 4981 (On the Nature of

Liberum Arbitrium) introduced by J. L. Breteau 217
Bibliography 233
Index 245
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Marialuisa Baldi CN.R. Milano, ltalia

Jean-Louis Breteau Universite de Toulouse-le -Mirail, France
Stuart Brown The Open University, United Kingdom
John Cottingham University of Reading , United Kingdom
Robert Crocker The Flinders University, Australia
David W. Dockrill Newcastle University, Australia
Sarah Hutton University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Jacqueline Lagree Universite de Rennes , France
Alain Petit Universite de Clermont-Ferrand, France
Andre Robinet C.N.R.S. Paris, France ; Universite Libre de Bruxelles,
Belgique
G. A. John Rogers University of Keele, United Kingdom
Luisa Simonutti CN.R. Milano
Jean-Michel Vienne Universite de Nantes , France
Yves Charles Zarka CN.R.S. Paris, France

vii
 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS VOLUME

es.p.W. : More, Henry, A Collection ofSeveral Philosophical Writings,

(London, 1662).
D.D. : More, Henry, Divine Dialogues, (London, 1668).
E.M. : More, Henry, Enchiridion Metaphysicum, (London, 1671).
E.E. : More, Henry, Enchiridion Ethicum , (London, 1667) .
E.T. : More, Henry, Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, (London, 1656).
M.G. : More, Henry, An Explanation ofthe Grand Mystery of Godliness,
(London, 1660).
T.E.I.M. : Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable
Morality, (London, 1731).
T.F. : Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise of Freewill, (ed. John Allen, London,
1838).
T.1.S. U. : Cudworth, Ralph, The True Intellectual System of the Universe ,
(London , 1678).

viii
 INTRODUCTION

The Cambridge Platonists were defenders of tolerance in the political as well as the
moral sphere; they held that practical judgement came down in the last instance to
individual conscience ; and they laid the foundations of our modern conceptions of
conscience and liberty. But at the same time they maintained the existence
of eternal truths, and of a Good-in-itself, identical with Truth and Being, refusing to
admit that freedom of conscience implied moral relativism. They were critics of
dogmatism, and of the sectarian notion of "enthusiasm" as a source of illumination,
on the grounds that both were disruptive of social harmony; they pleaded the cause
of reason, in the hope that it could become the foundation of all human knowledge.
Yet, for all that, they maintained that a certain sort of mystical illumination lay at
the heart of all true thought, and that human reason had validity only in virtue of its
divine origin. They debated with Descartes and took a keen interest in his mechan-
ism and his dualism ; they brought the atomistic theories of Democritus back into
repute; and they sought to provide a detailed account of the causality linking all
phenomena. But at the same time they fought against every form of materialism
and atheism ; they constructed their universe on a finalistic model derived from
Plato ; and they maintained that the world could be understood only on vitalist
principles .
Occupying a territory that lies between the system of Descartes and that of
Leibniz, between rationalism and empiricism, between ancient and modern science,
between religion and philosophy, the Cambridge Platonists were at the heart of the
formation of modern thought, and many of their questions are still our own, even if
their solutions are no longer accepted. Within the framework of inquiry of their
time, they tried to bring together the most irreconcilable tendencies; and because of
this, their ideas are far less monolithic, and far harder to classify, than those of their
contemporaries, with the result that they have been largely forgotten in the history
of philosophy. Moreover, the form in which they presented their views provides an
obstacle for twentieth-century readers. The problem is one of style, of metaphorical
language, of the elaborate erudition of their scholarship, and above all of the
difficulty of subsuming their views under clear overarching principles.
One must admit that the modern reader is often put off by the very diversity of
the topics which the Cambridge Platonists addressed, so much so that the richness
of their ideas can be lost sight of. But there is, for all that, a unifying thread - one
that the contributors to this volume have tried to uncover, with the aim of restoring
the Cambridge Platonists to the important place that belongs to them in the genesis
of our modern culture. This should be particularly evident in the first four chapters
of the book, which are devoted to morals, politics and religion. Hitherto, research
on the Platonists has concentrated on their physics (with special reference to the

IX

G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. ix-xiv .

© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
x INTRODUCTION

correspondence between More and Descartes, and the relationship between More
and Newton), while a more recent area of interest has been their metaphysics (espe-
cially Cudworth 's "plastic nature"). The present work, by contrast, gives pride of
place to the practical dimension, in the belief that it allows us to see important con-
nections between their theories of knowledge, their physics and their metaphysics ,
and to reveal a coherence, or at any rate a certain harmony, in the positions they
advanced.
The terms in which the Platonists approached the practical side of their inquiries
are sufficiently similar to our own to be quite accessible to the modern reader. What
can be more bewildering is the theological aspect - the system of concepts and
metaphors in terms of which their moral and political (and hence religious) preoc-
cupations are worked out. These authors were committed to a pan-psychic vitalism
which seems all the more foreign to us given that many texts from the same period
are entirely free of such elements, and hence seem infinitely more accessible .
Nevertheles s, it is impossible to understand the transition from one form of moder-
nity - that proposed by Descartes - to the other equally striking forms proposed by
Leibniz, Newton or Locke, if we ignore the reservoir of ideas which the work of the
Cambridge Platonists represented for those very thinkers who elaborated their own
systems by criticising them.
There is thus much illumination to be had by approaching the Cambridge
Platonists from a practical perspective, and presenting their thought as a reaction
against the various forms of voluntarism that prevailed at the time. Calvinism and
its offshoots , in the course of affirming the transcendence of God, put the divine
will at the centre of their explanation of the universe - a notion that gave rise, in
moral philosophy, to predestination and legalism, and in political theory to state ab-
solutism. Hobbes responded to theological absolutism by putting into the hands of
the sovereign the instruments of public and private security. But by failing to ac-
commodate the guiding principles of voluntarism, his solution turns out to be much
worse that the evil it is designed to prevent: it degenerates into a relativism which is
just as dictatorial. As the Platonists saw it, it was only by restoring an authentic
transcendence that one could resist the kind of relativism that regarded all authority
as an artificial creation . But this authentic transcendence could not be identified
with theological voluntarism, any more than with Thomist scholasticism, the latter
having been compromised by its links with Catholic obscurantism and intolerance.
It could only be derived from the prisca theologia - that ancient theology which
had been embodied (as certain traditions of the time had it) in the teachings of
Moses, as well as those of Pythagoras and Plato, and even Aristotle. A Platonic
framework allowed the eternal truths themselves to be set against the supposed cre-
ation of those truths; to unify, within God, truth, goodness and being (whereas vol-
untarism made the first two notions subordinate to the arbitrary will of God); and to
follow the Timaeus in introducing final causation as the very basis of the mechan-
ical interactions of matter. In a Platonic philosophy, every human being could be
given the ability to use his reason to move away from the sensible world and
approach the divine; and tolerance became compatible with the notion of an
 INTRODUCTION xi

antecedent and immutable truth. It even became possible, by adopting Plato's dis-
tinction between dialectical "ascent" and contemplation, to take account of the
difference between the necessary advance of rational inquiry and the divine illum-
ination which alone could bring this inquiry to fruition.
There are, however , two complications that need to be touched on. The first has a
positive aspect to it. The Platonism we have just referred to was reinterpreted in the
light of Neo-platonism, itself christianised by the Fathers of the Church, notably
Origen . Three fundamental elements - emanationism, the scale of being, and the
Stoic themes of the world soul and the divine fire running through the universe -
these enriched the Platonists ' stock of metaphors, if not concepts, and introduced a
vitali st dimension which was certainly not a feature of Platonism in its original
form. The second point , however, is a negative one. Christianity , on the one hand,
and the current state of the sciences on the other, could not accommodate all the
Platonic and Neoplatonic theses mentioned. Conceiving of a Trinity not reducible
to three fundamental elements, a creation not consisting of emanation, a divine
presence that is not an internal fire but a natural principle of organization, providing
a justific ation of causality that invoked something more precise than mere impact-
in short taking advantage of the priority of being , truth and goodness without
falling into various forms of pantheism or materialism (the very move Spinoza was
making at this precise time) - all these were additional factors demanding a
modification of Platonism in its original form.
The task of provid ing foundations for human morals and politics, and justifying a
science where Truth and Goodness could be grounded in Being , without an imme-
diate human dependence on a divine will detached from the divine reason - these
were also the preoccupations of Grotius in the field of law. As a follower of
Arminius , Grotius too was opposed to Calvinist voluntarism , and he tries to estab-
lish a conception of man created by God yet capable of finding his own way in life,
capable of elaborating a natural law which "would, in a certain sense, apply even if
we agreed thee was no God, or that human affairs are not an object of concern to
him" (D e Jure Bellis ac Pads, Prol. 11). The Platonists followed suit in their desire
to think of a universe which was itself so ontologically marked by the divine
presence that one could ignore any interventions made by God under the form of
particular and arbitrary acts of will. This generates a difficult and constantly threat-
ened balance between the distancing of God on the one hand and his necessary
presence on the other; here the terms of the subsequent debate between Clark and
Leibniz are already clearly laid down.

*
To provide its "guiding thread" for readers of the Cambridge Platonists, the
volume thus opens with the moral and political dimension in their writings and
their lives, a dimension that is all too often ignored. The Cambridge Platonists were
ardent defenders of freedom of conscience, and they based this defence on a law of
nature, itself articulated by the power of reason present in every human being. This
Xll INTRODUCTION

rational theology proceeds via each individual conscience, to which we are be-
holden even if it speaks with a different voice in each of us. Chapter I, by John
Rogers, shows how this theory is exemplified in the actions and sermons and
treatises of Cudworth and More. The doctrine of freedom of conscience, close to
that of the Latitudinarians, would arouse the interest of the Remonstrants in
Holland, who were engaged in a struggle against rigorous Calvinist dogma, and
various forms of intolerance. Chapter II, by Luisa Simonutti, clarifies the nature of
this liberal morality, and compares the positions of the Arminians with those of the
Platonists by examining the correspondence between Cudworth and More on the
one hand, and the writings of Van Limborch, spokesman for Arminianism, on the
other. Peace must take precedence over dogmatic rigour, whether it be that of the
Calvinist or that of the enthusiast: "Where the freedom to seek for truth is re-
strained, the truth is overwhelmed; where the faculty of pursuing truth is recog-
nised, the truth shines forth and allows herself to be found without difficulty." But
this freedom must be based on the transcendence of Truth and Goodness . These
theses, and the practical moral and political conclusions which flow from them, are
opposed to those of Hobbes - at any rate as he was understood when his works
were published. Chapter III, by Yves-Charles Zarka, examines the moral position
of Cudworth by analysing three aspects of his opposition to the relativism attrib-
uted to Hobbes - epistemic, theological and political - which call into question the
three principles of ethics: free action, subject and norm. Cudworth's opposition was
the basis for his new analysis of conscience and liberty, revealed in one of his un-
published writings, the text of which is provided in the appendix by J. L. Breteau.
Part Two of the volume shows how this moral position was developed among the
supporters of Platonic philosophy. First of all, Chapter IV, by David Dockrill,
analyses the sources which Neo-Platonism drew on, and insists on the difficulties
involved in trying to adapt the Christian revelation to the conceptual forms of
Platonism; this difficult enterprise begun by the Fathers of the Church, notably
Origen, brought about certain transformations which gave modern Platonism its
specific character : God cannot be distinguished from Intelligence; He cannot be a
monad unrelated to a world emanating from Him, since He must possess the idea of
all things before freely creating them. In order to Christianise this Platonism, use
was made of the themes of natural law, of right reason, and of the world soul -
themes which could lead one to suppose a direct Stoic influence. Chapter V, by
Jacqueline Lagree, uses the example of John Smith's sermons to show that the bor-
rowing is not a borrowing of concepts but a merely rhetorical borrowing: the
Platonists employed this vocabulary not so much in order to make use of Stoic phil-
osophy as to mark the fact that they belonged to the hierarchical world of Christian
thought. Chapter VI, by Sarah Hutton, makes a more precise study of the metaphor
of the Chain of Being borrowed from Boethius, to underline this hierarchy in the
universe which was so essential for the Platonists : beings endowed with intelli-
gence must precede material beings, knowledge must precede sensation, final cau-
sation must precede mechanism. In Chapter VII, Alain Petit focuses on the
expression "plastic life", in order to explore the relationship between the Platonists
 INTRODUCTION xiii

and Plotinus ; in spite of certain ambiguities, Cudworth shows himself to be a cau-

tious supporter of Plotinus. His major and most prominent concern is a theological
one : by introducing his "plastic nature", Cudworth seeks a via media between
mechanism and hyper-voluntarism, between a God who does nothing and a God
who does everything. A final source of inspiration for the Platonists was atomism .
If it is true that the Platonists attached a decisive importance to the activity of the
mind and the priority it gives mankind over sensible data, one can understand their
interest in ancient atomism and Cartesian mechanism; the latter provides the disor-
ganised material elements which only the mind, according to the Platonists, can put
into their proper relations. Chapter VIII, by Jean-Michel Vienne, studies the im-
portance of these relations, and shows that, paradoxically , a new empiricism was
destined to arise from this neo-Platonic requirement.
The third part of the volume draws out the consequences for physics and meta-
physics of the Platonic structure thus defined. The relationship between things must
express the pre-eminence of the mind: three chapters analyse this form of pan-
psychist vitalism which provides a rationale for the causal relationship between
things. Chapter IX, by Robert Crocker, concentrates on More's life to show how
the successive styles of his works correspond to his own experiences , whether mys-
tical, intellectual or literary, and how his conception of atoms, of their interactions
due to spiritual forces, and of causality in general, underwent a corresponding evo-
lution . Chapter X focuses on vitalism itself: Jean-Louis Breteau shows how the
concept develops by diverging from Cartesian mechanism, and taking the form of
Cudworth's "plastic nature" , or More's "spirit of Nature" . Chapter XI continues the
story by analysing the concept of causation : John Cottingham shows how, faced
with the vague explanations of causality given by Descartes, and in spite of the op-
position of the post-Cartesians to the theory of influx (which seemed to them irra-
tionalist), More struggled to give an account of the ontological nature of the causal
link by means of a kind of vitalist explanation which has some links with occasion-
alism . Chapter XII concludes this part of the volume by a metaphysical analysis of
the work of Cudworth : Marialouisa Baldi takes as her starting point his various crit-
icisms of the Cartesian proofs of God's existence in order to demonstrate the oppo-
sition of the Platonists to voluntarism, their affirmation of the identity of truth ,
goodness and being, and their conception of ideas and of sensation - all positions
based on a vitalist Platonism ; nevertheless, dangerous as Cartesian ism may have
been, its mechanistic atomism was an antidote to materialism in so far as it still
allowed for mental intervention in the material world.
Two final chapters provide accounts of the subsequent evolution of this Platonic
vital ism. Chapter XIII transcribes for the first time the series of notes made by
Leibniz in the course of his successive readings of Cudworth's vitalist arguments.
Andre Robinet sees in the different passages which Leibniz noted not the influence
of Cudworth on Leibniz, but on the contrary the traces of the progressive discover-
ies Leibniz himself made concerning his theory of monads, which made him react
in different ways to the same text of Cudworth . Finally, Chapter XIV, by Stuart
Brown, is concerned with what became of this British Platonism at the hands of
XIV INTRODUCTION

John Norris, George Berkeley and Arthur Collier, at the start of a Platonist revival
which this time went beyond the city of Cambridge . For these writers, as for More,
Cudworth and Leibniz, there are eternal moral truths which can be "no creatures of
ours, nor yet of God's either", as Norris puts it. These new Platonists rediscovered
the original moral intuitions of their Cambridge predecessors.

*
By taking moral philosophy as its starting point, this volume aims to grasp a uni-
fying theme in the views of the Cambridge Platonists, and to convince today's
readers of the interest of their views and analyses. The importance of the physical
and metaphysical theories of these Platonists cannot of course be ignored; but their
conception of the causal relationship between phenomena, of the finality which per-
vades the universe, their theory of knowledge which requires an innate rational ca-
pacity if not innate ideas as such - all these features acquire a greater coherence
and scope if they are considered as stemming from their concern to place man at
the very centre of their inquiries - man in his personal relationship to God,
achieved thanks to his free conscience. In the twentieth century where there has
been a separation of science and morals, fact and value, philosophy and religion, it
is easier for us to understand Descartes and Newton, concerned as they were to
keep theology and morality separate. But this separation was sometimes due to fear
of the authorities or public opinion, and did not reflect their methods of discovery .
One of the fascinations of the Platonists is that they ignored, or even rejected, these
boundaries, and insisted on the necessity of achieving an overall conception of the
various dimensions of human existence. But for all that, the stress on theology and
morals could not be at the expense of the autonomy of the subject and his search for
truth - a delicate balance which they never quite managed to achieve. But the fact
that they did not succeed in producing a fully unified conception of the world does
not make their achievement insignificant. If nothing else, a reading of the manu-
script by Cudworth to be found at the end of this volume, should prove the point.

Jean-Michel Vienne
translated by John Cottingham
PART ONE
 G .A .J. ROGERS

THE OTHER- WORLDL Y PHILOSOPHERS AND THE REAL

WORLD: THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS, THEOLOGY AND
POLITICS

Ralph Cudworth was just thirty years old when, in March 1647/48 , he travelled
down from Cambridge to London to preach before the House of Commons. At first
sight this would seem to be a case of a young and unworldly academic entering into
the arena of this-worldly politics at a time of great political and religious turmoil.
Was it a case of the innocent venturing where others more experienced in the ways
of the world would have feared to tread? Or was it that he, and perhaps others of
the Cambridge school, knew, if not fully well, at least well enough, what they were
about?
That the English Parliament should so honour so young a man is relevant to the
themes of this chapter. For there is an image of the Cambridge Platonists which
would see them as fulfilling perfectly the stereotype of the ivory-towered academic.
Their famous twentieth-century admirer, Dean Inge, for example, writing in 1930,
accounted for their neglect since the seventeenth century as due to their having "de-
liberately stood apart from the conflicts of their times". Inge went on to see this de-
tachment "from the bitter antagonisms of the Great Rebellion and Restoration" as
that which gives the Cambridge school a permanent place in theology.' Others , too,
have stressed their detachment from the contemporary political scene. M. F.
Howard, in his Introduction to his 1911 edition of Ward's Life of More, explains
something of More's unhappiness in his later years as resulting from his sheltered
college existence which had prote cted him from the painful fact s of the wider
world.? He also saw this unworldiness as the source of some of the failures in
More' s reasoning and in part accounting for the lack of influence of the school in
the subsequent century." Cassirer too, in his famous account of the Cambridge
school contrasted them sharply with the active engagement with the world advo-
cated in Bacon's philosophy. He wrote:

If one forms a mental picture of the intellectual atmosphere out of which the English experiment al phi-
losophy developed, then the inevitable opposition between it and the Cambridge school becomes mani-
fest at once . For this atmosphere touched the Cambridge men in their innermost being; it was looked
upon by them as the absolute negation , subversion and perversion of all that in which they saw the
meaning and true dignity of philosophic knowledge .

Their standard was taken , Cassirer continues , from the classical Hellenic ideal,
particularly as it was found in Plotinus . They recognised no higher goal than "the
pure contemplative activity . . . they withstood persistently all endeavours to draw

3
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. 3-15.
© /997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
4 G.A .J. ROGERS

them into active life, into court or into disputes over political and ecclesiastical
power. . . true happiness does not lie in action, but insight.?"
Most recently, Rupert Hall has endorsed this view. In his scientific biography of
More he writes:

Like many other Fellows in both Universities, More survived the vicissitudes of the Civil War,
Commonwealth, Protectorate and Restoration. He was fundamentally apolitical, as he was broad in his
religion; King, Republic or Protector was acceptable to him, so long as the College was undisturbed.'

In contrast with these assessments I shall argue that we should see the
Cambridge Platonists as very much aware of the political landscape in which their
philosophy was set and maintaining a position which they saw as advancing
towards a political settlement in the troubled and dangerous years of mid-
seventeenth century England. For what they had to offer, and I shall limit myself
primarily to the two leading figures of the school , Cudworth and More, were some
important intellectual ingredients for the advances towards general religious tolera-
tion that were to be taken in England in the next fifty years .
On this reading the reason for their substantial eclipse in the eighteenth century
had nothing to do with their supposed unworldliness. Rather, it was because central
beliefs for which they stood were to be absorbed into the more comprehensive case
for toleration that was to be developed by the end of the century.
Before we turn to those contributions and achievements, however, a word or two
is in order about the identification of More, Cudworth, Whichcote, Smith and the
rest with Plato. It has often been said that the so-called Cambridge Platonists were
in reality much closer to Plotinus than to Plato." And the defence of the claim to
regard them as Platonists sometimes amounts to no more than the identification of
all religious philosophy as somehow merely a series of footnotes to Plato. More
said of himself that it was the "Platonick Writers, Marsilius Ficinus, Plotinus
himself, Mercurius Trismegistus; and the Mystical Divines"," not Plato, that had
been his early inspiration. We should also remember that More was also indebted to
Aristotle, especially in his account of ethics."
When we turn to Cudworth, it is worth noting that, as we might expect from such
a learned scholar, he too has considerable appreciation for the achievements of
Aristotle, and ranks them well above tho se of the perceived enemy, the ancient
atomists: "The Aristotelical system of philosophy is infinitely to be preferred before
the whole Democritical; though the former has been so much disparaged, and the
other cried up of late amongst US."9 And with regard to its implications for religion
he places Aristotle well above Descartes, for the former fully understood that
nature was "no fortuitous principle, but such as doth nothing in vain, but all for
ends, and in everything pursues the best ; and therefore can be no other than a sub-
ordinate instrument of the div ine wisdom, and the manuary opificer or executioner
of it" . In contrast, the Cartesian hypothesis requires "God to contribute nothing
more to the fabric of the world , than the turning round of a vortex or whirlpool of
matter". 10
More firmly based in Plato's philosophy is the shared commitment to the central
place occupied by reason in intellectual enquiry. As that most eloquent spokesman
 THEOLOGY AND POLITICS 5

for reason, Benjamin Whichcote said: "Reason is not a shallow thing: it is the first
participation from God: therefore, he that observes Reason observes God" .1 1
Reason, he held - and others of the Cambridge Platonists followed him - "is a
Principle, uniform and satisfactory". It was at the heart of religion: "Christian reli-
gion is not Mystical , Symbolical, JEnigmatical, Emblematical, but unclothed, un-
bodied, intellectual, rational, spiritual."12 "There is nothing so intrinsically Rational
as Religion is'' .13 Reason was, in their famous phrase, "the candle of the Lord" .
There were, of course, many other common commitments that linked the posi-
tions of Plato to the Cambridge school. But there is one difference which would
appear to support the view that the Cambridge philosophers were essentially un-
worldly in their outlook. Granted that Plato's whole philosophy appears to point
away from this to another, higher, reality, he was, nevertheless, enough in contact
with the here and now to write two major works of political philosophy . By con-
trast, the whole school of Cambridge did not manage one such work, or so it would
seem . But, if the argument that I offer here has any merit, then at least a
qualification on that judgement is in order.
For all their supposed unworldliness the Cambridge school were of course not
writing works of theology and philosophy in an intellectual vacuum. Although we
can find many ways in which Platonic themes enter their philosophies and it is the
Platonic philosophy that most pervades many of their most central tenets, they were
all in part responding to a complex intellectual context in which all of the following
played an important role.
I. There was the New Science, associated especially with Galileo and Descartes .
Galileo's astronomy had made a special impact on the young Henry More, as
his early poetry makes clear. Both More and Cudworth were of course strongly
aware of the implications of the new accounts of motion, especially that of
Descartes, and much of their thinking was a direct response to these.

2. In England there was the traumatic fact of the recent Civil War. It was a war
that had threatened almost every aspect of their lives. At the personal level
their livelihood as academics remained problematic for many years, and for
some there was serious hardship inflicted on their families .!" More widely, it
threatened to destroy two institutions with which they particularly identified,
the Church of England and the Monarchy.
3. There was the rise of new "Enthusiasms", which by their style alone were in-
imical to the commitments of the Cambridge Platonists. In politics and religion
there were the various radical Puritan sects; in natural philosophy there were,
for example, the disciples of Paracelsus. That More himself had a "Natural
touch of Enthusiasm" as he admitted," only made the vice worse for being
personal.

4. Perhaps most threateningly, because most closely argued, there was the new
materialist philosophy of Hobbes. And there was not only Hobbes . For the
disciples of Descartes or Gassendi might under pressure slide into a neo-
materialism. Nor was this just an idle possibility, for it was to be fulfilled in the
6 G .A .J. ROGERS

next century with the materialist versions of Lockean empiricism that were to
become so prevalent in both England and France."

II

Richard Ashcraft has recently argued for a position with regard to the place of
Latitudinarianism in the development of toleration in England which includes
something of the following. The latitudinarians placed great weight on the central
place of reason in theology and in everything else. But because they were loyal
members of the Church of England, a church that insisted on providing a set body
of doctrine , they did not really believe in liberty of conscience. They therefore
stood in marked contrast to the nonconformists. The latter, in accepting that every
individual is made in the image of God, held, too, that each has reason and free will
and is capable of acting morally according to his private judgement. And, because
of the special status of conscience as God's way of instruction in moral matters, his
private judgement would indeed coincide with God 's will. In contrast , Ashcraft
argues, "Anglicans - including latitudinarians - denied that individuals were ra-
tional in the sense of acting according to their consciences. Reliance upon individ-
ual conscience, they asserted, meant that individuals would "follow the wild
enthusiasms of their own brains." The result would be chaos and anarchy..."17 So,
Ashcraft maintains, we cannot look to the latitudinarians as the founders of true tol-
eration, as they (and the Anglican church to which they belonged) did not believe
in it.
I am sympathetic with much of Ashcraft's argument. There was a reluctance to
allow too much play to conscience in the early years of the Restoration. But it is
worth noting that his list of latitudinarians is not very long - in this particular
context he refers to Glanvill, Fowler, Stillingfleet and Sprat, but indicates there are
others. Specifically, he does not include either Cudworth or More, or indeed any of
the recognised central Cambridge Platonists.
This seems to be an important oversight - if oversight it is. For the account of
reason that Ashcraft attributes to the nonconformists, in particular quoting the
Puritan, John Owen, is, as we shall see, in all essentials the same as that pro-
pounded by Henry More.
Ashcraft outlines the nonconformist position as follows:

For nonconformists, "rational theology" meant that the linkage between divine reason and human reason
is an essential precept of religion. That is, God as the Author of reason, has given mankind the Law of
Nature as a law of reason and has created individuals with those faculties and powers of reason that
enable them to understand and to fulfil the moral obligation laid upon them by natural law."

Ashcraft goes on to quote in support Owen's Reason of Faith (published, we

might note, only in 1677, after many of the major works of the Cambridge school):
man "being a rational creature must owe God a rational subjection" which "neces-
sarily follows from the constitution of his nature". Reason is given to man so that
he may make those choices which are of the greatest importance to him. Religious
persecution ran quite contrary to the principles of Natural Law. 19
 THEOLOGY AND POLITICS 7

I find nothing wrong with Ashcraft's argument save this. He claims these princi-
ples are the possess ion of the nonconformists alone. It is part of my objective to
show that these principles are to be found in the Anglican royalist, Henry More, and
arose from within the Cambridge school and its early and deep commitment to the
central place of reason, and its limitations, in the human condition. Moreover, this
commitment on More' s part dates from at least 1661, sixteen years before the Owen
passage that Ashcraft cites . Nor was More the only person so committed.
Surprisingly, in the light of Ashcraft's list, one of those that stressed the importance
of conscience was Edward Fowler. He had written, in The Design of Christianity
(1671): "no Pleasures are comparable to those that immediately result from virtue
and holiness: for that man's Conscience is a very Heaven to him that busieth himself
in the exercise thereof'V" We shall come to More's own position a little later.

III

Let us return to that early encounter between the young Cudworth and the House of
Commons. I began by noting that this event was not his first brush with the world
of politics . Cudworth had been a firm supporter of Richard Holdsworth, committed
royalist and Master of Cudworth's college, Emmanuel , in his struggle with
Parliament. It was a battle that lasted until Holdsworth 's death in 1649. Although
always regarded as puritan, Emmanuel College, with the rest of the University , was
always to support the king, which must make us wary of assuming any simple
identification between puritan theological conviction s and hostility to either monar-
chy or the Church of England.
The situation at Cambridge, especially in November 1643, when the parliamen-
tary troops of the Earl of Manchester took over the University and removed paint-
ings and imprisoned members , was one that must have left a very deep impression
on Cudworth, and no doubt confirmed his horror of war and militant confrontation
generally ."
The occasion of Cudworth 's sermon was that it was one of a series of regular
Fast Sermons, delivered at St Margaret's, Westminster, "engineered", according to
Alan Gabbey , "by the Long Parliament, and which were preached, two at a time, on
the last Wednesday of each month from February 23 (o.s.), 1642 to February 28
(o.s.), 1649."22 The Sermons seemed to have been designed as party propaganda,
but there is no evidence that in this case the preacher was uttering anything other
than his own thoughts."
As I read Cudworth's sermon its central message is an irenic one. He tells the
parliamentarians that the essence of Christianity is not to be understood in terms of
scholastic mastery of the theological argument, but in keeping God's command-
ments with a righteous heart. It was a warning against precipitate action - including
precipitate legislation on matters of religious doctrine - that was done without a
clear commitment to God's word, and arising from that, a commitment to God's
commands through our actions. He said:

Christ came not into the world to fill our heads with mere Speculations to kindle a fire of wrangling and
contentious dispute amongst us, and to warm our spirits against one another with nothing but angry and
8 G.A .i. ROGERS

peevi sh debates, whilst in the mean time our hearts remain all ice within towards God . . . Christ was Vita!
Magiste r, not Schola: and he is the best Christian, whose heart beats with the truest pulse towards
heaven ; not he whose head spinneth out the finest cobwebs."

Cudworth goes on to say that the true Christian is not one who believes "all the
vulgar Articles of the Christian faith, [whilst he] plainly denyeth Christ in his life".
Christ was not trying to catch us out with slips of logic: "I perswade my self, that
no man shalI ever be kept out of heaven, for not comprehending mysteries that
were beyond the reach of his shalIow understanding.t'P The whole tone of the
sermon is one requiring of its recipients self-examination, not proselytisation.
Cudworth's recognition of the bounds of human comprehension - "mysteries ...
beyond the reach of [our] shallow comprehension" - is important. For whilst there
are undoubtedly limits to what we may understand, everyone of us can certainly
understand enough to obtain salvation . In other words, what we need to know to
obtain salvation is within the grasp of us all. Each one of us is in this sense an au-
tonomous moral agent before God.
Cudworth goes on to warn the politicians: "the entertaining of this and that
speculation, which will not render them any thing the better in their lives, or the
liker unto God; whilst in the mean time there is no such care taken about keeping of
Christs Commandments'?" is no way to achieve salvation.
The implications of the sermon are clear. In matters of religion the politician s
should be concerned first with the salvation of their own souls through keeping
God 's commandments rather than attempting to determine and impose specific
matters of doctrine . Clearly Cudworth believed both that the parliamentari ans were
capable of absorbing his message and that they were in danger of ignoring it - why
else preach that sermon ? Cudworth's line of argument, furthermore, in warning
Parliament of the real dangers inherent in entering too deeply into theological
niceties , anticipated the position of the Church of England that was to emerge as
dominant at the Restoration?
With regard to his specific relationship to the House of Commons, it is worth
remembering that Cudworth did have some reason to have at least some
confidence in that institution, despite the traumas of the Civil War. For in 1641,
when a dispute arose about the election of John Worthington to a felIowship at
Emmanuel, it was an appeal to the House of Commons which rightfulIy led to the
confirmation of Worthington 's appointment. Those supporting Worthington's
candidature included the Master, Holdsworth, Whichcote, and Cudworth, alI
Royalists, but their candidate was nevertheless preferred by the Commons to that
of their opponents for what were apparently exactly the right reasons, namely
Worthington's academic superiority.P Cudworth was the secretary of the colIege
committee that conducted the election and recorded a minute confirming
Worthington's acknowledged superior merit, even by those opposing his
election."
That Cudworth was asked to act as secretary of the committee suggests he
enjoyed the confidence of his peers . His merits as an administrator and man of
judgement were further confirmed by his appointment by Parliamentary authority to
the Mastership of Clare HalI in 1645, when he was just 27, and also by the House
 THEOLOGY AND POLITICS 9

of Commons to the regius professorship of Hebrew. He went to the Mastership of

Christ's College in 1654. Nor were his relations with the government of Cromwell
affected by his personal convictions about church and monarchy, for John Thurloe,
Secretary of State to both Oliver and Richard Cromwell, often consulted Cudworth
about possible appointees to government positions and with evidently successful
outcomes.P At the Restoration he had some difficulty in obtaining confirmation of
his appointment as Master of Christ's. Clearly his close involvement with Thurloe
and perhaps other leading figures in the government of the Interregnum had raised
question marks in the minds of some . One in particular, Ralph Widdrington, at-
tempted all in his power to have Cudworth removed . At the Restoration Cudworth
had Widdrington ejected but the battle between them was to continue for several
years . That Cudworth remained in office both at the Restoration and after the strug-
gle with Widdrington, who had powerful allies, suggests both that he was seen
by most impartial observers to be largely above politics and was also a man of
integrity and academic distinction ."
It seems, in the light of these considerations, wrong to regard Cudworth as some-
body out of touch with the world outside of Cambridge, and therefore wrong to
account for the claimed lack of impact of his philosophy in those terms. But as yet,
of course, I have scarcely referred to his philosophy at all. Of this the merit of the
argument of the True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) is somewhat over-
shadowed both by the physical size of the volume and by the fact that it had the
misfortune to be aimed at scholars, not natural philosophers, when it was the
theories and discoveries of the latter that were shaping the new intellectual climate.
It was, moreover, published too late to be an influence in their formative years on
the three leading English thinkers of the period, Boyle, Locke, and Newton. But
Locke and Newton , at least, were to read him, were impressed by his achievements,
and were to some extent influenced by him.32
The True Intellectual System of the Universe was not, of course, offered in any
direct way as a contribution to political philosophy. Indirectly, however, it might be
thought that it was a contribution to that view of the world that denies the account
of human beings offered by Hobbes in Book I of Leviathan. Gilbert Burnet well
captures the contemporary response to Leviathan, which he described as that "very
wicked book, with a very strange title":

His [Hobbes '] main principles were, that all men acted under an absolute necessity ... He seemed to think
that the universe was God, and that souls were material , thought being only subtle and imperceptible
motion. He thought interest and fear were the chief principles of society : and he put all morality in the
following that, which was our own private will, or advantage . He thought religion had no other founda-
tion than the laws of the land ; and he put all the law in the will of the prince, or of the people : for he
wrote his book at first in favour of absolute monarchy, but turned it afterwards to gratify the republican
party."

Indeed Burnet saw the Cambridge school as the chief - because intellectually
most able - opponent of Hobbes 's philosophy.
That Cudworth had Hobbes very much in his sights is well known. He saw the
materialist philosophy and its supposed atheist implications as the main intellectual
10 G .A .J. ROGERS

threat of the age. Potentially a much more serious matter than the local difficulties
between the rival religious sects, which, anyway, by the 1670's were clearly not the
enormous political threat that they had been thirty years before. And there can be
no doubt that Hobbes's analysis of right and wrong, which on most seventeenth-
century readings of him was entirely subjectivist and tightly implied by an atheistic
materialism, was one of Cudworth's central targets. So in this sense Cudworth's
work was an attack on a specific philosophy which was attached to a very specific
political theory.
It is of course correct that there is nothing that counts as political philosophy as
such in the work. It was, however, a massive attempt to argue a theist reading of the
universe, and this clearly does have some kind of political implications, or at least
was taken to have some. It implied, for example, as Cudworth argued in the unpub-
lished sequel, an "Eternal and Immutable Morality", a rejection of the subjectivist
ethics of the atheists. And to shore up the ramparts against that enemy was very
much one of Cudworth's objectives. To that extent it was an attempt to unite
Christendom against a far more serious enemy than that which divided the various
protestant Christian sects to be found in seventeenth-century England. It was, if
anything, a warning that whilst the fiddling debate between the sects continued a
much more dangerous enemy was already within the gates and almost unnoticed.
There was then, to that extent at least, a political dimension to Cudworth's argu-
ment. Nor can this be dismissed as merely a minor implication of Cudworth's ob-
jectives. The spread of Hobbist ideas was seen by many as a serious threat. As
Burnet put it "this set of notions came to spread much. The novelty and boldness of
them set many on reading them. The impiety of them was acceptable to men of
corrupt minds, which were but too much prepared to receive them, by the extrava-
gances of the late times.">
Cudworth's position emerges particularly clearly in the posthumous Treatise
Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality in which the threat of Hobbes's
account of ethics is directly challenged. The whole burden of Cudworth's argument
is to the effect that we cannot account for knowledge in terms of sensation.
Sensation is essentially passive, the product of the impact of particles on the body:
"Sensations formally considered are certain Passions or Affections in the Soul
fatally connected with some Local Motions in the Body, whereby the Soul per-
ceiveth something else besides those immediate Corporeal Motions in the Nerves,
Spirits or Brain" .35 In contrast, knowledge "is the Active Energy of an Un-
passionate Power of the Soul". It is the soul acting alone "by and from it self"."
And the objects of knowledge, which is eternal truth, cannot be the transitory, con-
tingent and passive sensations, but must themselves be eternal objects . Indeed,
Cudworth argues, they are the eternal, non-material universals of platonic philoso-
phy. Morality is concerned with the immutable nature of justice, neither "arbitrary
nor fantastical". It stands in marked contrast with the claims of the author of
Leviathan, Cudworth says, who claims that there is "no common Rule of Good and
Evil to be taken from the Nature ofthe Objects themselves'lF'
Further evidence for the political dimensions of Cudworth's ultimate purpose in
his philosophy is provided by that other posthumous work of Cudworth's, his
 THEOLOGY AND POLITICS II

Treatise of FreewillP' There , in considering the nature of justice, praise and blame ,
Cudworth argues that we have "a sense of retributive, punitive, vindicative justice,
as not mere fancy, but a thing really existing in nature, when punishments are
inflicted upon malefactors for their unjust and illegal actions past, by civil magis-
trates in particular commonwealths."39 The Treatise of Freewill was aimed once
again at Hobbes. It is clear that Cudworth saw the Hobbist account of liberty and
necessity as a direct moral threat to the justification of punishment and therefore a
threat to order in the state as well as incompatible with the Christian understanding
of the relationship between God and human purpose . The political dimensions of
Cudworth's thought could hardly be more obvious .

IV

I wish now to turn to Henry More. At first sight the grounds for regarding More's
thought as having any kind of political dimension look even more unlikely than
those of Cudworth. He, more than any of the other Cambridge Platonists, except
possibly John Smith , is the paradigm of the academic don who chose deliberately
to remain in his snug little college position and not to encounter the wider world.
How else are we to account for his rejection of the possible preferment to important
and lucrative posts in Ireland which were offered to him by Lord Conway in 1669,
or to the Deanery of Christ Church, Oxford (if, indeed , he was ever offered the
latter pOSt)?40
In reply it might be said that More's decision not to consider a move to Dublin
when he was fifty-five, without family responsibilities, or financial pressures, to
take on complex administrative duties in a strange environment, is hardly surpris-
ing. He still no doubt believed that he had contributions to make to theology and
philosophy. The offer was simply without attractions to him. The Christ Church
deanery is perhaps another matter, though he was well aware of the responsibilities
that the headship of a college entailed and no doubt was not keen to acquire them.
Similarly, the position as a prebendary of Gloucester, offered to him in 1675, was
not sufficiently attractive to warrant a move from Cambridge. More was very happy
to recommend Edward Fowler instead , from which he went on to become Bishop of
Gloucester.
That More was in touch with the wider political world and faced difficult deci-
sions was inevitable for any person in Cambridge in the Civil War and the
Interregnum. More was one of only three Fellows to remain in Christ's after the
ejection of 1644, but it is unclear that he ever took the Covenant, and he emphati-
cally denied doing SO.4\
The Engagement is another matter. For we now know that More did accept it.42
Why he did so is a matter of speculation, but it is perhaps that he, like many others
(including, perhaps, Hobbes) accepted the argument of the "Engagers" that one
should accept the Pauline injunction in Romans 13 that one should obey the powers
that be, even that of usurping govemments.f The picture which emerges is that
More wished to be allowed to continue his writing with the least involvement in the
particular disputes of the day. But his reason for not wishing to be drawn in to them
12 G .A .J . ROGERS

was not because he saw no connection between philosophy, religion and political
life. It was, rather, that he believed that the issues raised by those making the noise
were not realIy religious issues at all. As he put it in a further letter to Hartlib,
quoted at length by Gabbey , what was deplorable was:

That those men that make the greatest cry about religion, and count themselves the only conspicuous
godly in the Kingdome .. . are about such things are not at all essential to Godlinesse, nay are indeed
nothing else but childish humours, and melancholick impressions upon their disturbed spirits ...44

More goes on to indicate his commitment to the position that there should not be
disputes amongst Christians about issues which did not touch the essentials of the
faith "in life and doctrine". On matters not essential people should be "free to
thinke speake or doe, without any censure or bitterness, much lesse desire of de-
struction and bloodshed." It was the unnecessary nature of so much dispute that
More deplored, and this was in itself good reason for keeping clear of the argument
and the consequential conflict.
This granted, it is hardly surprising that when we turn to More's books it is not
obvious that he wished to impinge on the wider political world through his writ-
ings. Most of his works are theology or philosophical theology . There are, however,
two issues which do feature and which did have wider political dimensions. These
were his discussions of toleration and of the place of conscience.
The work in which these feature was An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of
Godliness (1661) . Its publication in the year after the Restoration provided More
with the opportunity in the preamble to welcome the return of the king and to un-
derline his commitment to episcopacy and the Church of England. He does not give
us much argument for his preferences, but they are perhaps not hard to reconstruc t.
Almost certainly he feared the democratic tendencies of presbyterianism which he
believed had helped to produce the turmoil of recent times. Evidence for this
reading of More is to be found in the Apology that he published three years later,
which was a defence of the Grand Myste ry of Godliness against criticism that the
earlier work had received. In the Apology he specifically makes the connection
between monarchy and episcopacy on the one hand and presbytery and democracy
or "populacy" on the other, and of course he favours the former.v
It is in the Grand Mystery of Godliness that More explains the nature and limits
of the power of the civil magistrate in matters of religion. The rightful power of the
magistrate is determined, he say s, by the rights which men have as men . And
the first of these , More holds, is that of freedom in their religion " . ..which is
inviolable, and such as the power of the Magistrate ought not to invade, unless
there be some perverse mixture in it that forfeits their Right"." It is fundamental to
ration al men who believe there is a God that they may serve God in the best way
that their lights decide . Men do not have to accept the first religion proposed to
them. They have the right, if they do not like the one proposed , to seek a better . We
might remember that More himself had done just that in rejecting Calvinist
orthodoxy on predestination in his youth, an event which was undoubtedly a very
important one in his development."
 THEOLOGY AND POLITICS 13

More did not see the kind of liberty of choice that he advocated as having any dan-
gerous political consequences as long as it was a right recognised in all countries.
Church authority should itself be left in place "touching things indifferent" he urged
in the Apology, and "[tjhere shall be nothing held Essential or Fundamental but the
indispensable law of the Christian life, and that Doctrine that depends not upon the
fallible deductions of men, but is plainly set down in the Scripture". He goes on to
give clear recognition to the place of conscience. Other things, he says, should be left
to the free recommendations of the Church, "ensnaring no man's conscience'vs
As I have suggested elsewhere ," in the Grand Mystery of Godliness More pre-
sents as strong a case for the primacy of conscience as perhaps did anybody in the
seventeenth century. It was not only the ultimate court of appeal for all human
beings in seeking to know what God required of them, and therefore could over-
ride the authority of churches, but More also had an ingenious argument to over-
come a standard objection to appeals to conscience as authoritative.
The standard objection was that, since conscience required different behaviour
from different persons in different religions (different dietary laws, for example)
then this undermined the claim to authority of such appeals. Against this More
argued that all this showed was that God spoke with a different voice to different
people. It did not in any way undermine the authority of that voice, nor took away
the obligation to obey it. More could combine a commitment to an episcopalian
church with a commitment to the primacy of conscience , because he held that a true
Christian church would always allow freedom to its members, either to leave the
church if prodded to do so by their conscience, or, within the episcopal fold, to vary
its practice s on things indifferent as the priest saw fit.
It was this wider view of the role of the church, as essentially providing the
vehicle in which the individual Christian could practice his religion without fear or
intimidation that provided the ultimate political dimension to the beliefs of the
Cambridge Platonists. For all their other-worldliness, especially in the case of
More, they saw their philosophical and theological investigations as having direct
bearing on the way in which society should be organised and the standards of be-
haviour that should prevail both in the private and the public sphere . They cam-
paigned for a level of private morality that would carry through into that public
sphere. What they stood for, and what they articulated in their philosophy, con-
tributed to the wider understanding of that relationship between church and state
which , if not always followed, was to become more widely recognised and to
become part of the fabric of the Church of England.

G. A. J. Rogers

NOTES

In the Introduction to Moral and Religious Aphorisms of Benjamin Whichcote (London, 1930), pp.
iii& iv.
2 Cf. The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More...by Richard Ward.. .. /7/0, edited with an
Introduction and Notes by M. F. Howard (London, 1911), pp. 33-34.
14 G .A .J. ROGERS

Ibid.
The Platonic Renaissance in England (London, 1953), pp. 49-50. This is a translation of the original
1932 German edition.
-~ A. Rupert Hall : Henry More: Magic, Religion and Experiment (Oxford : Blackwell, 1990) p. 88.
Cf. Frederick Powicke: "Whichcote and his fellows certainly read Plato, but they read Plotinus far
more", The Cambridge Platonists (London, 1926, p. 18). Coleridge said of them that they were
"Plotinists rather than Platonists" (cf. John H. Muirhead: The Platonic Tradit ion in Anglo -Saxon
Philosophy (London, 1931, p. 27) .
1 Ward 's Life, op. cit., p. 64.
8 See especially More's Enchiridion Ethicum. The point is one 1 briefly discuss in "Hobbes's hidden
Influence" in G . A . J . Rogers and Alan Ryan : Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, (988)
pp.189-205,esp.pp.2QO-202.
9 T.I.S.U., with the Notes and Dissertations of Dr 1. L. Moshe im, in 3 vols. (London, 1845), Vol. I ,
pp.94-5.
10 Ibid., p. 95 .

II Benjamin Whichcote: Moral and Relig ious Aphorisms Collected from the Manus cript Papers
...published... with very large Additions by Samuel Salter (London, 1753) Aphorism no. 460 .
12 Ibid., Aphorisms nos. 886 , 889 .
13 Ibid., Aphorism No. 457 .
14 More 's family in Grantham was one that suffered badly in the war. Cudworth was apparently in
financial difficulties, almost certainly as a result of the war, for some time . Worthington was another
who was subject to considerable personal distres s as a result of the war.
15 Cf. Ward's Life, p. 86.
16 See especially John W. Yelton ' s Thinking Matter . Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain
(Oxford and Minneapolis, 1983) and Locke and French Materialism (Oxford, 1991).
11 Richard Ashcraft: " Latit udinarianism and Toleration" in Philosophy. Scien ce, and Religion in
England. 1640-1700, edited by Richard Kroll, Richard Ashcraft and Perez Zagorin (Cambridge, 1992)
p.163.
18 Ashcraft , op. cit., p. 162.
19 Ibid.
20 Op. cit., p. 113.
21 For an account of Cambridge in the Civil War see J. B. Mullinger: The University of Cambridge,
Vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1911), Ch. 3.
22 Alan Gabbey , "Cudworth, More , and Mechanical Analogy", in Richard Kroll, Richard Ashcraft and
Perez Zagorin (ed s) , op. cit., p. 115.
23 For the background see Gabbey and the references cited there.
24 A Sermon Preached before the House of Commons March 311647, pp. 13-14.
2.~ lbid., p. 14.
26 Ibid., p. 15.
21 On this see John Spurr : The Restoration Church of England, 1646-1689 (Yale University Press,
New Haven and London , 1991), especially Chapter 6, and Spurr 's judgement on Richard Allestree's (if
he was indeed the author) The Whole Duty of Man (1658) that it "epitomized the commonsensical, non-
controversial, brand of theology on offer in the Restoration Church of England. It was typical of a
certain practical ethos which had emerged in reaction to the speculative and 'experimental' religion of
the Interregnum" (pp . 283-84).
28 Cf. Mullinger, op. cit., pp, 213-15.
29 Ibid., p. 214 , fn. 2.
m See especially Thomas Birch, " An Account of the Life and Writings of Ralph Cudworth" in
T.I.S.U., ed. cit., Vol. 1, pp. x-xii.
31 The whole episode is well covered in Marjorie Nicolson 's classic paper "Christ' s College and the
Latitude-Men", Modern Philology, 27, Part I (1929) pp. 35-53.
32 For Newton and Cudworth see especially Danton B. Sailor: "Newton' s Debt to Cudworth", Journal
of the History of Ideas, 49, no. 3, 1988, pp. 511-538; Richard Popkin : "The Crisis of Polythei sm and the
Answers of Vossiu s, Cudworth, and Newton", in James E. Force and Richard Popkin : Essays on the
 THEOLOGY AND POLITICS 15

Context , Nature , and Injluence of Isaac Newton's Theology (Dordrecht, 1990) pp. 9-25; and Richard
Popkin: The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought (Leiden, 1992), ch. XXI.
]) Bishop Burnet 's Histo ry of His Own Time (London, 1850), p. 128.
:w lbid., p. 128.
]5 T.E.I.M., p. 82.
se Ibid., pp. 86 and 87.
]7 lbid., p. 287 .
]8 T.F., «London, 1838) reprinted, together with W. R. Scott : An Introduction to Cudworth's Treatise
concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (London, 1891) RoutiedgelThoemmes Press, London,
1992).
]9 lbid., p. 3.
40 Cf. The Conwa y Letters , edited by Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Revised Edition with an Introduction
and New Material by Sarah Hutton (Oxford, 1992) pp. 298-99, 414, 415, 419, 423 . The Deanery of
Christ Church is given as a pos ition offered to More in the article in the Dictionary of National
Biography. I know of no independent evidence for its truth.
41 Cf. Nicolson : "Christ's College and the Latitude-men" p. 38, and More's Preface to Tetractys Anti-
Astrologia (1681) p. iii: "My nearest relations were deep sufferers for the King, and my self exposed (by
constantly deny ing the Covenant) to the loss of that little preferment I had before those times, as I never
received any employment or preferment in them" (cited by Nicolson) .
42 Alan Gabbey quotes the relevant letter from More to Hartlib of December 30 (o.s.) 1649 in which
More says that the book Hartlib has just sent him "came to my handes j ust immediately after I had taken
the engagement". Cf. Gabbey: "Cudworth, More, and Mechanical Analogy" , p. 113.
4] On this see Quentin Skinner: "Conquest and Consent : Thomas Hobbes and the Engagement
Controversy", The Interregnum, edited by G. E. Aylmer (London, 1972) pp. 79-98, esp . p. 80.
44 Gabbey , 01'. cit., p. 114.
45 The Apology of Dr Henry More ... (London, 1664) p. 514.
46 01'. cit.. p. 516 .
47 For More 's account of this see Ward, 01'. cit., pp. 58-60.
4K Apology, p. 516 .
4~ "More, Locke and the Issue of Liberty" in Henry More (1614-/687). Tercentenary Studies, edited
by Sarah Hutton (Dordrecht, 1990), p. 195.
 L . SIMONUTTI

LIBERTE ET VERITE:
POLITIQUE ET MORALE DANS LA CORRESPONDANCE
HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH

1. UN MILIEU FECOND

Merne si elle est motivee par des finalites ouvertement polemiques et parfois
apologetiques, la description que Simon Patrick! donne en 1662 du milieu de
Cambridge a cette epoque apparait toujours comme tres significative.? II s'arrete sur
les aspects politico-religieux moderes qui caracterisaient les representants de la ten-
dance latitudinaire, tendance qui, meme dans un milieu a forte tradition puritaine!
et malgre Ie devoir de sauvegarder au sein de l'Universite la foi anglicane, s'etait
imposee "a cote" de la plus rigoureuse orthodoxie . Dans son oeuvre Brief account
of the new sect of Latitude-men.' Patrick decrit a son correspondant anonyme
d'Oxford les caracteristiques culturelles essentielles de ce groupe de theologiens,
d'erudits et de polemistes qui se regroupaient sous Ie nom - alors a I'acception
ironique et negative - de latitudinaires" et il souligne leur position religieuse:

As for the Rites and Ceremonies of Divine worship, they do highly approve that vertuous mediocrity
which our Church observes between the meretricious gaudiness of the Church of Rome, and the squalid
sluttery of Fanatick conventicles,"

II confirme leur adhesion aux articles de foi, a la politique de I'Eglise anglicane,

al' enseignement neo-testamentaire et aux dogmes fondamentaux de la doctrine des
Peres de l' Antiquite qui etait d'une simplicite et d'une comprehensibilite naturelle
et originaire, et ce, contre les modern doctrines des" ...Spinose school-men, or
Dutch systematicks, neither from Rome nor Geneva, the Council of Trent, nor
Synod of Dort... "7
Apres avoir souligne la valeur positive de la vertuous mediocrity et de la preemi-
nence de l'interet ethique et religieux sur l'interet theologique et exegetique de la
pensee religieuse des latitudinaires, Patrick s'associe, dans la deuxieme partie du
texte, aux arguments philosophiques du neo-platonisme contre la tradition scolas-
tique aristotelicienne." En prenant I'idee dans l'apologue amusant mais neanmoins
eloquent de I'horloge et de la Clock-Philosophy, Patrick esquisse une defense
ouverte de lafree and new Philosophy?
La philosophie d' Aristote et surtout ses conceptions scientifiques s' ecroulent
sous les resultats et les decouvertes des astronomes, des chimistes et des savants en
sciences naturelles en general. C'est ainsi que Galilee et Thyco Brahe, Bacon,
Gilbert et Harvey tout comme Erasme et Melanchton, Descartes et Gassendi appar-
tiennent a cette nouvelle philosophie libre qui peut correspondre a cet "infinite
desire of knowledge" et qui n'est plus limitee par la scolastique aristotelicienne.

17
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 17-37 .
e 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
18 L . SIMONUTTI

No man would be so ridiculous as since Colombus discovered the new world of Amer ica, as big as the
old, or since the enlarged knowledge of the North of Europe , the South and East of Asia and Africa.
besides the new divisions names and inhabitants of the old parts. to forbid the reading of any more
Geography than is found in Strabo or Mela .1O

Bien que peu de philosophes interesses aux science!' ou de savants aient figure
parmi les latitudinaires de la premiere et de la deuxieme generation, et bien que
I'on ait attribue aux latitudinaires une volonte d'innovation dans Ie domaine re-
ligieux et non dans Ie domaine scientifique,'" ces derniers prirent cependant part au
debat philosophique et scientifique qui caracterisait I'institution universitaire de
Cambridge. t3
Patrick continue sa defense en rappe1ant que ces nouveaux philosophes ne man-
quent pas de reconnaitre la grande valeur de certains aspects de la pensee
d' Aristote et d'etre d'attentifs lecteurs'" bien que ces derniers (l'alIusion a More et
a Cudworth est evidente) considerent la philosophie platonicienne comme la seule
capable d'eloigner Ie danger de l'atheisme d'une part et les pieges de l'enthousi-
asme et de la superstition d'autre part." Cette philosophie etait egalement la seule
philosophie qui, en faisant appel a la sagesse antique, etait capable de garantir une
utilisation equilibree de la raison natureIle et qui sauvegardait les latitudinaires de
I'accusation du clerge puritain de vouloir "propagate new notions in divinity''."
De cette facon, Patrick ne decrit pas d'abord les caracteres propres au comporte-
ment religieux latitudinaire, mais il etablit surtout les coordonnees philosophiques
d'un moment particulier du monde acadern ique religieux de Cambridge a l'epoque
de la Restauration : I' influence des principaux philosophes neoplatoniciens,
I'affirrnation d'un comportement religieux aux tons moderes et parfois tolerants,
l' interet contraste mais grandissant pour la science, la conviction que la foi et la
morale veritables ont besoin du soutien de la raison, puisqu'il existe "an eternal
consanguinity between all verity ; and nothing is true in Divinity, which is false in
Philosophy, or on the contrary".J7 La raison est la faculte qui nous perrnet, non
seulement de juger chaque chose, mais aussi d'acceder aces principes qui sont la
"Candle of the Lord" situee dans nos ames . IS
Ce fut justement dans ce milieu culturel en effervescence, dans l' entourage de
Whichcote, More et des autres neo-platoniciens (qui d'ailleurs n'accepterent jamais
de se reconnaitre sous l' etiquette de latitude men) que se formerent quelques latitu-
dinaires eminents de la premiere generation.
De la meme facon que Patrick, qui fut ami et admirateur de John Smith,'?
d'autres auteurs, qui peuvent etre integres directement ou indirectement dans Ie
domaine latitudinaire comme par exemple Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Lloyd, Tenison et
Gilbert Burnet, furent lies ou se formerent a Cambridge avec pour guides des neo-
platoniciens.P S'il faut tenir compte des differences de conception dans Ie cadre
politico-theologique, differences parfois legeres et soulignees par l' accent des
polemiques qui caracterisaient I'Eglise anglaise a l'epoque de la Restauration et qui
distinguerent les deux courants de pensee, latitudinaire et neo-platonicien," et la
complexite a l'Interieur des conceptions philosophiques et ethico-politiques de
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 19

chaque penseur, il faut cependant souligner que ces penseurs se rallierent au champ
de la nouvelle philosophie et surtout de la nouvelle ethique et d'une religion
"morale".
De maniere significative, Ie theologien hollandais Philippus van Limborch de-
cidera done d'envoyer ses lettres-? aux deux plus eminents auteurs neo-platoni-
ciens, More et Cudworth et il n'oubliera pas de preter egalement attention aux
theologiens, aux historiens et aux polemistes latitudinaires ci-dessus cites, entre
autres a des personnages comme Henry Jenkes et Oliverus Doiley qui, bien que lies
aux deux penseurs neo-platoniciens, prospererent dans ce champ culturel commun,
esquisse avec perspicacite dans Brief Account par Patrick. Ce milieu deviendra la
reference culturelle privilegiee du theologien arminien et, avant lui, de son co-reli -
gionnaire Arnold Poelenburg, tous les deux conscients d'une affinite non fortuite de
pensee philosophique et ethico-politique.

2. LA RENCONTRE AVEC LES NEO-PLATONICIENS : HENRY MORE

Les premiers contacts entre les arminiens hollandais et I'aile liberale du calvinisme
anglais-' remontent au debut du XVII O siecle, Poelenburg - qui preceda Limborch
dans I'cnseignement de la theologie au seminaire des Remontrants d' Amsterdam -
sera Ie principal promoteur d'un rapprochement entre les Remontrants et les theolo-
giens liberaux d'Oxford et de Cambridge.>' Quant a Limborch, il se promettait
d'etre Ie continuateur de ce dialogue non pas tant avec les arminiens d'outre-
Manche qui s'etaient tournes vers la politique-" et qui s'etaient eloignes du debar
theologique et ethique propre au courant arminien hollandais, mais surtout avec les
neo-platoniciens et les latitudinaires qui soutenaient la paix entre les chretiens ainsi
que la libre quete de la verite selon les regles de la raison a un niveau aussi bien
philosophique que religieux . II est done tres eloquent que Limborch designe Henry
More comme Ie plus eminent representant de cette position culturelle.
En commencant sa correspondance en mars 1666, Ie theologien hollandais se
refere a I'oeuvre critique que More avait largement accomplie contre Ie zele
deploye par I'Eglise protestante anglaise, qui defendait des dogmes plus complexes
que solides . Cela avait favorise les querelles et la haine religieuse au detriment de
la recherche et de la defense de la verite: une verite qui, selon Limborch , ne pouvait
pas etre sereinement recherchee, si ce n'est en garantissant la paix religieuse entre
les chretiens zeles et les chretien s dissidents.P
Depuis longtemps, Ie neo-platonicien avait Mite ses oeuvres parmi les plus
connues et il les avait proposees a nouveau , presque systernatiquement, dans un
recueil decrits philosophiques publie a Londres en 1662 .27 Dans An Antidote
Against Atheism28 (et ensuite dans Ie traite sur l'immortalite de l'ame),29 il entendait
prouver I'existence de Dieu avec les instruments de la logique et avec la force de
l' evidence mathematique contre les theses avancees par les athees de l' Antiquite,
grecs et latins, et par les athees traditionnels, comme par exemple Vanini.P Apres
avoir fonde les processus cognitifs de I'homme sur la raison humaine et sur la
lumiere innee , il poursuit son analyse de l'idee de Dieu par rapport a I'esprit de
20 L. SIMONUTTI

I'homme et, ensuite, par rapport au monde natureI. Au cours de sa demonstration,

More se sert d'exemples, presque d'experimentations, qui ne jouent pas, toutefois,
un role gnoseologique particulier com me il arrive dans la science nouvelle, mais
qui seront des emblemes d'une demonstration etablie selon un modele cogn itif a
caractere neo-platonicien."
En exposant ses arguments critiques, Ie philosophe de Cambridge attaque non
seulement l'atheisme mais aussi la superstition et I'enthousiasme qui, bien que
provenant de comportements religieux opposes a l'atheisme, conduisent au meme
resultat: l'irrationalite et la subversion du principe religieux dans l'atheisme, Cette
critique des enthousiastes, des sectaires et des zeles de son epoque sera analytique-
ment exprimee dans un bref traite,32 qu 'il ecrira quelques annees plus tard en
partant du principe de l'affinite et de la relation etroites qui existent entre ce genre
d'enthousiasme, qui provient d'une fausse inspiration, et l'atheisme.
Dans ses oeuvres, en particulier dans I' Antidote et dans Enthusiamus Triumph -
atus ainsi que dans ses lettres , More s'etait exprime contre I'affirmation du dogme
de la predestination absolue; cette affirmation, soutenue par les puritains les plus
zeles , ne favorisait pas la paix et la moderation entre les differentes confessions
mais se retournait, en definitive, contre la vraie religion.
"Eundem ilIum affectum literis tuis ad Clarissimum nostrum Poelemburgium lar-
gissime expressisti't.P reconnaissait Limborch, qui lui envoyait en cadeau l'edition
des oeuvres d'Episcopius ou, dans I'introduction, il exprimait des pensees proches
de la position du neo-platonicien. Avec Ie meme courrier, et toujours en cadeau, Ie
hollandais envoyait aRalph Cudworth et a Peter Gunning Ie recueil des oeuvres du
theologien arminien ainsi qu'une lettre d'accompagnement. Si cela annonca Ie
debut d'une etroite entente avec Cudworth et ensuite avec sa fille Damaris, il n'en
fut pas de merne avec Gunning, fervent theologien, controversiste et representant
convaincu de l'orthodoxie calviniste, qui ne partageait pas les fondements de la
theologie liberale de Limborch. Le hollandais Ie regretta et ecrivit a More quelque
temps apres:

Responsum Clarissimi Gunningii avide exspecto . Doleo doctissimo illi viro, et quem demisse veneror,
dogma meum de Iibertate interpretandi Scripturas, parum probari; quam tamen ego ad sinceram veritatis
investigationem non utilem, sed et quodammodo necessariam judico . Ubi Iibertas inquirendi veritatem
premitur, ibi veritas opprimitur; ubi autem Iibera iIIam investigandi facultas conceditur, ibi exultat et
facili negotio Invenitur."

Au contraire, Ie penseur neo-platonicien avait exprime son approbation des idees

de clernence et de probite dans I' etude et Ie debat religieux, idees exprimees par
Limborch et Poelenburg dans la preface des oeuvres d'Episcopius." De meme, il
avait anticipe les difficultes et les craintes de Gunning et probablement celles
d'autres theologiens du milieu de Cambridge, comme Richard Kidder.w lies -
meme si avec quelques hesitations - a I'orthodoxie calviniste, a I'encontre de la
theologie liberale de la secte des Remontrants. Limborch consacrera entierernent sa
longue reponse de septembre 1688 a la defense des fondements de la theologie
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 21

arminienne et de son representant Ie plus important, Episcopius, contre les accusa-

tions des plus dogmatiques theologiens hollandais et anglais. Ces derniers accu-
saient Episcopius, et les arminiens en general, de s'orienter vers Ie socinianisme et
de dissimuler uniquement, derriere Ie desir de cueillir Ie fruit de l' arbre de la
science et en se servant de la libre interpretation des textes sacres - si fortement
defendue par Limborch ("illam libertatem vindico") -, une volonte schismatique,
visant adetruire les principes de la religion."
Le theologien arminien approfondira, surtout au cours de sa correspondance avec
Ralph Cudworth, quelques reflexions acaractere philosophique et politique, grace a
I'interet partage par Ie neo-platonicien, qui se montrera sensible au rapport entre la
politique et la morale.

3. LA RENCONTRE AVEC LES NEO-PLATONICIENS : RALPH CUDWORTH

Au debut de la premiere lettre envoyee a Cudworth, au mois de Mars 1666 ,

Limborch evoque a nouveau les evenernents du Synode de Dordrecht, les con-
sequences desastreuses que ces derniers impliquerent pour les Remontrants et Ie
debar long et anime qui eut lieu sur Ie dogme de la predestination; quelques lignes
apres, en revanche, Ie theologien fait I'eloge de I'Angleterre et de ses hommes de
culture qui surent depasser tout sectarisme grace a leur aversion manifeste pour
toute forme de schisme. Pour finir, il souligne Ie soutien que la pensee politique et
religieuse des Remontrants recut au cours des annees , en Angleterre et surtout
aupres de I'universite de Cambridge, grace aux theologiens comme Hammond,
Thomas Pierce et grace aux neo-platoniciens.
Limborch entretint avec Pierce une intense correspondance qui commenca a la
fin des annees soixante et qui dura plus de vingt ans. En effet, avec Ie theologien
anglais, Limborch put constater Ie grand interet que lc milieu latitudinaire portait a
l'egard des vicissitudes des Remontrants. Dans ses lettres, Pierce evoqua les princi-
paux moments des evenements du Synode et, en particulier, Ie role joue par les
representants et observatcurs anglais lors du Synode. II evoqua egalement I'impor-
tance, pour Ie debat sur la liberte et sur la tolerance en Angleterre, des longs
comptes rendus des actes du Synode fournis par les representants ainsi que des dis-
cussions entre les partisans de la predestination absolue et de la stricte observance
des dogmes d'une part, et les promoteurs d'une theologie plus liberale, comme
Episcopius et Poelenburg .'" En outre, Pierce informe Ie theologien hollandais sur
les discussions relatives a une politique de comprehension et de tolerance a l'egard
des non conformistes et des dissidents, vaste debar qui impliqua pendant ces annees
Ie clerge anglican et Ie parlement."
Dans sa premiere reponse envoyee aLimborch en fevrier 1668, Cudworth recon-
nait a son tour la perspicacite et I'important engagement ethique contenus dans
l'oeuvre d'Episcopius et il souhaite que cette ceuvre puisse constituer un instrument
utile afin de lutter contre I'erreur du zele religieux exagere. II continue sa lettre en
affirmant sa conviction que la force de la verite reussira a s'imposer meme dans les
evenements anglais.
22 L. SIMONUTTI

Fiduciam mihi facit quod in Anglia nostra intra paucos hosce annos, tantum praevaluerit vis Veritatis ut
non paucos e iuratissimis eius adversarijs subegerit, et in castra sua captivos abduxerit.t"

II explique ensuite - il s'agit presque d'une biographie intellectuelle - son refus

precoce de tout dogme ou prejudice, son principal interet pour les philosophes de
l' Antiquite (les peripateticiens et les platoniciens en particulier") et, pour finir,
il insiste sur cet engagement ethique qui caracterise sa reflexion aussi bien
philosophique que religieuse.
Des Ie sermon prononce vingt ans auparavant , en 1647, devant la Chambre des
Comrnunes.f Cudworth exhortait a la pitie qu'il considerait comme 1a valeur fon-
damenta1e de l'ethique chretienne vis-a-vis des differentes formes de religions -
presque des reves ou des ombres avec une legere teinte dogmatique - qui luttent
les unes contre les autres . II soulignait la centralite des lois de la verite et de
I'amour dans la vie de l'homme et du monde.f fondements necessaires pour une
parfaite liberte interieure, II exhortait les Communes a s'occuper de la religion et a
defendre Ie bien de l'Etat et surtout a contribuer a l'affirmation de la veritable
science : la science qui s'inreresse au perfectionnement de l'intelligence naturelle
de l'homme afin de lui permettre de connaitre, dans lUnivers, Dieu et ses
attributs.

I speak not here against a free and ingenuous enquiry into all truth according to our several abilities and
opportunities ; I plead not for the captivating and inthraIling of our judgments to the dictates of men ; I do
not disparage the natural improvement of our understanding faculties by true knowledge, which is so
noble and gallant a perfection of the mind ; but the thing which I aim against is, the dispiriting of the life
and vigour of our religion by dry speculations and making it nothing but a mere dead skeleton of opin-
ions, a few dry bones without any flesh and sinews tied up together, and the misplacing of all our zeal
upon an eager prosecution of these, which should be spent to better purpose upon other objects."

Selon Cudworth Ie fait de favoriser ce veritable savoir, constitue de tous les arts
et de toutes les sciences specifiques (de la philosophie a la philologie) et subor-
donne a la lumiere celeste, ne peut etre qu'un motif d'approbation et de merite pour
les Communes et leur role dans la societe. Le jeune neo-platonicien esquisse ainsi
les taches culturelles et politico-religieuses de l'assemblee parlementaire a laquelle
il s'adresse non sans une legere teinte ironique dans son refus des contentious
dispute et des angry and peevish debates'? en soulignant.

I persuade myself, that no man shall ever be kept out of heaven for not comprehending mysteries that
were beyond the reach of his shallow understanding if he had but an honest and good heart , that was
ready to comply with Christ's commandments."

Dans sa lettre a Limborch, en revenant a ses reflexions sur les problemes

ethiques, Cudworth expose le sens de sa profonde certitude de l'immutabilite du
bien et du mal qui ne dependent done pas de la volonte divine, Leur essence morale
(moralis naturae , rationes) provient d'une justice naturelle et etemelle qui trouve
son garant en l'Immutabilite de la nature de Dieu. De cette facon, it ne sera plus
possible d'assigner a Dieu Ie terrible decret qui, par Ie simple consentement divin,
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 23

damne inevitablernent et eternellement les hommes innocents a la tounnente et a

l'expiation illimitee des fautes." Cudworth rappeIle aussi que sa conviction
remonte a une quinzaine d'annees, au moment de son Bachelor of Divinity,48 et
qu'il exposa ses theses alors avec assurance malgre une forte oppos ition de la part
de ses examinateurs calvinistes. Cependant, ces derniers admirent, mais seulement
en prive, leurs propres craintes et leurs incertitudes inavouables quant a la predesti-
nation "quasi veritas posset veritatem labefactare".
Cudworth tennine sa premiere lettre a Limborch de facon significative, en rap-
pelant que les reflexions sur les problemes de dogmatique religieuse servirent a de
nombreux academiciens de Cambridge pour passer a la croyance des Remontrants.
A cette epoque, lui-rneme etait tres pris par l'analyse du probleme du bien et du
mal, du juste et de l'injuste, a tel point qu'il avait envisage d'ecrire un systeme
ethique complet. II abandonna Ie projet des qu'il sut que son ami More conduisait,
lui aussi, une etude semblable.t? Meme si la publication de Enchiridion Ethicum ne
lui fit ni completer ni publier son systeme d'ethique, il en fit cependant une oeuvre
centrale pour Ie developpernent de sa pensee et y porta toujours interet, comme en
temoignent les oeuvres posthumes ou inedites.
Si les reflex ions sur Ie libre arbitre'? constituerent une reponse crit ique a la
pensee de Hobbes et en particulier a son ouvrage , paru en 1654, sur la liberte et la
necessite, toutefois ces reflex ions faisaient partie de ce systerne ethique, en
plusieurs livres, qui devait preceder True Intellectual System of the Universe et qui
en contenait les fondements philosophiques. Voila pourquoi Ie traducteur italien du
resume de Intellectual System crut opportun de faire preceder l'oeuvre de la traduc-
tion, sous forme reduite , de Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutably Morality,
rappelant que :

Questo trattato si sarebbe dovuto con piu ragione intitolare: trattato delle sensazioni e delle idee. Si e
quindi creduto di farlo precedere al sistema intellettuale perche pone i fondamenti de' principij ideo-
logici dell' Autore ."

En effet, outre la theorie de l'ethique de Cudworth, Treatise contient sa concep-

tion logique et episternologique, meme si Ie livre reste avant tout une oeuvre
polemique. S'il se refere a l'enseignement platonicien du Theetete, de I' Eutiphron
mais aussi a d 'autres oeuvres platoniciennes transmises par l'humanisme italien
pour l'opposer a l'atomisme et au materialisme areligieux des Anciens, Cudworth
engage une polemique surtout avec les Modernes, avec "that late Writer of Ethicks
and Politicks", Hobbes. Son erreur est de construire une theorie ethico-politique en
partant d'une conception relativiste oil il n'y a pas de place pour une valeur qui se
refere a une loi de la nature mais seulement pour une valeur qui se refere au materi-
alisme deterministe et au concept de "self-interest". En citant certains passages de
De Cive et de Leviathans? Cudworth manifeste son opposition contre Hobbes en
defendant la possibilite, non seulement d'une morale, mais aussi d'une doctrine
politique et d'une conception de la liberte a la base d'une theor ie de la societe
vouee a lajustice et au bien comrnun.P
24 L. SIMONUTTI

En outre, panni les penseurs qui attribuerent a travers leur doctrine un pouvoir
arbitraire a Dieu, ce qui mine par consequent toute possibilite d'evaluation ethique
et de construction scientifique, Cudworth cite Descartes et les philosophes oc-
camistes qui ont leurs epigones chez plusieurs theologiens modernes.>' Si avec Ie
a
Descartes de la Reponse la Sixieme Objection, la possibilite de creer quelque
chose est reservee a la puissance divine, par exemple creer des entites mathema-
tiques qui n'existent pas dans la nature, qui soient intelligibles et qui soient Ie fruit
de la volonte de Dieu, alors

there can be no such thing as Science or Demonstration, nor the Truth of any Mathematical or
Metaphysical Proposition be known any otherwise, than by some Revelation of the Will of God concern-
ing it, and by a certain Enthusiastick or Fanatick Faith and Perswasion thereupon, that God would have
such a thing to be true or false at such a time, or for so long."

Tout comme la metaphysique, la physique et la physiologie cartesiennes con-

duisent a des resultats athees puisque, com me les atomistes et les sceptiques de
l'Antiquite, ils ne reconnaissent pas d'autres interactions entre les corps que Ie
changement et les mutations que l'on peut concevoir ou comprendre a travers Ie
mouvement local: "therefore, it is acknowledged by all, That Sense is Passion't.v
Pour Cudworth au contraire, il est fondamental de garantir, meme en s'appuyant
sur une theorie de la connaissance inneiste a forte influence platonicienne," la pos-
sibilite d'une construction rationnelle qui se trouve non seulement a la base de son
ethique et de sa philosophie sociale, mais qui devient aussi Ie garant de la veritable
religion. S'il a signale des ses premiers sermons et argue longtemps du danger du
materialisme antique et moderne, dans les pages de Treatise concerning Eternal
and Immutable Morality, Cudworth lance une attaque critique aux nouveaux oc-
camistes, a savoir aux calvinistes de son epoque qui defendaient Ie libre arbitre
divin absolu, c'est-a-dire la rigoureuse predestination au salut ou a la peine eter-
nelles." De la meme facon que Descartes, ces theologiens ont ote toute sign-
ification et toute finalite ethique au comportement de l'homme; ils font de l'homme
Ie serviteur d'un Dieu absolu et ils transforment la religion en superstition et en zele
enthousiaste.
Cudworth defend au contraire la liberte de l'individu afin de rendre possible un
comportement vertueux, cette liberte qui doit etre sociale et morale.t? Dans Treatise
concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, Cudworth rappelle que Ie devoir du
legislateur, humain ou divin, est de faire observer et de prescrire un comportement
vertueux et non pas de promulguer d'une maniere arbitraire les decrets, De plus,
afin d'imposer I'obeissance, les lois doivent trouver leurs fondements dans la
nature, dans la justice et dans I' equite naturelles.

And if this were not Morally Good and Just in its own Nature before any Positive Command of God.
That God should be Obeyed by his Creatures, the bare Will of God himself could not beget an obliga-
tion upon any to Do what he Willed and Commanded, because the Natures of things do not depend upon
Will. being not things that are arbitrarily Made, but things that Are. To conclude therefore, even in
Positive Laws and Commands it is not mere Will that Obligeth, but the Natures of Good and Evil, Just
and Unjust, really existing in the World/"
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 25

Et encore:

In like manner Natural Justice, that is, the Rational or Intellectual Nature obligeth not only to Obey God,
but also the Civil Powers, that have lawful Authority of Commanding, and to observe Political order
amongst man; and therefore if God or Civil Powers command any thing to be done that is not unlawful
in it self; upon the intervention of this voluntary Act of theirs, those things that were before Indifferent,
become by accident for the time Obligatory, such things as Ought to be done by us, not for their own
sakes, but for the sake of that which Natural Justice absolutely obligeth to.6 1

Selon Cudworth, l'adhesion de l'individu aux vertus civiles et a la foi religieuse

se base sur une ethique de type platonicien; cependant, l'importance qu'il prete au
concept de liberte vis-a-vis des hommes, se detache de l'interpretation de la pensee
grecque.v- II conclut d'une facon significative Ie Treatise on Freewill avec ces
paroles:

Men shall not be damned for the cast of a die or such a fortuitous contingency. But for their not using
that power (Ie libre-arbitre) which they have over themselves, to promote themselves towards the good
of honesty, and also for their abusing that power, by actively determining and fixing themselves in
vicious habits.63

Pour Cudworth la liberte n'est qu'en partie l'exercice du libre-arbitre qui pourrait
ainsi effectuer un autre choix . Pour Ie philosophe, cette liberte qui est Ie propre de
l'ame - son intention n'est pas de la definir dans Ie cadre de la psychologie des fac-
ultes - possede une forte connotation ethique et pratique. La liberte et Ie rational-
isme sont les elements essentiels de l'engagement (acte spontane et non pas
obligation predeterminee) de l'homme a vivre la bonne vie.64

4. TRUTH AND LOVE . A STATE O F PUR EST LIBERTY

Si la theorie de la connaissance n'est pas Ie sujet principal de la correspondance

avec Limborch, ici en revanche, Ie debat ethico-religieux tourne autour de la rela-
tion entre la liberte et la verite et autour du role joue par fa raison sur Ie plan re-
ligieux. Dans ses reponses, Ie theologien hollandais exprime son accord pour Ie role
central que Cudworth attribue a l'ethique. Meme pour Limborch l'engagement
moral est un fait primordial pour la vraie religion et, d'autre part, ce qui ne pro-
duirait aucune oeuvre de pitie ne serait qu'une verite sterile.
Apres avoir appris par Ie neo-platonicien que l'opinion, diffuse en Hollande,
d'une Angleterre rigoureusement calviniste et favorable a la predestination ne cor-
respondait pas a la realite, Limborch propose, a nouveau, dans une longue lettre du
mois de septembre 166865 adressee a Cudworth, les arguments fondamentaux de la
theologie liberale des Remontrants et de la theorie de la tolerance basee sur la dis-
tinction entre les dogmes principaux et secondaires, ouvertement professee par les
arrniniens. De plus, dans la lettre suivante, il soumet a son correspondant ce qu'il
avait precedemrnent ecrit a propos du probleme de la tolerance par rapport aux
dissidents .w
26 L. SIMONUTTI

Cudworth adhere entierement a la defense passionnee que Limborch livre a

l'egard de "ilia prophetandi libertas ac tolerantia quam in omnibus suis scriptis in-
culcant Remonstrantes't.s? La tolerance et la liberte d'expression ne mettent en
danger ni les fondements de la religion ni I'organisation ecclesiastique.

Utique in hac nostra Ecclesia Anglicana, tanquam in Arca Noachi, omne genus Animalium , (si ita loqui
liceat) Protestantium; Calviniani, Remonstrantes , et credo etiam Sociniani, una cohabitant; conspirantes
sine ulla aperta Discordia, in unam et eandem Externam Communionem.s"

Ces themes resteront au centre du debar dans les lettres suivantes - ce sont les
lettres de Limborch qui ont ete conservees en plus grande partie - meme si la corre-
spondance connait de longues interruptions et concerne principalementles nou-
velles sur l'activite litteraire des deux auteurs. Limborch enverra a son tour un
cadeau a Cudworth qui avait lui envoye True Intellectual System of the Universe."
alors que sera public ce Systema Theologico, la Theologia Christiana, qui, selon
I'auteur, est entierement consacre a la defense de la libre quete de la verite et a la
promotion de la paix entre les chretiens?" - oeuvre soutenue avec vigueur par les
neo-platoniciens et dont la critique positive satisfera pleinement Limborch."
Ce dernier informera egalement Henry More de son activite editoriale et des
oeuvres qu 'il etait en train d'ecrire et i1 ne manquera pas de lui soumettre ses
principes ethico-religieux et politiques, empreints de cette liberalite qui caracterisait
toute son oeuvre.P D'ailleurs, de son cote, au debut des annees soixante.P More
avait examine Ie point de vue des partisans du calvinisme rigoureux et il avait
analyse la controverse a propos de la predestination qui avait oppose les calvinites
orthodoxes aArrninius.
Souhaitant une via media qui evite tout exces de fanatisme ou risque d'heresie de
la part des deux factions opposees, More souligne la perte de valeur que Ie dogme
de l'election et de la condamnation absolues signifierait pour I'engagement moral
des hommes et pour Ie message evangelique. L'engagement a mener une vie
vertueuse, qui se base sur la possibilite de la Redemption et sur les valeurs de
I'ethique chretienne, serait devalorise. Le rapport de I'homme avec Dieu et les
obligations qui Ie lient a lui sont les fondements sur lesquels More appuie ses
reflexions ethico-religieuses, son anti-predestinationisme, sa critique envers Ie fa-
natisme et I' atheisme, la defense de la liberte de conscience et ses reflexions
politiques.
Dans Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, paru en 1660, il s'inter-
roge sur Ie droit de chaque individu d'exercer sa liberte de conscience. Pour More,
ne pas respecter un tel principe signifie realiser un acte d'inhumanite - puisque Ie
croyant est pret a toute punition afin de ne pas perdre Ie droit a la religion - et un
acte d'injustice civile. En effet, il est convaincu que cela irait contre les interets
politiques et economiques si ce principe naturel, qui appartient a chaque nation et a
chaque personne, etait atteint."
Pensant probablement aux evenements anglais," More se preoccupe de definir
le role du magistrat par rapport a la religion et au culte public et surtout par
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 27

rapport a la liberte de conscience. Redoutant les risques d'une guerre civile et les
exces des sectes commes celles des Quakers, des Ranters, des catholiques, a
savoir de tous ceux qui , selon lui, abusent de cette ratio qui est Ie garant de la
correcte interpretation des Ecritures et de I'obeissance civile, More attribue au
magistrat une tache importante: Ie controle et la tutelle de la religion et de la
societe civile contre les exces de ces "illumines't.?" Cependant, il reste prudent
face aux accents erastiens - presents par exemple dans la conception politico-reI i-
gieuse des Remontrants - et il met en premiere Iigne la defense de la liberte
interieure de I'individu. De plus, More exhorte les magistrats - une telle exhorta-
tion fut tenue par Cudworth devant la Chambre des Communes - afin qu'i1s
creent des ecoles publiques pour prevenir et corriger les impostures religieuses
grace a I' etude

Historiae , Linguarum et scientiarurn, diligentique, Rationis usu, (praestantissimi iIIius doni Generi a Deo
immortali dati) vos unquam super hac re idoneos judices est redditurum.?

Pour Limborch comme pour More, chaque differend religieux peut etre traite
dans la paix et la tolerance, sans aucun prejudice pour la religion et pour la societe
civile. Pour realiser les ideaux ireniques de la theologie arminienne, iI faut absolu-
ment tenir compte de la "libertas inquirendi veritatem'U" tournee vers Ie texte des
Ecritures. Cela ne constitue pas un danger pour la religion parce que les dogmes
fondamentaux , sur lesquels concordent les differentes sectes, ne craignent pas
l'epreuve du doute ("dubium vocari"),"?
L'interet des deux correspondants pour Ies problemes relatifs a la theologie
liberale et aux reflexions politiques diminue apres les parutions de Enchiridion
Ethicum (1667) et de Enchiridion Metaphysicum (1671). La lecture critique de
Limborch surtout de Enchiridion Metaphysicum modifia la confrontation d'idees
que les deux auteurs surent developper au cours de leur correspondance. Dans la
premiere moitie des annees soixante-dix, ils furent pris dans Ie vif de la discussion
critique non seulement sur la methodologie scientifique de Descartes - Limborch
tout comme les arrniniens fut un admirateur de la doctrine cartesienne de la raisons?
- mais surtout sur les resultats a-religieux de la metaphysique et du mecanisme
cartesiens, Cette metaphysique, qui comportait pour la religion les memes risques
que Ie socinianisme, etait reproposee - selon More" - dans toute sa puissance des-
tructrice par Spinoza.V
Bien qu 'etroiternent liees aux questions morales et politiques, les thernatiques
exposees par les deux auteurs dans leurs lettres importantes'" sont caracterisees
par des reflexions philosophiques et metaphysiques . II suffit de noter que cette
grande affinite d'interets et de positions entre More et Limborch dans Ie cadre des
discussions ethico-religieuses et politiques diminua au cours de la confrontation
philosophique jusqu 'a prendre des positions differente s a propos de la
metaphysique cartesienne et de la conception neo-platonicienne que More lui
opposait.
28 L. SIMONUTTI

5. THE CHRISTIAN TUTOR . UN EPILOGUE

Le debar autour du rapport entre la politique et la religion et entre les convictions

philosophiques et la maxime theologique ne s'arreta pas aux principaux represen-
tants du neo-platonisme mais it fut elargi, dans les annees quatre-vingt, aux theolo-
giens latitudinaires: Tillotson, Bright, G. Burnet, avec lesquels Limborch eut une
correspondance importante. De meme, Limborch fit que Ie debat resta vif egale-
ment avec quelques personnages mineurs qui agirent etroitement avec More et
Cudworth et qui furent souvent les intermediaires dans leurs rapports avec l'auteur
hollandais."
Parmi ces derniers, Henry Jenkes" joue un role de premier ordre grace a son im-
portante correspondance avec Limborch et, en particulier, grace a The Christian
Tutor, or a Free and Rational Discourse of the Sovereign Good and Happiness of
Man, and the Infallible Way of attaining it, especially in the Practise of Christian
Religion qu'il publia en 1683. Dans cette oeuvre breve, il desire indiquer les voies a
suivre pour mener une vie vertueuse, selon l'idee d'Erasme. Cette "bonne vie" est
en accord avec l'enseignement chretien, avec les lois que la raison et la Revelation
nous ont fait connaitre et qui se trouvent dans les Saintes Ecritures, en particulier
dans Ie Nouveau Testament; elle constitue done la seule voie pour Ie bonheur."
Dans la seconde partie de l'oeuvre, l'auteur presente et explique les regles
morales et la pratique chretienne qui permettent de gouverner les passions et de
diriger nos pensees vers cette vie vertueuse." Ce qui est d'un interet majeur pour
nous dans ce resume sur l'ethique se trouve dans la liste du savoir qui peut fa-
voriser l'acquisition de ces vertus chretiennes.

To acquire as much useful knowledge as you can, for as light is pleasant to the Eye, so is truth to the
Understanding: above all knowledge therefore , labour to attain that which is most benefical to you,
which really will make you wise into Salvation, as certainly the knowledge of the true Religion of our
Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is: and that you may easily learn from those good Books I have
formely re-commended to you .. .. 88

Jenkes cite tous les livres qu'Il conseille au lecteur concernant, tout d'abord, la
Religion Chretienne, et entre autres les oeuvres de Wilkins, Parker, I'oeuvre de
Grotius sur la Verite de la religion Chretienne dans I'edition de Patrick, les
oeuvres de Hammond, Patrick, Tillotson , Chillingworth, ma is aussi l'oeuvre
exegetique de Castellion et les deux volumes de Explanation of the Grand Mystery
of Godlinessi? II continue en presentant un autre apport important: les livres d'his-
toire et de geographie. parmi lesquels les fameux atlas de Blaeu, les oeuvres de
Oldenburg et les Histoires nationales de Milton et de Gilbert Burnet. Apres les
textes de controverse et de defense de la religion anglicane (Jewell, Hooker,
Laud), il ajoute une longue liste de livres de philosophie et de mathematiques,
parmi lesquels apparaissent les oeuvres de Bacon, Gassendi, Oldenburg et
Charron, Grotius et Pufendorf et naturellement Enchiridion Ethicum et True
Intellectual System of the Universet? avec les classiques de l' Antiquite, Platon,
Aristote, Seneque. Ciceron et les poetes latins .
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 29

Apres avoir etudie ces auteurs, Jenkes est certain que son lecteur averti ne
manquera pas de methode et d'ordre pour proceder, selon un Iibre choix et une
bonne disposition de la volonte, a I'apprentissage et a l'obeissance des principes
moraux.
De cette facon , et grace a ce manuel de la morale chretienne, I'ouverture au
savoir historique et scientifique du probleme ethique est evidente. Cette ouverture
eut lieu au cours du XVlI o siecle (a Cambridge surtout au cours des vingt cinq
dernieres annees de ce siecle) et les penseurs neo-platoniciens y participerent ac-
tivement. De plus , en reunissant les sollicitations d'un environnement particuliere-
ment vivant, ce manuel confirme I'alliance entre la morale, la "nouvelle science" et
la "nouvelle philosophie libre"; et, en meme temps , il rend evident Ie rapport entre
Ie cercle des neo-platoniciens et Ie milieu latitudinaire de Cambridge. The Christian
Tutor fournit un apercu significatif de la pensee des neo-platoniciens et des latitudi-
naires, de son evolution en une vingtaine dannees, de leurs conceptions
philosophiques, ethiques et politiques qui seront proposees a nouveau sous la forme
d'un resume, grace a I'oeuvre de Jenkes, a un plus large public de savants de la fin
du siecle.
Luisa Simonutti

NOTES

T. A. Birrell , dans I'introduction minutieuse de la nouvelle edition de Brief account of the new sect
ofLatitude-men. (The Augustan Reprint Society, Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial
Library. 1963) dresse la liste des elements qui prouvent que Ie latitudinaire Simon Patrick est bien
l'auteur de cette oeuvre breve . Cependant, certaines difficultes, recernment sou levees par John Spurr, de-
meurent quant 11 cette paternite, ''' Latitudinarianism' and the Restoration Church", The Historical
Journal, 31, 1 (1988), pp. 61-82, voir p. 70.
2 En plus de la recherche de Spurr ci-dessus citee, je me refere surtout au volume edite par Richard
Kroll , Richard Ashcraft et Perez Zagorin, Philosophy. Science. and Religion in England 1640-1700
(Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. 1992); Martin I. J . Griffin Jr ., Latitudinarianism in the
Seventeenth-Century Church of England. an note par Richard H. Popkin, edite par Lila Freedman
(Leiden, etc .: E . J. Brill, 1992), et W. M. Spellman, Latitudinarians and the Church of England
1660-1700 (Athens GA: University of Georgia Press, (993).
.' Cf. Mark H. Curtis, Oxford and Cambridge in transition 1558-1642 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1959), voir les chap. VII et VIII ; et John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the age of the Enlightenment.
Science. religion and politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989) , voir la premiere partie ; et John Spurr, Restoration Church of England
1646-1689 (Yale : Yale University Press, 1992).
4 [Simon Patrick], A Brief account of the new sect of Latitude-men. Together with some reflections
upon the New Philosophy. By S.P. of Cambridge. In answer to a letter from his friend at Oxford
(Londres, 1662).
; Des etudes recentes ont analyse avec perspicacite les caracteristiques, I'importance et I'impact
qu'eurent au cours du XVIII siecle les theologiens et philosophes appeles latitudinaires. On se refere en
particulier 11 l'etude de John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the age of the Enlightenment. 01'. cit.: Frederick
C. Beiser, The Sovereignty of Reason, (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1996) ch. III, IV; et 11 I'oeuvre princi-
paiement dediee 11 I'analyse de differents aspects du latitudinarianisme revu par R. Kroll, R. Ashcraft et
P. Zagorin, Philosophy. Science. and Religion in England 1640-1700. 01'. cit.; voir en particulier l'intro-
duction de Kroll qui parcourt du point de vue historiographique les principales interpretations du
30 L . SIMONUTTI

phenornene latitudinaire qui apparurent au cours des annees soixante et soixante-dix. Cf. egalernent les
recherches de Spurr deja citees , Une nouvelle lecture critique complete du latitudinarisme se trouve dans
les deux oeuvres recentes de Griffin et de Spellman (cf. supra).
6 (Simon Patrick], A Briefaccount ofthe new sect ofLatitude-men. op. cit., p. 7.
lbid., p. 9.
Cf. Joseph M . Levine, "Latitudinarians, neoplatonists, and the ancient wisdom" , in : R. Kroll ,
R. Ashcraft et P. Zagorin, Philosophy. Science , and Religion in England 1640-1700, op . cit.•
pp. 85-108; Sarah Hutton , "Edward Stillingfleet, Henry More , and the decline of Moses Atticus: a note
on seventeenth-century Anglican apologetics", in: ibid., pp. 68-84; et Richard H. Popkin, The Third
Force in seventeenth-century thought (Leiden, etc .: Brill , 1992), voir chap. XXI , 'Cudworth',
pp. 333-350.
9 Sur la signification de la metaphore de I'horloge au milieu du siecle, cf. M. A. Laurens Laudans,
"The clock metaphor and probabili sm : The impact of Descartes on English and methodological thought,
1650-1665", Annals ofScience, 22 (1966), pp. 73-104.
10 [Simon Patrick]. A Brief account ofthe new sect of Latitude-men. op. cit., p. 22 .
II Quelques essais recents ont reconsidere de facon plus critique certaines interpretations, pourtant fon-
damentales, du role des latitudinaires dans Ie milieu scientifique. Parmi les nombreuses recherches sur Ie
puritanisme et la nouvelle science (pour n'en citer que quelques unes : D. Stimson, " Puritanism and the
new philosophy in 17th century England", Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, 1935,
pp. 321-334; et les nombreux essa is de R. J . Jacob et de M.e. Jacob .) celles qui sont les plus typiques
de cette Iigne interpretative sont presentees et devetoppees dans Ie livre redige par Charles Webster, The
Intellectual R evolution of the Sev enteenth Century (London & Boston : Routledge and
P. Kegan, 1974) . Pour une critique plus recente, cf. R. Kroll , Introduction a I'oeuvre de R. Kroll,
R. Ashcraft et P. Zagorin, Philosophy. Science. and Religion in England 1640-1700, op. cit., pp. 1-28;
et les nombreuses etude s de Michael Hunter et en particulier: " Latitudinarianism and the ' ideology' of
the early Royal Society: Thomas Sprat' s History of the Royal Society (1667) reconsidered", in ibid..
pp. 199-229.
12 Cf. J . Spurr, '''Latitudinarianism' and the Restoration Church", The Historical journal, art. cit.
D La recon struction meticuleuse du milieu philosophique, scient ifique et politique de Cambridge (et de
ses particularites par rapport a l'universite d'Oxford) ou agirent les latitudinaires, qui nous est foumie
par J. Gascoigne (Cambridge in the age of the Enlightenment. op. cit.) demontre et accentue 11 nouveau
Ie role que Ie groupe latitudinaire joua dan s Ie developpernent de s sc ie nce s et de la reflexion
philo sophique politique sous I' Angleterre de la seconde rnoitie du XVII et au cours du XVIII . Cf. du
merne auteur, "Politics, patronage and Newtonianism: the Cambridge example", Historical journal, 27,
pp. 1-24; du meme: "Anglican latitudinarianism and political radicalism in the late eighteenth century" ,
History, 71 , pp. 22-38; J. Spurr, ''' Rational Religion ' in Restoration England", journal of the History of
Ideas, 49 (1988), pp. 563-585.
14 [Simon Patrick]. A Briefaccount of the new sect ofLatitude-men. op. cit., p. 22.

15 Patrick ecrit : "True Philosophy can never hurt sound Divinity . Christian Religion was never bred up
in the Peripatetick school, but spent her best and healthfullest years in the more Religious Academy,
amongst the primitive fathers ; but the School men afterwards ravished her thence , and shut her up in the
decayed ruines of Lyceum, where she served an hard servitude, and contracted many distempers: why
should she not at last be set at liberty, and suffered to breath in a free air? let her alone be Mistress, and
choose her Servants where she best like; let her old loving Nurse the Platonick Philosophy be admitted
again into her family; nor is there any cause to doubt but the Mechanick also will be faith full to her, no
less against the open violence of Atheisme , than the secret treachery of Enthusiasm and Superstition, as
the excellent works of a late learned Author have abundantly demonstrated". Ibid., p. 24.
16 Cf. la lettre de G1anvil 11 Oldenburg, dans : The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, publiee par
A. Rupert et M. Boas Hall (Madison, etc .: 1961-86, 13 vol.), v.VI, p. 372.
17 [Simon Patrick]. A Briefaccount of the new sect of Latitude-men. op. cit., p. II.
IS Ibid.. p. 10.
19 Patrick prononca Ie sermon aux funerailles de John Smith, cf. J. Smith , Select Discourses, (4e ed .

Cambridge: H. G. Williams, 1859), pp. 491-52 1. Cf. S. Patrick, Autobiography, (Oxford , 1839).
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 31

20 Cf. G. Burnet, History of my own time (Oxford : Th Ward, 1833, (Ie edition 1723-34) 6 vol.), vol. I,
p. 335 . Cet auteur rappelle egalement que Ie terrne latitudinaire fut utilise dans un premier temps pour
designer les neo-platoniciens de Cambridge, (lbid., p. 334) et Patrick utilise ce terme dans ce sens .
Cependant, la liste des philosophes latitudinaires est beaucoup plus longue . Cf. J. Spurr,
"'Latitudinarianism' and the Restoration Church", The Historical Journal, art. cit., p. 69.
21 Voir G. R. Cragg, From puritanism to the age of reason, (Cambridge: At the University Press,
1950), chap. III-IV; W.K. Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England, vol. IV,
(Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1940), voir chap. I-A et B; etle debat historiographique plus recent ci-
dessus cite.
22 La correspondance etudiee est constituee de vingt-neuf lettres: douze de Limborch a More et quatre
reponses de ce demier, neuf de Limborch a Cudworth et quatre reponses de ce demier. Toute la corre-
spondance est conservee pres I'Universiteit Bibliotheek d' Amsterdam (que nous appellerons maintenant
so us Ie sigle: UBA). Cette correspondance nous permet d'analyser une serie de reftexions ethico-
politiques des neo-platoniciens de Cambridge, comme Henry More, Ralph Cudworth et quelques per-
sonnages mineurs; reflexions qu'ils exprirnerent non seulement dans leurs oeuvres respectives mais
egalement au cours de leurs relations epistolaires avec Ie penseur hollandais Philippus van Limborch.
Cette correspondance dura une vingtaine d'annees (entre 1666 et 1687, annee de la disparition de More
suivie quelques mois plus tard de la mort de Cudworth); elle cornmenca et fut souvent anirnee par les
questions et les reflexions du theologien arminien . Cette correspondance nous permet d'approfondir les
positions philosophico-critiques de ces auteurs et surtout d'examiner certains aspects de leur reflexion
politique par rapport a la theorie ethique.
n Le sejour de Grotius en Angleterre en 1613 et I'attention pour les idees arminiennes qu'il suscita
aupres de la cour et du roi Jacques ler en personne, I'envoi de la delegation anglaise afin d'assister aux
travaux du Synode de Dordrecht (1618) furent Ie signe de cette attention reciproque , Cf. Godfrey Davies
"Arminian versus Puritan in England, ca. 162G-1640", dans The Huntington Library Bulletin, 5 (1934),
pp . 157-179; et les essais d'Andrew Pettegree, "The French and Walloon communities in London,
155G-1688", pp. 77-96 et Ole Peter Grell , "From persecution to integration : the decline of the Anglo-
Dutch communities in England, 1648-1702", pp. 97-127 que I'on retrouve dans From persecution to
toleration. The Glorious Revolution in England, edite par O. P. Grell, J. I. Israel et N. Tyacke (Oxford :
Clarendon Press, 1991).
24 En ecrivant a Isaac Vossius a Londres en 1664 afin qu'il fasse accepter par I'Eglise d'Angleterre la
religion des Remontrants, Poelenburg n'oublie pas d'envoyer ses salutations a Thomas Pierce d'Oxford,
a Peter Gunning et a Henry More de Cambridge. Cf. Lettre de A. Poelenburg a I. Vossius, in UBA.
2S Cf. A. W. Harrison, The Beginnings ofArminanism to the Synod of Dort (Londres : University Press
of London, 1926); du meme, Arminianism (London: Duckworth, 1937); C. Bangs, Arminius. A study in
the Dutch Reformation (New York, etc. : Abingdon Press, 1971); et surtout N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists .
The rise of English Arminianism (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1987).
26 Limborch ecrit: " Insignern tuum paci ac caritati inter dissentientes ac longe a se [. .. J divulsos
Christianorurn caetus resarciendae Zelum, qui torus ardere videris, non possumus non exosculari. Quis
enim , quem aliqua mansueti Servatoris nostri Spiritus aura afflavit, non ingemiscat, quando serio apud
animum suurn perpendit , christianos, quos una fides, unum baptisma, una spes unius ejusdemque salutis,
tanquam fratrcs in uno Patre ac Domino colligare oportebat, ob dissensiones in dogmatibus magis intri-
catis quam solid is, magis ad rixas quam pietatem cornpositis, non tantum in partes ire, sed et odiis
plusquam Vatinianis turgere, et conservos, imo fratres suos , caelo terraque proscribere? Ex caritate
frat(r)ema disci pulos suos aestimari vult Servator. Quare iIli mihi laudatissimo incumbere videntur
studio, qui ad tristes illas animo rum dissensiones non tantum ingerniscunt, sed odia tollere, ac charitatem
resuscitare summo studio contendunt. Atquc hoc praecipue nomine caetus noster se mihi cornrnendat,
quod aperte tolerantiam dissentientium a nobis Christianorum profiteamur ; tanto non facturus defen-
sionem veritatis, si destituta esset studio pacis" .
trad. : "Nous ne pouvons pa~ ne pas louer ce remarquable zele dont tu sembles enflarnrne, zele qui
devrait retablir la charite et la paix parmi les cornmunautes chretiennes qui sont profondement divisees
et en mutuel desaccord, Car quel est celui sur lequel a souffle l'Esprit de notre doux Sauveur, qui ne
s'afflige pas quand il se rend compte en son arne que ces chretiens, qu'une seule foi, un seul bapterne, un
32 L. SIMONUTTI

seul espoir en un seul et merne salut devrait lier comme des freres a leur seul Pere et Seigneur, au con-
traire, a cau se de ces dissensions sur les dogmes , plus embrouilles que veritables , plus adaptes a des
querelles qu'a la piete, non seulement se divisent en factions, mais aussi s'adonnent a des haines plus
acerbes que celles de Vatinius, et poursuivent au Ciel et sur terre leurs compagnons dans Ie service, qui
sont en verite leurs freres? Le Sauveur veut juger ses disciples selon leur charite fratemelle. Pour cela, il
me parait que se ded ient a un tres louable effort ceux qui non seulement s'affligent de ces tristes dissen-
sion s des ames, mais qui s'efforcent avec Ie plus grand zele de faire cesser les haines et de faire revivre
la charite, Et c'est a cet egard que je considere notre communaute digne d'eloges, c'est-a-dire que, ou-
vertement nous profe ssons la tolerance des chretiens qui ont une opinion differente de la notre . Cette
communaute ne pourrait tant faire pour la defense de la verite si celle-ci etait separee de la recherche de
la paix" . Lettre a More, 31 mars 1666, in UBA .
27 C. S. P. W. Vraisemblablement, Limborch connaissait les oeuvres de More, peut-etre indirectement,
grace a Poelenburg qui etait en etroite relation avec les Anglais auxquels il avait envoye ses oeuvres. Cf.
les lettres de A. Poelenburg a Limborch, dans UBA .
28 H. More , An Antidote Against Atheisme, Or An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde ofMan,
Whether there be not a God (Londres: J. Flescher 1653; 2nd ed. 1655).
29 H. More, The Immortality of the Soul. So farre forth as it is demostrable from the Knowledge of
Nature and the Light of Reason (Londres: J. Flesher, 1659).
)() Dans les scholia rajoutes dans l'edition latine contenue dans Opera Omnia (Londres: J. Maycock
etc ., 1675-79,3 vol .), v. 1II, il reprend la critique de I'atheisme modeme et Ie mecanisme cartesien.
~ I Le se ns de la conception des idees innees dans Ie champ philosophique et dans Ie cas du contraste
politico-religieux avec Ie puritanisme avait deja ete saisi avec perspicacite par Sterling P. Lamprecht,
" Innate ideas in the Cambridge Platon ists" , Philosophical Review, 35 (1926), pp. 553-72. Sur Ie rapport
Boyle-More et sur les differentes conceptions philosophiques et scientifiques, cf. John Henry, "Henry
More versus Robert Boyle : the spirit of nature and the nature of Providence" , Henry More (16/4-1687)
Tercentenary Studies, op. cit. pp. 55-76.
~2 E.T. Sur ces aspects et sur I'importante difference que More met a la base de son traite, entre Ie veri-
table enthousiasme chretien et I'enthousiasme irrationnel demoniaque, cf. Robert Crocker, "Mysticism
and enthusiasm in Henry More" , Henry More (/6/4-/687) Tercentenary Studies, op cit., pp. 137-155.
~~ Lettre de Limborch a More, 31 mars 1666, dans UBA : "Dans tes lettres, tu as exprime ce merne sen-
timent a notre tres illustre Pcelenburg" ,
:w Lettre de Limborch a More, 12 kal Oct . 1688 (20 septembre 1668), dan s UBA .: "J' attends avec
impatience la reponse du tres iIIustre Gunning. Je regrette que cet homme si cultive, que je revere
humblement, n'approuve pas mon enseignement sur la liberte d'Interpretation des Ecritures, liberte
que je con sidere cependant non seulement utile a une honn ete recherche de la verite, mais , d'une cer-
taine facon, necessaire. La OU I' on reduit la liberte de recherche de la verite , la on oppresse la verite.
Au contraire, la ou I'on permet une libre faculte de recherche de la verite, celle-ci triomphe et est at-
teinte avec peu defforts." II s'etait ex prime dans ce sens dans Admonit io ad lectorem christianum ,
avant-propos de I'edition de Operum theologi corum, pars altera (Gouda: J . van der Hoeve; Rotterdam:
A. Lee rs, 1665) de Simon Episcopius edite avec Arnold Poelenburg. En outre, Limborch ajoute dans
la meme Admonitio, en exposant c1airement les fond ements ration nels et libertaires sur lesquels se
base tout e sa production ulterieure d'ecrits theologiques: (v. Theologia Christiana ad praxin pietatis
ac promotionem pacis Christianae unice directa, (Amsterdam: H. Wet stein, 1686) , polerniques et
d'erudition (v . par ex . De veritate Re/igionis Christianae , amica collatio cum erudito judaeo, (Gouda:
J. van der Hoeve, 1687). "Nuda est, nuda amari debet: nee figendi oculi in doctores qui iIIam rnon-
strant, sed in ip sam solam. Momenta rationurn, non approbatorum dignitas, ponderanda sunt . Non
enim necesse est, qui quod am in dogmate errat, in omnibus haereticum esse, [oo] Atque haec est mod-
erata ilia prophetandi libertas, quam Remonstrantes urgen t: ut fundamenta religionis immota conser -
ventur: in reliquis moderata concedatur inquirendi ac dissentiendi libertas; et sicut ape s ex quavis,
etiam venenata herba, mel suave ac maxi me salubre conficiunt, ita etiam ex quovis doctore veritas
veritatisque munimenta conquirantur. Non ut secti s fenestram aperiant, quemadmodum quidam crimi-
nati sunt : sed ut sectas tollant" ; trad .: "Elle est nue , et doit etre airnee nue, sans regarder les yeux des
do cteurs qui la designent, mais en ne fixant qu'elle. II faut considerer les elements du raisonnement et
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 33

non Ie rang de ceux qui I'affirment. II n'est pas necessaire que celui qui se trompe dans une certaine
opinion soit heretique sur to us ses raisonnements, [.. .] Et c'est cette liberte moderee de prophetiser
que proposent les Remontrants: iI faut que les fondements de la religion soient conserves immuables:
dan s les autres aspects, it faut permettre une liberte moderee de recherche et de dissension; er de la
rneme facon que les abeilles produisent un miel doux et tres salutaire a partir de n'importe quelle
plante meme veneneuse, ainsi peut-on conquerir la verite etles remparts de la verite grace a n'importe
quel doc teur. Non dans Ie but d'ouvrir les fenetres aux secte s, accusees en un sens , mais dans Ie but
de les eliminer",
35 Cf. Lettre de More a Limborch, Pridie kal. Maii 1667 (30 avril 1667), dans UBA . La premiere partie
de la lettre contient un vaste eloge de la figure et des oeuvres de Poelenburg, disparu depuis peu et que
More admirait vraiment. Pendant plusieurs mois , Ie neo-platonicien garda la lettre en attendant de
I'envoyer a Limborch avec les reponses de Gunning et de Cudworth mais aussi parce qu 'il etait occupe
par la publi cation de Enchi ridion Ethi cum (Londres: J. Flesher, 1667). Au moment de I'envoyer, il
ajouta un long postscriptum, date 16 kal. Martii 1668 (14 fevrier 1668) dans lequel , outre I'annonce de
I'envo i de Enchi ridion Ethicum en guise de cadeau, it mettait au courant Limborch sur les doutes emis
par Gunning a propos des idees qu'il avait exprimees dans Ie volume des oeuvres de son a'ieul maternel ,
Episcopius.
:l6 En 1649, R. Kidder (1663-1703) fut admis au College Emmanuel de Cambridge oil, en 1655 il
devint fellow . Non confonniste dans un premier temp s, iI deviendra un homme d'eglise par la suite en
rant qu'eveque de Barth et de Wells (1691-1703). Lui aussi fut en relations epistolaires avec Limborch.
37 Cf. Lettre de Limborch a Henry More, 12 kal. Oct. 1668 (20 septembre 1668), dans UBA .
3K Cf. H. D. Foster, "Liberal Calvinism: the Remonstrants at the Synod of Dort in 1618", Harvard

Theological Re view. 16, 1923, pp . 3-37; les deux volumes de A. W. Harrison (The Beginnings of
Arm inanism to the Synod of Dort, op. cit.; et Arminianism, op. cit. ), et Ie volume publie par Derek
Baker, Reform and Reformation: England and the continent. c.1500-c.1750, (Oxford, 1979) qui contient
entre a utres les essai s de C . Grayson , "James I and the religious crisis in the United Provincies
1613-1619", pp. 195-219 et de John Platt, "Eirenical anglicans at the Synod of Dort", pp. 221-243.
w Cf. la correspondance entre Thomas Pierce et Limborch, dans UBA, et en particulier les lettres du 17
mai 1686 et 3 juillet 1689. II existe de nombreuses recherches sur Ie debar religieux en terre anglaise
entre les annees 1660 et 1689, des recherches de A. A. Seaton , The theory of toleration under the later
Stuarts (Cambridge, 19(1) et de Ch. F. Mullett, 'Toleration and persecution in England , 1660-1689",
Church History , XVII! , (1949) pp. 18-43; a la bibliographic plus recente et deja citee, nous devons
ajouter: James D. Roberts, From Puritanism to Platonism in Seventeenth Century England (The Hague :
M. Nijhoff, 1968); G. A. J. Rogers, "Locke and the latitude-men: ignorance as a ground of toleration",
dans R. Kroll, R. Ashcraft et P. Zagorin, Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England 1640-1700,
op ,cit ., pp . 230-252; J. Spurr, "The Church of England, Comprehension and the Toleration Act of
1689", English Histori cal Review, 104 (1989), pp. 927-46; les nombreux essais de Mark Goldie , en par-
ticulier, "The theory of religious intolerance in Restoration England " , dans From Perse cution to tolera-
tion. The Glor ious Revolution and Religion in England , publie par O. P. Grell, J. I. Israel et N. Tyacke
(Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1991).
40 Lettre de Cudworth a Limborch, 10 fevrier V.S. 1668 (20 fevrier 1668), dans UBA : "J' ai I'assurance
que dans un petit nombre dannees, la force de la verite aura tellement prevalu en notre Angleterre
qu 'elle aura soumis un grand nombre de ses plus feroces ennemi s et qu 'ellc les aura amene s prisonn iers
dans ses camps " .
41 En effet, iI ecrit : "Quod meipsum attinet, fateor me aliena dogmata fere cum materno lacte suxisse,
iisque in primoribus adolescentiae annis penitus imbutum fuisse; nihilominus vicit vis veritatis, et omnia
praeiudiciorum repagula perrupit ";
trad.: "En ce qui me con cerne personnellement, j'avoue que j'ai ete, pour ainsi dire, nourri de faux
dogmes avec Ie lait maternel, et j 'ai ete profondement imbu de cela dans les toutes premieres annee s de
I' adolescence; neanrnoins, la force de la verite a gagne et a detruit toutes les barrieres des prejuges" .
Ibid .
42 Cf. A Sermon prea ched before the House of the Commons, March 31,1647, (Cambridge, 1647, dans
I'edition Liverpool: Hodgson ; London: Fry, 1831). En ce qui concerne ce sermon, cf. Mario Micheletti,
34 L. SIMONUTTI

II pensiero religiose di John Smith platonico di Cambridge, (Padova: Editrice "La Garangola", 1976),
en particulier Ie chap.II., p. 148 et suivantes; et surtout I'essai de G. A. J. Rogers , "The other-worldly
philosophers and the real world: the Cambridge Platonists, theology and politics" , presente dans ce
volume, chapitre I .
4~ A Sermon preached before the House ofthe Commons. March 31. 1647,op. cit., p. 51.
44 lbid., p. 15.
45 Cf. G. A. J . Rogers, "The other-worldly philosophers and the real world : the Cambridge Platonists,
theology and politics", art. cit.
46 A Sermon preached before the House ofthe Commons, March 31. 1647, op. cit., p. 12.
47 Cudworth a Limborch, 10 fevrier V.S. 1668 (20 fevrier 1668), dans UBA : " Sed cum Res Ethicas at-
tentius considerarem, et evidenter perciperem Boni et Mali Morali s Natura e esse prorsus Jmmutabiles,
nee revera ab ipsius Dei arbitrio pendere, (cum hoc Discrimen Honestorum et Turpium potius ab
Jmmutabili Natura Dei derivandum sit) non poteram Deo ascribere horrenda ista Decreta, qui bus ex
mero Beneplacito, homines insontes vel ad aeternos cruciatus, vel ad Culpas et Peccata aeternis cruciati-
bus luenda, inevitabiliter darnnaret";
tr ad .: "Mais aussi , quand je conside ra i plus attentivement le s questions dethique, et que je
m'apercus c1airement que la nature du Bien moral et celie du Mal moral sont surtout immuables, et
qu'elles ne dependent pas en verite de la volonte de Dieu meme (puisque cette distinction des choses
justes et injustes derive plutot de la nature immuable meme de Dieu), je ne pus attribuer a Dieu cet horri -
ble principe selon lequel, pour son seul plaisir il condamnerait sans possibilite de salut les hommes inno-
cents soit a un tourment etemel, solt a l'expiation des fautes et des peches par des tourrnents etemels".
48 Cf. ibid. Cf. egalernent ce qu 'a ecrit J . G. Chauffepie, Nouveau Dictionnaire historique et cri-
tique . pour serv ir de supplement ou de continuation au Dictionnaire historique et critique de Mr.
Pierre Bayle (Amsterdam-La Haye : Chatelain etc ., 4 vol.), v. III, 1750-56, s.v, Cudworth, note C: "Il
prit Ie degre de Bachelier en Theologie, vraisemblablement en I'annee 1644 . On trouve qu 'i1 soutint
alors, dans les Yesperie s des Actes publics, qui se font pour prendre les Degres, les deux Theses suiv-
antes: 'Qu'il y a des Rai sons eternelles du Bien et du Mal. ' Et ' Qu' i1 y a des Substances incorporelles,
immortelles de leur nature' D 'ou il paroit, que des-Iors Cudworth rouloit dan s son esprit, et examinoit
avec soin , les matieres et les questions importantes, qu'il a tant approfondies longtemps apres dan s
son Systeme Intellectuel, et dans dautres Ouvrages qui sont encore en manuscrit" . Th . Birch, An
account of the life and Writings of R. Cudworth. (1743), dans T.I.S.U. I, p. 10, repete la merne pen see.
Les deux the ses furent publiees a Cambridge Ie 30 Juin 1651 et par la suite, elle furent apposees en
appendice au livre de Cudworth, A Treatise of Freewill , publie pour la prem iere fois par J. Allen a
Londres en 1838.
49 Cudworth ecri vait : "Quapropter, cum nuper integrum Systema Ethicum meditarer, animus mihi erat
in eo copiose de Bono et Malo , Justo et Injusto fusei disputare; verum cum postea intelIigerem Amicum
meum et Collegam Doctorem More eodem tempore editurum Tractatum Ethicum, ne simul in eandem
arenam, quasi de Gloria certaturi, descendere videremur, ab Incoepto destiti ";
trad .: " Pour cela, quand recernment je reflechissais a un systeme ethique complet, j'avais I'intention
d'y traiter abondamrnent du Bien et du Mal, du Juste et de l'Injuste selon la nature ; mais quand plus
tard, j 'ai s u que mon ami et collegue Ie docteur Henry More preparait en me me temps un traite
d'ethique, j'ai renonce a l'entreprise, afin que nous ne parai ssions pas descendre ensemble dans la merne
arene cornme pour nous disputer la gloire" . Lettre a Limborch, 10 fevrier V.S. 1668 (20 fevrier 1668),
dans UBA . Cf. dan s Th. Birch , An account of the Life and Writings of R. Cudworth. op. cit., pp. 15-17,
la correspondance relative au different entre Cudworth, More et leur ami commun, Worthington .
50 Si 1. Allen, l'editeur qui publia (Londres: J. W . Parker, 1838) Ie livre de Cudworth A Treatise on
Freewill, souligne une telle relation ; cependant, les biographes Birch, Chauffepie et surtout J . A.
Passmore , dan s son oeuvre encore tres utile : Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation (Cambridge:
Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1951) - voir Appendix - ont mis en evidence la difficulte de determiner la
composition et la chron ologie des manu scrits inedits du neo-platonicien. Cf. aussi Samuel I. Mintz , The
Hunting of Leviathan (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1969), voir p. 126 et suivantes. Toutefois, il
est probable que Treatise on Freewill ait ete une partie ou un resume de I'ouvrage plus vaste Discourse
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 35

of Liberty and Necessity; tout comme T.E.I.M. devait appartenir au manuscrit plus important et plus am-
bitieux Discourse on Moral Good and Evil comme Ie confirme Cudworth dans sa lettre a Limborch.
51 " Ce traite aurait dO s'intituler a juste titre 'Traite des sensations et des idees '; on a done cru bon de
Ie placer avant Ie Systeme Intellectuel, parce qu'i1 pose les fondements des principes ideologiques de
l'auteur,' Sistema intellettuale dell'universo di Radolfo Cudwort compendiato e tradotto or per la prima
volta in lingua italiana dal marchese Luigi Benedetti , (Pavie : P. Bizzoni, 1823-4),5 v., Lv., p. 81.
52 T.E.I.M., pp. 8-9.
5J Cf. British Museum, Add . Ms. 4983, 85. Cf. aussi Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation . op.
cit., chap. VI.
54 Sur la critique de Cudworth contre la gnoseologie et Ie mecanisme cartesiens, voir G. A. J. Rogers,
"Descartes and the English", in The Light of Nature. par J. D. North et G. A. J. Rogers, (Dordrecht:
M. Nijhoff, 1985), pp. 281-302; ainsi que Ie volum e de Passmore deja cite, et Arrigo Pacchi , Cartesio in
lnghilterra, (Bari : Laterza, 1973), partie. cap . IV.
55 T.E.I.M., pp. 33-34.
56 Ibid ., p. 76 .
57 Ibid ., cf. par ex . p. 80-82 et ibid., pp. 134-136, mais il s'agit de la reponse de Cudworth a travers
I'oeuvre entiere, Sur Ie sens logique et rnetaphysique de l'inneisme chez les neo-platoniciens, cf. S. P.
Lamprecht, " Innate ideas in the Cambridge Platonists", art cit. et R. L. Amstrong, "The Cambridge
Platoni sts and Locke on Innate Ideas" , Journal of the History of Ideas, 30 (1969), pp. 187-202-.
58 Cudworth ecrit : "Wherefore since there are so many, both Philosophers and Theologers, that seem-
ingly and verbally acknowledge su ch things as Moral Good and Ev il, Just and Unjust, that contend
notwithstanding that the se are not by Nature but Institution and that there is nothing Naturally or
Immutably Just or Unjust . .. " T.E.l.M. , pp. 12-13.
W "Wherefore since the thing willed in all Laws is not that men should be Bound or Obliged to Obey;
this thing cannot be the product of the mere Will of the Commander, but it must proceed from some-
thing else ; namely, the Right or Authority of the Commander, which is founded in natural Justic e and
Equity, and an antecedent Obl igation to Obedience in the Subjects; which thing s are not Made by Law s,
but pre-supposed before all Laws to make them valid : And if it should be imagined, that anyone should
make a positive Law to require that others should be Obliged, or Bound to Obey him, every one would
think such a Law ridiculous and absurd ; for it they were Obliged before , then this Law would be in vain,
and to no Purpose; and if they were not before Obliged then they could not be Obliged by any positive
Law , bec ause the y were not previously Bound to Obey a Person 's Commands: So that Obligation to
Obey all Positive Laws is Older than all Laws, and Previous or Antecedent to them . Neither is it a thing
that is arbitrarily Made by Will , or can be the Object of Command, but that which either Is or Is not by
Nature " . Ibid ., pp. 19-20.
60 Ibid ., p. 20 .
61 Ibid ., pp. 22-23.
62 Cf. J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, Platonisme et interpretation de Platon a l'epoque moderne (Paris : J. Vrin ,
1988), voir chap . II.
6J T.F., op. cit., pp. 84-85.
64 Cf. M. Micheletti, II pensiero religiose di John Smith platon ico di Cambridg e, op. cit., p. 160 et
suivantes.
65 Limborch a Cudworth, 12 kal Octob 1668, (20 septembre 1668), dans UBA .
66 Limborch a Cudworth, Pridie kal April 1669, (31 mars 1669), dans UBA . II s'agit probablement de
I'oeuvre de Limborch contre Sceperus: Korte Wederlegginge van ' t boexken onlangs uytgegeven by
Iacobus Sceperus genaemt Chrysopolerotus (Amsterdam: J. Rieuwertsz, 1661) . Cf. aussi Theologia
Christiana . op. cit., demiers chapitres.
67 Limborch a Cudworth, 31 decernbre 1674 , dans UBA .: "Cette liberte de prophetiser et cette
tolerance qu'enseignent les Remontrants dans tous leurs ecrit s" . Comme chez les remontrants et Locke ,
les catholiques sont exclus de la tolerance. Cf. idem, 8 mai 1680, dans UBA.
68 Cudworth a Limborch, 16 mars S.V. 1674, (26 mars 1674), dans UBA : "C'est ainsi que dans notre
Eglise Anglicane, comme dans l' Arche de Noe, cohabitent toutes sortes d'anirnaux (s'il m'est permis de
36 L. SIMONUTTI

m'exprimer ainsi) protestants, Calvinistes, Remontrants, et je crois merne Sociniens, qui respirent sans
aucune discorde apparente dans une seule et meme communion exterieure",
(fl Limborch 11 Cudworth, 8 mai 1680, dans UBA .
70 Cf. Limborch 11 Cudworth, kal April 1687, (Ier avril 1687), ibid.; Limborch, 11 plusieurs reprises au
cours de sa relation epistolaire, tient ses correspondants au courant de ses reflexions sur I'ecriture de
Theologia Christiana. op. cit. Cf. en outre, More 11 Limborch, 4 kal Jul, (28 juin 1669), dans UBA ; et la
lettre de Limborch 11 Le Clerc, 23 janvier 1683, editee dans L. Simonutti, Arminianesimo e tolleranza nel
Seicento olandese. Il carteggio Ph. van Limborch-J.Le Clerc, (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1984), p. 81 et
suivantes.
71 Cf. la lettre de Cudworth, 10 juillet 1687, dans UBA, dans laquelle Ie neo-platonicien exprime son
approbation pour cette oeuvre et sa curiosite pour De veritate Religionis Christianae, arnica collatio cum
erudito judaeo, op. cit., que Limborch terminait. Cf . I'avis de More dans la lettre du 4 kal Jul 1669,
(28 juin 1669), ibid.
72 Le 31 mars 1669, Pridie kal. April 1669, ibid., Limborch ecrivait 11 More : "Tu pro candore tuo facile
dijudicare potes, non me vagam quidvis convellendi licentiam introducere, sed ingenuam iIIam asserere
Iibertatem, quae veritatis indagationi maxime accommoda est. Rectam hie ac mediam tenere viam inter
tyrannidem dominantem ac Iicentiam effraenem, arduae esse operare fateor: Sed prudentia ed charitas
Christiana modum hie facile invenient. Charitatis est, non movere ea, quae sine fructu sciuntur". II
ajoute plus loin : " Quare, ut impietati iIIi frenum injiciatur, omni ope allaborandum censeo, ut viri et eru-
ditione et autoritate pollentes, de tyrannide in conscientias tollenda, vera prophetandi libertate asserenda,
ac pace inter dissectos christianorum cactus resarcienda consilia agitent: hac ratione argumentum
maxi me plausibile ipsis extorquebitur, et concordibus animis impietas ilia expugnari poterit";
- trad .: "Dans ta bonne foi, tu peux facilement juger que je n'introduis pas une licence quelconque
de detruire, mais que j'affirme cette noble liberte qui est la plus convenable 11 la recherche de la verite .
J'avoue qu'il est difficile ici de garder lajuste voie rnediane entre la tyrannie oppressive et la licence ef-
freinee , Mais la prudence et la charite chretienne trouveront aisement la voie . La charite ne remue pas
les choses qui ne gagnent pas 11 etre connues". et "C'est pourquoi, afin de mettre un frein 11 l'jmpiete, je
crois qu 'il faut utiliser tous ses efforts pour que les hommes capables d'erudition et d'autorite se consul-
tent afin d'eliminer la tyrannie des consciences, afin d'affirmcr la liberte de prophetiser ct afin de restau-
rer la paix entre les cornrnunautes separees des chretiens : de cette maniere, surgira d'eux
I'argumentation la plus convaincante et cette impiete sera elirninee par la concorde des ames".
71 J . G. de Chauffepie, Nouveau Dictionnaire historique et critique. op. cit.. (x.v, More) rapporte ses
doutes sur Ie calvinisme rigoureux et les positions contre la predestination qu'il avait exprirnes des
l'epoque de I'ecole d'Eton . Cf. H. More, M.G.; cite ici dans la traduction latine don nee dans H. Mori
Cantabrigiensis, Opera Omnia, (Londres: J. Maycock for J. Martyn & W. Kettilby , 1675-79),3 vol. ,
(reprint, Hildesheim: G; Olms, 1966), v. I, Livre X, Chap . V et suivants.
74 Ibid.. v.l , Livre .X, chap . XI, p. 425: "Manifestum igitur est Libertatem Religionis commune esse ac
naturale jus omnium Nationum ae Personarum, hoc est, potestatem habent quatenus sunt homines ac
ratione praediti, creduntquc Deum esse vitamque futuram, sincereque, juxta earn fidem vitam instituunt,
examinandi quae acceptissima via sit Deo serviendi in proprium suum commodum in altera vita, nee ita
religantur ad earn Religionem quae ipsis primum proposita est, . . .";
trad. : " II est done manifeste que la liberte de religion est Ie droit commun et Ie droit naturel de toutes
les nations et de toutes les personnes; c'est-a-dire que tous ceux qui sont des hommes, qui sont dotes de
raison, qui eroient en I' existence de Dieu ct en la vie future , qui sincerernent menent leur vie selon eette
merne foi, ont Ie pouvoir d' examiner quelle est la voie la plus juste de servir Dieu pour leur plus grand
profit dans I'autre vie et ne sont pas relies 11 la religion qui leur a ete proposee d'abord, .. .". Cf. aussi,
ibid., I, Livre X, chap . X et XI.
75 Cf. R. L. Colie, Light and Enlightenment. A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch
Arminians, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1957, chap. III.
76 H. More, Opera Omnia, op. cit., p. 430: "§5. Atque equidem dum immanitatem malosque effectus
hoc genus Enthusiasmi considero, non possum quin sentiam Christiani Magistratus vigilantiam ad hoc
etiam inter alia extendi oportere, nempe ad supprimendas subjugandasque Sectas omnes ac Religiones
 LA CORRESPONDANCE HOLLANDAISE DE MORE ET DE CUDWORTH 37

quae a tam Fanatico capite derivantur, hoc est , quae contra fidem Christianam se credere profitentur ab
illuminatione ejusmodi Spiritus quo de nullam rationem reddere queant.. .";
trad .: "Et sans doute, quand je considere ce genre d'enthousiasme, sa barbarie, ses mauvais effets, je
ne peux manquer d'etre convaincu qu 'il faille etendre jusqu'a lui notamment la vigilance du magistrat
chretien, pour supprimer et subjuguer, bien sur, toutes les sectes et religions qui sont devoyees par un
principe si fanatique, c'est-a-dire ces sectes qui declarent contre la foi chretienne qu'i1s croient grace a
une illumination provenant directement d'un Esprit tel quils n'ont aucun compte a lui rendre .,; " .
77 Ibid. p. 431 : ... .. de l'histoire, des langues et des sciences, et a travers l'usage diligent de la raison
(ce merveilleux don fait par Dieu immortel au genre humain) qui vous rendra , un jour, juges honnetes et
bien prepares a ce sujet".
7X "liberte de chercher la verite".
79 Limborch a More, 12 kal Octobr 1668, (20 septembre 1668), dans UBA .
KO Limborch a More, pridie kal Apr. 1669, (31 mars 1669) et ses lettres suivantes. Ibid. Cf. aussi
l'edition du Discours de la Methode, publie a la moitie du xvno siecle par Etienne de Courcelles.
XI Cf. More a Limborch, 4 kal Jul 1669, (28 juin 1669) et les lettres suivantes des deux theologiens. ,
ibid. La aussi, ce sont surtout les lettres de Limborch qui sont conservees.
X2 Cf. la lettre de More : 4 kal Jul 1669, (28 juin 1669) et 26 mars 1675, et Ies lettres de Limborch:
20/10 aout 1669 et 30 decernbre 1674, ibid.
X3 Cf. L. Simonutti, "Reason and Toleration : Henry More and Philip van Limborch", Henry More
(1614-1687), Tercentenary Studies , op. cit., pp. 201-218.
!\4 Cf. Catalogue des Handschriften, dans UBA; le catalogue publie peut etre toujours largement utilise ,
(Amsterdam: Stadsdrukkerij, 1911). Une grande partie des lettres de Limborch a ses correspondants
anglais sont contenues dans Ie recueil de lettres intitule Epistolae ad Anglos.
X5 Henry Jenkes (tI697), est admis e n 1646 au College Emmanuel de Cambridge; iI ira ensuite a
Londres et retournera a Cambridge. II fit partie de la Royal Society. II edita l'oeuvre d 'Etienne de
Courcelles, Synopsys ethices qui parut a Londres en 1684 et qui eut une edition posthume en 1702.
X6 H. Jenkes, The Christian Tutor, (Londres: H. Faithorne and J . Kersey , 1683), pp. 8-9.
X7 lbid ., p. 46 et suivantes.
xx lbid., pp. 20-21 .
K9 Jenkes dit de ces livres: "Divine and most excellent Books to inform you in all the great things of

Christian Religion, or the grand Mystery of Godliness; and how some people have apostatized from it,
by advancing the grand Mystery of Iniquity". Ibid., p. 24.
9() Jenkes dit de I'oeuvre de Cudworth: "A book of great and invincible reason ; there wants nothing to
recommend it further, but his Moral Universe." lbid., p. 34.
 Y.C .ZARKA

CRITIQUE DE HOBBES ET FONDEMENT DE LA MORALE

CHEZ CUDWORTH

1. SYSTEME MATERIALISTE ET SUBVERSION DE LA MORALE

L'opposition des penseurs de Cambridge, en particulier Henry Morel et Ralph

Cudworth.' a Hobbes est explicite et radicale. Elle affecte, en effet, non seulement
les principes du systeme - l' ontologie , la gnoseologie, la theologie, l' ethique et la
politique - mais se developpe egalement sur des points plus particuliers comme Ie
statut des esprits, la conception de la sorcellerie, Ie sort de l'ame apres la mort, la
doctrine de la Trinite, etc. Une opposition aussi systematique a Hobbes n'est pas
sans incidence sur la formation meme des positions des penseurs de Cambridge.
Ainsi ne peut-on qu'approuver John Tulloch, lorsqu'il ecrit:

Alors que Ie pl alonisme peut etre conside re comme I'origine du mouvemenl [de s pen seurs de
Cambridge] , Ie hobbisme lui fournissait les moyens de rassembler ses pensees et de leur donner une ori-
entation dogmatique. Alors que Ie premier a eu une influence positive sur la formation de I'Ecole. Ie
second a eu une influence negative.'

La pensee de Hobbes a joue un role significatif sur des auteurs qui ont pris soin
de Ie lire avec beaucoup d' attention," de le critiquer dans un nombre considerable
de pages et d'en preparer Ie renversement doctrinal.
Si la philosophie de Hobbes est systematiquernent prise a partie, c' est qu'elle
constitue elle-rnerne, pour nos penseurs, un systeme. II s'agit de la forme moderne
du materialisme athee dont ils retracent ou, plus exactement, creent I'histoire. La
philosophie de Hobbes est ainsi consideree comme la renaissance de I'ancienne
doctrine atomiste de Dernocrite. En quoi la pensee de Hobbes forme-t-elle, a leurs
yeux, un systeme? En ce que Ie materialisme ontologique, Ie necessitarisme
physique , Ie relativisme gnoseologique et I'utilitarisme psychologique sont intrin-
sequement lies entre eux. Ainsi, s'il n'existe que des corps, il est logique d'etendre
Ie regne de la necessite causale a tout ce qui existe, en particulier a la volonte
humaine . II est egalement logique de concevoir que toute connaissance vient des
sens et, par consequent, qu'il n'existe pas de bien et de mal, de juste et d'injuste par
nature. II est enfin logique de ne concevoir I'homme que comme un etre rna par
I'unique souci de son interet individuel. Autrement dit, Hobbes represente, en un
certain sens, l'auteur moderne Ie plus coherent et Ie plus consequent, celui chez qui
i1 est possible de decouvrir sous leur vrai, manifeste et dangereux visage les con-
sequences d'un materialisme' qui etait deja present dans l'atomisme antique. Or la
consequence de cette systematicite des principes de Hobbes sur Ie plan ethique
est, selon More et Cudworth, la subversion de toute morale. Voici un passage
particulierement significatif de Cudworth:

39
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. 39-52.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers .
40 Y.C .ZARKA

Wherefore though a late Writer of Politicks do so exceedingly disparage Aristotle's Ethicks , yet we
shall do him this right here to declare , that his Ethicks were truly such , and answered their Title ; but
that new Modle of Ethicks, which hath been obtruded upon the World with so much Fastuosity , and is
indeed nothing but the old Democritick Doctrine revived, is no Ethicks at all, but a mere Cheat , the un-
dermining and subvers ion of all Morality, by substituing something like it in the Room of it, that is a
mere Counterfeit and Changeling. The Design whereof could not be any other than to debauch the
World .6

En quoi Hobbes accomplit-il une telle subversion qui detroit la vraie morale en
lui substituant une contrefacon? L'un des caracteres particuliers de la lecture que
Cudworth - auquel nous nous attacherons plus particulierement dans cette etude -
donne de Hobbes est, comme nous I'avons rappele, d'etre fondee sur une prise au
serieux de ses theses. Par consequent, si Cudworth juge que Hobbes accomplit une
telle subversion de la morale, c'est parce qu'il percoit dans sa pen see une remise en
cause des fondements de la morale. Quels sont ces fondements que Hobbes detruit?
Ils concernent trois principes essentiels a toute doctrine morale: l'action, Ie sujet et
la norme. Ce qui est en jeu chez Hobbes, selon Cudworth, c'est une negation de
I'action morale, celIe qui merite la louange et Ie blame, une decomposition du sujet
moral ou du soi dans une psychologie utilitariste, et une dissolution de toute norme
morale dans un relativisme non seulement gnoseologique mais aussi theologique et
politique.
Ce sont donc ces trois points que nous examinerons succe ssivement pour tacher
de montrer comment, a travers sa critique, Cudworth s'efforce de restituer un sens
aux trois principes de la morale. En ce sens Hobbes ne serait pas seulement l'adver-
saire a abattre, mais aussi celui qui , touchant aux fondements memes de la morale,
a contribue, fut-ce negativement, a leur reconnaissance et a leur retablissement.

2. L 'ACTION MORALE

Les principaux textes de Hobbes sur Ie premier fondement de l'ethique sont consti-
tues par les pieces successives de la controverse avec Bramhall sur la liberte et la
necessite, c'est-a-dire Of Liberty and Necessity? et The Questions Concerning
Liberty, Necessity and Chances Le texte ou Cudworth rassemble de maniere la plus
percutante sa critique des positions de Hobbes est A Treatise of Freewill. Mieux, ce
traite de Cudworth a pour objet direct et essen tiel les arguments de Hobbes
developpes dans les deux textes mentionnes ci-dessus.
Dans sa polemique avec Bramhall, Hobbes realise ce qu'il avait deja entrepris
dans un travail anterieur,? a savoir l'extension, a la volonte et a l'action humaines,
des principes de la necessite absolue qui regissent la nature entiere, en particulier Ie
principe de la convertibilite de la cause suffisante et de la cause necessaire d'un
effet.!? Ce principe, qui etablit que tout effet a une serie de causes antecedentes qui
Ie necessitent, a pour consequence, sur Ie plan de la physique du mouvement, la re-
duction de la contingence a la simple ignorance des causes qui necessitent l' effet.
Voici comment Of Liberty and Necessity opere I'extension du principe a l'action
humaine:
 CUDWORTH ET HOBBES 41

. .. I hold that to be a sufficient cause, to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the
effect. The same also is a necessary cause . For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth
the effect, then there wanteth somewhat which was needful to the producing of it, and so the cause was
not sufficient; but if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect, then is a
sufficient cau se a necessary cau se, for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but
produce it. Hence it is manife st, that whatsoever is produced , is produced necessarily; for whatsoever is
produced hath had a suffici ent cause to produce it, or else it had not been ; and therefore also voluntary
actions are necessitated. II

Toute contingence est donc supprimee dans Ie domaine de I'action humaine

comme dans Ie monde des corps inanimes en vertu de la theorie de la causalite:

.. .by contingent, men do not mean that which hath no cause, but that which hath not for cause anyth ing
that we perceive ; [.. . J. And thus yo u see that though there be three sorts of events, nec essary,
contingent, andfree, yet thay may be all necessary without destruct ion of the beauty or perfection of the
universe.'?

Toute la question est desormais de savoir si, en rendant compte de I'action

humaine en termes d'effet produit par des causes antecedentes, Hobbes ne detruit
pas, comme I'affirme Bramhall, Ie principe meme de l'action morale? La concep-
tion hobbesienne de I'action a, en effet, selon Bramhall, pour cons equence de
rendre les lois, la deliberation et les conseils, mais aussi la louange et Ie blame, les
recompenses et les chatiments, la piete et Ie repentir sans objet. Cette position sera
reprise par Cudworth dans Ie cadre de sa propre critique de Hobbes.
Remarquons pour I'instant que Hobbes tache de repondre aux objections de
Bramhall en recourant au principe meme qui permet I'extension du systeme de la
necessite a l'action humaine pour montrer qu'il ne detruit en rien la possibilite
d'une action morale. Ce principe consiste en une theorie de la deliberation!'
qui rend compte de la coexistence , non seulement entre volonte et necessite, mais
egalernent entre liberte et necessite:

If there be a necessity that an action shall be done, or that any effect shall be brought to pass, it does not
therefore follow , that there is nothing necessarily requisite as a means to bring it to pass; and therefore
when it is determin ed, that one thing shall be chosen before another, it is determined also for what cause
it shall so be chosen, which cause, for the most part, is deliberation or consultation, ... 14

Cependant, la conciliation entre liberte et necessite ne peut se faire qu'au prix

d'une definition negative de la liberte, comme absence d'obstacles exterieurs a
l'action.P En outre, Hobbes ne peut retablir les determinations propres de I'action
morale, c'est-a-dire sa possibilite d'etre I'objet de louange ou de blame, ainsi que
de recompense ou de chatiment, qu'en faisant dependre ces determinations d'autre
chose que d'un caractere intrinseque de I'action elle-rneme:

... for praise and disparaise, they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or disprai sed.
For what is it else to praise, but to say a thing is good ? Good, I say, for me, or for somebody else, or for
the state and commonwealth? And what is it to sayan action is good , but to say it is as I would wish ? or
as another would have it, or according to the will of the state? that is to say, according to the law. Does
42 Y.C .ZARKA

my Lord think that no action can please me, or him, or the commonwealth, that should proceed from
necessity? Things may be therefore necessary, and yet praise-worthy, as also necessary, and yet
dispraised. and neither of them both in vain, because praiseand dispraise, and likewise reward and
punishment, do by example make and conform the will to good and evil.!"

Ainsi, Ie fait pour une action necessaire d'etre l'objet de louange ou de blame ne
peut etre retrouve qu'au prix d'une relativisation des valeurs. Le bien et Ie mal, Ie
juste et I'injuste ne renvoient pas a une nature intrinseque et immuable, mais resi-
dent seulement dans la conformite avec mon desir ou celui d'un autre, ou avec une
loi de I'Etat, c'est-a-dire varient en fonction des affections de chacun ou des lois
positives.
Cudworth connait cette argumentation de Hobbes . Sa critique vise, dans Ie pro-
longement des objections de Bramhall, a retablir Ie liberum arbitrium contre Ie ne-
cessitarisme. La definition negative de la liberte et la relativisation des valeurs qui
resultent du necessitarisme, loin de sauver l'idee d'une action morale, n'en donnent
qu'une representation contrefaite. Notons, tout d'abord, que lorsque Cudworth
examine, dans la deuxieme section du Treatise of Freewill, les principes de ceux
qui, de tout temps, ont nie Ie libre-arbitre, ces principes correspondent tous a des
positions que I'on retrouve presque litteralement developpees par Hobbes dans ses
textes contre Bramhall. Hobbes est cite explicitement apropos de deux d'entre eux:
II "every sufficient cause is an necessary cause"; 21"the necessity of every disjunc-
tive proposition'"!? Mais les quatre autres principes sont egalement de Hobbes: II
rien ne peut se mouvoir de soi-meme; 2/1a meme chose ne peut etre a la fois agent
et patient, done ne peut agir sur soi-meme ou se changer soi-meme : 31 toute voli-
tion est necessaire; 41 ce qui est indifferent en soi-meme ne peut s'auto-determiner
et restera etemellement sans mouvement ni volition (ibid.). Tout se passe done bien
comme si Hobbes rassemblait en un systerne I'ensemble des propositions qui
definissent la position, d'une certaine maniere transhistorique, consistant a nier Ie
libre-arbitre. II s'agit done de savoir pourquoi, selon Cudworth, Hobbes ne parvient
pas, comme il Ie pretend pourtant, a rendre compte de I' action et de la liberte dans
son systeme de la necessite absolue.
Premierement, en ce qui concerne I'action, Cudworth montre qu'on ne peut sub-
sumer la categorie de I' action, sous celle de I'effet, ce aquoi revient la doctrine de
Hobbes qui pose que rien ne peut se mouvoir de soi-meme mais par quelque chose
d'exterieur. Dans un tel systeme toute cause est un effet d'une cause anterieure et
ainsi de suite, de sorte que toute action resulte non d'une chaine unique mais d'un
nombre incalculable de chaines de causes (c'est-a-dire d'effets) qui embrassent la
nature entiere (cf. T.F., II, p. 8; et Hobbes, Lib.N, pp. 246-247/pp. 64-65). Au con-
traire, selon Cudworth, ce n'est qu'a partir d'une theorie de l'action que I'on peut
rendre compte de I'existence d'un effet quelconque. Ainsi, la matiere est une
etendue divisible et impenetrable mais, en elle-rneme, passive et inactive, incapable
de se mouvoir elle-rneme ou de produire un effet. S'il n'existait que des corps,
comme I'affirme Hobbes, Ie monde serait eternellement en repos . Pour penser
l' action, il faut done concevoir au-dela de la matiere un etre qui com porte en
 CUDWORTH ET HOBBES 43

lui-meme un principe interne d'activite, c'est-a-dire une substance immaterielle

auto-active. Par consequent, pour penser l'action en general, et l'action humaine en
particulier, i1 faut renverser Ie rapport etabli par Hobbes: l'effet suppose l'action et
non l'inverse. Du reste, Hobbes avait reconnu cette exigence puisqu'il rapportait
lui-meme Ie concours de toutes les chaines causales a un premier maillon, Ie Dieu
tout-puissant. II est ainsi amene pour donner une constance a son propre systeme a
concevoir, au-dela de la necessite qui regit la nature entiere, un etre divin tout-
puissant qui seul est dote d'une liberte absolue. De cet argument , Hobbes deduit
une theorie de la prescience, de la predetermination et de la predestinat ion qui a
pour fonction de tenir ensemble la liberte absolue de Dieu d'une part, et la necessite
absolue des evenements intra-rnondains, d'autre part. Dieu devient ainsi Ie seul
acteur de tous les effets qui se produisent dans l'univers. Mais en verite, loin de
sauver ainsi son systeme de la necessite, Hobbes acheve de detruire Ie fondement
de la morale puisque I'ultime principe de la relativisation des valeurs se trouve de-
sormais rapporte a l'arbitraire de la volonte et de la puissance divines. Nous revien-
drons sur les implications du relativisme theologique de Hobbes.
Deuxiemernent, en ce qui concerne la liberte humaine, Cudworth montre qu'a la
fois les instincts de la nature, la raison et la religion nous conduisent aposer I'exis-
tence de quelque chose qui est in nostra potestate, en notre pouvoir, ou sui potes-
tas, dote d'un pouvoir sur soi-meme:

From hence, alone, it appears that rational beings, or human souls, can extend themselves further than
necessary natures , or can act further than they suffer, that thay can actively change themselves and deter-
mine them selves contingently or fortuitously, when they are not necessarily determined by causes
antecedent. 1&

Pour restituer un sens a I'action morale, i1 faut done mettre en oeuvre une double
operation susceptible de retablir ce que Ie necessitarisme avait subverti: 1/ penser
l'action, non en fonction de I'effet, mais de I'auto-action; 2/ penser la liberte, non
negativement comme absence d'obstacles exterieurs, mais positivement comme
auto-determination (self-determination), c'est-a-dire comme liberum arbitrium. En
effet, ce n'est que dans la mesure ou quelque chose est en notre propre pouvoir que
nous pouvons etre l'objet de louange ou de blame. Un automate qui agit necessaire-
ment ne peut l'etre en aucune facon. Or, quelque chose ne peut etre en notre
pouvoir que si nous sommes nous-memes la cause veritable de nos actions. Faute
de quoi on ne pourrait distinguer un vice moral d'une infirmite naturelle. Certes,
l'idee de liberte que Cudworth retablit au fondement de l'action morale ne va pas
sans poser d'Importants problemes, dans la mesure ou i1 refuse de l'identifier a la
liberte d'indifference. Mais tendue entre une capacite d'auto-determination et une
capacite a se determiner au bien et au juste presentes par les preceptes de l'hon-
netete ou la loi de la conscience, la liberte vise a restituer une consistance a la pos-
sibilite d'un ordre moral au-dessus de l'ordre physique des corps.
Si l'action morale suppose la liberte, celle-ci suppose a son tour I'idee d'un etre
qui se rapporte a soi-rnerne et qui se determine lui-meme a agir, bien ou mal, avec
44 Y .C .ZARKA

justice ou injustice. Or tel est precisement Ie deuxieme point que la doctrine de

Hobbes rend impensable: l'idee d'un etre qui se rapporte a lui-meme comme sujet
de ses actions.

3. LE SUJET MORAL

L'ame humaine est une seule et merne chose subsistante qui a la fois entend, veut et
agit de diverses manieres . L'ame rationnelle comporte done en elle de nombreuses
puissances ou facultes . Plus exactement, elle se deploie en plusieurs sortes d'ener-
gies (cf. T.F., VII, p. 26). Cependant cette arne reste en elle-rneme incomprehensi-
ble et incapable de soutenir une doctrine du libre-arbitre lorsqu 'on tente de
l'expliquer dans les termes d'une psychologie de I'entendement et de la volonte
concues comme des facultes hypostasiees. En effer, le premier moteur de I' arne,
c'est-a-dire cette energie vitale dans laquelle elle se deploie, n'est ni une faculte in-
active de cornprendre, ni une faculte aveugle de vouloir, mais "a constant, restless,
uninterrupted desire or love of good as such (un desir constant, sans treve et ininter-
rompu ou amour du bien comme tel et du bonheur)" (T.F., VIII, p. 28). Ce desir est
une source bouillonnante au centre de l'ame, ala fois premier et perpetuel moteur.
II definit les etre s imparfaits tels que les ames humaines qui, en raison de la faute,
sont dans un desir continuel du bien . L'arne humaine a ainsi le presage ou le
parfum d'un summum bonum, d'un bien supreme, a partir duquel se deploient ses
differentes puissances. Ces puissances ou facultes de I'ame constituent notre nature
necessaire, toujours identique et immuable en nous bien qu'elle puisse se porter sur
differents objets . De cette source primitive naissent d'autres energies . Tout d'abord,
le degre inferieur de la vie plastique sur laquelle notre volonte n'a aucun empire,
ensuite I'imagination et les passions qui stimulent la vie, enfin I'entendement qui
connait le vrai et Ie faux, Ie bon et Ie mauvais . Le trait commun de ces affections et
perceptions tient a ce qu' elles sont naturelles et necessaires et, par consequent,
echappent a notre volonte.
A considerer Ies conceptions du premier moteur de l' arne et du deploiernent de
notre nature necessaire chez Cudworth, on ne peut manquer d'etre frappe par leur
analogie avec la theorie hobbesienne du desir. Le desir est en effet chez Hobbes,
sinon le premier moteur, du moins Ie moteur de toute Ia vie affective et intel-
lectuelle de I'homme. Or ce desir, defini comme un conatus ou commencement in-
terieur de mouvement volontaire vers un bien apparent,'? est egalement perpetuel et
sans treve 20 "for while we live, we have desires, and desire presupposeth a farther
end" (EL I, 7, 6, p. 30) . La difference la plus considerable entre Hobbes et
Cudworth tient a ce que celui-ci pose I'existence d'un summum bonum dont les
hommes poursuivent le parfum, alors que celui-la fondait Ie caractere ininterrompu
du desir sur la negation de ce summum bonum, ou fin derniere . Ce point est capital
parce qu'il constitue I'un des moments privilegies ou s'opposent la conception
hobbesienne de la relativite des valeurs au desir et la conception de l' objectivite na-
turelle des valeurs vers lesquelles tend Ie desir selon Cudworth . Mais si I' on met
cette question du bien supreme entre parentheses, on s'apercoit que les objets du
 CUDWORTH ET HOBBES 45

desir qui enveloppent une odeur du bien chez Cudworth sont tres similaires aux
objets du desir chez Hobbes." Ainsi les biens apparents auxquels aspirent les
hommes selon Ie penseur de Cambridge sont Ie plaisir, la joie, I'abondance, Ie
pouvoir, I'honneur, la gloire, la reputation, la preeminence sur les autres, la secu-
rite, la beaute, la liberte, la connaissance et la verite (TP. , VIII , p. 29). Cependant
alors que Cudworth etablit une hierarchic entre ces biens dont Ie terme est Ie bien
supreme qui transcende tous les autres, Hobbes ne cons idere ces biens qu'horizon-
talement en fonction de la puissance qu'i1s procurent. Pour I'un, I'homme comme
etre de desir tend vers Ie bien, pour I'autre I'homme comme etre de desir tend vers
la puissance. Mais tous deux concoivent Ie desir comme soumis a I'ordre de la ne-
cessite qui Ie fait echapper a toute maitrise volontaire.
Reste que , en s'en tenant a sa definition de I'homme comme etre de desir, c'est-
a-dire a ce que Cudworth appelle la nature inconsciente et consciente, Hobbes se
met dans l'impossibilite de concevoir une identite specifique de I'homme comme
identite d 'un soi. Ainsi, chaque homme varie en fonction des variations de son
desir, comme I'indique Ie chapitre XV du Leviathan "the same man , in divers
time s, differs from himselfe't.P J'ai tache de montrer ailleurs-' qu'une conception
de l' identite a soi de l'homme etait introuvable chez Hobbes , alors meme que cette
identite etait presupposee par certains des actes humains comme Ie fait de promettre
ou de garder sa foi. Autrement dit, il manque a Hobbe s une doctrine de l'identite du
soi seule susceptible de definir un etre moral. Or, c'est d'une certaine maniere la
consequence que tirait deja Cudworth: en supprimant Ie Iibre-arbitre, Ie systeme de
Hobbes supprime egalement l'idee d'un sujet de la liberte. L'identite du soi ne peut
se trouver sur Ie plan du simple desir, elle suppose en outre, pour Cudworth, la
definition d'un principe hegernonique dans l'ame, qui est Ie principe qui gouverne
et commande en nous. C'est lui qui permet de caracteriser plus precisernent Ie
contenu de la liberte de la volonte,
Ce principe hegernonique qui fait que nous sommes nons-memes ce que nous
sommes est I'fnne se comprenant elle-rneme, l'ame rassemblant ses interets, ses
aptitudes et ses capacites, "holding itself, as it were , in its own hand (se tenant
pour ainsi dire, elle-rneme dans sa propre main) " (TP., X, p. 36). Le principe
hegemonique est ain si dit "s elf-reduplicated life", vie repliee sur elle-merne,
"soul redoubled upon it self', arne redoublee sur elle-merne ayant une maitrise ou
un pouvoir sur soi, sui potestas, self-power, et se commandant elle-rneme en un
sens ou en un autre. Or, la liberte de la volonte, qui fonde la louange ou Ie blame,
la recompense ou Ie chatiment, n'est rien d'autre que ce pouvoir sur soi, cette
maitrise de soi par laquelle I'ame peut agir selon les principes de la raison ou de
l'honnetete en resistant aux plus bas appetits. L'ame repliee ou redoublee sur
elle-merne fait emerger un soi, self, qui a la fois fait notre identite et determine
notre nature vers Ie meilleur ou vers Ie pire. L'homme possede par la un pouvoir
d 'auto-formation et dauto-construction , self-forming and self-framing power
(TF.• X, pp. 36-37), par lequel il se fait lui-merne de qu'i1 est , "every man is
self-made into what he is" (ibid., p. 37). Cudworth fait ainsi ernerger I'idee d'un
soi moral.
46 Y .C.ZARKA

Cependant, l' arne se repliant ou se rassemblant sur elle-meme ne peut exercer sa

liberte qu'en fonction de la connaissance d'une norme du bien et du juste. Or c'est
precisement ce troisieme fondement de I'action morale que Hobbes avait detroit par
son relativisme et qu'il importe done de retablir.

4. LA NORME MORALE

II existe trois formes de relativisme: gnoseologique, theologique et politique.

Cudworth les examine et les critique dans A Treatise Concerning Eternal and
Immutable Morality . Hobbes est ici aussi I'auteur moderne sur lequel porte de
maniere privilegiee quoique non exclusive cette critique, parce que sa pen see
presente cette particularite de soutenir les trois formes de relativisme.
La premiere forme de relativisme est gnoseologique. Cudworth en trouve le
modele chez Protagoras qui affirme que toute connaissance est sensation. II est
done inevitable que les consequences du relat ivisme gnoseologique traversent les
philosophies qui , dans le prolongement plus ou moins direct de Protagoras, font
deriver la connaissance de I'impression des objets exterieurs sur les sens. Ces
consequences consistent en la negation de l'Idee de verite absolue et essentielle,
ainsi qu'en la negation de I'existence de valeurs eternelles et immuables comme
le bien, le juste et l'honnete, Remettant en cause sur le plan cognitif le principe
d'une essence du vrai et du bien, Ie relativisme gnoseologique renonce a toute
normativite, Quand I'homme devient la mesure de toutes choses, il n'y a plus de
mesure. II va de soi que Hobbes, selon Cudworth, se situe dans ce courant de
pensee puisque pour lui "The Originall of them all, is that which we call SENSE;
(For there is no conception in a mans mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by
parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense.) The rest are derived from that
originall" .24
Pour s'opposer au relativisme gnoseologique, Cudworth montre que I'impression
provoquee par les corps exterieurs sur nos sens ne releve ni de I'intellection ni de la
connaissance (cf. T.E.I.M., IV, I, 1, p. 126 sq). Si l' arne etait simplement passive et
se contentait simplement de recevoir des impressions et des empreintes des choses
exter ieures, elle ne pourrait ni connaitre , ni comprendre, ni juger ce qu'elle recoit.
Ces impressions lui resteraient etrangeres, parce qu'elle ne disposerait de rien de
propre lui permettant de les reconnaitre. En outre, si I'intellection et la connais-
sance consistaient en une pure receptivite de formes exterieures et adventices, on ne
pourrait expliquer pourquoi un miroir ne connait pas les images qu'il recoit et
reflechit , ni pourquoi les animaux qui ont des sens parfois plus affines que I'homme
ne disposent pas d'intellection et ne sont pas capables de s'elever ala connaissance
de l'universel . II faut done admettre que, au-dela de la perception passive des sens,
l'ame humaine dispose d'un principe actif, cest-a-dire d'un pouvoir inne qui
confere la capacite de reconnaitre, de comprendre et de juger ce qui est recu de
l'exterieur par les sens. Ce pouvoir ne peut etre autre chose qu'une capacite
d'eveiller des idees intelligibles et des conceptions des choses par lesquelles l'ame
aequiert la faculte de connaitre.
 CUDWORTH ET HOBBES 47

La seconde forme de relativisme est theologique. Elle consiste a affinner que

rien n'est absolument, intrinsequement et naturellement bon ou mauvais, juste ou
injuste, honnete ou malhonnete, hors de ce que la volonte divine a pose comme tel.
Ce relativisme consiste done a faire de Dieu concu comme un etre tout-puissant, la
regie et la mesure du bien, du juste et de l'honnete. L'une des premieres versions de
ce volontarisme theologique se trouve, selon Cudworth, chez Ockham lequel
affinnait qu'il n'y a d'acte mauvais que celui qui est prohibe par Dieu, et, correla-
tivement, que Ie meme acte peut devenir bon si Dieu Ie veut (cf. T.E.I.M., I, I, 5,
p. 10 sq.) . Hobbes developpe une forme radicalisee de ce volontarisme theologique
puisque pour lui " . . . the power of God alone without other helps is sufficient
justification of any action he doth . [. .. J That which he does is made just by his
doing it; just, I say, in him though not always just in US."25 Descartes presente
egalement une version de ce volontarisme dans sa doctrine de la creation des
verites eternelles (cf. T.E.J.M., I, III, 1-7, pp. 27-37).
Or, comme Ie relativisme gnoseologique, Ie relativisme theologique conduit a la
destruction de toute nonne morale. Ainsi Cudworth entreprend-i1 de demontrer que
si I'on veut donner une signification quelconque au bien, au juste et a l'honnete, iI
faut necessairement que ces notions renvoient a des principes essentiels, eternels et
immuables. Cette demonstration comporte deux moments.
Le premier consiste a montrer qu'une chose est necessairement ce qu 'elle est par
nature et non par volonte, fut-ce celie de Dieu. Ainsi une chose ne peut etre blanche
ou noire sans la presence de blancheur ou de noirceur, c'est-a-dire sans une certaine
nature, qu 'on conceive celle-ci comme une qualite interne de la chose hors de nous,
a I'exemple des aristoteliciens, ou qu'on la conceive comme resultant de certaines
dispositions des parties d'un corps (considerees dans leurs grandeurs, figures, mou -
vements ou positions) qui provoquent en nous la sensation ou Ie phantasme de la
blancheur ou de la noirceur. De meme, dans Ie domaine des verites mathematiques,
une chose ne peut etre triangulaire sans posseder les proprietes du triangle, ni circu-
laire sans posseder les proprietes du cercle. Un triangle dont les angles ne seraient
pas egaux a deux droits ne serait pas un triangle, et un cercle dont les points de la
circonference ne seraient pas equidistants du centre ne serait pas un cercle. De
merne encore, en ce qui concerne les relations, des choses ne peuvent etre sern-
blables ou egales sans etre ressemblantes ou egales en vertu de leur nature. Enfin,
dans l' ordre des valeurs, une action ne peut etre bonne, juste ou honnete qu' en pos -
sedant la nature de la bonte, de la justice ou de l'honnetete. Autrement dit, iI ne
peut y avoir d'essence de mode ou de relation arbitraire, c'est-a-dire produite par Ie
seule volonte, fut-elle accompagnee de la toute-puissance, parce que cela impli-
querait contradiction: par exemple, une essence arbitraire est un etre sans nature, ce
qui veut dire un non-etre. De sorte que, s'il depend entierement de la volonte divine
de donner I'existence a une chose, iI ne depend en aucune maniere d'elle de faire
que cette chose soit bonne, juste ou honnete, plutot que l'inverse. Dieu est la cause
efficiente supreme, mais non la cause formelle des choses qui fait qu 'elles sont
necessairernent et immuablement ce qu'elles sont (T.E.J.M. , I, II, 1-2, pp. 13-17) .
48 Y.C .ZARKA

Le second moment de la demonstration consiste a montrer l'Impossibilite pour la

seule volonte divine de rendre obligatoire ou juste une chose qui ne I'est pas na-
turellement. Ainsi Cudworth est conduit a nier la validite de la distinction entre les
choses qui sont bonnes naturellement et celles qui Ie seraient positivement, en vertu
d'un acte de volonte. Si un cornmandement positif de Dieu peut rendre une action
obligatoire, ce n'est pas parce que Ie cornmandement est un acte de volonte mais
parce qu'i1 etablit une relation qui n'existait pas anterieurement entre cette action et
la justice naturelle ou equite. La justice naturelle confere en effet a Dieu Ie droit ou
l'autorite de commander et aux creatures Ie devoir d'obeir. Par consequent, ce n'est
que dans la mesure ou Ie droit ou I'autorite de celui qui commande est fonde sur la
justice naturelle que I'objet de son cornmandement devient obligatoire. Cette
reference a la justice et a l'equite naturelles est supposee dans l'idee d'obligation,
car une loi positive peut enoncer ce qu'i1 faut faire ou ne pas faire, mais ne saurait
en revanche enoncer ou creer elle-rneme I'obligation que nous avons de lui obeir.
Autrement dit, si Ie principe selon lequelles commandements de Dieu doivent etre
observes par les creatures n'etait pas bon et juste de par sa propre nature, jamais la
volonte de Dieu ne pourrait creer d'obligations nouvelles. Ce n'est donc pas la
volonte de Dieu , mais la nature etemelle ou immuable du bien et du mal, du juste
et de I'injuste qui rend obligatoire ce que Dieu nous commande (T.E.l.M., I, II, 3,
pp. 17-20). On voit done comment Cudworth retablit l'Idee d'une norme naturelle
et immuable du bien et du juste contre Ie volontarisme de Hobbes. Cette demonstra-
tion va etre transposee sur Ie plan politique, car Ie relativisme produit par Ie volon-
tarisme politique n'est lui-meme que la simple transposition du relativisme produit
par Ie volontarisme theologique .
La troisieme forme de relativisme est en effet politique. On en trouve la formula-
tion la plus directe et la plus claire dans Ie Leviathan. Ainsi, dans l'etat de nature,
"nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have
there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law,
no Injustice" (Lev, XIII, p.188/p . 126). Cudworth cite ce passage dans Ie T.E.l.M.
(I, I, 4, p. 9). Contre cette negation de I'idee de justice naturelle et contre la subor-
dination de toute justice humaine a l'existence d'un pouvoir et d'un commande-
ment politique, il va tenter de retablir I'existence d'une norme naturelle du bien et
du juste. La critique du relativisme politique revient a une critique de la reduction
du droit au droit positif, c'est-a-dire a la legalite de fait. La these principale consiste
a affirmer que ce n'est pas la volonte de celui qui commande, mais la nature intel-
lectuelle de celui qui est cornmande, qui fonde I'obligation (ibid, I, II, 4,
pp. 20-24). Le changement de point de vue permet a Cudworth d'operer une dis-
tinction entre les choses auxquelles la nature intellectuelle oblige d'elle-meme di-
rectement, absolument et perpetuellement, et celles auxquelles elle oblige
seulement sous la condition d'une action volontaire provenant de nons-memes ou
de quelque autre personne. Les premieres sont naturellement bonnes ou mauvaises ,
les autres Ie sont accidentellement ou hypothetiquement. Ainsi , une action na-
turellement indifferente devient obligatoire non par la volonte de celui qui l'enonce,
mais en acquerant une nouvelle relation a la nature intellectuelle de celui qui y est
 CUDWORTH ET HOBBES 49

soumis. Par exemple, tenir notre parole, en executant les conventions que nous
avons passees, est un principe de justice naturelle qui oblige naturellement et abso-
lument , en revanche ce n'est que sous la condition de l'existence d'un acte volon-
taire par lequel nous promettons qu'une action a laquelle nous n'etions pas oblige
auparavant devient obligatoire pour nous, parce qu'elle tombe sous Ie principe na-
turellement obligatoire de garder notre foi et dexecuter nos conventions. Or
comme notre nature intellectuelle et rationnelle nous oblige a obeir non seulement a
Dieu , mais aussi a l'autorite politique legitime, la volonte du pouvoir civil peut
faire qu'une action, auparavant indifferente , devienne obligatoire non simplement
parce qu'il veut qu'il en soit ainsi, mais par accident en vertu du nouveau rapport
qui s'etablit, par la mediation de sa volonte, entre cette action et Ie principe na-
turellement obligatoire d'obeissance a l'autorite politique legitime. Ainsi les choses
indifferentes en elles-rnemes ne deviennent obligatoires que sous la condition de
l'action volontaire d'une personne qui possede Ie droit de commander, parce que
ces choses indifferentes tombent ainsi sous un principe naturellement bon ou juste.
Ce n'est done pas la volonte ou Ie bon plaisir de celui qui commande qui fonde
I'obligation ou Ie devoir, mais la justice naturelle en vertu de laquelle il possede Ie
droit de commander.
Cette impuissance de la volonte politique de fonder par elle-rneme Ie caractere
obligatoire d'une action, qui ne peut l'erre qu'en vertu d'une relation naturelle ou
conditionnelle avec la justice naturelle, s'exprime, en dernier ressort, dans Ie
principe selon lequel la volonte ne peut changer la nature d'une chose ou d'une
action . Ainsi, lorsque Ie pouvoir politique commande une action auparavant indif-
ferente, iI ne modifie nullement la nature de cette action qui reste materiellement
ce qu'elle a toujours etc, c'est-a-dire indifferente , En revanche, elle devient juste
et obligatoire formellement en vertu du principe naturellement juste selon lequel
nous devons obeir au commandement d'une autorite legitime . Autrement dit, la
volonte ne cree pas une nouvelle entire morale, mais modifie Ie rapport entre une
action et un principe naturel ou absolu de justice. L'idee meme d'une obligation
positive suppose comme son fondement l'Idee d'une norme naturelle, eternelle et
immuable de justice. Le relativisme politique de Hobbes se trouve par la-meme
destitue.
On voit done comment Cudworth tache de retablir contre Hobbes les fondements
de I'action morale. II y a cependant entre Cudworth et Hobbes une relation para-
doxale de proximite et de distance. Cette double relation s'exprime Ie plus mani-
festement dans Ie fait que, pour l'un comme pour l' autre, l'homme est un etre qui
se fait ou se construit lui-meme , Mais cette formule a chez chacun d'eux un sens
tres different. Ainsi a l'homme prornetheen de Hobbes qui se construit lui-rneme et
construit l'Etat en s'arrachant a une nature deserte, reduite a de la matiere en mou-
vement, pour construire Ie monde de I'artifice, Cudworth oppose une figure de
I'homme qui ne se fait lui-meme qu'en reconnaissant sa place dans l'echelle des
etres et la hierarchic des valeurs naturelles.

Yves Charles Zarka

50 Y .C .ZARKA

NOTES

En particulier, An Antidote against Atheism (1653); The Immortality of the Soul (1659), edite et in-
troduit par A. Jacob, Martinus Nijhoff, 1987; et Divine Dialogues (1668).
2 En particulier, T.I.S.U. ainsi que T.E.I.M. et T.F. Les traductions des textes de Cudworth sont rea-
lisees par nous.
3 John Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century,
1874, reimpression avec une introduction nouvelle de G. A. 1. Rogers, (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1993),
Vol. II, p. 26. Cf. aussi, Samuel I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), les chapitres IV, V et VI de cet ouvrage sont particulierement utiles pour apprecier his-
toriquement la reaction des penseurs de Cambridge aux implications de la pensees de Hobbes . Sur
Cudworth, on consultera egalernent avec profit I'importante these de Jean-Louis Breteau, Ralph
Cudworth : Le penseur , soutenue a l'Universite de Paris 111 en 1987, non encore publiee.
4 Ce point est a noter dans Ie contexte des reactions a la pensee de Hobbes. Cette lecture attentive de
Hobbes expliquera la force des critiques que More et Cudworth lui adresseront.
5 Dans sa belle etude, "Sur les premieres apparitions du mot 'rnaterialiste'", in Raison presente , n047,
1978, pp. 3-16, Olivier Bloch a montre que Henry More a ete I'inventeur de I'adjectif 'materialist' dans
ses Divine Dialogues (Londres, 1668, pp. 5-6), terme qu'il utilisait pour qualifier la pensee de Hobbes
dont les consequences sont destructrices pour la morale, par opposition a celie d'un jeune cartesien qui
est materialiste en un sens compatible avec les bonnes moeurs. On trouve chez Cudworth, T.I.S.o., chap.
IV, p. 759, I'expression "the Old Atheistick Materialists " pour designer les atomistes de I' Antiquite. Les
termes 'rnaterialiste' ou 'rnaterialisme' ne se trouvent pas chez Hobbes . II faudrait completer cette
analyse de I'invention terminologique par une etude plus ample sur I'invention d'une histoire antique et
moderne du materialisme par les memes penseurs de Cambridge.
6 T.I.S.o., I, pp. 53-54: "Bien qu'un ecrivain politique recent denigre avec beaucoup d'exces l'ethique
d' Aristote nous devons ici lui rendre justice en declarant que son ethique etait veritablernent telle et
repondait a son titre. Mais Ie nouveau modele d'ethique qui s'est manifeste au monde avec tant de faste,
lequel n'est en fait rien d'autre que la reanimation de la vieille doctrine dernocriteenne, n'est pas une
ethique du tout, mais une simple escroquerie , la sape et la subversion de toute moralite par la substitu-
tion de quelque chose qui lui ressemble, c'est-a-dire une simple contrefacon et un remplacement. Son
dessein ne pouvait etre autre que de corrompre Ie monde."
7 Of Liberty and Necessity (= Lib. N.), ce texte fut publie pour la premiere fois, sans I'accord de
Hobbes, en 1654. L'etude la plus documentee et la plus fiable concernant les circonstances de la nais-
sance et du developpement de cette controverse a ete donnee par Franck Lessay dans I'introduction 11 sa
traduction du texte en francais, cf. De la liberte et de la necessite, (Buvres de Hobbes, T XI-I, (Paris:
Vrin), pp. 9-51. Le lecteur y trouvera tous les renseigernents necessaires concernant la date de la redac-
tion de ce texte, ainsi que sur les differentes editions dont it a fait I'objet. Le texte en langue originale se
trouve dans l'edition Molesworth des English Works, vol. IV, pp. 229-278, Londres, 1839.
8 The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance (= Lib. N. Ch.), qui presentent une
etape posterieure de la controverse, suscitee par la publication du texte precedent dont l' ensemble des
elements est du reste repris, fut publie en 1656. Le texte original se trouve dans Ie volume V des
English Works, traduction francaise, due a Luc Foisneau et Florence Perronin , (Euvres de Hobbes ,
Paris, Vrin.
9 11 s'agit de la Critique du 'De Mundo ' de Thomas White (= Exam. DM), redige vers 1643, (Paris :
Vrin, 1973), XXX11I, 2, p. 377. En revanche, dans les Elements of Law (= EL), qui datent de 1640
(edition Tonnies , Frank Cass, 1969), Hobbes restait sur une position ambigue en opposant Ie possible et
Ie necessaire (I, XII, 2) et en opposant a I'action volontaire I'action involontaire entendue au sens
d'action accomplie par necessite de nature (I, XII, 3).
10 Cf. Exam. DM, en particulier Ie chapitre XXX, et Ie De Corpore (= DCo), edition Molesworth des
Opera Latina, vol. I, IX, 3 et 5. Pour I'examen de ce principe on pourra se referer a Y. C. Zarka, La de-
cision metaphysique de Hobbes - Conditions de la politique, (Paris: Vrin, 1987), pp. 193-222, et, du
meme auteur, "Leibniz lecteur de Hobbes: Toute puissance divine et perfection du monde", in Studia
 CUDWORTH ET HOBBES 51

Leibnitiana, Sonderheft 21, Leibniz: le meilleur des monde s, (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992),
pp. 113-128.
\I Lib.N., pp. 274-275/p. 110: "Je tiens pour cause suffisante ce a quoi rien ne manque qui soit indis-
pensable a produire de I' effet. Une cause necessaire est identique a cela, car s'il est possible qu'une
cause suffisante ne suscite pas l'effet, alors, il manque quelque chose d'indispensable a la production de
celui-ci, et la cause n'etait donc pas suffisante: mais s'Il est impossible qu'une cause sufjisante ne pro-
duise pas I'effet, alor s, une cause suffisante est une cause necessaire, puisque, par definition, produit un
effet necessairement ce qui ne peut que Ie produire. 11 est ainsi rnanifesteque tout ce qui est produ it, est
produit necessairement; car tout ce qui est produit a eu une cause sufjisant e pour Ie produire, ou bien
n'eut pas ete; et les actions volontaires, par consequent sont accornplies par necessite." Cf. aussi : " That
which [. .. j necessitatetli and determinateth every action [... j is the sum of all things which being now
existent, conduce and concur to tha production of that action hereafter, whereof if anyone thing now
were wanting, the effect could not be produced".: " Ce qui [. .. j necessite et determine chaque action
[...J est la somme de toutes les choses qui, existant maintenant, conduisent et concourent ensuite ii la
produ ction de cette action , et dont une seule , en venant ii manquer, empe cherait que cet effet ne fut
produit " (Ibid . p. 246/p. 64) . " Natural efficacy of objects does determine voluntary agents, and necessi-
tates the will , and consequently the action ": "L 'efficience natu relle des objets determine, il est vrai des
agents volontai res, et rend nece ssaire la volonte et , par consequent, l'a ction" ilbid., p. 247/p. 65) .
12 lbid ., p. 259/pp. 85-86: " Par contingent en effet, les hommes n'entendent pas ce qui n'a pas de
cause mais ce qui n'a pas pour cause une chose que nous percevions [.. . j . Par la on peut constater que,
bien qu'il existe trois sortes d'evenernents, necessaires, contingents et libres. ils peuvent pourtant etre
tous necessaires sans que la beaute ou la perfecti on de I'univers en soient detruites"
n Cf. Martine Pecharman, "Philosophic premiere et theorie de l'action selon Hobbes" , in Thomas
Hobb es, Philosophic prem iere, theorie de la science et politique, (Paris : PUF, 1990), pp. 47-66.
14 Lib. N., p. 255 pp. 78-79: "S 'il y a, ainsi , necessite qu 'une action soit faite, ou qu 'un effet soit
produit, il ne s'ensuit pas qu 'il ne soit rien qui soit necessairernent requis comme moyen de produire cet
effet et quand il est determine qu'une chose sera cho isie de preference a une autre , la cause est done
egalement determinee pour laquelle ce choix est fait; ct cette cause pour l'essentiel, c' est la deliberation
ou la consultation .. ." .
15 Ibid., p. 273/p. 108: " . . .1 conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner: Liberty is the absen ce
ofall the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinse cal quality ofthe agent . '':
" II me parait qu 'on definit correctement la liberte de cette maniere: 'Ia liberte est l'absence de tous les
empechements a I' action qui ne sont pas contenus dans la nature et la qualite intrinseque de I'agent'".
16 Ibid ., pp. 255-256/p. 80: "Po ur la louange et Ie blame , ils ne dependent pas du tout de la necessite de
I'action louee ou blamee. Qu 'est-ce d'autre, en effet, de louer , que de dire qu 'une chose est bonne -
bonne, je Ie precise, pour rnoi, ou pour quelqu'un d 'autre, ou pour I'Etat et la republique? Et qu 'est-ce
que dire qu 'une action est bonne , sinon qu'elle est confonne a ce que je souhaiterais, ou ace qu'un autre
souhaiterait, ou en core qu'elle s'accorde avec la volonte de I'Etat, c'est-a-dire a la loi? Monseigneur
l'Eveque pense-t-il qu'aucune action ne peut etre plaisante pour moi, pour lui ou pour la republique, qui
procede de la necessite? Les choses peuvent ainsi etre necessaires et pourtant dignes d'eloge, comme
aussi nece ssaires et pourtant objets de Mime, et ni dans un cas ni dans I'autre ce n'est en vain, parce que
louange et blame, de meme que reconnaissance et chiitiment faconnent et confonnent la volonte au bien
et au mal" .
17 T.F.. pp. 6-7: I "Toute cause suffisante est une cause necessaire" et 2 " la necessite de toute propo si-
tion disjonctive"
IK T.F., IV, p. 15: " De cela seul il apparait que des etres rationnels, ou des ames humaines, peuvent
s'etendre eux-rnemes au-dela des natures necessaires ou peuvent agir plus qu 'Ils ne subissent, qu 'il
peuvent se changer eux-memes et se determiner de maniere contingente ou fortuite, quand ils ne sont
pas necessairement determines par des causes antecedentes" .
19 EL, I, VII, 2, p. 28, et Leviathan (= Lev), VI, edition MacPherson, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books)

p. 119, trad . F. Tricaud, (Paris : Sirey, 1971), p. 47 .

52 Y .C .ZARKA

20 La formule de Hobbes qui se rapproche Ie plus du "constant, restless, uninterrupted desire" de

Cudworth (T.F., VIII, p. 28) se trouve dans Ie chapitre XI du Liviathan Oil Hobbes met a titre d' inclina-
tion de toute l'hurnanite "a perpetual! and restless desire of power after power" (p. 161).
21 Cf. Lev., VI, X et XI.
22 P.216/p . 159: "Ie merne homme, pris en des moments divers, differe de lui-merne".
n Cf. Yves Charles Zarka, "Identite et ipseite chez Hobbes et Locke" , in Philosophie, n037, 1993,
pp.5-19.
24 Lev., p. 85/p. II : "A l'origine de toutes nos pensees se trouve ce que nous appelons SENSATION
(car il n'y a pas de conception dans l'esprit humain qui n'ait pas d'abord, tout a la fois ou partie par
partie, etc engendree au sein des organes de la sensation) . Les autres derivent de cette origine".
2~ Lib. N., p. 249/p . 68: " ... la puissance de Dieu a elle seule, sans aucune aide, suffit a justifier toute
action qu 'i! accomplit [... J. Ce qu'i! fait est juste parce qu'ille fait; juste , je I'affirme, en lui, bien que
non pas toujours juste en nous".
PART TWO
 D. W . DOCKRILL

THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM IN SEVENTEENTH

CENTURY ENGLISH PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY

"Christian religion was never bred up in the Peripatetick school," a certain S. P. of

Cambridge wrote in 1662, "but spent her best and healthfullest years in the more
Religious Academy, amongst the primitive Fathers: but the Schoolmen afterwards
ravished her thence, and shut her up in the decayed ruines of Lyceum, where she
served an hard servitude, and contracted many distempers". But now, S. P. claims,
"let her alone be Mistress, and choose her Servants where she best likes: let her old
loving Nurse, the Platonick Philosophy be admitted again into her family."!
As an argument from precedent, S. P.'s defence of Christian Platonism is still not
without force . The Platonism of the philosophically minded Fathers cannot be
ignored nor can affinities between aspects of Christian dogma and certain Platonic
doctrines be overlooked . "Some of those who are united in fellowship with us in
the grace of Christ", Augustine writes, "are amazed when they hear or read that
Plato had a conception of God which they recognize as agreeing in many respects
with the truth of our religion." This affinity of doctrine, extending, as some be-
lieved, even to the doctrine of the trinity, posed a serious problem for those who
held to the distinctiveness and certainty of the revealed teachings of Scripture.
Amongst the Fathers, some coped with the problem by teaching that Plato and
other Greek thinkers were indebted, in one way or another, to the revealed teach-
ings of Moses and some of the early Hebrew prophets. Later, the Christian
Platonists of the Italian Renaissance and their seventeenth century English descen-
dants and others, revived and defended this view in its various forms. "As for citing
the Heathen Writers so frequently ;" Henry More writes, "you are to consider that
they are the Wisest and the most Vertuous of them, and either such as the Fathers
say had their philo sophy from Moses and the Prophets, as Pythagoras and Plato, or
else the Disciples or Friends of these Philosophers. "?
Modern demands for a developed Christian Platonism could be theologically
justified, in part, by those who accepted a providential view of the likenesses
between Christian doctrine and pagan Platonism. Philosophically, however, the
case for a Christian Platonism has to rest on the argued claim that a Platonic meta-
physic is correct and therefore provides the right speculative setting for understand-
ing and defending revealed theology. The Platonists, Augustine claims, are to be
rated "above the rest of the philosophers" because they, "coming to a knowledge of
God have found the cause of the organized universe, the light by which truth is per-
ceived, and the spring which offers the drink of felicity." In later times, the Platonic
tradition had to cope with the competition and sometimes dominance of Christian
Aristotelianism . But early in seventeenth century England, as part of the
Renaissance revival, the Platonic rather than the Peripatetic tradition caught the at-
tention of a number of promising and influential thinkers as the right philosophy in
which to state a contemporary Christian understanding of man's place in nature and

55
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. 55-77.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers .
56 D. W . DOCKRILL

the history of his religious quest. The Platonists, according to Benjamin Whichcote
are "eagle eyed philosophers". Aristotle, Thomas Browne wrote, "today he is bit-
terly cut to the quick by the modems and almost at the point of death; so that it
seems to me that the peripatetic philosophy is now brought to a standstill and can
hardly be rescued, or not even hardly ." For Platonists caught up with this change,
the precedent of Platonising theologies amongst the Fathers was a prophetic sign of
the way forward for Christian philosophy and theology in a new age of discovery of
the human and physical worlds.'
Yet if pagan Platonism could still be thought to provide fresh doctrin al and argu-
mentative resources for a Christian metaphysic, it was not, in every respect, equally
valuable or trustworthy. S. P.'s "old loving Nurse" was a pagan member of the
household of Faith and not everything she said or encouraged could be accepted by
the family she served . The critical problem for the Fathers , as for later Platonising
Christians, was to know how far and in which respects the Platonic tradition could
be followed in divine and human affairs. In these contested matters, the heritage of
Jewish and Patristic Platonism provides not only an impressive set of theoretical
models and pioneer thinkers, especially Philo, Origen and St Augustine, but a con-
tinuing legacy of problems about the way in which the enterprise of Christian
Platonism is to be carried forward . In the area of dogmatic theology, the problems
concern the extent to which Platonism can be combined with scriptural data and the
authoritative creeds of the church ; in philosophical theology, which overlaps with
dogmatic interests, the issues centre around the way in which a Christian view of
God and man can be combined with a Platonic metaphysic.'
One such problem in philosophical theology concerns the nature of God. The
perennial appeal of Platonism for theists is the place it accords reason and good-
ness , not only in connection with the moral life, but in relation to all that can be
said to truly exist. "The framer of this universe of change", Plato's Timaeus says,
"was good , and what is good has no particle of envy in it; being therefore without
envy he wished all things to be as like himself as possible." (29 e). But often asso-
ciated with this teaching is a doctrine of divine transcendence in which the govern-
ing principle of reality , the Good, is said to be so different from the realities it
governs, that it cannot be accurately described in terms appropriate to mind at all.
The Form of the Good, Socrates says in the Republic, "is the cause of knowledge
and truth ; and so, while you may think of it as an object of knowledge, you will do
well to regard it as something beyond truth and knowledge" and "even beyond
being, surpassing it in dignity and power." (508 e, 509 b). "There is no name ",
Plotinus writes, "that suits it [the One, the Good] really. But , since name it we
must, it may appropriately be called 'one', on the understanding, however, that it is
not a substance that possesses unity only as an attribute . So, the strictly nameless, it
is difficult to know." (Enn. 6.9.5).5
How Platonic and other like-minded theists cope with such a doctrine of tran-
scendence varies as is shown by the history of the via negativa in the theistic tradi-
tion. One react ion, in antiquity and later, is to accept such a doctrine or a restrained
version of it, and to develop a largely symbolist or instrumentalist view of religious
knowledge. In such a system, religious truth tends to be understood as truth relative
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 57

to the human understanding of the divine rather than non-perspectival truth about
the divine . The function of the symbols and instruments of religious knowledge is
primarily to direct the mind towards God rather than to represent that which cannot
be represented. "The First Cause", Clement of Alexandria teaches, is "above both
space, and time, and name, and conception; " "we speak of [God] not as supplying
His name; but for want, we use good names, in order that the mind may have these
as points of support , so as not to err in other respects."
In seventeenth century England, the same doctrinal tendency can be found in a
variety of forms. Robert Greville (1608-43), a Puritan Platonist, argues that even
contradictions in our way of describing the divine and eternal order do not rob such
descriptions of their usefulness in leading the mind to God. "Contradictions," he
writes, "may be simul & semel in the same Subject, same Instant, same Notion";
"Apprehensio est in apprehendente : the thing is still the same, let my apprehension
bee what it will bee." ("0 rare and compendious Synopsis of all Scepticism! " ob-
served Nathaniel Culverwell (1619-51), a sharp Cambridge critic of the alleged
benefits of Platonism for Christian theology. ) Greville's friend, Peter Sterry
(1613-72), comes close to a similar reason-confounding view of divine transcen-
dence: "All Images here, Inward as well as Outward, set up as the true and proper
Appearance of God to the Spirit of Man are idols. God as the Supream Truth, unites
himself to the Understanding; as the chief Good to the Will of Man. Thus he is
known, by being seen, felt and tasted in our Spirits." A more careful statement of
this sort of view and the instrumentalist theory of religious knowledge which has to
accompany it is presented by Thomas Jackson (1579-1640), the Oxford Platonist
and Arminian. The deity, he says, is "an excellency too transcendent to be compre-
hended under the name of something, or of anything, for this were to make him a
numerable part of being." Creaturely realities, Jackson claims, must be treated by
the mind as the means by which God can be approached but not understood:

Though nothing can exactly resemble Him. yet some things there be which better notify how far He is
beyond resemblan ce or comparison than others can do. By variety of such resemblances, as his works
afford , may our admiration of his incomprehensibl eness be raised higher and higher, and with our admi-
ration thus raised will our longing after his presence still be enlarged ."

The danger of a high doctrine of transcendence for theism is that it not only tends
to erode the positive claims about God which are essential to theistic faith, it also
threatens to sever or render opaque the link between the Creator and the goodness
and rationality of the created order. But here as elsewhere Christian Platonists vary
in their assessment of the seriousness of the problems which arise and the ways to
meet them. Jackson, for example, belongs with those who think that the problem
can be overcome by moderating to a degree the Plotinian doctrine of the transcen-
dence of the One . Following Pico Della Mirandola and Aquinas before him,
Jackson says that God transcends beings but not Being. The radical doctrine of
transcendence is modified, as it has to be, in the interests of Christian theism, and
the sceptical character of an instrumentalist theory of religious knowledge blunted
by the provision of an objective analogical base in the participated being of the
created order . It is a base, however, which more usefully serves the mind on its
58 D . W . DOCKRILL

journey towards God than the demands of speculative reason: "for all [resem-
blances]", Jackson writes, "will come short of the mystery which we seek to
express by them, or of so much of it as we shall know in that eternal school."!
For Jackson and the Puritan Platonists, Greville and Sterry, as for other earlier
and later Christian supporters of the via negativa, the theistic understanding of God
can be successfully accommodated within a revised philosophy of the One which
nonetheless preserves the doctrine of the One's radical simplicity. This, however,
was not the view of the Cambridge Platonists of mid-century, most notably Henry
More (1614-87) and Ralph Cudworth (1617-88). If, in antiquity, Origen appears to
have felt some unease about the ramifications of such a high doctrine of divine tran-
scendence -"we affirm that the God of the universe is mind, or that he transcends
mind and being, and is simple and invisible and incorporeal" (Contra Celsum , VII.
38) - his Cambridge admirers were deeply opposed to this particular aspect of the
Platonic tradition. In a way which anticipates Cleanthes's criticism of Demea in
Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), they argue that a doctrine
of the Fount of Divinity or God the Father understood in terms of the radically
simple and mindless One of Plato and Plotinus is alien both to a Christian and prop-
erly developed Platonic metaphysic. It "cannot be denied," Cudworth writes, "but
that Plato sometimes talks too Metaphysically and Clowdily about it [the Form of
the Good]", and elsewhere he says, "this high-flown conceit of Plotinus (and
perhaps of Plato himself too) has been rejected by latter Platonists, as Phantastical,
and Unsafe"?
Cudworth advances three reasons for rejecting what he calls this "one Peculiar
Arcanum of the Platonick and Pythagorick Theology. " The first is that if the One
transcends the realm of knowledge and intelligibility in every respect, then a
Platonic metaphys ic becomes "a certain kind of Mysterious Atheism", for the ulti-
mate principle of all things would be as "devoid of Mind and Understanding" as
"Sensless Matter". Secondly, it is contrary to scripture where God the Father is rep-
resented as a knowing and understanding Fount of Divinity. Thirdly, it is opposed
to the general tenor of Platonism which seeks to find the reason and end of created
order in the divine source of all things.

For if the Whole Deity. were nothing but One Simple Monad, devoid of all manner of Multiplicity ; as
God is frequently represented to be, then could it not well be conceived by us Mortals. how it should
contain the Distinct Ideas of all things within it self, and that Multiform Platform and Paradigm of the
Created Universe. commonly called the Archetypal World.

The philosophical task of integrating the knowledge of nature , man and God
becomes impossible on such a view of deity, and the way is left open for theolo-
gies, such as Calvinism in which, as their opponents claimed, the concept of good-
ness tends to be treated equivocally in its application to God and the created order,
contrary to the central teachings of both Christianity and a developed Platonism. to
In rejecting the traditional doctrine of the simplicity of the One, Cudworth, More
and their Cambridge colleagues were setting themselves against a deeply en-
trenched and widely influential part of the Platonic tradition. It was not, however,
the only aspect of that tradition which in their view had to be revised in order to
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 59

meet the demands of Christian theism. Plotinus's three primal hypostases - One,
Mind, Soul - had to be understood in terms of the Christian doctrine of the trinity
and part of the Plotinian task of Soul in informing the material world of time and
becoming given to a new, non-divine, non-reflecting principle of life and order in
the created universe, the Spirit of Nature (More) or Plastic Nature (Cudworth). The
reason for introducing this new spiritual presence in the created order alongside the
spirits of men and angels was not the product of antiquarian zeal. As thorough -
going Platonists, the Cambridge men had to cope with the same type of problem
that had faced their pagan models, viz., how is the world of sense-experience linked
with the divine world which gives it character and purpose. Plato's Demiurge and
soul of the world and Plotinus's Soul provide ways of explaining how the Source of
all intelligibility and goodness expresses rationality and value in the world of be-
coming. The Platonic trinity , with its "Gradation in the Deity", Cudworth says,
means that "the whole Deity [is not] skrewed up to such a Disproportionate Height
and Elevation; as would render it altogether Uncapable, of having any Entercourse
or Commerce with the lower world". 11
Whether a Chri stian philosophy requires the introduction of an intermediary
spirit between God and the material universe was disputed amongst Platonising the-
ologians. Early in the century, Thomas Jackson had opposed the pagan doctrine of
anima mundi and the view that there are things unfit to be objects of God's provi-
dential concern . Later, Edward Stillingfleet (1635-99), a younger contemporary of
the Cambridge Platonists, claimed that the doctrine of the Spirit of Nature was not
necessary in order to explain how divine purpose was introduced into the world of
sense-experience or to save the theology of creation from problems about divine in-
volvement in the production of gnats, flies, monsters and the maintenance of im-
proper situations. Stillingfleet's older Cambridge contemporaries, however,
believed that a rationally complete theistic system had to explain how divine
purpose was introduced into the created order if the secularizing power of the new
Cartesian physics was not to make redundant the concept of divine purpose in un-
derstanding the working s of the physical world. The essentials of the "Atornick
Physiology," Cudworth claims, are "Unquestionably True". The difficulty was that
Descartes' s account of this new theory of nature dispensed with the concept of
divine purpose in physical science as of no methodological use. "I consider the
usual enquiries about final causes", Descartes had written in his Meditations, "to be
wholly useless in physics." If this doctrine went unchalIenged, Cudworth claims, it
"would Unquestionably , by degrees , Supplant and Undermine all Theism" for it
banishes "all Mental, and Consequently Divine Causality, quite out of the World".
The doctrine of the soul of the world had to be preserved within a Christian meta-
physics, despite pagan mistakes about its divinity, if the modern understanding of
the physical universe were to be rationalIy placed within the theistic and Platonic
doctrine of divine purpose in and through all things, the integration of purpose and
necessity in nature of which Plato had spoken in the Timaeus (47e-48b).I2
Of alI the English Platonists, the Cambridge thinkers of mid-century most sought
to preserve the Plotinian hierarchy of being within the framework of Christian
theism . Other Platonising divines tended to be less theoretically ambitious in their
60 D. W . DOCKRILL

appropriation of Platonism. All agree, however, on the general accord between

Plato's dualistic theory of human nature and Christian teaching about soul and
body and the soul's survival of the body at death. The "Soul of every man", More
writes, "is his individual Person"; "the Body is not sensible of anything" as is
taught by the "best sort of Philosophers". The reasons given for this dualistic
theory, often provided in opposition to Hobbes' philosophy, are similar to those
presented by Socrates: the mind is immaterial because, unlike matter, it is con-
scious and reflecting, self-moving, and it knows truths not derived from sense-
experience. It is "Mathematically certain", Cudworth argues, "that our Humane
Souls and Persons, could not possibly have been Generated out of Matter" ; "the
Powers of Sense and Understanding, or the Entities of Soul and Mind, could never
have Resulted, from any Modifications of Senseless Matter whatsoever". But here,
as with the doctrine of God, the precise bearings of Platonic teaching within the
confines of Christian doctrine brought problems as well as advantages. 13
Amongst the advantages were a philosophical setting for distinctive Christian
claims about human life and its conditions. Man, Henry Hallywell writes, has "a
double life within him , Intellectual and Animal, which the Sacred Writings call
Flesh and Spirit" . Plato 's teaching of the soul's affinity with the divine (Phaedo
80), understood through the prism of Plotinus's doctrine of the soul's emanation
from the One through Mind and Soul, seemed to express in philosophical terms
what Scripture teaches about the soul as imago dei (Gn. I :26) and reason as the
candle of the Lord (Prov . 20:27). "Thy Soul in her Top, and Supream Part," Sterry
writes, "which is her Truest self, and substan ce, lives ever Invisibly, and
Immortally among the Angels. She in the mean time subsists here below among
these Fleeting Shadows, only in her Lower Part, in which she is, but as a Shadow of
herself." The "Soul of Man", Henry More claims, "is as it were tx-yu}q..ux BEaU a
Compendious Statue of the Deity . Her substance is a solid Effigies of God." St
John 's teaching about the enlightenment of every soul by the divine Logos (In 1:9)
is echoed in Plotinian teaching. "If I were to gloss upon [In I :9] in the language of
the Platonists," John Smith teaches, "I should do it thus ... 'the Eternal Word is the
light of souls ' ". "Truth", Greville says, "is indeed of the seed Royall , of Progeny
Divine: yet so, as to be (for I may say of her, what the Spirit saith of Faith) neere
us, to be in us ... The Vnderstanding is her throne , there she reigneth". The boni-
form character of the deiform soul or its divine sagacity, as More names it, helps to
explain how it is possible for the rational soul to be raised through divine influence
to a more intimate or mystical involvement in the divine life . Plato 's talk of the
Good beyond knowledge and truth, according to Cudworth,

seems to be little more, than what may be experimentally found within our selves ; namely, that there is a
certain Life, or Vital and Moral Dispos ition of Soul , which is much more Inwardly and thoroughly
Satisfactory, not only than Sensual Pleasure, but also than all Knowledge and Speculation whatsoever.

This in More's view is "true and warrantable Enthusiasm", which he describes,

echoing Plotinus (Enn. 6.7.35), as "the triumph of the Soul of man inebriated, as it
were, with the delicious sense of the divine life, that blessed Root and Originall of
all holy wisedome and vertue".!"
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 61

The difficulties, however, of using a Platonic anthropology to state a Christian

theory of human nature are as significant as the benefits provided by the tradition.
One concerns the ontological status of the soul. Orthodox Christian teaching is
that the soul is a created entity; for Plato and Plotinus it belongs to the divine
order. "If you pitch upon the Platonick way," George Rust(?) writes, with sympa-
thy, " ... you must then pronounce her [the soul's] existence in a sense necessary,
and after a sort coeternal with God." The danger is that too much reliance on the
Platonic view of the soul by Christian philosophers is apt to turn Christian teach-
ing into a Christianised Platonism rather than a Platonised Christianity. Some
philosophers, Stillingfleet writes, with an eye perhaps on Greville's book and
More and his circle,

have understood the worth of their Souls, and asserted it, if they have not us'd too high, i. e. Platon ical
expressions of it, making it a Particle not of Maller, but of the Divine Nature it self, a lillie Deity in a
COllage, that stays here a-while, and returns to that upper Region from whence it came.

For more consciously orthodox thinkers , this sort of problem had to be a serious
concern, but for those who thought that orthodoxy is to be remade in a Platonic
image, it was a trifling matter. In The Nature of Truth, Greville simply denies that it
is a problem : "Doe not tell me," he writes, "that I thus make the recipient and thing
received all one ; that is not strange in emanation divine ." While Henry More in The
Immortality of the Soul (1659) faces the problem in a less straightforward way. To
describe the soul as a ray of God , he teaches, is to speak metaphorically of its
created character "but in no other sense that I know of, unless of likeness and simil-
itude, she being the Image of God, as the Rays of light are of the Sun ."15
A second difficulty concerns the significance of bodily and earthly concerns in
the life of the individual. On the one hand, Christian Platonists, like their Patristic
predecessors , could not regard the physical universe and the body as a place of evil.
To do so would be to deny the doctrines of creation and incarnation. Thus , in
Contra Celsum (III. 42), Origen writes that "the nature of the body is not abom-
inable; for in itself bodily nature is not involved in evil which is the originating
cause of what is abominable." Henry More , in accord with his Patristic mentor,
says "there is simply no Evil but Good in the Animal life itself'. The teaching of
Plato 's Phaedo and Phaedrus has to be corrected in favour of more positive views
of the soul's sojourn in the physical world. Indeed some such correction had oc-
curred in varying ways in Plato's thought, in the Symposium, the Republic and the
Timaeu s. Plato, Plotinus writes, "is obviously not saying the same thing every -
where" (Enn. 4.8.1). But in Plotinus ' s thought the Platonic tension remains between
the embodied soul as a fallen member of the divine order and the more positive
view of the Timaeus, in which the soul's embodiment is said to be divinely ap-
pointed , though he believes it is resolved by a doctrine of the unity of "necessity
and free will (since necessity contains the free will)" (4.8.5). Thus while "the be-
ginning of evil for them [souls] was audacity and coming to birth and the first oth-
erness and the wishing to belong to themselves", an audacity "which has made the
souls forget their father, God" (5.1.1), it is also true to say that a soul's separation
into individuality was "eternally necessary by the law of nature that it should do
62 D. W . DOCKRILL

and experience these things" (4.8.5), the necessary process of emanations by which
real beings are "generated from the One" (4.8.6).16
The same sort of tension is to be found in More's account of the soul's involve-
ment with an earthly body, but it is complicated by his doctrine that all souls have
vehicles or some type of bodily instrument. In opposition to Plotinus, More states
that "The very nature of the Soul, as it is a Soul, is an aptitude of informing or ac-
tuating a Body" where the type of body can be any of the following, "Aethereall,
Aeriall and Terrestriall", a doctrine which he holds to be the "common Opinion of
the Platonists". The pre-existent soul's original and proper body is aethereal or ce-
lestial. The other types of body to which the soul can become attached are unfitting
places for such a created spirit, especially the terrestrial, the place of the thickest
matter. Yet despite the natural place of souls in the heavenly order, many of them
freely chose to experience animal life and descended into earthly bodies: they
"forsook the Law of the Divine life, and wholy gave themselves up to the Animal
life, ranting it and revelling it there without any measure or bounds". Why did souls
choose this fallen way of life? The answer for More, as for Origen is that it was a
choice open to free souls overcome with temptation, a reply which differs from
Plato's explanation in terms of the natural instability of souls (Phaedrus
246-248e), though perhaps closer than first appears if the freedom of the will is un-
derstood, with Cudworth, as having "a mixture of creaturely weakness and imper-
fections in it, and therefore is liable to be abused't.!?
But while the doctrine of the will and the essentially embodied nature of the soul
places More's theory with Origen rather than Plato, his account of the soul's for-
tunes in its earthly body is apt to imitate the spirit of Socrates in the Phaedo,
though its journey beyond the grave has to be placed within a Christian framework.
In its terrestrial embodiment, the soul finds her higher powers "hoppled and fet-
tered, clouded and obscured by her fatal residence in this prison of the Body"; "in
this present state she is inclogg'd and accloy'd with the foulness and darkness of
this Terrestrial Body ... in this her Captivity and Imprisonment"; "so deeply and
muddily immersed into Matter, as to keep company with Beasts, by vitall union
with gross flesh and bones", a description which, with its Orphic metaphor of mud-
diness, suggests that the terrestrial order is the soul's deepest purgatory. The sexual
union by which man and woman become "one flesh" in marriage (Gn 2. 24) ,
likened by St Paul to the union between Christ and the Church (II Cor 11.2, Eph 5.
22-33), is regarded as unfitting for the soul though a morally tolerable feature of
earthly life. Within matrimony, he tells John Norris, there is "nothing in it immoral,
yet certainly it were a thing Dis-angelical, if I may so speak, and Undivine,
wheneas we, being Born to that high Condition of Angels, we ought to breath after
that State". At death, life in the earthly purgatory comes to an end, and the soul is
given an aerial vehicle and further opportunities for amendment of life. From this
place in the air, on the day of resurrection, the sanctified soul, through the work of
Christ and the mercy of God, will ascend to the celestial and the recalcitrant
returned to the terrestrial."
Since the tenor of such teaching ill accords with certain aspects of the biblical
data, as commonly received, the task of reconciling it with scriptural authority
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 63

requires a hermeneutic which allows for a large measure of reinterpretation. Thus

while St Paul's teaching about the spiritual character of the resurrection body pro-
vides some support for More's theory, scriptural references to the resurrection of
"mortal bodies" (Rom 8: II) have to be treated as "only Prophetical and
Symbolical" of the always embodied soul's journey after death. The details of St
Paul's teaching in I Corinthians has to be taken in a general sense, not followed
word for word: "That the purpose of the Apostle in this 15 to the Corinthians is to
shew That there is a Life after the death of this Body, and a Blessed Immortality to
be expected." More's method of exegesis here trades on the principle that "many
Words in Scriptures have a lax and ambiguous sense and that therefore they are to
be understood according as Circusmstances and Likelyhood of Truth determine". A
related but more striking hermeneutical doctrine is the theory of allegorical
meaning. The early chapters of Genesis, to take the crucial case, do not appear to
speak of pre-existent souls and their fall as a descent from thinner to thicker
vehicles. Allegorically or cabbalistically interpreted, however, these and other
matters, More claims, are to be found in the text when properly analysed. Moses, in
"the manner of his delivering of the Creation ... accommodately to the apprehen-
sion of the meanest: not speaking of things according to their very Essence and real
Nature, but according to their Appearances to US" .19
Almost inevitably , such a hermeneutic requires the true interpreter of the sacred
text to possess more than rational gifts, viz., divine sagacity, "a Principle more
noble and inward then Reason it self'. Thus he writes of his treatment of Genesis,
"though I call this Interpretation of mine Cabbala, yet I must confesse I received it
neither from Man nor Angel. Nor came it to me by Divine Inspiration, unlesse you
will be so wise as to call the seasonable suggestions of that Divine Life and Sense
that vigorously resides in the Rational Spirit offree and well-meaning Christians,
by the name of Inspiration. But such Inspiration as this is no distractor from, but an
accomplisher and an enlarger of the humane faculties." In More's theology, as pre-
viously with the religious Platonists of Alexandria, this view leads towards a divi-
sion of the faithful into two types according to differences in access to religious
truth: one, the ordinary believer, who is restricted to a beneficial but external, im-
perceptive, and literal understanding of the meaning of biblical history and teach-
ing; the other, the rationally and spiritually enlightened master of the mysteries,
who is possessed of a direct knowledge of what these events and teachings signify .
More's mystagogus, in the broad tradition of Philo's inspired prophet, Clement's
Christian gnostic, and Origen ' s spiritual or perfect, is able to distinguish between
the letter of scripture, which has to serve the needs of ordinary believers, and the
true spiritual content of the Eternal Gospel, which is not directly presented but sym-
bolised within the text for those with a sense for such truth. Like Plato's philoso-
pher-king, the enlightened teacher has come into this condition through the gift or
availability of divine assistance which complements his determined efforts of mind
and heart to grasp "the Mysterie of God .. . hid and wrapped up in decent coverings
from the sight of Vulgar and Carnal men".20
From More's perspective, the knowledge which is vouchsafed by divine sagacity
is the cognitive benefit of a "true and warrantable Enthusiasm" , an aspect of the
64 D . W . DOCKRILL

illuminism which first appeared in his poetry in the 1640s. Others, differently
placed, were apt to see these matters less sympathetically . John Locke for example,
when confronted with similar illuminist teachings in Smith's account of the knowl-
edge of "the true metaphysical and contemplative man ... who running and shoot-
ing up above his own logical or self-rational life, pierceth into the highest life ...
knitting his own centre, if he have any, unto the centre of divine being", writes that
they "seeme to me very much to savour of Enthusiasme". And such doctrines as the
soul's pre-existence, a pre-mundane fall, earthly life as purgatory, a relocation in an
aerial vehicle at death, as taught by More and his Platonic colleagues, were viewed
by more orthodox believers as an attempt to subvert Christianity: "I have heard
them represented", Edward Fowler wrote, "as a Generation of people that have
revived the abominable principles of the old Gnosticks'tP
More's account of human nature and its setting is certainly far removed from the
sort of orthodox theology found in, for example, John Pearson's enduring An
Expos ition of the Creed (1659). Not all Platonically minded thinkers, however, had
been or were prepared to Platonise so far in remaking Christian doctrine . Plato's
view, Thomas Jackson writes, in connection with the origin of knowledge , "That
our souls whiles they lived (as he supposed long time they did) a single celestial
life .. . was a conceit more witty in him than warrantable in us". The soul's pre-
existence, according to Stillingfleet, is "so precarious and infirm an Hypothesis . .. a
supposition, not only inevident either to Sense or Reason, but likewise needless and
impertinent. "22
Outside the broad Platonic tradition , the view tended to be more severe, as is
shown by Samuel Parker's two part, A Free and Impartial Censure of the Platonick
Philosophie and An Account of the Nature and Extent of the Divine Dominion and
Goodness (1666) and Edward Warren's No Prae existence (1667). Earlier, the
ancient doctrinal influences which helped shape the development of the Cambridge
Platonists had been subject to criticism by their University contemporary, Nathaniel
Culverwell (1619-51). In his lectures Of the Light of Nature, 1645-6, given during
the period when More was near completing the works which make up his
Philosophical Poems (1647), Culverwell attacks both Origen and Plato. Of Origen's
doctrine of the fall of souls, Culverwell says, "one would think by this, that Origen
had scarce read Genesis, he doth in this so contradict the Sacred History of the
Creation"; and Plato's view of the unworthiness of the body is said to have "sprung
from his ignorance of the resurrection, for had he but known what a glory the body
was capable of, he would have entertained more honourable thoughts of it." But
such "Platonical fictions", as Culverwell called them, appealed to More and to those
closest to his precise views on such matters - George Rust
(d. 1670), Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680), Henry Hallywell (1650-1703) - because
they seemed to them, as they had to earlier Platonists, the best way of reconciling the
goodness of divine providence with the enforced and unhappy moral predicament of
many individuals in this life. The "great Phaenomenon of Providence", Rust(?) says,
is made "clear and righteous" by the hypothesis of pre-existence against "the ill-built
Fabrick of ordinary Theology". The doctrine of pre-existence, More claims, has
"plausible Reasons for it, and nothing considerable to be alleged against it."23
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 65

In the absence of clear biblical support for the pre-existence of the soul and
limited Patristic precedents for the doctrine, it is not surprising that More and his
circle failed to carryall their colleagues with them. Even Cudworth who sees, with
More , a significant agreement between Christianity and the "Pythagorick Cabbala",
would not positively affirm that souls "Pre -Existed before this their Terrene
Nativity" , but says instead that "thus-much is certain, that Our Humane Souls were
at first intended and designed by God ... for other Bodies and other Regions".
Stillingfleet a far more restrained admirer of Plato than of the neo-Platonists , di-
rectly opposed More ' s position and reversed, in an orthodox direction , his
hermeneutical way of reconciling it with Scripture. Plato's doctrine of pre-
existence, Stillingfleet claims, is to be understood cabbalistically as affirming what
the scriptures teach, "for I rather think the Opinion of Prae-existence is so to be
taken, than the History of the Fall of Man", since, according to Stillingfleet, it is
likely that Plato knew more of the biblical account of the fall "than he would
openly discover; and for that end disguis 'd it after his usual manner in that
Hypothesis of Prae-Existence". For theologically orthodox contemporaries of a
general Platonic persuasion , such as Theophilus Gale (1628-78), Stillingfleet con-
vincingly showed the mistake of making the Platonic tradition "equal to, if not
above the Scripture", an error which, Gale says, "had too great influence on many
of those whom we count Christian Fathers, specially Origen ; and does continue to
this very day among many Platonists". But as a response to More's position,
Stillingfleet's criticism illustrates, as does More's theory, the difficulty of combin-
ing the Platonic tradition and the received dogmatic teaching within the framework
of a pre-critical understanding of the past."
If the moral and salvific tendencies of a Platonic anthropology are apt to make
for difficulty in a Christian context.P the epistemology associated with this theory
proved to be somewhat less troublesome for seventeenth century thinkers. But here,
as elsewhere, different ways of accommodating Platonic doctrine within a Christian
philosophy appear. In the Phaedo, a necessary condition of the soul's coming to
know eternal truths in this life is its pre-exi stent disembodied experience of the
Forms . For those who reject the doctrine of the soul' s pre-existence, this celestial-
empiricist way of explaining the knowledge of abstract entities is obviously not a
viable option . Yet, even amongst those Christian thinkers who accept pre-existence,
Plato's theory of reminiscence found little favour in antiquity with Origen and
none, it seems, with his seventeenth century admirers. The reason is probably to be
found in the fact that a developed Platonic theism is obliged to absorb the world of
Forms into the deity as divine ideas which when treated abstractly become the
divine Logos, or, under the constraints of Christian theology, the second person of
the trinity . Christian Platonists were obliged to find another way of preserving the
epistemological core of Plato' s doctrine within the framework of their theology .
Most but not all such seventeenth century thinkers, as well as Lord Herbert of
Cherbury (1582-1648), found this alternative by means of the hypothesis of innate
knowledge, a knowledge, that is, which is not acquired by the mind but belongs to
its essential constitution as created by God . "Those ideal notions whereof this
philosopher and his followers so much speak," Jackson claims, "are in true divinity
66 D . W . DOCKRILL

the prints or characters of truth engraven upon our souls by the finger of our
Creator ." Or, as Smith presents the doctrine:

our own reason and understanding carry all natural truth necessary for practice in any sort, engraven
upon themselves, and folded up in their own essences more immediately, as being the first participation
of the Divine Mind considered in its own eternal nature."

Theologically, this theory has a natural affinity with a Christian Platonic doctrine
of the soul as a modified scale model of the all knowing divine nature. The intel-
lect, More says, echoing Clement of Alexandria (and Origen), is "an Image of this
Image [the divine Logos]" in whom, he writes elsewhere, is found the "steady com-
prehensive Wisdom of God, in which all Ideas and their respects are contained".
"Man had been most defective [in his creaturely perfections]," Stillingfleet claims,
"if his Understanding had not been endow'd with a large stock of Intellectual
Knowledge". The alternative empiricist view, Cudworth writes, viz., that "the
Humane Soul it self, to be but a meer Blank, or White Sheet of Paper, that hath
nothing at all in it, but what was Scribled upon it, by the Objects of Sense" leads to
the materialist doctrine that the soul is "nothing but a Higher Modification of
Matter" .27
Philosophically, the case for innate knowledge, as for Plato's theory of reminis-
cence has to be based on an argument to show that we possess knowledge which
cannot be completely accounted for in terms of experience or reflection on the data
of the external and internal senses. Experience, however, is known to be essential
for the growth of knowledge within the person. How is this fact to be integrated
with the soul's ability to know that which transcends earthly experience. "Me
thinks the working of a Platonists soul" , Culverwell remarks, "should not at all
depend on UA-'ll." Plato 's answer is that the disembodied soul's pre-existent ac-
quaintance -knowledge of the Forms becomes a set of memories lost to conscious-
ness in the trauma of embodiment. At birth the soul knows nothing of the eternal
world from which it has come, though, later, bits and pieces of these buried memo-
ries are recalled to mind through experiences which possess a degree of resem-
blance with that which has been forgotten. For Platonic innatists, Plato's account of
the growth of knowledge by experience provided the right guidance for answering
the same type of problem in their epistemology. The phantasy, Thomas Jackson
says, "serves as a glass to the understanding, and the motion or agitation of phan-
tasms as a nomenclator to the inherent notions whose notice or expression we seek,
whose apprehension, till we light on phantasms fitting, is but such as we have of
matters which we well know we have forgotten, but cannot distinctly call to mind."
"So the Mind of Man being jogg'd and awakened by the impulses of outward
Objects," More writes, "is stirred up into a more full and clear conception of what
was but imperfectly hinted to her from external occasions" . But for the innatists,
what is "stirred" up into consciousness is the knowledge which is naturally con-
tained within the mind. Plato's view that the possession of knowledge involves
being able to give an account of what is known (Phaedo 76b) - a view which pre-
sumably underlies his rejection of the innatist hypothesis (76c-d) - could not be
followed. Instead a distinction had to be drawn between two different ways in
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 67

which innate knowledge exists in the mind: latently or unexpressed, with the mind
unaware of the knowledge it possesses; explicitly, when the mind, with the aid of
the senses, self-consciously appropriates that which lies within it. Of the reality of
latent innate knowledge, More notes:

And when I say actual! Knowledge, I do not mean that there is a certain number of Ideas flaring and
shining to the Animadversive Faculty , like so many Torches or Starres in the Firmament to our outward
Sight ... but I understand thereby an active sagacity in the Soul, or quick recollection, as it were,
whereby some smaIl businesse being hinted unto her, she runs out presently into a more clear and larger
conception."

While the innatists were able to offer some account of how bodily experience
enables the mind to enter into its cognitive birthright, the question remains why
the mind, created as an innately knowledgeable spirit, should be so painfully de-
pendent upon sensory life in appropriating its native knowledge. For More the
answer is to be found with Plato and Origen in the pre-existent soul's fall into an
earthly body because of sin: "[men's] Phansies are so clouded in this dark state of
incarceration in these earthly Bodies, that the Notion thereof [things Spiritual and
Intellectual] seems unimaginable and contradictious". To the question, why the
terrestrially embodied soul should lose and not regain its acquired knowledge of
its heavenly state and descent into the earthly realm, More replies that terrestrial
life does not provide the embodied soul with the sort of experience which would
enable it to recall its pre-existent state: "Wherefore without a miracle it is imposs-
ible the Soule should remember any particular circumstance of her former
condition'V?
More's need to explain why the enfteshed soul could not recall its acquired
knowledge of the celestial state and its fall was not, of course, a problem for more
theologically orthodox Platonists. But neither could they draw upon the doctrine of
the pre-existent soul's fall into alien matter in order to explain the necessary role
played by the senses in the individual's growth in expressed knowledge. Yet they
too could hardly avoid seeking an answer to this problem within their more tradi-
tional view of the fall as an historical event at the beginning of the race which em-
braces Adam's progeny rather than a supra-temporal event brought about by the
decision of each human soul. Adam's soul, Jackson claims , was created with the
full and conscious possession of the knowledge appropriate to his status. The fall,
however, has disturbed the soul's cognitive image of the divine nature, with the
result that it must now use the aid of the senses in reassembling the fragmented and
unrecognized knowledge which it retains in its fallen state. "And so many of these
prints or relics of divine impressions as we can distinctly hunt out or discover,"
Jackson writes, "so much of God 's image is renewed in us." Coming to know, on
this view, is not a discovery of knowledge but a recovery of the unrecognized
knowledge which Adam's offspring possess by nature and which had been immedi-
ately and consciously possessed by the first adult members of our race. This,
Jackson believes, as apparently did Stillingfteet is what the Platonic doctrine of
reminiscence means when demythologized from a Christian standpoint: "Plato's
opinion , that all acquired science is but a kind of reminiscence, though it suppose a
68 D. W. DOCKRILL

gross error, is not altogether so erroneous but that it may lead us unto that truth
from whose misapprehension haply it first sprung."30
The doctrine of innate knowledge, however, is not the only way in which a
Platonic epistemology can be accommodated within a Christian framework. An al-
ternative approach is to preserve the notion of the discarnate soul's intellectual ex-
perience or intuition of the world of Forms contained in the Platonic doctrine of
reminiscence and to transpose its occurrence into the life of the embodied soul as it
contemplates the eternal truths manifested by the divine Logos, "in whom are hid
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3). Such a doctrine accords in
part with Plato's teaching of the soul's illumination by the Form of the Good in the
Republic (508 d-509 b) and more particularly with Plotinus's doctrine of the inner
soul' s location in the world of Mind even in its embodied state (Enn. 3.8.8,5.3.8).
This was St Augustine's way of combining Christian teaching with a Platonic epis-
temology: "those philosophers [the Platonists] whom we deservedly prefer to all
the rest .. . have declared that God himself, the creator of all things, is the light of
the mind, which makes possible every acquisition of knowledge." In seventeenth
century England, Greville 's The Nature of Truth would seem to present a Plotinian
version of this position:

all [acquired truth] is but light more or Jesse glorious, discovering it selfe frequently or rarely. and by
divine appointment. at such a conjunct ion of time, and not any other, not that the soule is informed by its
owne action; for what hath the streame which it derives not from the source? What can those workings
adde to that, from which they receive themselves ?

The most developed and important English statement of such a view, however, is
provided at the end of the century by John Norris (1657-1711), an Oxford Platonist
who came to support the Augustinian-type philosophy of Nicolas Malebranche
after an early involvement with Henry More's thought."
In the early phase of Norris's presentation of a Malebranchean position, the
Augustinian contribution to the doctrine, that "the simple Essences of things, thus
existing in the Divine Essence ... what we are taught in the Platonic School to call
Ideas" are known by divine illumination, is not much stressed; rather Augustine is
seen as one of a number who have maintained this doctrine. The theory that "we
see and know all things in God" is "a Notion very frequently touch'd upon by
Platonists; by Plotinus , by Proclus, by Marsitius Ficinus, by St Austin, by the late
French Philosopher Du Hamel ... and is sometimes glanced at by Aquinas himself,
but by none that I know of so copiously, so purposely, and so dextrously managed,
as by the incomparable Monsieur Malebranche" . But in An Essay Towards the
Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (1701, 1704), the fullest exposition of
Norris's doctrine, the teaching that the archetypal eternal world of truth which
exists in God and is made known to us by divine light, is represented as an argued
account of Augustine's doctrine: "the Hypothes is of This theory", Norris writes, "is
in great measure St. Austin's, and that we have done little more ... than . .. reduce
what lies loosely and at large in the Sea of his Writings, into the order of a regular
System." Acceptance of the doctrine, Norris points out, cannot be made to depend
on the authority of Augustine or any other philosopher - it "is to stand or fall
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 69

purely by Rational Measures" -but if those "Men who deal much in Antiquity .. .
should yet seem to startle at this Notion, as a very strange singular Amusement"
then, he says, it raises the question "at what rate do these Men read the Fathers.v?
Norris 's various attempts to state and defend his Malebranchean version of
Christian Platonism received a great deal of attention, not all of it favourable.
Amongst his critics was John Locke whose critical review of some of Norris's early
writings, Remarks Upon Some of Mr. Norris's Books , was published posthumously.
In this, the reception of Norris' work resembles that received by his seventeenth
century Platonic predecessors, often at the hands of Christian Aristotelians .
Jackson ' s A Treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes (1628-9) received exten-
sive criticism in William Twisse' s A Discovery of D. Jackson's Vanitie (1631) ;
John Wallis 's Truth Tried (1643) was a rejoinder to Greville's work which was also
criticised by Nathaniel Culverwell in his Discourse of the Light of Nature (1652) ;
the Cambridge Platonists were attacked by Antony Tuckney in None But Christ
(1654), Samuel Parker in A Censure of the Platonick Theology (1666), and Edward
Warren, No Praeexistence (1667) . But of all the critics of Christian Platonism,
Locke's developed work in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690),
followed by the cautious and reduced theology of The Reasonableness of
Christianity (1695), proved to be the most important. The confidence of the
Platonic apologia against materialism, Hobbesian and otherwise, was challenged
not only by the critique of innate knowledge in the Essay (bk. I) but also by an on-
tology which allowed, in accord with Locke' s epistemology, that matter might
think if God so willed (IV. iii. 6). "All the great Ends of Morality and Religion, are
well enough secured, without philosophical Proofs of the Soul's Immateriality",
Locke wrote ; "'tis not of such mighty necessity to determine one way or t'other, as
some over zealous for, or against the Immateriality of the Soul, have been forward
to make the World believe.t'"
Locke 's philosophy presented any contemporary Platonising philosophy or theo-
logy with a newly reworked programme of hard problems. The Essay , Leibniz
wrote, "is one of the finest and most admired works of the age"; it is a system of
philosophy "closer to Aristotle and mine to Plato". At a time of strengthening Enlight-
enment attitudes, the Platonic tradition was beginning to lose its Renaissance ap-
pearance of a modern philosophic framework within which to understand the
growth of knowledge. The metaphysical and theological priority of the Platonic
and Idealist principle that, in Cudworth's words, "Mind and Understanding ... [is]
the Oldest of all things" needed to be re-established in unpropitious times. The
most formidable English attempt to carry out this task was to be the achievement of
George Berkeley (1685-1753).34
In Berkeley's early and most famous philosophic works - The Principles of
Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues (1713) - there is little appeal to the prece-
dent of earlier thinkers. But this is not to say that Berkeley's philosophy was
uninfluenced by his predecessors. "I must acknowledge my self', he writes in his
Philosophical Commentaries, "beholding to the Philosophers have gone before
me." Those philosophers, however, did not include the Platonistically minded
Fathers of the early Christian era, though he was anxious "not to give the least
70 D. W . DOCKRILL

Handle of offence to the Church or Churchmen", but they did include Malebranche,
the modern French disciple of Augustine and Descartes. Yet in Berkeley's pub-
lished writings he is anxious to distance himself from Malebranche's particular
views. Thus, for example, in Alciphron (IV. 14), Berkeley has Alciphron say of
Malebranche's doctrine that we see or know all things in God that "neither I, nor
anyone else could make sense of [it]" and Crito, another character in the dialogue,
agrees. Moreover while Berkeley occasionally refers to Augustine and draws upon
some of his writings, he never does so in connection with epistemological issues.
Still the development of Berkeley's new Idealist principle esse is percipi or
percipere into a theistic metaphysic leads inevitably towards a new and strange
Augustinian-like doctrine that in some sense or other we see or know sensible
objects in God. "To me it is evident," Philonous says in the Three Dialogues,

. .. that sensible things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit. Whence I conclude, not that they
have no real existence, but that seeing they depend not on my thought , and have an existence distinct
from being perceived by me, there must be some other mind wherein they exist. As sure therefore as the
sensible world really exists, so sure is there an infinite omnipresent spirit who contains and supports it.J5

Berkley's Idealism is a different way of defending the claim that "Mind and
Understanding ... [is] the Oldest of all things" from that developed by his prede-
cessors, but the sort of experientially oriented faith it is designed to express has
much in common with the providentially minded views of the Platonists of mid-
century. The created universe of Berkley's philosophy, like the world of More,
Cudworth and Stillingfleet, is one which, in its particularities, has to be understood
directly, if generally, in terms of divine oversight and guidance. But whereas the
Cambridge Latitudinarians and Platonists had come to fear, in Cudworth's phrase,
the "tang of the Mechanick Atheism" associated with Descartes' theory of nature,
Berkeley's apologetic concern is with Locke's metaphysic of substance and the on-
tology used to explain the abstractions of Newton's physics. "No sharing betwixt
God & Nature or second Causes", Berkeley writes in his Philosophical
Commentaries, "in my Doctrine." Later, he notes, "Locke holds some dangerous
opinions. such as the Infinity and eternity of space . The Possibility of Matter's
thinking.?"
Viewed from this religious perspective, it is not unexpected that Berkeley should
have come to look for points of resemblance and continuity between his own meta-
physics and the work of certain of his predecessors in the history of thought. Indeed
it is hard to see how, as a Christian philosopher and theologian, he could have
avoided placing his philosophy in relation to the dogmatic and speculative tradi-
tions with which it had close affinity. "The Scriptures and the Fathers, I grant," he
writes to Sir John James in 1741, "are a much better help to know Christ and his
Religion than the cold and dry writings of our modern Divines"; "most modern
writings smell of the age". But what is more striking is that he had come to believe
that there is a substantial identity between the tradition of pagan Platonism which
he had admired in his days at Trinity College, and his own distinctive philosophical
views. "The Pythagoreans and Platonists", Berkeley writes in Siris (1744), his last
philosophic work, "had a notion of the true system of the world", a notion which,
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 71

he believed, included the central tenet of his own system: "they saw that mind, soul
or spirit truly and really exists: that bodies exist only in a secondary and dependent
sense" . (#266). Cudworth's claim that some of Plato's and Plotinus's expressions
about the Good and the One have an atheistic tendency is rejected as unjust in the
circumstances of their doctrines, in which Mind emanates from the One
(#352 , 353). Such a view makes easier the agreement between Berkeley's own
philosophical theism and what he takes to be the Platonic position, viz., "that a
mind infinite in power, unextended, invisible, immortal, governed, connected, and
contained a11 things" (#266). The teaching of Cudworth and others about the
significant doctrinal continuity of the Platonic and Christian trinities is approved
(#363).37
In Siris, Berkeley's Christian immaterialism is placed in the broad tradition
which had stemmed from the one who was "the wisest heathen" and which had ex-
pressed itself in the Christian era in the early Fathers and among the Renaissance
and more recent Platonists. Yet, when this work appeared, long after the great
century of English theological Platonism had come to its end, Berkeley feared that
the prevailing climate of opinion could not be made amenable to this and other
ancient ways of thought: "in these free-thinking times, many an empty head is
shook at Aristotle and Plato, as well as at the Holy Scriptures"; "the depths of that
old learning are rarely fathomed" (#332). Such a state of affairs, however, could not
long persist. The philosophic strength and challenge of Plato's bequest, its ability to
give voice to a persistent religious view of man's place in nature, and the influence
of Platonism in the history of thought, would continue to ensure a supply of stu-
dents ready to plumb "the depths of that old learning". Whatever his fears for the
present, Berkeley knew that the power of the Platonic tradition remained:

the greate st men had ever a high esteem for Plato ; whose writings are the touchstone of a hasty and shallow
mind ; whose philosophy has been the admiration of ages ; which supplied patriots , magistrates , and law-
givers to the most flourishing States , as well as Fathers to the Church. and doctors to the school s. (#332) .38

His assessment of Plato's heritage, like S. P.'s eighty years earlier, looks to the
unity in complexity of the Platonic tradition. Historically, that complexity had
served to license a number of theological Platonisms according to the various spec-
ulative and doctrinal interests of religious thinkers. In a new age of enlightened his-
toriography , however, the mixed history of the "old loving Nurse" would not only
intensify problems about her precise identity but also provide new contexts for the
question, is she the source of philosophic truth that her ancient and later Christian
admirers have believed her to be.

D. W. Dockrill

NOTES

S. P., A Brief Account of the New Sect of Latitude-Men (1662), ed . T. A. Birrell, (Los Angeles:
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library . 1963). p. 24 . Birrell argue s that S. P. is Simon Patrick .
2 Augustine, The City of God, trans. H. Bettenson, (Harrnondsworth: Pengu in Books . 1972), bk. viii,
ch . II. p. 313 . The affinity of pagan and Christian teaching: see D; P. Walker. The Ancient Theology
72 D . W . DOCKRILL

(London : Duckworth, 1972); H. Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Trad ition
(New York : Oxford 1966) . H. More, Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 43, in A Collection of Several
Philosophical Writings (1662), (New York: Garland Publishing, 1978),2.
J Augustine, The City of God, op. cit., bk. 8, ch. II , p. 313. B. Whichcote, The Works (Aberdeen :
Alexander Thomson, 1751),2, p. 172. T. Browne, The Works, ed. G. Keynes, (London: Faber and Faber,
1964),3, p. 206; Browne, ibid., goes on to say "yet not a little is valuable. Do not then bid farewell to
his entire work"; cf. Browne' s Religio Medici (London : Dent, 1965), pp. 16-17 ; see also R. Cudworth,
T.I.S.U.. pp. 53-5, and H. More (on Socinianism and Aristotelianism) , The Conway Letters, ed .,
M. Nicolson, rev. S. Hutton, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 204, 208. Recent bibliographies of
seventeenth century English Platonists: see the new edition of Ueberweg, Grundriss Der Geschichte Der
Philosophie: Die Philosophie Des 17. Jahrhunderts , Band 3: England, ed ., J-P Schobinger, (Basel :
Schwabe and Co.. 1988), G. A. J. Rogers et al.. pp. 213-90; and R. Crocker, "A Bibliography of Henry
More", S. Hutton, ed ., Henry More (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990), pp. 219-46.
4 On Patristic Platonism see: C. A. Biggs, The Christian Platonists ofAlexandria (Oxford : Clarendon
Press, 1913); R. Arnou, "Platonisme des Peres", Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, eds. A. Vacant,
E. Mangenot, E. Amann, (Paris: Letousey et Ane, 1903-1950), 12; H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of
the Church Fathers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956), I; A. H. Armstrong and R. A.
Markus, Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy (London : Darton, Longman and Todd, 1960); W. Jaeger,
Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969); H. Chadwick, Early
Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition, op. cit.. and "Christian Platonism in Origen and in
Augustine" , Heresy and Orthodoxy in the Early Church (Aldershop, Hamp.: Variorum, 199\); A. H.
Armstrong, ed ., The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1967); A. H. Armstrong, "St Augustine and Christian Platonism" (1966),
Plotinian and Christian Studies (London: Variorum, 1979); J. Danielou, Theologie du judeo -christian-
isme. Histoire des doctrines chretiennes avant Nicee (Tournai: Desclee, 196\) eng. trans.: A History of
Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicaea, 2, (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1973);
R. Williamson , Jews in the Hellenistic World: Philo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989);
D. J. O'Meara, ed., Neoplatonism and Christian Thought (Ithaca: State University of New York, 1982);
S. Lilla , Clement of Alexandria (London : Oxford University Press, 1971); H. Crouzel, Theologie de
l'image de Dieu chez Origene, (Paris: Aubier), 1956), eng. trans., Origen, (San Francisco : Harper and
Row, 1989). On the bearing of Platonism on dogmatic concerns in seventeenth century England, see my
"The Fathers and the Theology of the Cambridge Platonists", Studia Patr istica , 17, ed .. E. A.
Livingstone , (Oxford : Pergamon, 1982), pp. 427-39. S. Hutton, "The Neoplatonic Roots of Arianism:
Ralph Cudworth and Theophilus Gale", in Socinianism and its Role in the Culture of XVlth to XVlllth
Centuries (War saw & Lodz : 1983), and my "The Authority of the Fathers in the Great Trinitarian
Debates of the Sixteen Nineties", Studia Patristica, 18, pt. 4, ed. E. A. Livingstone, (Leuven: Peeters,
1990).
5 Plato , The Timaeus, trans., H. D. P. Lee, (Harrnondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 42 ; The
Republic, trans., F. M. Cornford, (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1951), p. 215; The Essential Plotinus, trans.,
E. O'Brien, (New York: New American Library, 1964), p. 80.
6 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata , The Writings of Clement of Alexandria. trans ., W. Wilson ,
(Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark, 1882),2, pp. 264, 270; cf. Plotinus, Enneads 6.8.13. See E. A. Osborn, The
Philosophy of Clement of Alexandr ia (Cambridge : University Press, 1957), ch. 2; R. Mortley, From
Word to Silence (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1986), 2, ch. 2; A. H. Armstrong, "The Escape of the One",
Studia Patristica, 13, ed., E. A. Livingstone, (Berlin: Akademie, 1975), pp. 86-7; G. C. Stead, 'The
Concept of Mind and the Concept of God in the Christian Fathers" (1982), Substance and Illusion in the
Christian Fathers (London: Variorum, 1985).
7 Robert Greville, The Nature of Truth (1640) , (London : Gregg , 1969), pp. 100, 104; cr. T. Browne,
Religio Medici, op. cit., pp. IOff; see J. Wallis, Truth Tried (London : S. Gellibrand, 1643), R. E. L.
Strider, II, Robert Greville, Lard Brooke (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), chs.
7-10. N. Culverwell, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature (1652) , eds. , R. A.
Greene and H. MacCallum, (Toronto : University of Toronto, 1971), p. 127. Peter Sterry, The
Appearance of God to Man in the Gospel, and the Gospel Change (London: 1710), p. 185; cf. V. De
Sola Pinto, Peter Sterry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), ch. 3. Thomas Jackson , A
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 73

Treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes (1628). Works (Oxford : University Press. 1844).5.
pp. 23. 8; cf. S. Hutton. "Thomas Jackson. Oxford Platonist .,; ", Journal of the History of Ideas. 39.
1978.
B T. Jackson, Works, op. cit.. 5. pp. 23ff; cf. Pico Della Mirandola, On Being and the One, in On the
Dignity of Man .. .. (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill , 1965); Aquinas . Summa Theologiae la. 13. II.
T. Jackson. The Knowledge of Christ Jesus (1634), ibid.. 7, p. 282. On this high doctrine of transcen-
dence and its problems , see. e.g.• R. Mortley, From Word to Silen ce, op. cit .; J. M. Rist, Plotinu s
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). pp. 32ff; W. J. Hankey. God in Himself (Oxford :
Oxford University Press. 1987), pp. 93-4; D. W. Dockrill and R. Mortley, eds., The Via Negat iva,
Prudentia , (Auckland), Supplementary Number, 1981.
9 Origen, Contra Celsum , trans. and ed. by H. Chadwick, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1965), p. 425. Concerning Origen' s unease. see R. Mortley, From Word to Silence, op. cit.. 2. pp. 72ff;
cf. R. Williams, Arius (London : Darton. Longman and Todd, 1987), pp. 204ff. D. Hume, Hume on
Religion. ed., R. Wollheim, (London: Fontana. 1963), pp. 131, 133. R. Cudworth, T.I.S.U.• pp. 205, 558.
but note that he also draws attention to statements which qualify such claims in the pages cited; see also
pp. 407. 583-6. For More, see The Immortality of the Soul (London: W. Morden. 1659), bk. I, ch. 4. On
the importance of Origen for the Cambridge Platonists see my "The Fathers and the Theology of the
Cambridge Platonists", Studia Patristica, 17. 1982, pp. 427-39.
10 R. Cudworth. T.I.S.U.. pp. 584,587; contrary to scripture, p. 585; cf. Henry More, The Immortality
of the Soul, op. cit.• bk. I. ch. 4. and D.D. The First Three. (London: 1. Flesher, 1668). sig. A2v-3r,
pp. 54-7; J. Smith. Select Discourses (1660), ed., H. G. Williams, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1859), pp. 130--2. 141. See also: G. C. Stead, "Divine Simplicity as a Problem for Orthodoxy".
The Making of Orthodoxy, ed.• R. Williams, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); A. H.
Armstrong, "The Escape of the One". Studia Patristica, 13. ed. E. A. Livingstone, op. cit.. pp. 83-4. On
the question whether the Cambridge Platonists were successful in constructing a non-sceptical theory of
religion. see R. H. Popkin. "The 'Incurable Scepticism' of Henry More, ... Pascal and .. . Kierkegaard",
Scepticism from the Renaissance to the Enli ght enment, eds .• R. H. Popkin and C. B. Schmitt,
(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1987). For attacks on divine command theories of good and right, see:
T. Jackson , Divine Essen ce and Attributes, pt. I, ch. 13, Works , op. cit ., 5; R. Cudworth . T.I.S.U.
pp. 204-6, 872-4, 888-90. 896-7 , and T.E.I M.; H. More, An Account of Virtue (1666). eng. trans.,
(London: B. Tooke, 1690), e. g.• pp. 81-2 ; J. Smith, Select Discourses, op. cit., pp. 154-63.
lIOn the Platonic roots of the doctrine of divine simplicity. see A. C. Lloyd in The Cambridge History
of Later Greek and Early Medie val Philosophy. ed ., A. H. Armstrong, op . cit .• p. 307 ; see also
D. Gallop's edition of Plato, Phaedo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). pp. 137-8. Aquinas' s teaching on
divine simplicity, e.g., Summa Theologiae, la . 3, is strongly echoed in doctrines of God in the first half
of the century; see P. Miller. The New England Mind (Boston: Beacon, 1968). pp. 10ff, ch. 4. The Spirit
of Nature: H. More, The Immortality of the Soul, op. cit.• bk. 3, chs, 12, 13 and An Explanation of the
Grand Mystery of Godline ss (London: W. Morden, 1660), p. 458. on the Holy Spirit and the Spirit
of Nature; Plast ic Natu re: R. Cudworth. T.I .S.U .. pp. 146-74.683-7,840-1,844-5. See also
R. D. Bedford. The Defence of Truth (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979). pp. 105-10. and
W. B. Hunter Jr., "The Seventeenth Century Doctrine of Plastic Nature", Harvard Theological Review.
1950.43. The Demiurge: see A. E. Taylor. Plato. The Man and His Work (New York: Meridian Books,
1958). p. 442. R. Cudworth. T.l.S .U.• op. cit.• p. 587.
12 T. Jackson. The Original of Unbelief (1625). ch. 41, Works. op. cit.. 4. E. Stillingfleet, Origines
Sacrae (1662). (London: H. & G. Mortlock 1709). p. 300. See also J. Norris, The Theory of the Ideal or
Intelligible World (London: S. Manship & W. Hawes. 1701-04). pI. I, pp. 262ff; R. Cudworth. T.I.S.u..
sig . *2r. **v, p. 147; for More's view s of Descartes see A. Gabbey, "Philosophia Cartesiana
Triumphata" in Problems of Cartesianism. eds.. T. M. Lennon. J. M. Nicholas. J. W. Davis, (Kingston &
Montreal : McGill & Queens Universitie s. 1982); see also A. Gabbey, A. Rupert Hall, J. Henry, in
S. Hutton. ed.• Henry More. op. cit.; Stillingfteet's early views. Origines Sacrae, op. cit.• pp. 253-60.
294-6, and later views. in the continuation, pp. 80--3. 86. 93-116. Stillingfteet's very cautious involve-
ment with Platonism is noted by W. C. de Pauley, The Candle of the Lord (London: S. P. C. K., 1937),
pp. 206ff; see Origines Sacrae, pp. 315-20. Descartes: Philosophical Writings. trans., E. Anscombe and
P. Geach, (London: Nelson, 1964), p. 94.
74 D . W . DOCKRILL

IJ H. More, M. G.• p. 223; cf. B. Whichcote, Works,op. cit. I, p. 65, 4, p. 152 & J. Worthington, The
Great Duty of Self-Resignation (London: W . Kettilby, 1689), pp. 31-2; J. Smith, Select Discourses,
op. cit., pp . I 16ff. R . Cudworth, T./.S.U., p. 767. The soul's immortality: see , e.g ., H. More, The
Immortality of the Soul (1659), op. cit.. which is available in A. Jacob's critical edition of the 1662
version, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987); R. Cudworth, ibid.. pp . 845-72; J. Smith, "On the
Immortality of the Soul" , ibid.i; E. Stillingfteet, Origines Sacrae, op. cit., bk, 3, ch. I. On opposition to
Hobbes, see S. I. Mintz, The Hunting ofLeviathan (Cambridge: University Press, 1962).
14 H. Hallywell, Deus Justijicatus (London: W. Kettilby, 1668), p. 260. P. Sterry, The Rise. Race and
Royalty of the Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man (London : T. Cockerill, 1683), p. 131. H. More, An
Antidote Against Atheism (2nd. ed., London : W. Morden, 1655), p. 62. 1. Smith, Select Discourses,
op. cit., p. 63; cf. B. Whichcote, Works, 2, p. 173. R. Greville, The Nature of Truth, op. cit., pp. 1-2 .
R. Cudworth, T./.S.U., p. 204 . H. More, E.T. (1656; 1662), p. 45, in C.S.P.W. (1662), op. cit.. I; cf. also
G. Rust, A Discourse of the Use of Reason (London: W. Kettilby, 1683), pp. 34, 60-1 (Hallywell's
comment), & J. Worthington, The Doctrine of the Resurrection (London : A. Churchill, 1690),
pp. 144-5. On enthusiasm, see my "Spiritual Knowledge and the Problem of Enthusiasm in Seventeenth
Century England", The Concept of Spirit, eds ., D. W. Dockrill and R . G. Tanner, Prudentia
Supplementary Number 1985; R. Crocker, "Mysticism and Enthusiasm in Henry More", in S. Hutton,
ed., Henry More (/6/4-/687), op. cit., and his paper in this volume.
15 [G. Rust?], A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen (1661) , (New York: Facsimile Text Society,
1933), p. 25. On the authorship of this anonymous work , traditionally ascribed to Rust, see
C. F. Mullett's comments in, "A Letter by Joseph Glanvill on the Future State", The Huntington Library
Quarterly, I , no. 4, 1938, pp. 447-50. E. Stillingfteet, Origines Sacrae, op. cit., p. 263 ; cf. p. 260 .
R. Greville, The Nature of Truth, op. cit., p. 14. H. More, Immortality of the Soul, op cit., p. 500 . Cf.
R. Cudworth, T./.S.U., sig . ***r.
16 Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. and ed ., H. Chadwick, op. cit., p. 157. H. More, M.G., p. 46 . On

Plotinus see R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (London : Duckworth, 1972), pp. 77ff; cf. A. H. Armstrong, ed.,
in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, op. cit., ch. 14, pp. 255-6;
R. J. O'Connell, St. Augustine 's Early Theory of Man (Cambridge, Mass .: Harvard University Press,
1968), pp. 152-55. Plotinus, Enneads, trans . A. H. Armstrong. (Cambridge, Mass. and London : Harvard
University Press and Heinemann, 1966-88),4, pp. 399, 413; 5, p. I I; 4, pp. 413, 415 .
17 H . More, Conjectura Cabbalistica (1662) , p. 167, in C.S.P. w.. 2. Concerning Plotinus, More writes :
"Plotinus be of another minde, and conceives that the Soul at the height is joyned with God and nothing
else, nakedly lodged in his arms" (ibid., p. 167); see also R. Cudworth, T./.S.U.. p. 784 , J. Smith, Select
Discourses.op. cit., pp. 164-5. H. More, The Immortality of the Soul, op. cit., p. 332 ; on the doctrine of
the embodied soul see Appendix II in Proc1us, The Elements of Theology, ed ., E. R. Dodds, (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1963). H. More, The M. G.. p. 56; cf., p. 34. R. Cudworth, T. F. (London: J. W. Parker,
1838), p. 65. Origen on the fall: souls were "seized with weariness of the divine love and contemplation,
and changed for the worse", (On First Principles, trans., G. W. Butterworth, [New York : Harper &
Row, 1966], p. 125). More links the soul's choice to a desire to explore the opportunities for earthly
pleasures brought about by its ability to take a terrestrial body , " the lascivient Life of the Vehicle" ,
(Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 26, ibid.).
18 The Immortality of the Soul, op. cit., pp. 332, 309,488,330. Cf. J. Smith, Select Discourses, op. cit.,
pp. 114ff, 163--4; B. Whichcote, Works, op. cit., 2, pp. 160-1, 165, 172-3, 176; R. Cudworth, T./.S.U..
p. 795 . On muddiness, see W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (New York : Norton, 1966),
p. 160. Sexual intercourse: H. More (1686) in J. Norri s, Theory and Regulation of Love (London:
S. Manship & W . Hawes, 1694), pp. 161-2; for a more positive view of conjugal relations see Mrs
Worthington's letter to her husband in The Diary and Correspondence of Dr John Worthington, ed .,
James Crossley, Vol. 2. pt. I, The Chetham Society, O. S., 26, 1855, p. 132; cf. B. Whichcote, Works,
op. cit., 2, pp. 175-6,3, p. 278,4, pp. 248-50, 252-5, 319ff, and J. Worthington, The Great Duty of Self-
Resignation, op. cit., p. 32. At death : see The Immortality of the Soul, op. cit., pp. 326ff, bk. 3, ch, 5 ,
pp. 523-4, and M. G.., bk. I, chs . 6, 7, and bk. 6, chs I-I I; cf. R. Cudworth, T./.S.U., pp. 799ff.
19 H. More, M. G. op. cit., pp. 224, 17, 16; on p. 20, More provides a paraphrase of II Corinthians
5:1-6 to bring it into line with his anthropology . Conjectura Cabbalistica, pp. 55,50, in C.S.P.W.. 2. Cf.
J. Smith, Select Discoures, op. cit., pp. 172-9,387-9,394. On the theory of scriptural interpretation in
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 75

Philo, Clement and Origen , see references to allegorism in the works of C. A. Biggs, R. Williamson,
H. A. Wolfson (ch . 2 §2), mentioned in ft. nt. 4, and R. P. C. Hanson's study of Origen, Allegory and
Event (London: SCM, 1959).
20 H. More , "The Preface General " , p. vii; on p. viii he says divine sagacity is needful if one "may
freely look about him everywhere" in the field of truth, an echo perhaps of Republic 516--c and Phaedrus
248b-c; (es.p.w., I); Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 2, ibid ., 2; The mystagogus, M. G.., pp. 459-63; cf.
"Dedication", Conjectura Cabbalistica, sig , Eer, A Modest Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity
(London: W. Morden, 1664), pp. 100-1, with reference to Origen, Contra Celsum , VI. 13, and A Brief
Discourse of the True Grounds of Faith, pp. 484--86, 489, in D.D.. The Two Last (London : 1. Flesher,
1668). Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 54, as above . Cf. 1. Smith, Select Discourses, op. cit., pp. 173-77. On
this religious tradition see the works by C. A. Biggs , R. Williamson (pp. 59-62), S.R.C. Lilla (ch. 3§2),
H. Crouzel (ch . 6), J. Danielou (chs . 19,20) and, W. Jaeger (pp . 56-7), mentioned in ft. nt. 4.
21 On More's illuminism, see R. Crocker's paper in this volume and C. A. Staudenbaur, "Galileo,
Ficino, and Henry More's Psychathanasia", Journal of the History of Ideas, 19, (1968) . J. Smith , Select
Discourses, op. cit., p. 21. J. Locke, All Early Draft of Locke's Essay, eds ., R. I. Aaron and Joycelyn
Gibb, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 125. [E. Fowler], The Principles and Practices of Certain
Moderate Divines ofthe Church of England (London: Lodonick Lloyd, 1670), p. 7.
22 T . Jackson, The Original of Unbelief, Works, op. cit ., 4, p. 84. E. Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae,
op. cit., p. 260.
23 N. Culverwell, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature, op. cit., p. 80; cf. Lady
Ann Conway's letter to More and his response, Select Letters, 6 & 7, in R. Ward, The Life of Dr Henry
More (London: Joseph Downing, 1710). [G. Rust?], A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen , op. cit .,
p. 33; cf. J. Glanvill, Lux Orientalis (London : 1662), written to supplement More and Rust(?) (sig . Bvff)
and defend providence (sig . Br), and H. Hallywell's letter to More, 17 March, 1672: "I have alwayes
looked upon the Doctrine of Preexistence not only as very exact and concinnous in it selfe, but hugely
agreeable with the Phenomena of Providence in ye World ." (Ms 21, Christ's College Library,
Cambridge); see also Hallywell's A Private Letter of Satisfa ction to a Friend (n . p., 1667), pp. 2ff where
the doctrine is to be inferred. Whether or not Rust is the author of A Letter ... Concerning Origen, he
would seem to be knowledgeable, as might be expected, about the details of the views More was spon-
soring: see C. F. Mullett, "A Letter by Joseph Glanvill on the Future State", The Huntington Library
Quarterly, I, no. 4, 1938. H. More, M. G., op. cit ., p. 22.
24 Biblical texts: In . 3: 13, Phil. 2 :6-8. Patristic precedents for the pre-existence of the soul, see
H. More , "Preface General", pp. xx-xxv, es.p.w.. I; note E. Warren's comments, No Praeexistence
(London : Samuel Thomson, 1667) , ch . 8. R. Cudworth, T.l.S .U. , p. 798, more strongly expressed
pp. 43-4. Stillingfleet's view (Origines Sacrae, op. cit., pp. 315-17) is that the value of the Platonic tra-
dition was much improved by the teaching of Ammonius Saccas of Alexandria (c. 175-242 AD) as ex-
pressed in his pupils because he knew the scriptures as well as Platonism. Stillingfleet, ibid.. pp. 319,
318-19, cf. p. 260 . See S . Hutton , "Edward Stillingfleet, Henry More, and the Decline of Moses
Atticus", Philosophy, Science and Religion in England 1640-1700, eds., R. Kroll, R. Ashcraft,
P. Zagorin, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 1992). T. Gale, The Court of the Gentiles, Pt. 2
(2nd ed ., London : Thomas Gilbert , 1676), p. 273; like Stillingfleet, Gale (pp. 262-4), gives Ammonius
Saccas a central place in improving the Platonic tradition . On Gale, see S. Hutton reference in ft. nt. 4,
and G. A. J . Rogers (pp. 278-9) in ft. nt. 3, and E . N. Tigerstedt, "The Decline and Fall of the
Neoplatonic Interpretation of Plato", Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, 52,1974, pp. 45-7.
2~ For reasons of length, it has not been possible to consider the views of seventeenth century
Platonists on the will, the problem of evil, and soteriology. On the will , see my " Spiritual Knowledge
and the Problem of Enthusiasm", The Concept of Spirit, eds ., D. W . Dockrill and R. G. Tanner,
Prudentia, Supplementary Number 1985, p. 151; on soteriology, "'No Other Name' : The Problem of the
Salvation of Pagans in Mid-Seventeenth Century Cambridge", The Idea of Salvation, eds ., D. W.
Dockrill and R. G. Tanner, Prudentia, Supplementary Number, 1988.
26 For Origen 's lack of interest in the doctrine of anamnesis, see H. Chadwick, Early Christian
Thought and the Classical Tradition, op , cit ., p. 115 , and "Christian Platonism in Origen and
Augustine", p. 222 , Heresy and Orthodoxy in the Early Church, op. cit.; cf. H. Crouzel, Origen , eng .
trans. , (San Francisco : Harper and Row , 1989), ch. 6. On the Forms and divine ideas, see
76 D. W. DOCKRILL

A. H. Armstrong and R. A. Markus, Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy , op. cit., chs . 1-3 (A .H.A .).
Edward Herbert, De Veritate [1625] trans. M. H. Carre , (Bristol : Bristol University Press, 1937), chs . 5,
9. T . Jackson, The Original of Unbelief Works, op. cit., 4, p. 86. J. Smith, Select Discourses, op. cit.,
p. 171. On the doctrine of innate knowledge in this period, see J. W. Yelton , John Locke and the Way of
Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), ch. 2.
27 H. More , es.p.W.. "The Preface General", p. v, in vol. 1, Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 3, in vol. 2;
cf. A Modest Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity, op. cit., p. 97. (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata ,
op. cit ., 2, p. 277 ; Origen, Genesis Homily I, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus , trans ., R. E. Heine
(Washington D.C.: Catholic Institute of America, 1982), p. 65). E. Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, op. cit.,
p. 2, but note p. 233 . R. Cudworth, True Intellectual System, op. cit., p. 861; see pp. 730-8, and T.E.I.M. ,
op. cit ., pp. 134-5.
28 N. Culverwell, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature , op. cit., p. 82. T. Jackson,
Works , op. cit., 4, pp. 98-9. H. More, An Antidote Against Atheism , p. 17, in C.S.P. W. I. For Plato's
peremptory rejection of innate knowledge and the inadequacy of his argument, see D. Bostock, Plato's
Phaedo, p. 61, and Plato , Phaedo , ed., D. Gallop, op. cit., p. 134. H. More, ibid. See also on innate
knowledge: T . Jackson , The Original of Unbelief Works, op. cit., 4, chs . 12-15; E. Stillingfleet,
Origine s Sacrae, op. cit., pp. 1-6,231-6; R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., e. g, pp. 128-9, 214ff. , 286-9.
29 H. More , ibid., p. 149; The Immortality ofthe Soul , op. cit., p. 255 .
:10 T . Jackson, The Original of Unbelief Works, op. cit., pp. 86, 84. E. Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae ,
op. cit., pp. 1-6. Note Sir Thomas Browne's remark : "Some Divines count Adam thirty years old at his
Creation, because they suppose him created in the perfect age and stature of man." (Religio Medici,
op. cit., p. 44) .
31 Augustine, City of God, 8. 7, op. cit., p. 309 ; cf. E. Gilson, Introduction a l'etude de saint Augustin,
(Paris : Vrin 1969) eng. trans ., The Christian Philosophy of St Augustine, (London: Gollancz, 1961),
ch. 5 #2, and R. J. O'Connell, St Augustine 's Early Theory of Man, op. cit., pp. 154-5, 166-8. Greville:
R. Greville, The Nature of Truth, op. cit., pp. 45-6; Greville goes on to say, "And therefore I wholly
subscribe to the Platoni sts, who make all scientia nothing but reminiscentia", but as J. Wallis points out
(Truth Tried, op. cit., pp. 45-6) Greville's claims are not consistent with such a view, for he seems to
treat reminiscence and acts of recollection as ways in which the acqui sition of knowledge appears to us
for "these are but a Phaenomenon" (Greville, ibid., p. 46). Norris and More: see the Norris-More letters
in J. Norris, The Theory and Regulat ion of Love, op. cit.. esp . pp. 121-2; Norris, Reason and Religion
(London: S. Manship, 1689), pp . 14; cf. F. J. Powicke, A Dissertation of John Norri s of Bemerton
(London: Philip, 1894), ch. 6. For Norris's opposition to innate knowledge, see his Cursory Reflections
Upon a Book call'd "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding " , (London: S. Man ship , 1713) ,
pp.15-16.
32 J. Norri s, ibid., pp. 82 ;185;187 ; An Essay Towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World,op.
cit.. Pt. 2, pp. 551, 552, 551. In Pt. 2, ch. 13, Norris provides a list of Augustine's statements on epi ste-
mology . On Norris's use of St Augustine see F. J. Powicke, ibid., pp. 104ff; for Augustine's influence on
the French thinkers who influenced Norris , see H. Gouhier, Cartesianisme et Augustinisme au XVlle
Siecle (Paris 1978) . On Norris, see C. J. McCracken, Malebran che and British Philosoph y (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1983), and Stuart Brown's chapter XIV in this volume.
33 On the reception of Malebranche's philosophy in Britain and Norris's works see C. J. McCracken,
ibid.. pp . 3ff. J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed . P. H. Nidditch , (Oxford :
Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 542; cf. E. Stilling fleet, The Bishop of Worcester 's Answer to Mr Locke's
Letter (London: H. Mortlock, 1697), pp. 47ff, esp. pp. 54-5. Concerning the controversy whether matter
might think , see J. Yolton, Thinking Matter (Oxford : Blackwell, 1984).
:l4 G . W . Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain, (Paris, G.F. , 1966) eng. trans .,

P. Remnant and J. Bennett: New Essays on Human Understanding, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press , 1982), Preface, 44, 47. R. Cudworth, T.I.S.U.. p. 584 .
35 G. Berkeley, Philosophical Commentaries , Notebook A, 682,715, The Works of George Berkeley,
eds . A. A. Luce & T. E. Jessop, (London: Nelson, 1948-57), I, p. 83, 87; Alciphron (1732), Works, 3,
p. 159, cf, Principle s of Human Knowledge , #148 , Works, 2, pp. 108-9; Three Dialogues, Works, 2,
p. 212 . Cf. A. A. Luce, Berkeley and Malebran che (1934) (Oxford: Clarendon Press , 1967) ; C. J.
McCracken, Malebran che and British Philosophy, op. cit; ch . 6.
 THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM 77

36 R. Cudworth, T./.S.U., pp. 146-7. G. Berkeley, Philosoph ical Commentaries. Notebook A, 485, 695,
Works, op. cit., I. pp. 61, 85. Providentially minded views: see, e.g., E. Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae ,
op. cit.. pp. 253-60, 294-6, (1697) continuation, pp. 80-3 , 86, 93-116. Note A. A. Luce, ibid., pp. 82-3 ,
IlIff.
37 Berkeley, letter to Sir John James, Works,op. cit., 7, pp. 143, 144; admiration of Plato, see letter to
Sir John Percival, Dec. 27, 1709, ibid.. 8, pp. 28-9. Siris, ibid.. 5, #266, p. 125; #352-3, pp. 158-9;
#266, p. 125; #363, pp. 162-3 . On the disputed question whether Berkeley was right to link his philo-
sophical views with the Platonic tradition, see: M. Burnyeat, "Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What
Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed", Philosoph ical Review, 91, 1982; R. Sorabji, "Gregory of Nyssa:
The Origins of Ideali sm" , Time, Creation & the Continuum (London : Duckworth, 1983); H. M.
Bracken, "Realism and Greek Philosophy: What Berkeley Saw and Burnyeat Missed", George Berkeley,
ed., D. Berman, (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1986). Berkeley seems to have been unaware of the
family resemblance between his idealism and that suggested by St Gregory Nyssa; see Sorabji, ibid., for
texts and discussion, and the comments by W. Moore, Select Writings and Letters of Gregory, Bishop of
Nyssa , Nicene and Post-Ni cene Fathers , 5, [1892; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1971), pp. 18-19.
On the differences between Berkeley and the Cambridge Platonists, see J. Wild, George Berk eley,
(1936; New York: Russell and Russell, 1962), pp. 71-7 . For positive views of the relation between Siris
and Berkeley' s early philosophy, see A. A. Luce, "The Unity of Berkeley's Philosophy", Mind, N. S.,
46, 1937, especially PI. 2, and P. S. Wenz, "Berkeley' s Christian Neo-Platonism", Journal of the History
of Ideas, 37, 1976.
3M Berkeley, "the wisest heathen": "Discourse to Magistrates" (1738), Works, op. cit., 6, p. 210. Siris ,
#332 , Works ,5,p. 151 ;cf.#33I ,pp.150-1.
 1. LAGREE

JOHN SMITH ET LE PORTIQUE

On sait peu de choses sur John Smith (1618-1652) dont la vie semble avoir ete un
modele de conscience professorale et de vertu toute simple. Ne de parents ages, il
entra en 1636 a Emmanuel College, fondation puritaine, OU it obtint Ie MA en
1644. Transfere a Queens' College en 1645, il eut pour maitre et tuteur Benjamin
Whichcote qui ne se contenta pas de diriger ses travaux mais l' aida financierement.
Devenu a son tour enseignant, il y acquit la reputation d'un homme droit, au grand
cceur, modeste, mais veritable "bibliotheque vivante ou ambulante".' II enseigna les
mathematiques, les langues semitiques- et la theologie: c'est a lui qu'on doit I'in-
troduction de l'enseignement de la philo sophie de Descartes a Cambridge. Ses bio-
graphes soulignent qu'Il n'y avait rien en lui "de reveche ni de storcien"." II
appartient a la premiere generation de ces theologiens philosophes connus desor-
mais sous le terme generique de Platoniciens de Cambridge." Ses ecrits (une
dizaine de sermons plutot que de traites) furent publies apres sa mort, aLondres, en
1660 par les soins de Samuel Cradock sous Ie titre de Select Discourses?
Moins connu que More ou Cudworth, Smith est pourtant typique de la com-
plexite de I' attitude de ces theologiens face aux diverses eccles antiques: leur but
premier n'etait pas d'instruire ou de construire un systeme de philosophie pre-
miere, mais d'edifier les ames et de mettre au service d'une religion revelee, a
titre de propedeutique, toutes les ressources de la philosophie antique: "It was
the first elaborate attempt to wed Christianity and philosophy made by any
Protestant school : and it may be said to have been the first true attempt of the
kind since the days of the great Alexandrine teachers't.s Cet amour pour la
philosophie antique, essentiellement neoplatonicienne, etait encore renforce par
une genealogie fantaisiste faisant de Platon, Plotin et Hermes Trismegiste les
trois saints patrons de la pia philosophic.' La volonte apologetique de souligner
l'accord entre cette prisca theologia qu'est censee etre la philosophie platonici-
enne et neoplatonicienne et Ie christianisme, s' accompagne tres souvent, depuis
Clement d' Alexandrie, forme a l'ecole du Portique, d'une reprise d'un vocabu-
laire et partiellement d'une thematique stoicienne. Ceci peut paraitre etrange car
les stoiciens n'ont jamais, a la difference de Platon, "Moise atticisant'", ete
enroles dans la genealogie des successeurs de Moise. Toutefois le courant de la
prisca theologia developpe un concordisme large dont le modele theorique a ete
formule par Agostino Steuco.?
La meme attitude syncretique large se retrouve dans les premieres dissertations
du Manuel de Philosophie Stotcienne (Manuductio Stoicorum) de Lipse qui
dressent une genealogie de la sagesse qui s'origine en Adam, de la passe aux poetes
(Orphee, Musee) et aux mages d'Egypte, puis a Moise, aux presocratiques et enfin
a Platon.!? Cette volonte integrative a cependant ses limites : le rejet de

79
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 79-92.
© 1997 Kluwer Academ ic Publishers .
80 J . LAGREE

I'autosuffisance du sage et sa strategic: un anti-aristotelisme evident qui conduit au

rejet de I'empirisme. Aristote est accuse d'avoir "defigure les monuments sacres de
I'ancienne theologie metaphysique de ses mains profanes" dans sa doctrine
ambigiie de l'immortalite de l'ame.!' Enfin, le deplacement de la philosophie vers
un art de vivre bien ou honnetement explique aussi l'interet specifique porte au
stoicisme moral de la periode imperiale .F

LES EMPRUNTS STOICIENS

J) Les Concepts

Les neoplatoniciens antiques avaient deja reutilise a I'occasion un vocabulaire St01-

cien'" et le neo-stoicisme de l'age classique'" multiplia les passerelles entre St01-
cisme et neoplatonisme. Il ne faut done pas s'etonner de retrouver chez la plupart
des neoplatoniciens de Cambridge la presence massive d'un vocabulaire typique-
ment storcien. comme I'hegemonique ou la notion commune; mais il faut
soigneusement distinguer entre la simple reprise d'un vocabulaire precis et de sens
recu et I'adoption de concepts ou de theses propres au Portique, c'est-a-dire
logiquement enchaines avec d'autres concepts ou theses du systeme. La repetition
de formules telles que "that I may speak in the language of the Stoicks" ou "that I
may phrase in the language of the Stoick'"" montre a l'evidence qu'il s'agit, pour
Smith, essentiellement d'emprunts de vocabulaire, la philosophie proprement St01-
cienne etant recusee tant pour son materialisme que pour son orgueil. Cependant,
cette reprise linguistique n' est pas totalement neutre: elle manifeste l' accord
general des meilleurs philosophes du passe en un temps ou la theologie n'etait point
si developpee, faute d'accomplissement de la revelat ion in Christo , et done des
meilleures teres philosophiques tout court; elle a aussi une fonction strategique de
mise a l'ecart de deux philosophies proscrites: l'epicurisme reduit a une apologie
des plai sirs corporels et l'aristotelisme scolastique considere comme une ecole
d'arguties et de disputes verbales .!" Les Stoiciens sont finalement plus proches des
platoniciens, notamment parce qu'ils sont Ius dans la presentation lipsienne de
Seneque et de Ciceron. Defendant d'autres theses que les platoniciens, ils te-
moignent aussi de l'universalite de la pensee religieuse rationnelle preliminaire a
I'intelligence et a la reception de la revelation.
Le premier des discours de Smith reunis par John Worthington Of the true way
and method of attaining to divine knowledge, developpe une epistemologie rudi-
mentaire qui institue le discours rationnel, celui de la theologie naturelle et de la re-
ligion universelle, en propedeutique a la revelation. Il temoigne d'un eloge de la
raison droite commun a toute I'Ecole.

Reason in man being Lumen de Lumine, a Light flowing from the Fountain and Father of Lights, and
being as Tully phraseth it, participata similitudo Rationis aeternae (as the Law of Nature, the VOIL0C;
'YplX'lfTOC;, the Law written in mans Heart, is participatio Legis aeternae in rationali creaturai it was to
enable Man to work out of himself all those Notions of God which are the true Ground-work of Love
and Obedience to God and conformity to him.'?
 JOHN SMITH ET LE PORTIQUE 81

Tout art, toute science, ecrit Smith, repose sur des principes; mais cette formule,
d'origine aristotelicienne, est immediatement inflechie en un sens et un vocabulaire
stoiciens, celui des prenotions (1TpOx.€I/JEL<;), 18 ou selon la traduction ciceronienne,
des praecognita. La prenotion designe chez les stoiciens une notion formee a partir
de l'experience avant l'age de sept ans,'? de facon identique chez tous les hommes,
ce qui fonde sa valeur de critere. 20 Si la formation des prenotions ou notions com-
munes se fait a partir de l'experience, c'est-a-dire de la memoire et de l'analogie
(Ka'T '&vaAo'YtaV ou collatio rauonis't), leur universalite et leur role de critere et
fondement du savoir les font parfois qualifier d'innees.F
C'etait une tradition, chez les platoniciens de Cambridge.P de rapprocher les
koinai ennoiai des idees platoniciennes." Smith associe ainsi des schemes platoni-
ciens (Ies idees separees), cartesiens (l'ame plus aisee a connaitre que Ie corps) et
stoiciens (Ies prenotions) en renvoyant aux "idees archetypes de justice, sagesse,
bonte , verite, eremite, omnipotence et a toutes ces notions morales, physiques ou
metaphysiques qu i sont les premiers principes de la science ou son complement
ultime et sa perfection finale".25 Mais iI ne fait la que reprendre une conception de
Lipse." Ce syncretisme entre platonisme et stoicisme est d'ailleurs une vieille tra-
dition: sans compter les debars du Portique avec I' Academic ancienne et nouvelle,
les efforts d'Origene pour integrer Ie stoicisme au neoplatonisme pour preparer Ie
chemin philosophique au christianisme, on peut evoquer Ie De perenni philosophia
de Steuco.'?
Le recours aux notions communes anterieures a I'apprentissage scolaire, permet
aussi des developpements sur Ie rejet d'une connaissance livresque au profit de la
connaissance de la vie bonne, gravee par Dieu dans Ie creur de l'homme:

Were I indeed to define Divinity, I should rather call it a divine Life than a divine Science ; it being
something rather to be understood by a spiritual sensation than by any verbal description as all things of
Sense and Life are best known by Sentient and Vital faculties ... and therefore the Scripture is wont to
set forth a Good Life as the prolepsis and Fundament al principle of divine Science ."

Ces notions communes so nt parfois obscurcies, masquees par la teinture des

desirs immondes, endormies lorsque l'ame est trop pleine du COrpS,29 mais elles de-
meurent actives: "Arianus [Epictete] hath well observed that the common notions
of God and Virtue imprest upon the Souls of men, are more clear and perspicuous
than any else; and that if they have no more certainty, yet have they more evi-
dence".3o Les prenotions portent essentiellement sur l'ethique.'! mais aussi sur des
verites metaphysiques telle s que I'existence de Dieu, l'immortalite de l'ame32 ou
encore I'existence merne de la verite.33 Ces notions font I'objet d'un consentement
universel (consensus gentium) : "This Consensus gentium Tully thinks enough to
conclude a Law and Maxim of nature"." Mais on ne saurait lui accorder une
con fiance totale puisque, parfois, erreur et superstition peuvent invoquer cet
argument."
Le terme d' hegemonique "the hegemonicalI powers of the soul",36 est repris pour
designer la partie superieure, intellective, de l'ame mais designe plutot Ie nous que
I'hegemonique puisqu 'il n'y a rien sur la theorie stoicienne de l'ame (Ies huit
82 J. LAGREE

parties dont l'hegemonique est Ie centre). Cela s'accompagne de la refutation de la

conception materialiste epicurienne, de l'arne et de la demonstration de son im-
materialite ou de sa spiritualite 11 partir de sa capacite reflexive.
Les sensations sont definies comme affections dera isonnables, Ct'A.o-yCJ. 1Tae,.,,37 a
l'exemple de la vue qui continue 11 percevoir Ie soleil plus petit que la terre alors
que la demonstration mathematique a preuve que l'inverse est Ie vrai . Toutefois la
critique plotinienne de la theorie de la sensation comme empreinte dans l'ame38
montre bien qu'ici encore il s'agit d'une reprise terminologique plus que concep-
tuelle. Le vocable d'oPJ.LTt (hormey; tendance naturelle ou inclination spontanement
con forme a la nature.l? est reactualise, sans la theorie naturaliste sous-jacente qui la
justifie, pour designer la tendance qui pousse l'homme vers Dieir'? ou les inclina-
tions premieres conformes 11 la nature ." L 'cX1TOKCJ.TaUTCJ.tJ"L<; (apokatastasis) , Ie
retour etemel ou la restauration universelIe, reapparait en un sens inattendu pour
evoquer non la restauration 11 l'identique mais la redemption: "Thus we see how
true religion carries up the souls above the black regions of Hell and death. This
indeed is the great a1TOKCJ.TaUTCJ.UL<; of Souls, it is religion itself or a reall participa-
tion of God and his holiness which is their true restitution and advancement't.v
Quant 11 la distinction entre ce qu i depend de nous et ce qui n'en depend pas,
Ta e<p'ilJ.LLV, TCJ. J.LTt e<p'ilJ.LLV, ce n'est que la simple reprise d 'une distinction con-
ceptuelle commode et generalement recue qui peut etre appliquee a d'autres
champs que son champ d'origine: "it is to be feared that our nice speculations about
TCJ. e<p'ilJ.LLV in theology have tended more to exercise mens Wits than to reform
their lives".43 Elle peut aussi designer la liberte du vouloir qui est Ie propre de
l'esprit."

2) Les Theses sur La religion

Toute l'Ecole de Cambridge assimile Ie rationnel et Ie religieux. La raison, loin

d'etre etrangere a la religion, en est la precondition. II existe en effet une notion
commune de l'existence d 'une divinite ou une tendance naturelle qui nous porte
vers Dieu:

There is a natural sense of God that lodges in the minds of the lowest and dullest sort of vulgar men,
which is alwaies roving after him, catching at him, though it cannot lay any sure hold on him; which
works like a natural instinct antecedent to any mature knowledge as being indeed the first principle of it:
and if I were to speak precisely in the mode of the Stoicks, I would rather call it bplJoiiv 1TPO~ -rov e"ov
[une tendance vers Dieu] then, with Plutarch, e"ou VO"ULV [une connaissance de Dieul .45

Mais cette tendance peut etre pervertie par une fausse opinion qui represente la
divinite comme effrayante. Plus exactement, c'est la conjonction d'une conscience
de culpabilite et de la notion commune de la divinite'" qui engendre la superstition
(8eLuL8CJ.LJ.LOVLa.): la peur des demons et ce melange de crainte et de flatterie qui a
donne naissance 11 tant de maux : tantum religio potuit suadere malorumttl II
semble que Smith suive ici d'assez pres Ie petit traite de Plutarque De La supersti-
tion, dans lequel Plutarque distinguait entre une opinion fausse sans passion,
 JOHN SMITH ET LE PORTIQUE 83

comme l'atheisme," et cette meme opinion fausse accompagnee d'une passion (1a
crainte): la superstition est une opinion vive et forte qui trouble I'imagination et
imprime dans l'ame une frayeur accablante. Elle croit qu'il existe des dieux mais
elle se les represente comme des etres malfaisants et nuisibles. Tout pieux qu'il fUt,
Plutarque tracait la un portrait tres noir du superstitieux, homme dangereux pour
lui-meme et pour autrui, vivant perpetuellement dans ses songes et sans partager de
monde commun avec les autres hommes, puisqu'il a renonce a la raison. "Le super-
stitieux est bien plus impie que l'athee" car, comme Ie remarque Plutarque en se
mettant a la place des dieux, "pour moi, j'aimerais beaucoup mieux qu'on dit:
'Plutarque n'existe point' que d'entendre dire: 'Plutarque est un homme faible, in-
constant, chagrin, vindicatif, facile a s'irriter' v.'? Si l'atheisme n'engendrejamais la
superstition, celle-ci en revanche, fait le lit de l'atheisme et "il eut mieux valu pour
les Gaulois et les Scythes de n'avoir jamais connu des dieux que de croire qu'ils
aimaient a se repaitre du sang des hommes et de regarder les victimes humaines
comme Ie sacrifice Ie plus parfait qu'ils pussent leur offrir".5o Smith cite longue-
ment ces passages avec approbation>' ainsi que les textes correspondants de
Ciceron du De Deorum natura. La croyance en Dieu procure esperance et tran-
quillite : "What the stoick said in his cool and mature thoughts? aUK eun ~'ijv €v TiJ>
KOUf.l-41 KEV41 8EWV Ka't KEV<\> 'TTPOVOLa-;, it is not worth the while to live in a world
empty of God and Providence, is the sense of all those that know what a Deity
means".52

LA RELIGION COMME ACCOMPLISSEMENT DE LA RAISON

Les trois fondements de la religion , I'existence de Dieu, l'Imrnortalite de l'ame

et les recompenses et punitions post mortemv font I'objet de notions communes,
verites de premiere ou naturelle inscription.>' et sont ainsi connus anterieure-
ment a toute revelation. lIs font done I'objet de la religion naturelle (ici appelee
Religion of Nature), ou de la religion qui ne repose que sur la raison. Smith,
avec toute I'Ecole de Cambridge, admet une certaine perfection et efficacite de
la religion naturelle pour produire I'amour de Dieu et l'obeissance ainsi que la
conformite de I'homme interieur a la nature de Dieu/" D'ou cet eloge de la
raison'" comme ce qui rend I'homme capable de religion et ce que la religion
renforce et elargit:

But the motions of a good man are methodical, regular and concentrical to reason. It's a fond imagina-
tion that religion should estinguish reason, whenas religion makes it more illustrious and vigorous ; and
they that live most in the exercise of religion shall find their reason most enlarged. I might adde that
reason in relation to the capaciting of Man for converse with God was thought by some to be the formal
difference of man .t?

La raison n' a pas ete pervertie par Ie peche mais elle risque plutot, en termes pla-
toniciens, la perte de ses ailes par enfouissement dans Ie corporel. II n'est pas
d'acces a l'ethique sans la prise de conscience que I'homme est un compose d'ame
et de corps et sans volonte de vivre KaT<X AO'Yov.58 Suivre la raison, c'est suivre
84 J . LAGREE

Dieu selon une fonnule pythagoricienne reprise par Seneque et Lipse.t? Le danger
dans lequel tombent les Stoiciens, c'est, toutefois, de ramener Dieu it la mesure de
la raison humaine.
L'acces Ie plus irnmediat it la connaissance de Dieu n'est cependant pas la con-
naissance de la nature ou de son ordre mais Ie retour en soi, car l'ame reflechit
mieux Dieu que ne Ie fait Ie monde; cette position est plotinienne et non pas stoici-
enne. On a lit Ie modele d'une connaissance intuitive qui saisit l'objet d'un seul
coup et non discursivement par Ie raisonnement.w L'accent est done mis sur la
piete plutot que sur les croyances:

He (Jesus-Christ) would not lay it out to us in any canons or articles of belief not being indeed so careful
to stock and enrich the World with Opinions and Notions as with true Piety and a Godlike pattern of
purity as the best way to thrive in all spiritual understanding. His main scope was to promote an Holy
life, as the best and most compendious way to a right Belief.s'

Les platoniciens, ecrit Smith,62 ont nomme Dieu triplement: l'un, l'etre, Ie bien.
lIs ont tranche justement la question de la denomination preeminente en repondant:
Ie Bien . D'une maniere generale, il importe de souligner que toute la demarche de
la theologie naturelle de Smith - et c 'est lit que se marque la difference irre-
ductible avec Ie stotcisme -consiste it s' efforcer de deduire les caracteres de Dieu
it partir de cette unique idee du Bien et non pas de celIe de toute puissance (comme
les puritains) ou de sagesse (comme Ie Portique).
Smith retrouve enfin quelques autres theses philosophico-religieuses develop-
pees, mais non exclusivement, par Ie Portique. Mais lors meme qu'il adopte un vo-
cabulaire stoicien, lelahoration qu'il en donne s'eloigne irreductiblernent de
l'Interpretation physicaliste propre it cette ecole antique. L'immortalite de l'iime
fait bien l'objet d'une notion commune mais elle s'exprime mieux selon les voies
platoniciennes . La volonte est qualifiee de libre ou plutot dindependante.
OOrrE~OlJ(TI.OV,63 mais seule la religion , et non pas la philosophie, l'etablit dans cette
independance en la restaurant dans son integrite premiere.

' Tis only Religion that restores that airrE~OlJO'iov which the stoical philosophy so impotently pretended
to; it is this only that enthrones man 's deposed Reason and establisheth within him ajust empire over all
those blind powers ans passions which so impetuou sly rend a man from the possession and enjoiment of
hirnself.P'

La liberte comme OOrrOKI.V'll(TLC; (se mouvant soi-merne), designe la force et la

puissance d'exciter des pensees et des mouvements en l'ame. Si l'ame, et done
sa liberte, n'est pas cause premiere absolue, au moins appartient-elle aux pre-
mieres causes et elle co-agit avec les causes premieres du tout. 65 Pour la meme
raison, les perturbations de l'ame sont d'origine interne.s" L 'affirmation de la
Providence sans laquelle il ne vaudrait pas la peine de vivre, passe d'abord par
Ie rejet de la fatalite astrale, comme dans Ie neostoicisme ou chez Herbert de
Cherbury:
 JOHN SMITH ET LE PORTIQUE 85

the Platoni sts and Stoicks thought the Soul of man to be absolutely freed from all the power of Astral
necessity and uncontrolable impressions arising from the subordination and mutual sympathie and de-
pendance of all mundane causes which is their proper notion of Fate .67

Dieu est defini comme la vie omnipresente qui penetre toute chose et la regle :

He is that omnipresent life that penetrates and runs through all things containing and holding all fast to-
gether with in himself and therefore the ancient philosoph y was wont rather to say that the world was in
God then that God was in the world. 68

On pourrait donner de cette affirmation une explicitation stoicienne en termes de

tonos et de qualite hectique, d'omnipresence de la raison divine, mais precisement
Ie vocabulaire de Smith est ici plus proche de I'emanatisme plotinien que du
materialisme stoicien,

being centrally in every part of it [world] he [God] governs it according to the prescript of his own un-
searchable wisedome and orders all things for the best. And this is one principall orthodox point the
Stoicks would have us to believe concerning Providence OTL 1T<lVTOt \rno apmovv(){j' ')'l.VETOtL, that all
thing s are here done in this world by the appointment of the best Mind /?

UNE CONCEPTION QUASI IMMANENTISME DES RECOMPENSES ET DES

CHA,TIMENTS

Smith n'est pas un fervent promoteur des peurs de l'enfer, bien au contraire; il
insiste Ionguement sur l'idee que la recompense promise aux bons , c'est la jouis-
sance continue du bien supreme ou fruition of Godl" et que la peine promise aux
mechants, c'est la separation eternelle du Souverain Bien." On peut done, sur ce
point, rapprocher ses hypotheses eschatologiques avec le theme stoicien de la vertu
qui est sa propre recompense." L'accent est toutefois mis davantage ici sur la di-
vinisation, participation it la vie divine par ressemblance croissante it la divinitc due
a la moralisation.
Contre Ie contractualisme de Hobbes, Smith , avec toute son ecole, affirme l'exis-
tence d'une loi naturellel? commune it Dieu et aux hommes. "There is such an
Entercourse and Society as it were between God and Men, therefore there is also
some Law between them which is the bond of all communion't.?" On doit songer ici
it une reference au De legibus de Ciceron ." Dieu n' est ni sans loi ni au-dessus de la
loi; la loi de son gouvernement du monde n' est pas arbitraire;" elle est constituee
des decrets de la raison et de la bonte,

And so we corne to consid er that Law embosom ' d in the Souls of men which ties them again to their
creatour and this is called the Law of Nature which indeed is nothing else but a paraphrase or comment
upon the nature of God as it copies forth it self in the soul of man."

On remarquera ici, une fois encore, Ie melange de vocabulaire stoicien (Ia loi
inscrite ou gravee dans I'ame) et platonicien (la copie). Conformement it la
86 J . LAGREE

conception stoicienne du droit naturel, les lois positives (y compris les prescriptions
rituelles des religions) doivent etre subordonnees ala loi naturelle universelle.

ATTITUDES

Les attitudes reprises au comportement ou a l'education morale des stoiciens, en

particulier a l'epoque imperiale, affleurent souvent, notamment l 'exercice spirituel:
II y a une valeur ethique propre a la connaissance reflexive de soi, laquelle, inscrite
dans tout processus de connaissance, merite aussi d'etre cultivee pour elle-meme.
On trouve merne chez Smith l'ebauche d'une phenomenologie de la conscience
intime de soi : e<TTL Kal. tJroxifc; a'L<Te1l<TLC; Tl.C; (i1 existe aussi une perception de
l'ame)." L'experience du moi , Ie retour en soi-meme, sont d'emblee decrits comme
Ie seul acces possible au transcendant, car l'experience authentique de soi est en
meme temps experience de la presence du divin en soi, done experience du trans-
cendant immanent al'arne.

LA CRITIQUE DU STOYCISME

Cette reprise, essentiellement terminologique, de references stoiciennes ne saurait

occulter la demarcation nette entre la philosophie de reference de Smith, comme
des autres membres de lecole de Cambridge, et un horizon philosophique
d'appoint. La demonstration que nous tentons ici rejoint d'ailleurs sur bien des
points I'analyse plus fouillee menee par J.-L. Breteau dans son travail sur
Cudworth. Reste done maintenant a preciser sur quels points precis du systeme du
Portique (themes et argumentations justificatives) se fait la demarcation decisive,
celle qui pose la borne a partir de laquelle on passe d'un horizon theorique parta-
geable et confirmateur a un reseau argumentatif inacceptable et percu comme
dangereux .
Reprenant une methode de classification appliquee par Epictete et Simplicius au
rapport des hommes a Dieu, Smith determine a son tour quatre categories 79 :
a/ Ceux en qui Ie corps et l'ame sont arithmetiquement proportionnes'" vivent selon
I'opinion et I'imagination; leur plus haute raison est o~o8o~oc; T'ij a 'L<Te1l<TE<TL (de
meme opinion que les sens). bl Ceux en qui la raison commande et Ie corps obeit,
aVepW1TOL KaTa TijV AO"YI.KllV ~W'T1V oU<TLW~EVOL, ont des notions communes
claires et peuvent acceder aux vertus ethiques et politiques sans etre encore aptes
aux vertus divines. cl Ceux en qui l'ame est purgee des passions et qui, de ce fait,
sombrent dans I' arrogance, la surestime de soi, correspondent aux stoiciens : "like
the supercilious stoick who, when he thought his Minde well arm' d and appointed
with wisdome and Vertue, cry'd out sapiens contendet cum ipso Jove de
felicitater" dl L'cxvepw1Toc; eEWpllTLKOc;, I'homme veritablement contemplatif et
metaphysique, decentre de soi pour se centrer en Dieu , participe seul de la sagesse
divine et correspond au vrai chretien,
On voit done que, dans cette typologie, Ie stoicien occupe une place relativement
elevee,82 mais on lui reproche son orgueil, son manque d'humilite, sa raideur.
 JOHN SMITH ET LE PORTIQUE 87

L'a&r<xpKELa et 1'(:iTapa~La83 sont les marques typiques de cet orgueil du stoicien

qui pretend que sa felicite ne provient que de lui-meme:

I cannot think ... the most quintessential Stoicks find an OOn-apKELa and eXTaparLa, a Self-sufficiency
and Tranquillity within their own souls arising out of the pregnancy of their own mind and reason,
though their sullen thoughts would not suffer them to be beholden to an Higher Being for their happi-
ness . The more we endeavour to extract an Autarchy out of our own souls , the more we torment them
and force them to feel and sensate their own pinching poverty.t'

Les Stoiciens ont bien vu que les perturbations de I' arne ('1rcHJl1) ont toujours une
cause interne'" mais ils se sont trompes sur les conditions de maitrise de soi et
d'acces a la tranquillite de I'ame, en croyant pouvoir ne compter que sur leurs
propres forces. Ce faisant, ils se rendent coupables de la faute supreme qui est de se
pretendre I' egal de Dieu, selon la formule de Seneque : "Sapiens cum Diis ex pari
vivit, Deorum socius non supplex'V" lIs en viennent ainsi, aforce de rabaisser Dieu
a leur mesure, a Ie concevoir sur Ie modele des vivants terrestres com me un gros
animal." alors que leur concept d'independance (ooYre~OtKTLov), de beatitude qu'on
ne doit qu'a soi-rneme, ne convient qu'a Dieu .

For by what we find in Seneca and others, it appears that the Stoicks seeking an Autarchy within them-
selves and being loth to be beholden to God for their happiness but that each of them might be as God ,
self-sufficient and happy in the enjoyment of himself, endeavoured by their sour doctrine and a rigid dis-
cipline over their souls, their severity against passions and all those restless motions in the soul after
some Higher Good, to attain a complete ataraxia and a full contentment within themselves."

On retrouverait exactement la meme critique chez Lipse (sapientem Deo parem:

paradoxum atque etiam paralogumy", qui cite d'ailleurs les memes textes de
Seneque selon Ie meme decoupage. Lipse, pour sa part, determine la source de cette
erreur qui est la these de J'identite de la vertu en l'homme et en Dieu, pour y
opposer la modestie des Pythagoriciens. Curieusement, cette consideration conduit
en revanche Smith a rapprocher Ie stoicisme du pharisaisme.?"

Religion is no sullen Stoicisme no sour Pharisaisme; it does not consist in a few Melancholy passions, in
some dejected looks or depressions of Mind : but it consists in Freedom Love, Peace , Life and Power;
the more it comes to be digested into our lives , the more sweet and lovely we shall find it to be.?'

II faudrait maintenant se demander, d 'une part, par quels canaux passe cette
confrontation restreinte avec Ie Portique, d'autre part, quel en est Ie sens
philosophique. II est toujours difficile de preciser les canaux de transmission d'une
tradition philosophique des lors qu'elle appartient, pourrait-on dire, a l'air du
temps. D'autant qu'un bon connaisseur des langues anciennes, comme Smith, cite
directement ses auteurs de reference dans la langue d'origine sans preciser les edi-
tions utilisees. Toutefois, les decoupages textuels ainsi que l'importance de
I'edition lipsienne de Seneque (de 1604) peuvent nous laisser supposer une
influence de ce grand restaurateur du stoicisme. On remarquera d'ailleurs que Ie
recours au Portique fonctionne chez Smith exactement sur Ie meme modele inverse
88 1. LAGREE

que Ie recours au neoplatonisme chez Lipse : Lipse se presente comme un penseur

eclectique'? mais sa philosophie est foncierement stoicienne, avec un recours assez
frequent a des notions ou au vocabulaire neoplatonicien.P Smith est assurement
platonicien, ou plus exactement neoplatonicien.?' ce qui ne l'empeche pas de re-
courir a maintes reprises a des references stoiciennes. Le sens de ces references
croisees est d'ailleurs comparable: Lipse se defendait de l'accusation de restaura-
tion d'une philosophie paienne, fort eloignee des vertus chretiennes, en rappelant
son importance chez les premiers Peres grecs (Clement, Origene) et en corrigeant a
l'occasion certaines formulations discutables par des inflechissements plat-
oniciens." Smith evoque le stoicisme comme caution d'universalite.
Pour etre qualifie de 'maussade' ,96 le stoicisme est tout de meme une ecole
philosophique tres presente dans les discours de Smith; et ce, d'autant plus nette-
ment que l'on compare avec les tres rares allusions, toutes critiques, a Epicure
Aristote ou la tradition scolastique. Des lors, on doit penser que, sans signifier au-
cunement un accord de fond avec la philosophie du Portique, ces emprunts expri-
ment le souci d'inscrire une apologetique rationaliste dans Ie courant de la prisca
theologia, qui conduit a l' ecoute de la revelation chretienne par la voie de la
philosophie ancienne. Peut-etre serait-ce la l'occasion de reflechir a l'extension de
cette designation de prisca theologia : elle renvoie assurement d'abord a la theolo-
gie pythagoricienne?? et platonicienne'", mais elle integre aussi des formulations
stoiciennes, propres au stoicisme imperial, notamment l'expression souvent citee
d'Epictete: av 8e oyvwe; OTi TO\) ALoe; ,,'toe; El. (sachant que tu es fils de Dieu).99
Le stoicisme offre done, avec un vocabulaire recu, une caution d 'universalite
beau coup plus qu'une thematique philosophique a proprement parler. II s'agit la
d'un heritage a reprendre, a la maniere'P? de l'heritage juif, celui de l' Ancien
Testament comme celui de la tradition rabbinique ulterieure que Smith connait ad-
mirablement. II la cite et com mente abondammcnt dans Ie discours VI, Of prophe-
sie et VII, Of the righteousness legal & evangelical, OU il compare la droiture de la
Loi et celie de l'Evangile. Dans ce dernier discours, la critique du legalisme juif et
de la confiance excessive dans Ie respect scrupuleux de la Loi est tout a fait compa-
rable a la critique de la confiance excessive du stoicien dans sa propre sagesse.
Pour conclure cette etude qui demanderait a etre poursuivie, il y a bien chez
J. Smith un heritage stoicien, mais un heritage assez lache, d'ordre culturel, qui ne
signifie pas pour autant une adhesion pleine et entiere aux theses du Portique. II en
va ici de la prolepsis comme il en irait aujourd'hui de la notion d'alienation'?' par
exemple: l'employer n'est pas tout a fait neutre, n'a plus Ie sens que ce terme con-
servait dans Ie Contrat social de Rousseau et, pour autant, ne signifie pas non plus
un engagement philosophique resolu dans Ie camp marxiste; inversement, qui ne
desire pas etre range du cote des eleves ou des disciples de J. Derrida s'interdira
d'employer Ie terme de deconstruction et lui preferera Ie terme medieval de destitu-
tion. 102 Le recours aux concepts (pas seulement aux termes) de notion commune, de
providence, d'hegemonique, d'oPIJ.1l, d'<rlrrE~OU<TLoe; de Tn E<!>'lllJ.tV est du merne
ordre que I'emploi, aujourd'hui, de certains termes communs a la philosophie
hermeneutique et au marxisme. Ces emplois ont une fonction a la fois demarcative
 JOHN SMITH ET LE PORTIQUE 89

(ici l'anti-aristotelisme) et confirmative pour signifier I'accord de toute la sagesse

antique en ce qui prepare I'ecoute et la reception de la Revelation, et enfin instaura-
tive, pour faire avancer l'unite religieuse de l'humanite dans une conception
ouverte du salut. II est a cet egard frappant que ce soient des categories episte-
mologiques ou metaphysiques qui soient ici convoquees beaucoup plus que les
theses morales qui donnerent lieu au siecle precedent a des syntheses un peu
molles,

Jacqueline Lagree

NOTES

"Living library and walking study" com me disait dans Ie sermon prononce a ses funerailles, Simon
Patrick.
2 II etait bon hebraiste. Voir la multiplicite et la precision des references a des commentaires rab-
biniques ou a Mai"monide dans Ie Discours sur la prophetic.
J "He was a plain-hearted both friend and christian, one in whose spirit and mouth there was no guile ;
a profitable companion; nothing of vanity and triflingness in him, as there was nothing of sowrness &
stoicism" . John Worthington, in J.Smith, Select Discourses . to the reader. p. x.
4 Cf. Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the XVI/th century, 1872,
t.I1, p. 6, qui nomme Whichcote, Smith , Cudworth et More , ecrit : " Apart from the affinities of thought,
which bind these men together into one of the most characteristic groups in the history of religious and
philosophical thought in England, they were all closely united by personal and academic associations. In
this respect they stand .. . distinctively by themselves . . . . They constitute a school of opinion in a . . .
real and effective sense ".
Sele ct Discourses, (1660, New-York: Garland, 1978). Toutes nos references seront donnees dans
cette edition .
6 Tulloch,op. cit.. II, p. 14.
Cf. Cassirer, The Platonic Renaissance in England. (Londres: Nelson 1953), ch . I., ainsi que
Schmitt, Walker et bien d'autres.
H Selon Ie mot de Numenius rcpris par Eusebe.
"En Philosophic, m'a toujours paru vraie la these qui veut que Sagese et Piete naissent des memes
sources, qu 'elles visent une fin unique, et que toutes les autres notions qui les constituent aient une
forme sembiable (Vera mihi semper in philosophia visa est sententia sapientiam atque pietatem ex
cisdem fontibus nascentes, unumque ad finem respicientes, omnes quoque rationes alias quibus consis-
tant habere conforrnes". Dedicace 11 Paul III du De perenni philosophia (1540).
10 Voir notamment Lipse, Manuductio, 1,5 et Clement d' Alexandrie, Stromate s, II , 14.
11 Smith, Of the immortality ofthe soul. p. 106.
12 Ciceron, Seneque, Epictete. Marc-Aurele en revanche n'est quasiment jamais cite , tout comme chez
Lipse ,
D Cf. J . Danielou, Platonisme et theologie mystique. saint Gregoire de Nysse, (Paris : Aubier, 1944).
14 Juste Lipse dans la Manuductio et dans la Physiologia Stoicorum de 1604. Cf. J. Lagree, Juste Lipse
et la restauration du stoici sme , (Paris : Vrin , 1994).
15 Respectivement p. I & 295 .
16 " •• • without descending into Niceties and Subtilties such as the school-men and others from them

have troubled the World with". p. 345.

17 Smith, op. cit., p. 382 .
18 "He that will fully acquaint himself with the Mysteries thereof, must come furnisht with some
praecognita or prolepseis". p. 1.
90 J. LAGREE

19 "La raison fait son plein de prenotions pendant les sept premieres annees de la vie". Aetius,
Opinions, IV, 11, 90Oc.
20 Selon Chrysippe, voir Diogene Laerce, Vies, VII , § 54.
21 Ciceron, Finibus III, 33 (SVF III, 72) : " La notion de Bien se produit par analogie rationnelle (colla-
tione rationis boni notitia facta est)".
22 Chez Chrysippe cite par Plutarque, Contr. Sto, XVII : "La doctrine des biens et des maux qu 'il intro-
duit et qu'il adopte est dit-i1 'd'accord avec la vie et s'attache tout 11 fait aux prenotions innees'" .
23 Cudworth, T.I.S.U., Londres, 1678, p. 730 . Cassirer, op. cit., p. 56.
24 Contre Bacon. Cf. la critique bacon ienne des anticipationes mentis.
2.' Op. cit.. p. 97 .
26 Juste Lipse, Manuductio Stoicorum , II, II.
27 1540 . Voir l'etude de Julien Eymard d' Angers sur" Epictete et Seneque d 'apres Ie De perenni
philosophia d'Augustin Steuco ", Revue des sciences religieuses, 1961/1, ainsi que I'etude de D. Scott
"Platonic Recollection and Cambridge Platonism" in Hermathena, Trinity College Dublin Review, N°
CXLIX, Winter 1990, p. 91.
28 Smith,op. cit., p. 1-2.
29 lbid., p. 6 & 15.
30 Ibid. p. 4.
31 "Neither are the common principles of vertue so pull'd up by the roots in all, as to make them so
dubious in stating the bounds of Vertue and Vice as Epicurus was , though he could not but sometimes
take notice of them". (ibid., p. 13).
32 Objet d'une notitia communis ou d'une notion originelle (notiones ortae) produite egalernent en tous
les hommes par la voix de la nature. "For we cannot easily conceive how any Prime notion that hath no
dependency on any other antecedent to it, should be generally entertain' d, did not the common dictate of
nature or reason, acting alike in all men, move them to conspire together in the embracing of it, though
they knew not one anothers minds " . (p. 64) . Un peu plus haut (p. 60) Smith cite Ie ch . 38 du Manuel
d'Epictete.
33 Autres references: ibid. p. 71, p. 106 qui montre que I'lmmortallte de l'fime peut etre envisagee soit
comme notion commune soit comme un "theore me de la raison libre et impartiale".
34 Ibid., p. 63 .
3S Ibid., p. 64 .
36 To T]-yEILOVtKOV, ibid., p. 5. Le terme est aussi employe par Cudworth pour designer "the proper
Self'.
37 Ibid., p. 79 . Voir aussi p. 117-118: "those impressions that are derived from our Bodies to our Souls
which the Stoicks call aAo-yCl 1Ta9Tj not because they are repugnant to Reason or are aberrations from it
but because they derive not their original from Reason but from the Body which is aAo-yov -it".
38 TU1TlOOtS Ev 1\roX"J, p. 82 .
39 Cf. Diogene Laerce, Vies, VII, 86: "Pour les animaux suivre la nature c'est se gouverner selon I'in-
c1ination" . La passion est qualifiee d'inclination debordante ou excessive, opwli 1TABOTjCl'OU<1Cl.
40 OPILTj'1TPOS-rOV 9EOV. ibid., p. 49 .
41 Tds 1TPlii'TClS KCl-ra t\>WtV 0PILClS, ibid., p. 118.
42 Ibid., p. 446 .
43 Ibid., p. 449.
44 La liberte du vouloir est appelee oo'rrE~oWWV, p. 89 & 91.
4S OfAtheism, p. 49-50.
46 "The common notions of a Deity strongly rooted in Mens Souls and meeting with the apprehensions
of guiltiness are very apt to excite this servile fear" . p. 3 I.
47 Cite p. 44.
48 "L'atheisme est une fausse opinion qui , persuadant a l'impie qu 'i1 n'existe point d'etre immortel et
souveraineme nt heureux Ie conduit par cette incredulite 11 un etat d'indifference envers les dieux". Trad .
Ricard des Oeuvres morales de Plutarque, Paris, 1844, t.1, p. 369.
49 Ibid, I, p. 382 .
.'0 Ibid, p. 386 .
 JOHN SMITH ET LE PORTIQUE 91

~I Notamment p. 27, 43, 45 . Citation de Plutarque, De la disparition des oracles , p. 32.

~2 Of Atheism, p. 54 .
~3 Of the Immortality of Soul. p. 59 et Of the Excellency and Nobleness oftrue Religion, p. 382 sq .
54 Ibid. p. 383.
55 Ibid. p. 382-3.
~6 Cf. Whichcote: "to go against reason is to go against God". Aphorisme 76, cite par Cassirer, op. cit.
p.40.
~7 Smith. op. cit.. p. 388 .
~8 "The Stoicks thought no man a fit auditor of their ethiks till he were dispossess' d of that opinion that
man was nothing but lroflo1T>-OK1'\ IjroxTi~ KCli. <TWfloClTOS as professing to teach men how to live only
KClT<X M"'(ovas they speak". p. 387.
~9 " E1Te<T9ClLgeii>E<TTL E1Te<T9ClL MJ"'(~ ; >-o"'(~ 11 op9i\l1Tei.ge<T9ClL KClI. geii>, TClurOV E<TTL" cite p. 389 .
Cf. Lipse Man, II 16, citant Seneque De vitobeat.. 15 et assimilant Ie sequi Deum 11 la sequela ou conse-
cution rationnelle (Man. I1I,I).
60 "Our knowledge is chronical and successive and cannot grasp into division and multiplicity; we
know all this is from want of Reason and Understanding and that a pure and simple Mind and intellect is
free from all these restraints and imperfections and therefore can be no less then Infinite". op. cit.
p.127.
61 Op. cit., p. 9. Cf Seneque, Ep. 95, § 50.
62 Op. cit., p. 139.
63 Op. cit., p. 89.
64 Op. cit., p. 397.
65 Op. cit., p. 90 .
66 Op. cit., p. 418.
67 Op. cit., p. 89 .
68 Op. cit., p. 145.
69 Op. cit., p. 146.
70 Op. cit., p. 148.
71 "Hell is rather a Nature then a place and Heaven cannot be so truly defined by anything without us as
by something that is within us". op. cit., p. 447 .
72 Seneque, Ep. 81 , § 19; De vita beata, IX, 4 .
73 Voir par exemple Cassirer, p. 29 & 56: "In this theory of natural law which it opposes to the doctrine
of the state of the empirical philosophy, the Cambridge school again has developed no new and original
ideas. It is in general content to allude to the ancient models and especially to the model of the Stoa" .
74 Op. cit., p. 154.
7~ De leg., I, VII , § 23 .
76 A la difference de la conception puritaine ou de la these cartesienne de la Iibre creation des verites
eternelles.
77 Op. cit., p. 156.
78 Smith, op. cit., p. 3.
79 The true Way or Method, Ill, p, 17.
80 Et non pas geornetriquement, conformernent 11 leur valeur respective.
81 Seneque, notamment Ep. 53, II.
82 En dessous de Platon et Plotin situes dans Ie quatrieme groupe.
83 L'ataraxie a ete "idolatree par Ie stoicien qui en a faitl'unique et supreme beatitude de I'ame". op.
cit., p. 418 .
84 Op. cit., p. 135-6.
8~ Op. cit., p. 418 .
86 Ep. 52 & 31. cite p. 390 .
87 "The stoicks seeing they could not raise themselves up to God, endeavour to bring down God to
their own model, imagining the Deity to be nothing else but some greater kind of Animal and a wise
man to be almost one of his peers". op. cit., p. 390 .
88 Of the Excellency and Nobleness of true Religion, op. cit., p. 419 .
92 J . LAGREE

H9 Manuductio, III,14.
90 Ce type de rapprochement entre une ecole antique et un courant juif n'est pas rare comme en te-
moigne Ie rapprochement traditionnel au XVIl" siecle entre les Epicuriens et les Sadduceens,
91 Op. cit., p. 451.
92 Man. , I, 5.
93 Sur Ie statut des idees plus particulierement.
94 Les auteurs qu'il cite Ie plus sont Plotin et Proclus.
95 Par exemple sur l'assimilation du monde a Dieu (le monde est Dieu non par essence mais par par-
ticipation (Phys. II, 8) ou sur la notion d'ame du monde (Dieu n'est pas l'arne du monde rnais ce dont
precede l'ame du monde) ou encore sur l'Interpretation du principe passif comme identique a la matiere
(Phy s. 1,4).
96 "sullen" ,op. cit., p. 451.
97 Voir !'importance accordee a la formule E.1TOU91]oV ou sequideum qui vient de Pythagore.
98 " It was a common notion in the old Pythagorean and Platonick theology 'TOV 8i.lX J.LlO'TlXaX1]J.LlX-
'TLa9EV'TlX lOt, 'TOV EPO'TlX, etc. (as Proclus phraseth it), : that the divinity transformed into Love . . ;" . op.
cit., p. 326.
99 Entretiens, I, 3, cite par Smith, op. cit., p. 103.
100 Mais sur Ie mode mineur.
101 Exemple che z P. Ricoeur,
102 Exemple : V. Carraud, Pascal et la philosophie, Paris, 1992.
 S . HUTTON

CUDWORTH, BOETHIUS AND THE SCALE OF NATURE

If frequency of citation is the criterion, Boethius is not a major source for

Cudworth, even among the Platonic philosophers he quotes. Cudworth's sources
are famously, even infamously, eclectic: the majority of The True Intellectual
System of the Universe (1678) consists of consensus gentium arguments drawn
from a huge range of classical sources. Cudworth was after all one of the leading
classical scholars of seventeenth-century England. In terms of the range and detail
of his familiarity with classical sources, he may be viewed as a fifth-generation hu-
manist. His humanism is not altogether of the cinquecento mould, for he examines
the texts he quotes (Virgil, Euripedes, Stobaeus, Lucretius, Cicero, Plutarch and
others) not with the eye of a philologist, but with the eye of a philosopher, pillaging
them for doctrines and arguments from which to construct the taxonomy of true and
false philosophy which constitutes The True Intellectual System. Furthermore, the
philosophers with whom Cudworth enters into dialogue include not just the classics
of ancient philosophy, Aristotle no less than Plato, but also the new philosophers of
the seventeenth century, especially Hobbes and Descartes, but also Spinoza, Bacon,
Lord Herbert and other un-named 'moderns'. Cudworth's use of modern philoso-
phy is not all negative - though he is unquestionably hostile to Hobbes and
Spinoza. His receptivity to the mechanical philosophy, however, is striking, both
for his adoption of fundamental tenets of Cartesian natural philosophy and his criti-
cal examination of new arguments. As he wrote at the end of the Treatise
Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality:

we can never sufficiently applaud that ancient atomical philosophy. so successfully revived of late by
Cartesius, in that it shows distinctly what matter is, and what it can amount unto, namely, nothing else
but what may be produced from mere magnitude, figure. site. local motion. and rest; from whence it is
demonstrably evident and mathematically certain . that no cogitation can possibly arise out of the power
of matter.\

It must be said that Cudworth uses his auctoritates (authorities) not for the
weight of their names, but for the content of particular passages. The sources he
quotes figure as representatives of a philosophia perennis which has remained un-
changed since the beginning of time - or at least since the creation of Adam .
Underlying The True Intellectual System is an abiding sense of the systematic unity
of philosophy discernible in all its practitioners. Beneath the diversity and multi-
plicity of philosophical doctrines, Cudworth perceives the homogeneity of funda-
mental tenets of philosophy and the singleness of truth. Cudworth's syncretic turn
of mind enables him to draw from a range of philosophical sources which today
would be regarded as mutually exclusive. The enormous range of Cudworth's
sources calls in question the label Platonist which has become the sobriquet for the

93
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 93-100.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers .
94 S. HUTTON

group of seventeenth-century English philosophical theologians known now as

the Cambridge Platonists. The label seems even less appropriate, in view of the
thoroughly modern tenets of so many their doctrines.
Given the problematic nature of the term 'Cambridge Platonism', and the limited
use Cudworth makes of Boethius, a discussion of Cudworth and his fifth-century
source might not seem very propitious. However, in this paper, I want to use
Cudworth's quotation from Boethius in The True Intellectual System book I,
chapter V, as a starting point for reclaiming the Platonist label for Cudworth . For
Cudworth 's application of Boethian arguments highlights the fundamental
Neoplatonic framework of his thought. Indeed, as I shall argue, this Neoplatonism
affords him a basis from which to argue against the mechanical philosophy, his
acceptance of some of its tenets notwithstanding.
In view of Cudworth's theological concerns, Boethius is a philosopher with
whom he must have felt great affinity. Boethius was, after all, a Christian philoso-
pher and one concerned to defend the ways of God to men by recourse to philoso-
phy. Boethius, like Cudworth , regarded divine goodness as the chief attribute of
God, and, like Cudworth, he placed great emphasis on divine providence. For both,
the key feature of God's providential government of the world is order. More im-
portantly, the central pre-occupation of Cudworth 's theology was to defend the
freedom of the human will against predestinarian Calvinism. And the De consola-
tione is a locus classicus for arguments demonstrating the compatibility of divine
fore-knowledge and the freedom of human action. It is therefore perhaps surprising
that Cudworth does not invoke the De consolatione in discussions of fate and free
will, but in a discussion that is essentially epistemological. So, although Cudworth
does not use Boethius in support of the fundamental tenets of his own theology,
Boethius figures in an equally important aspect of his philosophy, namely his
epistemology. Furthermore, as I shall go on to show, Cudworth's epistemological
argument is used to introduce an ontology which is thoroughly Platonist in its
framework .
As already stated, Cudworth does not make extensive use of Boethius. But the
longest single quotation of a passage of poetry in The True Intellectual System is
from Boethius . In section iv of book I, chapter v; he quotes the whole of the fourth
poem from De consolatione philosophiae book V and some of the prose that pre-
cedes it. This chapter of The True Intellectual System lists and confutes the argu-
ments of atheists against the existence of God. Cudworth identifies some fourteen
types of argument in all. The eleventh and twelfth arguments in the catalogue, set
out in section iv, are based on the nature of knowledge and understanding. It is in
the course of denying that knowledge derives from sense impressions, that
Cudworth quotes the poem from De consolatione philosophiae book V, in which
Boethius puts forward the anti-Stoic view that knowledge is not acquired passively
from sense impressions, but is the product of the activity of the mind.
As is well known, Cudworth was no friend of empiricism." He subscribed to the
view that knowledge is the product of the mind and not of sense perception.
Boethius is one of a number of Platonists whom Cudworth understood as anticipat-
 CUDWORTH AND BOETHIUS 95

ing his own position. Cudworth's theory of knowledge is most fully set out in
another work, his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality which was
not published until 1731. In the second book of this treatise, Cudworth argues that
knowledge results from the activity of the mind. Knowledge is not passively re-
ceived from outside the mind, but is actively generated by the mind itself (knowl-
edge is not a 'mere passion' but a 'vital energy').' The Stoic concept of prolepsis or
anticipatory knowledge is important here (Cudworth uses the term 'prolepsis' but
does not give a source). Also important is Platonic anamnesis , knowledge as remi-
niscence (though it should be noted that Cudworth qualifies this by stating that the
soul's recollection is not of a pre-existent state, but of something within itself).
Another source which Cudworth cites is Plotinus, to make the point that the objects
of knowledge (the noemata) are contained within the mind itself. If thought and
knowledge are derived from sense impressions, argues Cudworth, then there is no
reason why a mirror should not understand what it reflects.' Cudworth distinguishes
between noemata ('conceptions of the mind') on the one hand and phantasms and
sensations on the other. He regards the latter (phantasms and sensations) as essen-
tially the same." Indeed, so unreliable are sense impressions that we cannot be sure
that the objects of sense perception really exist ('we cannot be sure that there is any
object at all before us, when we have a phantasm or sensation of something') ."
Therefore, to rely on the senses alone for knowledge is to open the way to sceptic-
ism, because to do so is to remove all grounds of certainty. In this work, Treatise
Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, scepticism is associated with Plato's
sophist interlocutor, Protagoras. Furthermore, the discussion of epistemology in
Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, IV. 1. 1. is introduced by a
quotation from De consolatione V, from exactly the same section from which he
quotes in The True Intellectual System, I. v. iv. And later in the same discussion in
the Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, IV.2. 6., he quotes the
identical prose pa ss age from De consolatione V that he quotes The True
Intellectual System, I. v. In both works the Boethius quotation serves to help make
an epistemological key point.
The immediate context of Cudworth 's longest quotation from Boethius in The
True Intellectual System is his refutation of atheist arguments based on the nature
of knowledge and understanding . Through these arguments atheistic philosophers
supposedly try to deny the non-material nature of thought and to undermine the ele-
vated status of intellectual activity, thereby undercutting arguments for the exist-
ence of God based on epistemology. Among the atheistic tenets which Cudworth
clusters under this heading are the proposition that sensations and mental opera-
tions are passive effects of external agencies, and that all knowledge is sense
knowledge ." Also, there is the view of Epicurean and Anaximandrean atheists, that
knowledge contains no more perfection than matter itself. For if knowledge is
derived from sense impressions, it is dependent on something else, to which it is in-
ferior - a poor image of that which caused the sensation. And if knowledge is
derived from such low-grade stuff as physical bodies exterior to the mind ('grave,
solid and senseless matter'), this means that it cannot be attributed to 'the First
96 S . HUTTON

Root and Sourse of all things' , unless the first cause is conceived to be matter itself.
If so, then life, thought and understanding are products of matter, and matter itself
becomes 'the only Substantial, Self-Existent, Independent thing, and Consequently
the most Perfect and Divine '. 8
In the context of the anti-atheistic conclusion of The True Intellectual System,
Boethius figures as auctoritas in the sense that he is an authoritative spokesman of
a non-materialist epistemology. The quotation of the whole of Metrum 4 from De
consolatione V also serves as rhetorical embellishment. But there is more to the
placing of this quotation than that. Cudworth's aim is not just to reassert a dualist
position against those who reduce mind and thinking to being by-products of matter
in motion. That is certainly part of his intention. Strikingly, Boethius is brought to
bear on the discussion at the point where Cudworth makes the transition from epis-
temology to ontology. His charge against those atheists who have a mechanical
concept of mental activity and regard thinking as a property of matter, is that they
invert the order of nature, according to which 'the production of things' is 'by way
of Descent from Higher to Lower'. To make soul and mind secondary to material
things means is to upset the hierarchy of being.

Now to produce and One Higher Rank of Being, from the Lower , as Cogitation from Magnitude and
Body, is plainly to invert this Order in the Scale of the Universe from Downwards to Upwards?

The absurdity of this po sition is obvious to the atheists themselves, writes

Cudworth , for:

according to that Hypothesis , it would follow, that every the Smallest and most Contemptible Animal,
that could see the Sun, had a Higher degree of Entity and Perfection in it than the Sun it self.'?

So instead, the atheists propose an homogenous mechanistic scheme of things .

(Order would definitely be the wrong word for it):

Wherefore they conclude that there is no such Scale or Ladder in Nature, no such Climbing Stairs of
Entity and Perfection , one above another, but that the whole Universe is One Flat and level, it being
indeed all, Nothing but the same Uniform Matter , under several Forms. Dresses , and Disguises; or
Variegated by Diversity of Accidental Modifications. I I

The homogeneity of the universe is one of the 'Atheists Dark Mysteries' which
follows from the axiom 'nihil est in intellectu quod non prius erat in sensu' . By
contrast, Cudworth insists on the existence of a 'Scale or Ladder in Nature, as
Theists and Metaphysicians, suppose' . 12 The theist-cum-metaphysician whom
Cudworth uses to introduce this idea in answer to the claim, 'That (as Cudworth
puts it) there is Nothing in the Mind or Understanding which was, not First in
Corporeal Sense and derived in way of Passion from Matter', is Boethius." For to
argue, as Boethius does that knowledge entails activity of mind, and that cogitation
precedes knowledge of things is to prioritise the non-material over the material in
the order of things: there is 'a Mind before Sense and Sensible Things' .14 In this
 CUDWORTH AND BOETHIUS 97

way Cudworth introduces Boethius not simply to put a dualist case, but to link
dualism to ontological hierarchy, for, as he goes on to say,

There is unquestionably a Scale or Ladder of Nature and Degrees of Perfection and Entity, one above
another, as of Life , Sense and Cogitation, above Dead, Senseless and Unthinking Matter; of Reason and
Understanding above Sense , &C. 15

Furthermore, having quoted Boethius, Cudworth immediately links him with the
Neoplatonic ontology of Plotinus by invoking what he calls 'those Three Archical
Hypostases of the Platonists and Pythagoras' - that is the One, the Good and the
Intelligible which Cudworth rolls into one 'Omnipotent, Understanding Being,
which itself is its own Intelligible, is the First Original of all things' . 16 The order of
being is ranged in a neoplatonic hierarchy of descent from the Perfect being at the
top of the scale:

Wherefore there being plainly a Scale or Ladder of Entity ; the Order of Things was unquestionably, in
way of Descent, from Higher Perfection , Downward to Lower, it being as Impossible, for a Greater
Perfection to be produced from a Lesser, as for Something to be Caused by Nothing. Neither are the
Steps or Degr ees of this Ladder, (either upward or downward) Infinite; but as the Foot , Bottom, or
Lawest Round thereof, is Stupid and Senseless Matter devoid of all Life and Understanding; so is the
Head. Top. and Summity of it, a Perfect Omnipotent Being. comprehending itself, and all Possibilities of
things . A Perfect Understanding Being, is the Beginning and Head of the Scale of Entity; from whence
things Gradually Descend downward ; lower and lower, till they end in Senseless Matter. 17

Moreover, in this scheme of things, more abstract entities are endowed with
more reality, a position which enables Cudworth to argue against the ethical rela-
tivism of Hobbes that abstract moral concepts like justice not only exist but have
greater reality than material things:

Moreover, nothing can be more Evident than this, that Mind and Understanding hath Higher Degree of
Entity or Perfe ction in it, and is a Greater Reality in Nature , than meer Sensele ss Matter or Bulkie
Extension. And Consequently the things which belong to Souls and Minds, to Rational and Intellectual
Beings as such, must not have Less, but More Reality in them, than the things which belong to Inanimate
Bodies . Wherefore the Difference s of Just and Unjust , Honest and Dishonest. are greater Realities in
Nature, than the Diffe rences of Hard and Soft, Hot and Cold. Moist and Dry.IS

Another example of Cudworth's use of Boethius also occurs as part of an argu-

ment in favour of a hierarchical order of being. In The True Intellectual System
book I chapter iv, in his discussion of the attributes of the Deity, and whether these
can be conceived by the finite human mind, Cudworth invokes the argument from
the idea of a fully perfect being. Even if the concept of perfection is beyond the ca-
pacities of our mind to comprehend, perfection is nonetheless conceivable. And this
may be demonstrated through its opposite, imperfection, which is after all a lack of
perfection. Imperfection is judged against perfection as a crooked line is measured
against a straight line. Moreover, there are observable degrees of imperfection,
which means that the obverse is also true, that there are degrees of perfection.
98 S. HUTTON

Furthermore, this implies an ascending order of increasing perfection in the

direction of absolute perfection:

Moreover we perceive divers Degrees of Perfection, in the Essences of things, and consequently a Scale
or Ladder of Perfe ctions, in Nature. one above another, as of Living and Animate Things. above
Senseless and Inanimate; of Rational things above Sensitive.... Nor indeed could these Gradual Ascents .
be Infinite, or Without End; but they must come at last. to that which is Absolutely Perfect, as the Top of
them all.!?

Cudworth is here describing the process of deduction, whereby we come to recog-

nise that we have the idea of perfection even if absolute perfection is beyond the
reach of our understandings. The argument is a paraphrase of Boethius, De conso-
latione III, which he then quotes in support this conception of a hierarchical order
of perfection. In doing so he introduces the ontological explanation of imperfection
as a falling away from perfection, that less perfect things have a more perfect
cause.i?
It is true that Cudworth's concept of the scale of nature is enunciated most fully
towards the end of The True Intellectual System . But this does not mean that it is a
decorative afterthought. Firstly, the idea is expressed in other ways at other times .
Secondly, it offers a key response to everything that Cudworth sees wrong with the
mechanical philosophy. Finally , it is elaborated in the epistemological discussion of
his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, where it so happens that
the key discussion is introduced by a quotation from De consolatione. Thus
Boethius figures as the representative of hierarchical Neoplatonism, as a key
Neoplatonic philosopher through whom Cudworth introduces the hierarchical on-
tology that links him directly with the Neoplaton ic tradition of Plotinus and gives a
framework for his qualified critique of contemporary philosophy .
Cudworth exemplifies the adaptability of Renaissance philosophy - its readiness
to admit the new without necessarily discarding the old. The baroque inclusiveness
of The True Intellectual System sharply contrasts the impatience with past philoso-
phy which characterises the new philosophies of the seventeenth century which
invoke iconoclastic images to describe the novelty of their enterprise. Descartes, for
example, contrasts his approach with that of a builder who constructs a new house
using the demolition materials of the 01d. 21 Locke too uses the image of a demoli -
tion worker - his modest 'underlabourer' clearing a little ground in philosophy.P
Cudworth, by contrast, is a recycler of all learning which he patiently sorts and
classifies into the theologically sound and the theologically suspect. His tendency
to see the new as exciting modern manifestations of the old is a feature of many
Renaissance philosophers. It is not itself quintessentially Platonic, but it is a habit
of mind that, historically, is associated with Platonizing philosophers from Ficino
onwards. As far as Cudworth is concerned, the common pattern of all good philoso -
phy is not simply one which accommodates modern developments, nor simply a
matter of separating out the highest common factor in all philosophy. Cudworth's
conception of the perennial philosophy underlying all philosophies is fundamen-
tally Neoplatonic in its framework . It is true that most of The True Intellectual
 CUDWORTH AND BOETHIUS 99

System is taken up with consensus gentium arguments to render acceptable atomic

natural philosophy by linking it with theism. The sheer bulk of the evidence ad-
vanced in this cause obscures the fact that Cudworth's apparently mechanical
concept of matter is fitted into a Neoplatonic hierarchy of being. And it is this that
Boethius serves to highlight. And this is underscored in Cudworth's discussion of
epistemology with its language of archetype and ectype, its explanation of knowl-
edge as participation in the mind of God, its insistence on the priority of mind over
things and the superiority of mental reality to physical reality.
To my mind, one of the historically interesting things about Cudworth is the way
he presents his philosophy . There is, it is true, a lot that is irredeemably academic
about it. But, for all the fixity of the basic philosophical doctrines contained in his
philosophia perennis, Cudworth is not a dogmatist, at least not in the way he pre-
sents his philosophy. Instead of starting with a framework, he starts with God and
matter. The ontology is to be inferred only gradually. The 'system', such as it is, is
pieced together by a process of philosophical and historical enquiry, not imposed
from the outset. The method could be described as a kind of philosophico-historical
induction . For all the indelible flavour of antiquarian learning of The True
Intellectual System, and the antique sources of his Neoplatonism, what Cudworth
offers is Neoplatonism in modern dress: Neoplatonism directed against the undesir-
able features of modern philosophy, but nonetheless supported by modern views
and arguments; Neoplatonism recharged to meet the challenge of Hobbist and
Spinozistic materialism by adopt ing some of the fundamentals of seventeenth-
century corpuscularian philosophy.

Sarah Hutton

NOTES

T.E.I.M., reprinted in T.I.S.U., 3 vols (London, 1845), vol. 3, p. 646. On Cudworth and Descartes,
see D. B. Sailor, 'Cudworth and Descartes' , Journal ofthe History of Ideas, 23 (1962), pp. 133-40 ; John
Laird, ' L' influe nce de Descartes sur la philosophie anglaise du dix- septierne sie cle;' Revue
philosophique de la France et de l 'etranger, 123 (1937), pp. 226-56, and A. Pacchi , Cartesio in
Inghilterra , da More a Boyle (Bari: Laterza, 1973). It was even suggested by Saveson that the term
' Ca mbridge Cartesians ' might be a more appropriate label for the Camb ridge Platonists. See his
'Differing Reactions to Descartes among the Cambridge Platonists' , Journal of the History of Ideas, 21
(1960), pp. 560-7. On Cudworth and the mechanical philosophy, see Alan Gabbey, 'Cudworth, More
and the Mechanical Analogy ' , in R. Kroll, ed., Philosophy, Science and Religion in England, 1640-1700
(Cambridg e: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 109-127 , and Tullio Gregory, 'Studi sull' atom-
ismo del seicent o, III, Cudworth e I'atomismo', Giornale critico della filo sofia italiana, 46 (1967),
pp. 528-541. On Cudworth 's classical sources, see G. Aspelin, ' Ralph Cudworth 's Interpretat ion of
Greek Philo sophy. A Study in the History of English Philos ophical Ideas' , Goteborgs Hiigskola s
Arsskrift, 49 (1943), pp. 1-47 .
2 Cudworth does , however make a qualified concession to empiricism: ' Here in the first place we
freely grant ... that our Humane Cogitations , are indeed commonly Occasioned, by the Incursions of
Sensible Objects upon us; as also, that the Concatenations of those Thoughts and Phantasms in us,
which are distinguished from Sensations .. . do many times depend upon Corporeal and Mechanical
Causes in the Brain. Notwithstanding which, that all our Cogitations, are Obtruded, and Imposed upon
us from without; and that there is no Transition in our Thoughts at any time, but such as had been before
100 S. HUTTON

in Sense ... we absolutely deny', T.I.S.U., p. 845. On Cudworth's epistemology, see S. P. Lamprecht,
' Innate Ideas in the Cambridge Platonists', Philosophi cal Review, 35 (1926) , pp. 553-573, and J. A.
Passmore, Ralph Cudworth , an Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951) chapters
2 and 3. Also my Introduction to T.E.I.M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and
Marialui sa Bald i's chapter in this volume.
J T.E.I.M., op. cit., pp. 577-8.
Ibid., p. 579 .
Ibid., p. 582.
Ibid., p. 631.
T.l.S.U.. op. cit., p. 850.
Ibid., p. 854 .
Ibid., p. 862 .
10 Ibid., p. 855-6.
\I Ibid., p. 856. This restates what Cudworth said ten pages earlier : 'That there is no Scale or Ladder of
Entity and Perfe ction in Nature , one above another; the whole Universe from top to bottom, being
Nothing but One and the same Senseless Matter, diversely Modified.' and that 'Understanding' is infe-
rior to more solid matter . (ibid., p. 847)
12 Ibid., p. 855.
IJ Ibid. , p. 857 . Boethius, he writes, has ' both Elegantly and Solidly Confuted' this axiom in De
Consolatione Philosophiae , book V, metrum 4.
14 lbid., p. 857. Cudw orth does not use the term spirit in this discuss ion, rather he uses the terms life.
understanding, soul and mind interchangeably to describe the other substance besides body or matter
which can act upon matter and which is, in order of being, superior to matter.
15 T.l.S.U. p. 858 .
16 Ibid., p. 857.

17 Ibid., p. 858.
18 Ibid.
19 lbid., p. 648 .
20 Compare T.E.I.M , op. cit. , p. 628, where the same idea of ontological descent is applied to the
human power of thought : ' Now because every thing that is imperfect must needs depend upon some-
thing that is perfect in the same kind, our particular imperfect understand ings, which do not always actu-
ally contain the rationes of things and their verities in them, which are many times ignorant , doubt ing,
erring , and slowly proceed by discourse and ratiocinat ion from one thing to another, must needs be de-
rivative participations of a perfect , infinite and eternal intellect, in which is the rationes of things, and all
universal verities are alway s actually comprehended' .
21 Discours , pt. 2. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff
and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. I, p. 116.
22 Essay Con cerning Human Understanding, Epistle to the Reader, ed . A. S. Pringle Patterson
(Hasso cks : Harvester Press, 1978), p. 7.
 A . PETIT

RALPH CUDWORTH: UN PLATONISME PARADOXAL.

LA NATURE DANS LA DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE PLASTICK
LIFE OF NATURE

Lorsque I' on se pose , a propos de Ralph Cudworth, la question de savoir aquel pla-
tonisme il se rattache, la tradition exegetique, de J. L. Mosheim (son traducteur du
XVIIIeme siecle) en passant par S. T. Coleridge jusqu' aE. Cassirer, I nous assure a
I'envi qu'i1 s'agit du neoplatonisme, tout particulierernent du plotinisme. Ainsi
Mosheim: "Cudworth utilisait volontiers les neo-platoniciens ... Et iI faut avouer
qu'aucun philosophe de l' Antiquite n'est, plus que ces platoniciens, proche de ses
theses't.? La proximite doctrinale de Cudworth au neoplatonisme parait patente a
Mosheim, et Ie nombre de references strategiques aux Enneades semble plaider en
sa faveur. Pourtant, il serait pour le moins precipite de ratifier ce jugement sans
autre examen : il ne s'agit certes pas de nier que Ie platonisme delection de
Cudworth soit Ie plotinisme, mais de s'interroger sur Ie caractere paradoxal du pla-
tonisme chez Cudworth.
Mais, avant de se prononcer sur ce point, il importe de se demander quelle fonc-
tion peut avoir ce plotinisme eventuel dans l'economie de la pensee cudworthienne.
On ne parlera pas, en I'espece, d'un emprunt doctrinal direct; tout "emprunt"
s'exerce en effet par la mediation de topiques , Cudworth croyant a la perennite des
differends philosophiques autant qu 'a la cont inuite des positions philosophiques.
C'est ce qui Ie conduit a n'admettre les doctrines anterieures dans son systeme
qu 'apres les avoir ordonnees a une echelle ontologique: ainsi Ie stoicisme n'est-il
integrable dans la Digression concerning the Plastick Life of Nature' qu'en ce qui
regarde les rapports de la nature et de la matiere. II n'y a, a proprement parler, d'in-
tegration qu 'au prix d'une hierarchisation des doctrines, qui n'est pas sans analogie
avec la hierarchic qu i se fait jour dans les Enneades : selon la formule de
Ravaisson," on va, en remontant l'ordre des hypostases, du Dieu des Stofciens au
Dieu d' Aristote, puis au Dieu de Platon. Mais Cudworth est-il veritablement en
mesure de faire sienne, sans autre modification, la hierarchisation qu 'etablit Plotin?
La theologie cudworthienne, en effet, comportant lidee de puissance absolue,
parait difficilement compatible, quant au fond, avec la procession plotinienne.

LA NATURE PLASTIQUE: UNE MEDIATION

Pourquoi Cudworth, au risque de se susciter des objections redoutables, associe-t-i1

a Dieu une nature artiste aux traits fortement plotiniens? Parmi ses raisons , iI faut
sans nul doute privilegier les raisons d'ordre theologique. L 'un des soucis majeurs
de Cudworth, dans la Digression, est de justifier I'action prov identielle de Dieu en
l' exemptant du detail! - ce qui est une facon de repondre a la classique objection

101
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 101-110.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
102 A. PETIT

d'origine epicurienne a I'egard de la Providence:" il ne s'agit certes pas pour

Cudworth de limiter la puissance divine, mais de rendre l'idee d'action providen-
tielle conforme a l'essence divine, ou plutot a l'eminence divine. On ne saurait dire
que Dieu ne fasse rien - ce qui l'assimilerait a un Deus otiosus - ni qu'il fasse tout
par lui-meme: il est cause de tout , en derniere instance, sans etre l'auteur direct
de toutes choses, ce qui confere a la nature plastique sa place, qui est celle d'une
providence seconde.
Le dessein cudworthien, en l'espece, consiste a faire piece tout a la fois au me-
canisme et au volontarisme theologique hyperbolique; la position du probleme par
Cudworth - que Mosheimjuge puerile.' parce qu'il ne faut pas preter a l'Etre infini
les embarras incombant aux etres finis - n'est pas sans rappeler celle de I'epicurien
Velleius dans le premier livre du De natura deorumv a la these providentialiste, de-
formation de la notion vraie du divin, accablant les dieux sous des taches incompa-
tibles avec leur beatitude, Velleius oppose la these d'une organisation spontanee du
monde a partir des atomes . Reinterpretee en termes cudworthiens, cette opposition
doit s'entendre comme l'opposition d'une intervention nulle de Dieu dans le
monde, ou d'une absence de Dieu et d'une intervention divine sans regle, l'omnipo-
tence ou I'omnicausalite se traduisant par la panurgie. Dans la Digressioni
Cudworth s'en prend ala fois a l'immanentisme naturaliste et a la negation d'une
nature oeuvrant par soi-meme . Jouant la nature finalisee contre le mecanisme et Ie
volontarisme il peut ainsi sembler restaurer a des fins pour partie polem iques une
forme de platonisme non-artificialiste, empreint d'une conception stoicienne de la
cPvcnc;, "feu artiste chemin ant methodiquernent vers la generation".'?
II parait possible a Cudworth de disposer des deux difficultes symetriques par le
meme moyen : par sa notion d'une nature mediatrice, elle-rneme active, sans obeir
pour autant a ses propre s fins, Cudworth entend refuter I'immanentisme naturaliste
et Ie mecanisme cartesien. Le premier, qui a Ie merite de concevoir une nature plas-
tique, commet I'erreur de la tenir pour auto-suffisante, Ie second nie toute nature
plastique et prete le flanc au soupcon d'atheisme mecaniste.!' Le vrai theisme aux
yeux de Cudworth, soucieux en cela de plaider la cause de Dieu, reside dans l'ad-
mission d'une double action , conjointe et hierarchisee, celle de Dieu et celie de la
nature . Cette double admission entraine Cudworth a depasser en I'integrant le stoi-
cisme a l'instar de Plotin et a recuser le cartesianisme, qui refuse d'accorder a la
nature une action propre, s'exposant par la au grief cudworthien de priver Dieu de
tout soin de la nature .P
La nature selon Cudworth fait ce que Dieu ne veut pas faire par soi-meme, elle
est une cause inferieure, et, a quelque egard, ancillaire. La cause principale est
l'esprit de Dieu, qui contient les idees de toutes les choses: "it is a knowledge ar-
chetypal and paradigmatical".'! II enveloppe un monde intelligible dont participent
nos esprits." Par rapport a cette cause premiere et principale, la nature est, pour
ainsi dire, une providence deleguee, qui agit en vue de fins qu' elle ne se propose
pas . Cudworth a besoin d'une puissance qui soit au plus pres de la matiere sans s'y
identifier: mais n'y a-t-il pas une reelle difficulte dans la coexistence de l'omnipo-
tence divine et d'une delegation de pouvoir divin a la nature? Cudworth ne se
 CUDWORTH, PLATONISME PARADOXAL 103

resout a une telle coexistence que parce qu'il se represente Ie risque d'un passage
de Dieu fait tout aDieu ne fait rien, si I' on ne fait pas l'hypothese mediane de la
plastick nature: "As, for the Latter Past of the Disjunction, That every thing in
Nature should be done immediately by God itself, ... , it would render Divine
Providence Operose, Sollicitous and Distractious, and thereby make the belief of it
to be entertained with greater difficulty , and give advantage to Atheists" . 15 II entend
sauver la causalite divine en reduisant son exercice, sans sacrifier I'omnipotence
divine, qui n'est pas affectee a ses yeux par la mediation de la nature plastique; la
raison veut que I'omnipotence n'entralne pas la panurgie, autrement toute action
divine serait miraculeuse.
Si Dieu peut tout sans tout faire, il est alors loisible d'introduire dans l'economie
de la providence la hierarchic propre a l'echelle des etres : par la Cudworth con-
stitue une theologie providentialiste faisant fond sur une ontologie anti-cartesienne,
et inclinant a bien des egards au plotinisme. Ce qui etait chez Plotin Ie plus bas
degre de la contemplation devient pour Cudworth une forme inferieure d'action
providentielle, I'objet d'un vouloir divin qui laisse neanmoins subsister la spon -
taneite de la nature: "It is Art itself, acting immediately on the matter, as an inward
principle't.!"
Mais a peine se satisferait-on de cette conciliation de I'omnipotence et de la
delegation de pouvoir que Ie soupcon se ferait jour d'une nouvelle difficulte dans
la position de Cudworth, difficulte qui procederait du peu de necessite, en pre-
miere apparence, de l'hypothese de la nature plastique. On voit bien en quoi elle
s'oppose au systeme democriteen, mais il parait plus malaise de la discerner d'une
hypothese providentialiste qui ferait l'economie d'une nature douee d'une action
propre. Car, Dieu demeurant cause de tout, il ne s'agit jamais que d'une distinc-
tion entre action immediate et action mediate. Aussi ne saurait-on dire qu'a pro-
prement parler Cudworth restaure la nature des Stoiciens dans ses prerogatives il
veut en user, en realite, pour faire piece a I'hypervolontarisme theologique. II
s'agit pour lui de donner a la puissance de Dieu un ordre d'exercice qui soit
adequat a Iechelle des etres (the scale or ladder of entities'Ti, aux degre s de per-
fection qui separent l'etre supreme de la matiere. L'idee de providence, telle que
I'entend Cudworth, repugne tout autant a I' Idee d'arbitraire qu'a celIe d'ordre
fortuit : son economic, pour etre raisonnable, requiert d'etre coextensive a la conti-
nuite de l'etre, et cela ne peut que favoriser Ie recours a Plotin. Cudworth plaide
en effet pour une mediation!" permettant a Dieu de tout controler sans tout faire, il
demande que I'on disjoigne la toute puiss ance et I'action totale, en invoquant la
convenance;'? il n'est pas con forme a notre idee de la divinite qu'elle s'occupe
elle-merne des oeuvres les moins nobles de la providence, de minimis non curat
praetor. Cudworth n'en a pas tant a I'omnipotence qu'a I'idee que s'en font cer-
tains des tenants d'un volontarisme theologique a ses yeux absurde: I'omnipotence
est sauve a condition que I'on n'en infere pas I'arbitraire dans I'action de Dieu qui
en laissant agir la nature a son rang, manifeste d'autant mieux sa sagesse. On
conceit qu 'a cet egard Cudworth ait pense trouver dans Ie plotinisme un garant,
ou, si I' on veut , un precedent, dans son souci de ne pas laisser subs ister face a face
104 A. PETIT

Dieu et la matiere, et dans sa tentative de rendre a la nature un pouvoir, mais un

pouvoir subordonne.

LES AMBIGUITES DU PLOTINISME DE CUDWORTH.

Cependant, il n'est pas sur, pour peu qu'on y regarde de plus pres, que le neopla-
tonisme soit , tel quel, le garant que Cudworth voudrait voir en lui: le premier obsta-
cle majeur parait resider dans l'insistance mise par les neoplatoniciens a nier Ie role
de la volonte dans la diffusion du Bien Comme Cudworth le reccnnait lui-meme.P
"that Philosopher [i.e. Plotinus] conceived, the world to have proceeded, not so
much from the will of the Deity, as the Necessity of its Nature". Et de fait, selon
Plotin, c'est la surabondance du Bien-! qui rend compte, si cela se peut, de sa diffu-
sion, mais non a proprement parler son vouloir, du moins au sens que cela peut
avoir dans Ie Timee de Platon: on ne saurait dire que Ie Dieu de Cudworth rem-
plisse cette condition, et ce meme si l'auteur prend soin d'etablir un mediateu r
plastique entre Dieu et la matiere. La tache theologique cudworthienne s'avere ici
redoutable, puisqu'il doit preserver la volonte divine du meilleur en se revendiquant
d'un diffusionnisme du Bien qui suppose l'amoindrissement progressif de ce
dern ier. Et l'on peut se demander legitimement si Cudworth ne souscrit pas a ce
modele en dedoublant, comme il Ie fait , la Providence, pour epargner a Dieu Ie
contact avec la matiere tout en lui dormant une ancilla. Mais on est alors aux prises
avec une remarquable ambiguite. D'un cote , on a pu mettre en doute la pertinence
de l'hypothese cudworthienne de la nature plastique . Ainsi Mosheim.F en arguant
du peu de difference entre elle et Ie volontarisme qu'elle pretend combattre. En
effet, meme si l'action de Dieu est mediate quand illaisse agir pour son compte la
nature, elle n'en est pas moins, en dern iere analyse, une intervention divine, non
moins constante que dans l'hypothese combattue. Certes Cudworth affirme qu'i1
veut , a I' aide du mediateur plastique, eviter que toute action ne soit miraculeusei-'
mais, la nature n'etant pas infaillible, Dieu est toujours dans l'obligation de rectifier
ses oeuvres, ce qui s'ecarte notablement du neoplatonisme, ou la Nature, certes in-
ferieure a l'Intelligence, n'est pas pour autant supervisee par elle. D'un autre cote,
ce qui incline Cudworth au plotinisme est son souci de limiter ce que I'on pourrait
nommer le pur volontarisme et a cette fin il use avec constance de I'idee de ladder
of entities, ou vient se ranger la nature plastique. Est-il un volontariste subtil ou un
necessitariste plotinien qui s'ignore?
On peut dire a tout le moins que Ie neoplatonisme resiste a l'entreprise cudwor-
thienne d'adaptation dans la mesure ou la mediation (que rendrait assez bien Ie
terme plotinien de Ao')'oc;) n'y est pas instituee, ce qui laisse a la nature sa pleine
possibilite d'agir. II y a done un point au-dela duquel l'Integration cudworthienne
de la nature a la providence cesse de pouvoir se reclamer du neoplatonisme, dont
elle n'omet pas, mais amoindrit, l'anti-artificialisme. On pourrait cependant penser
que la notion de providence fonde la convergence recherchee par Cudworth, mais
est-on bien certain que cette notion soit entendue au meme sens par Plotin et
Cudworth? Dans Ie neoplatonisme - au moins plotinien - la providence est , sous
 CUDWORTH, PLATONISME PARADOXAL 105

les traits du Ao-yoc;, ce qui relie Ie voU<;, au monde sensible par l'intermediaire de
l'iime pure:24 "c'est comme un rayon lumineux issu a la fois de l'inteIligence et de
l'ame".25 Le Ao-yoc; plotinien, qui fait une apparition remarquee dans les deux
traites Sur la Providence, est concu comme produisant et administrant Ie monde
visible, il est Ie dieu storcien ravale au troisierne rang: il est tout a la fois
'lTOLl')TLKOC;, et procedant a ce titre de I' Arne Superieure et du voU<;, et liaison du
superieur et de l'inferieur.w manifestant ainsi selon son mode propre Ie retour de ce
qui precede a la source dont il precede, Qu'en est-il de la nature dans l'economie
de cette providence? Offre-t-elle un precedent rigoureusement fonde a l'hypothese
cudworthienne de la nature plastique, providence seconde?
La nature plotinienne s'identifie en premier lieu a I'aspect productif, 'lTOl')TLKOC; ,
du Aoyoc;: elle prend rang , a un certain egard, entre I' Arne et Ia matiere ou plutot,
pui sque l'Ame en realite se dedouble, la nature est I'Ame en tant qu'elle ne
demeure pas pres de I'Intelligence, I' Arne inferieure, si I'on veut." qui produit Ie
monde visible - fonction qui en d'autres traites plotiniens est devolue au Ao-yoc; -
et fait retour a sa source en contemplant," meme Ie plus faiblement qui soit. On Ie
voit, dans la 'lTpOVOLU, la providence plotinienne, rien n' est, malgre Ie tenne meme,
delibere; on ne se represente pas Ie monde comme un creandum, pas plus que ne se
pose la question de son maintien dans l'existence. La nature dans ce cadre, n'a pas
de lois qui lui seraient imposees par quelque volonte, elle est eternellement en
ordre, ordre qui "resulte eternellement de l'intelligence plutot qu'il ne precede de la
reflexion 'V? Cet ordre n'est autre, selon Plotin, qu'une raison incorporee - comme
l'atteste Ie traite De la Contemplation, III, 8 (30) -, qui est une forme immanente et
agissante.
Ces reserves faites, il n'en reste pas moins que Cudworth fait preuve d'un au-
thentique plotinisme lorsqu 'il tente de refuter Ie mecanisme sans tomber, comme
dit R. Passmore.l" dans l'occasionnalisme. On peut contester I'emploi de ce dernier
terme pour des raisons historiques, car la vraisemblance d'une refutation de
Malebranche par Cudworth est faible . Cependant, I'idee de Passmore n'est pas sans
fondemcnt: Cudworth, en effct, anticipe en quelquc maniere sur l'occasionnalisme
en recusant I'intervention divine sans mediation, et annonce la critique qu'en fera
Leibniz. Car Cudworth conceit I'ordre de l'action divine de telle sorte qu'il voie
sattenuer en lui Ie risque d' arbitraire inherent a la manifestation de la volonte
divine. Aussi, l'eternite du monde mise a part, Cudworth a-t-il bien pour propo s
d'etablir, dans Ie cadre d'un creationnisme, Ie type de continuite qui prevaut dans Ie
neoplatonisme: la nature a laquelle il confere une action propre participe des idees
archetypes contenues dans l'entendement divin, "it is Ectypal, a living Stamp or
Signature of the Divine Wisdom;" elle est bien, comme dans Ie plotinisme, un
hO-yOC; et une vie: "Nature is Reason Immerged and Plunged into Matter",32 "It is a
Life".33 Pour Plotin deja, la nature est une raison" immanente, qui ne raisonne pas
mais produit spontanement. Cependant, il y a entre Cudworth et Plotin une dif-
ference de taille: la nature du premier est, si I'on peut dire, un hO-yOC; cree, un
mediateur qui repond a un dessein superieur, ce qui est etranger a l'economie de
la procession plotinienne. Que Ie hO-yOC; soit cree rend la continuite de l'etre
106 A. PETIT

problematique, il ne peut manquer de s'instaurer une antinomie virtuelle entre la

conception de la nature comme raison immanente et l'idee de raison ancillaire qui
s'attache a la nature plastique cudworthienne. Cudworth la voudrait a la fois imma-
nente et ancillaire, se mettant ainsi hors d'etat de retenir du plotinisme la spon-
taneite de I' ordre processif par lequel la nature productrice se rattache ultimement a
I'Un.
Le platonisme restaure de Cudworth ne laisse pas de susciter quelque perplexite
philosophique: se donn ant pour un naturalisme, que P. Bayle'" tenait pour pretant
un peu trop le flanc a I' atheisme, il a tout I' air de dissimuler une ruse de la volonte
divine, ce que Mosheim a mieux vu inversement, le theisme cudworthien n'est pas,
malgre son dessein, absolu, puisqu'une autre raison que la raison divine est a
I'oeuvre dans le monde, merne si elle est depourvue de toute connaissance et de
toute intelligence." Or, cette perplexite s'exprimant dans l'oscillation entre un
naturalisme qui sent son artifice et un theisme qui a du mal a s'etablir tout a fait,
semble avoir pour origine la tentative meme de Cudworth de transposer au rapport
de Dieu et de la matiere creee par lui un 'A.o-yoc; plotinien qui resiste par sa nature
meme a la transposition. Tandis que Ie 'A.o-yoc; de Plotin constitue a la fois un inter-
mediaire dans la procession et un moyen de penser la transmission de la vie du
Principe, Ie 'A.o-yoc; cudworthien est instrumental, comme une intention s'exercant a
retardement. Dans la pensee plotinienne, ni naturalisme ni theisme n'auraient eu
cours: car jamais on ne croirait que la production de la nature risquat Ie moins du
monde de se substituer au Principe, qui lui ne sort pas de soi. Quant au theisme, si
I'on entend par la la reconnaissance d'une volonte divine ayant l'ordre du monde
pour visee, il n'a pas droit de cite dans le plotinisme. Dans l'emanatisme integral
dont parle D. O'Brien apropos de Plotin.F la nature est le dernier terme d'un ordre
processif pense comme affaiblissement de I'action du Principe. Ce n'est certes pas
ainsi que la conceit Cudworth, qui ne saurait alleguer ni admettre un tel affaiblisse-
ment de I'action de Dieu. Force lui est de rendre compte de la limitation des pou -
voirs de la nature par la volonte divine.
L'equivoque qui reside dans l'idee cudworthienne d'une continuite instituee, et
non pas naturelle et necessaire - alors que la continuite de la descente resulte pour
Plotin d'une necessite et d 'une loi naturelle <l>wewc; VOJ,LOC;, s'attache egalement a
I'immanence de l'activite de la nature. En effet, tandis que pour Plotin le refus de
l' exteriorite se justifie par Ie caractere theoretique de la production naturelle,
Cudworth, tout en citant Plotin a cet egard," veut voir dans la nature un art imma-
nent, principe, arne , ou loi internes: "Nature, that is a Concrete and Embodied
Art".39 Plotin eut-il souscrit a cette caracterisation? Certes, Plotin evoque bien une
"demiurgie de la nature" et, a l'egal d' Aristote recuse tout artificialisme dans l'ex-
plication de la generation du monde; mais il ne pense pas, a I'instar d ' Aristote, que
la nature et I'art precedent de la meme facon, car, selon lui, "la nature part du
principe", i.e. de l'unite de la forrne.t" ce que I'art ne saurait faire, lui qui precede
partes extra partes. II serait tentant, meme si c'est aventureux, d'introduire une dis-
tinction entre l'idee de 'A.o-yoc; immanent - qui serait alors plus proprement plotini-
enne - et I'Idee de 'T"exvTj immanente; le premier agit sans oeuvrer, la seconde
 CUDWORTH, PLATONISME PARADOXAL 107

oeuvre de l'interieur et vise Ie meilleur etat possible. Le modele du AO'Yoc; parait

relever d'une persistance du stoicisme, pour lequel la nature artiste agit par Ie de-
ploiement progressif d'une unite premiere; elle represente autre chose qu'une
TEXVT] interiorisee, ce qui oriente plutot vers une conception aristotelicienne. Pour
Plotin la nature produit en tant qu'elle est, tandis que dans le modele aristotelicien,
la nature vise une production reussie, meme si elle ne delibere pas. II semble que
Cudworth projette une nature aristotelicienne sur un logos plotinien, la premiere
conception I'autorisant ajuger la nature dans ses oeuvres, la seconde a maintenir la
participation de la nature a I'Intelligible, fut-ce dans I'entendement divino L'auteur
joue de la double presence, dans l'heritage antique sur la nature, du X-o'Yoc; et de la
TEXVT], voyant dans sa nature plastique a la fois une image de I'art divin, une raison
immanente et confuse, et un art cache. II tend ainsi a limiter I'importance de la
composante stoicienne du plotinisme qu'il revendique, en aristotelisant sans Ie dire,
pour pouvoir comparer I'art de la nature et l'art divin, au nom de leurs reussites
respectives.
On Ie voit, abstraction faite du jeu tres complexe de ses citations antiques,
Cudworth elabore une notion tres sophistiquee de la nature plastique : en tant que
raison, elle est ce qui, au plus pres de la matiere, permet que subsiste I'efficace du
principe du meilleur; en tant qu'art, mais art immanent, elle exprime une loi interne
qu'elle suit aveuglement, elle ne sait ni ne veut ce qu'elle fait. Mais ce qu'il peut
subsister d'art dans cette nature permet que Ie lien au plan intelligible qui regit
I'univers ne soitjamais rompu.
S'il fallait preciser encore un peu plus cette recherche en genealogie platonici-
enne, on pourrait conjecturer que la liaison qu'institue Cudworth entre Divine Art et
Art of Nature, i.e. entre Divine Art Archetypal et Art Ectypal, releve plus d'un me-
dioplatonisme comme celui de Plutarque, que du plotinisme: car, meme si pour
Plotin les Idees sont des Pensees de Dieu, il ne s'agit pas du premier Dieu, mais du
Dieu qui precede du Premier, comme Kronos est issu d'Ouranos." Cudworth fait
de l'Intelligence Ie Principe, il s'arrete au Dieu d'Aristote tout en lui pretant une
fonction qui n'cst pas Ia sienne selon le Stagirite: Ia fonction de providence
superieure, Ainsi, Ie fait de parler d'art ectypal a propos de la nature n'est-il pas
adequat au plotinisme, a moins que I'on ne reduise I'art divin a la sagesse divine et
celui de la nature a sa contemplation affaiblie. Mais ce serait alors la veine aris-
totelicienne qui, dans la reconstruction cudworthienne des origines de la Plastick
Nature, entrerait en conftit avec Ie plotinisme: en effet la nature selon Ie Stagirite
est comme un art, c'est I'art qui COIncide avec ce qu'il produit en etant rendu
immanent, mais iI n'est I'image d'aucun art divin, et n'est Ie correlat d'aucune
contemplation.
On ne sait ce qu'i1 faut preferer pour caracteriser la teneur de la Plastick Nature
d'un aristotelisme platonise , ou d'un plotinisme aristotelise, Ie premier pretant au
Stagirite, malgre ses critiques expresses, une Arne du Monde, Ie second erigeant en
divinite supreme un intellect. En realite, on dirait volontiers que Cudworth ne
choisit pas, s'i1 accentue plus que ne Ie fait Plotin I'aspect demiurgique ou tech-
nique de la nature, il Ie limite aussitot par la notion de raison immanente. Voulant
108 A. PETIT

garder a l'idee de Dieu toute sa purete , sans ecarter Ie providentialisme, i1 cherche a

etablir, entre Dieu et la nature plastique, un lien qui soit un lien de participation
entre deux causes mentales ou "raisons". Et c'est la probablement I'aspect de sa
theorie de la nature plastique par lequel son plotinisme est Ie mieux avere . De fait,
dans les Enneades, la nature est une raison qui deploie les >"O)'OL O"1TepJ..L<lTLKOL,
raisons seminales, expressions des formes que I'InteIIect embrasse a I'etat de
monde intelligible. Quant au >"0)'0<; 1TOL'T]TLKO<;, qui n'est autre, on l'a vu, que
la nature prise a un certain egard, i1 a pour fonction d' incorporer les >"O)'OL
O"1TepJ..L<lTLKOL a la matiere Cette these, qui a une manifeste resonance storcienne,
est etroitement solidaire de la these plotinienne fondamentale selon laquelle toute
realite est pensee.P Dans la mesure meme ou i1 cherche a echapper aux impasses
d'une ontologie dualiste, ou il voit la croix des Cartesiens, Cudworth fait mani-
festement sienne la doctrine plotinienne du Logos, telle qu'elle apparait en pleine
lumiere dans Ie traite Sur la Providence (III, 2 et III, 3). II est significatif qu'en
traduisant Plotin iI substitue a >"0)'0<; 1TOL'T]TLKO<; I'expression de plastick nature .
Mais y a-t-il une parfaite compatibilite entre l'idee de deploiement des raisons
seminales en quoi consiste I'action de la nature selon Plotin, et l' idee cudworthi-
enne d'une subordination de la nature plastique a un ordre concerte? Cudworth
retrouve en fait ici une forme subtile d'artificialisme, lointainement heritee du
Timee, qu 'il tente de temperer par Ie recours au traite plotinien Sur la Providence.
Cependant, on se heurte, s'agissant de l'articulation de la providence, au meme
paradoxe qu 'en ce qui regarde la continuite de l'etre: Cudworth veut une spon-
taneite obeissante, un deploiement heteronome des >"O)'OL, la ruse de la raison
divine etant de creer son simulacre immanent, la nature plastique.
On Ie voit, nos trois equivoques successives, de la continuite, de I'immanence, et
de la participation, n'en font en realite qu'une seule: Cudworth, sous couvert d'un
dedoublement de la providence, ninstitue-t-il pas une nature introuvable? J . L.
Mosheim dans ses adnotationes a sa traduction du True Intellectual System,43 n'a
peut-etre pas tout a fait tort de considerer que les leges naturae cartesiennes ne sont
pas aussi eloignees que Cudworth Ie croit de sa propre plastick nature. On doit
neanmoins, en toute justice, verser au credit de Cudworth son entreprise de preciser
Ie sens de la law of nature, qui n'est ni verbale ni externe, mais plutot lex insita /" II
est caracteristique a cet egard que Cudworth tienne pour equivalents law et soul ,
cette equivalence meme etant un echo assez fidele de l'idee plotinienne de >"0)'0<;
generateur.
Si I'on a pu discerner quelques equivoques et une sorte d'indetermination doctri-
nale dans Ie platonisme de Cudworth, iI ne saurait evidemment s' agir de lui intenter
un proces d'Inauthenticite, II serait mieux venu de penser qu'i1 est un plotinien cir-
conspect, dont Ie souci majeur et manifeste est theologique . Cudworth, au travers
de sa nature plastique, cherche une via media entre Ie mecanisme et I'hyper-volon-
tarisme, entre un Dieu qui ne fait rien et un Dieu qui fait tout. Sa nature plastique
est une mediation, a l'egal du >"0)'0<; plotinien , mais elle ne I'est pas au meme sens:
chez Plotin, la mediation du AO)'O<; est I'expression la plus claire de la necessite de
la procession, tandis que Ie mediateur cudworthien obeit a son createur, en partici-
 CUDWORTH, PLATONISME PARADOXAL 109

pant confusement de son plan . Le platonisme cudworthien n'est pas faux, i1 est
strategique: c'est un instrument precieux, qui permet de redonner a la nature une
action propre, au risque d'equivoques que I'on a pu rencontrer. Cudworth est-il
Plotinus redivivus? S'i1l'est, ill'est alors bien plus subtilement que sa celebre eru-
dition ne Ie laisse entendre. Ni Plotin perpetue, ni Plotin travesti: Plotin deplace.

Alain Petit

NOTES

E . Cassirer, The Platoni c Renaissance in England. (London : Nelson , 1953).

"Solet Cudworthus Iibenter Platonicis iunioribus hac in causa auctoribus uti. Et fatendum omnino est
nullos veterum philosophorum his Platonicis proprios ad eius sententiam accedere" J. L. Mosheim, trad.
lat. de Cudworth, Systema intellectuale huius universi, (lena, 1733), p. 164, n. 2 (c'est nous qui
soulignons).
3 R. Cudworth, TI.S.V., chap. III, § XXXVII.
F. Ravaisson, Essai sur la Metaph ysique d 'Aristote , II , Paris, Joubert, 1846, p. 382.
R. Cudworth, T.l.S.V., p. 147.
Cf. Ciceron, De Natura Deorum , I, 22.
J. L. Mosheim,trad. cit., p. 154.
Ciceron, op. cit., I, 22.
R. Cudw orth , T.I.S. V., § XXXVII.
10 Stoi corum Veterum Fragmenta, lI , § 1133. Cf Diogene Laerce VII, § 156.
II R. Cudworth, TI.S.u.. pp. 686--687.
12 Ibid .

IJ lbid., p. 733 .
14 lbid., p. 728 .

15 Ibid., p. 149.
16 Ibid.. p. 155.
17 Ibid., p. 648 et 862 .

18 Ibid., p. 680 .
19 lbid., p. 147.

20 lbid., p. 886 .
21 Plotin , Enneades, V, 2 (II), 1,7-9.
22 J. L. Mosheim, trad. cit., p. 151 et p. 152 n. I.
23 R. Cudworth, TI.S.U., p. 150.
24 Plotin , Enneades, 11I,2 (47), 16, 14-17.
25 Ibid., I. 15.
26 Enneades, III, 3 (48), 4, 8-13.
27 Enneades, V, 3 (II), I.
28 Enneades, III, 8, 3.
29 Enneades, 11I,2, (47) , 14.

30 R. Passmore: Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation, (Cambridge University Press, 195\), p. 24.

31 R. Cudworth, T.I.S.U., p. 155.
32 Ibid.
33 lbid., p. 163.
.14 Enneades, III, 8, 2, 20-22.
35 P. Bayle, Continuation des Pensees Diverses, XXI, II - Oeuvres Diverses (Olms, 1966), vol. III,
p.217.
36 R. Cudworth, TI.S.V., p. 157.
110 A. PETIT

J7 D. O'Brien: "Plot inus and the Gnostics" , in Melanges Pierre Aubenque, (Paris: PUF, 1990), p. 184.
Jg R. Cudworth, T.I.S.U., p. 156.
J9 Ibid., p. 155.
40 Plotin , Enneades, V, 4, II, 1-5 (cf V, 9, 6, 20-24)
41 Ibid., III, 5, 2, 33-34.
42 Ibid. III, 8.
4J J. L. Moshe im, trad. cit., p. 151-152.
44 R. Cudworth, T.I.S.U., p. 17 et 156.
 1. M . VIENNE

IXE<nc; ET RELATION : DU PLATONISME A L'EMPIRISME

Trop souvent les c1assements historiques empechent de comprendre, du fait merne

qu'ils imposent un ordre; ainsi les notions d'empirisme et de platonisme, qui sem-
blent opposees, doivent elles etre apparentees, si I'on traite de la fin du XVIIe siecle
britannique. Certes des differences fondamentales demeurent et on s'est plusieurs
fois arrete sur I'opposition, par exemple manifestee par la critique lockienne des
idees innees; or les analyses de John Yolton et de Sarah Hutton) font justice des
simplifications exagerees, et des convergences ont merne ete manifestees par
G. A. J. Rogers." C'est dans la ligne de ces analyses, et de I'insistance sur I'ouvrage
epistemologique posthume de Cudworth, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and
Immutable Morality par J. L. Breteau! que s'inscrit l'etude qui suit. II ne s'agira
cependant pas de degager des influences ni de comparer la lettre des textes, mais
plutot de mettre en rapport la coherence de I'une et de I'autre pensee. Cette
methode est d'ailleurs ici la seule possible: I'ouvrage de Cudworth est paru apres la
mort de Locke, et pour rendre certain Ie fait probable que Locke ait eu connais-
sance du texte manuscrit, iI faudrait des arguments biographiques precis qui font
defaut. II s'agira done pour I'essentiel d'etayer une these simple: I'activite de
I' esprit est un element structurel commun aux platoniciens de Cambridge et a I' em-
pirisme c1assique.
La these est paradoxale, car neo-platonisme et empirisme sont manifestement
opposes sur ce point. En ternoigne la conclusion de Cudworth, qui , comme
plusieurs autres textes de I'ouvrage, donne I'impression d'etre un extrait d'un debar
entame avec Locke:

... I have ende avoured to demonstrate in the foregoing Discourse. that knowledge and Intellection
cannot possibly spring from Sense. nor the Radiation or Impresses of Matter and Body upon that which
knows . but from an active power of the Mind. and independant upon it. whereby it is enabled from
within it self to exert Ideas of all Things."

Pourtant il faut dans ce texte etre attentif a un point: comme toutes les theses
contradictoires, empirisme et neo-platonisme ont en commun Ie lieu de leur opposi-
tion. Pour obtenir un des themes fondamentaux de I'empirisme, iI suffit d'inverser
Ie signe d'un element que Cudworth a, Ie premier a ma connaissance, place au
centre de son propos. Plus precisement, en faisant de la relation le lieu privilegie
d'inscription du platonisme en philosophie de la connaissance, Cudworth a permis
I'empirisme c1assique: iI suffisait d'inverser Ie signe de la relation, de la Iier au sen-
sible plus qu' a la constitution mentale a priori, pour passer du platonisme a I' em-
pirisme. C'est done d'abord cette hypothese assez simple que je vais tenter
d'illustrer: Cudworth traduit le platonisme en termes de relations entre atomes-
logiques; et, pour I'essentiel, I'empirisme se distingue uniquement de ce platonisme
par une definition autre de la meme relation.

III
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 111-126.
© 1997 Kluwer Academi c Publishers.
112 J. M. VIENNE

L'originalitet de Cudworth consisterait done en l'inscription du platonisme

dans une relation entre atomes logiques. Mais la place accordee a la relation
repose sur la prise en compte d'atomes logiques a relier; notre hypothese de
travail implique done une seconde affirmation: Ie platonisme de Cudworth serait
lie a une reutilisation d'Epicure et de Sextus Empiricus qui lui permettent d'actu-
aliser, fut-ce de maniere crit ique, l'atomisme epicurien et le scepticisme envers
les qualites.
Quant aux liens entre conceptions empiristes et neo-platoniciennes qui en de-
coulent, plutot que Locke lui-meme, un auteur peu connu mais parfois range parmi
nos platoniciens, Richard Burthogge, en portera temoignage: tenant certains propos
que signerait Locke, il manifeste la transition possible de la relation-oeuvre-de-
I'esprit a la relation -extraite-de-I'experience; ou plus exactement il manifeste que
1'0n peut comme Locke laisser a la relation le statut cartesien et cudworthien de
mode de la substance-esprit, sans lui retirer totalement, comme le font Descartes et
Cudworth, son origine empirique.
Mais avant de lire Cudworth puis Burthogge, il convient de commencer par
rendre raison de la place de la relation dans la theorie de la connaissance
empiriste.

*
I) SUBSTANCE IGNOREE ET RELATION CONSTITUEE

Selon l'opinion commune, l'empirisme se caracterise par la passivite de I'esprit

envers Ie donne des sens qui s'impose a lui sous deux modes differents: comme
qualite atomique source d'impression, de phantasme ou d'idee d'une part, comme
relation entre les idees d'autre part. II suffit a I'esprit d'enonccr ce qui est donne
dans la sensation, lidee d'une part, la relation d'autre part, et de donner son assen-
timent a la proposition formee par les idees et cette relation. Cette presentation
repose sur la forme la plus claire de I'empirisme selon laquelle Ie reel est trans-
parent a I'esprit, ou du moins se montre dans sa forme avec suffisamment de
fidelite pour que l' accumulation dans la memoire" ou l' accumulation de l' experi-
ence anterieure (prolepse epicurienne) produise Ie concept (A6'Yo~, dit Aristote) au-
thentique de la chose . Mais cet empirisme antique ne posait pas la question de la
relation entre idees au sens modeme du terme, relation qui s' exerce entre atomes
logiques. Certes, Epicure s'inquietait du rapport des proprietes au corps (la chaleur
et Ie feu par exemple)", mais il ne posait evidernrnent pas la question en termes de
representation. Certes, il etait question chez Aristote de l'Inherence du predicat a la
substance, mais d'une part cette question etait une question theorique, seconde a
l'unite premiere de la chose pour Ie sens commun; et d'autre part cette relation
n'unissait pas des accidents de valeur ontologique identique; la primaute on-
tologique de la substance evitait ce qui deviendra Ie probleme ulterieur de la rela-
tion: I'Inherence n'a pas Ie statut d'une relation entre predicats equivalents.
L'inherence ne peut etre assimilee aux autres relations que par une pensee qui a
 LA RELATION, DU PLATONISME A L'EMPIRISME 113

I'instar la pen see moderne se donne comme premier modele la relation entre
accidents tous equivalents.
C'est Ie cas de I'empirisme" du dix-septieme siecle, empirisme qui devient de ce
fait plus complexe. II a retenu la lecon sceptique: les qualites que I'atomisme
antique traitait comme des elements physiques deviennent pour lui des elements
fondes sur la connaissance humaine; on ne connait les qualites qu'en tant qu'elles
nous sont relatives; toute connaissance sensible de la substance devient done im-
possible et toute transparence de la chose disparait. Le senti de I'empirisme du dix-
septieme siecle est autre que Ie senti de I'empirisme antique : non plus une chose,
produisant I'image ou Ie concept, mais une qualite ou un accident produisant une
idee; et a partir de cet atome logique doit etre recomposee la chose; la question de
la connaissance se pose alors en des termes analogues a ceux de la physique atom-
istique. La relation entre les atomes logiques doit etre etablie, comme devait etre
etabli Ie lien entre les atomes epicuriens, ou la forme entre les elements du Timee.
La critique sceptique de la notion de substance, liee a I'atomisme non plus
physique mais logique, introduit dans Ie champ episternologique la question de la
relation .
Le scepticisme moderne met ainsi en doute notre capacite de saisir par les sens
non seulement l'ordre naturel entre les chose s, mais aussi Ie substrat qui fait la
chose . A cette difficulte neuve de l'epistemologie moderne, ni I'abstraction aris-
totelicienne, ni la prolepse epicurienne n'apportent de solution immediate. On peut
certes suivre Aristote dans une autre partie de sa logique; dans les Seconds
Analytiques.' Aristote affirmait en effet que pour obtenir la connaissance d'une
chose, il fallait lier la qualite a la substance, comme on lie les preuves de toute de-
monstration, par I'invention du moyen tcrme et Ie moyen terme pour Aristote, c'est
la cause qui lie les deux termes. Connaitre, c'est done connaitre la cause qui relie.
Mais, au dix-septieme siecle, du fait notamment de la critique de la substance , toutc
science de la causalite interne aux choses est mi se en doute. En temoignent
Glanvill '? et Hobbes; Hobbes surtout, qui conserve I'exigence aristotelicienne de
connaissance par les causes, et resout I'aporie ouverte par I'ignorance des sub-
stances en faisant de la science une connaissance des consecutions causales entre
Ies denominations seules , quitte a faire de la science un savoir hypothetique.!' Mais
ceux qui, comme Cudworth ou Locke desapprouvent Ie caractere hypothetique de
la science et notamment de Ia science morale, ne peuvent admettre ce conventiona-
lisme qui prive de tout fondement la relation; constitutive des objets; il leur importe
de trouver un autre principe de la relation constitutive de I'objet dans I'esprit.
C'est a I'esprit connaissant de reintroduire , par la constitution de I'objet dans la
pensee (constitution active et efficiente), l'equivalent de la substance qui fait l'unite
de la chose dans Ie reel. Pour recreer cette unite de la chose, I'esprit doit evidem-
ment etre actif.'? voire etre lui-meme la cause ou Ie moyen terme que reclamait
Aristote. Berkeley iIIustre ce choix de la rnaniere la plus radicalc : c'est I'esprit actif
qui selon lui est la seule substance unifiant les qualites. Pour ceux qui ne vont pas
jusqu'a cette solution extreme, I'esprit demeure la source de l'unite de I'objet: la
relation lockienne utilisee dans la formation des idees complexes comme dans
114 1. M . VIENNE

l'acquisition de connaissances, la croyance humienne en la relation qui est au

principe de toute necessite, sont les ersatz cognitifs de I'unite ontologique qu'opere
Ie substrat. Cette these n'est d'ailleurs pas totalement originale : il etait courant de
conferer au sens commun, voire a l'esprit meme, l'unification des sensations sinon
la decouverte des qualites premieres substantielles.!'
La relation est l'acte mental qui unifie le divers des atomes logiques donnes par
la sensation. Ainsi Locke trouve dans la distinction du contenu (idee de sensation
ou de reflexion) et de la forme (relation) une solution evitant a la fois le scepticisme
absolu et l'hypothetique." Mais le texte de Locke est moins simple qu'il ne parait:
merne s'il revendique pour l'esprit le droit a consentir par lui-meme a toute mise en
relation (sinon le droit a elaborer toute relation), meme si sa critique de I'inne a
surtout pour objet de denoncer les tentatives de reduction de ce droit, Locke ne dis-
tingue pas clairement la part qu'il attribue a la spontaneite de l'esprit et celle qu'il
attribue a son asservissement a l'ordre des sensations. Cette ambigune sera thema-
tisee par Berkeley et par Hume notamment mais elle marque I'empirisme classique:
l'esprit constitue-t-illa relation ou enonce-t-il la trace qu'il trouve imprimee en lui
par la Nature (ou par la nature humaine)? Or cette part de l'entendement dans la
constitution des relations, qui constitue la seule assurance de l'empirisme contre Ie
scepticisme, peut se comprendre a partir de la facon dont Cudworth presente le
platonisme.

2) LA RELATION (lTXElTL<;) SELON CUDWORTH

Repoussant a la fois Ie scepticisme et le relativisme de Protagoras, l'atheisrne

d'Epicure et celui de Spinoza, le mecanisme et le relativisme moral de Hobbes,
Cudworth cherche dans l'activite de l'esprit la solution de tous les maux: elle lui
permet de "recuperer" en chacun de ces systemes des elements pouvant servir a
l'eleboration d'une pensee syncretique. II lui suffit par exemple de pousser a son
terme le scepticisme envers les sens, pour confier, selon une demarche classique,
toute certitude a I'entendement. Des lors, un mecaniste consequent doit distinguer
sensation et conception et faire prevaloir un atomisme contre l'autre, Democrite
contre Epicure, celui qui donne place a l'intelligence contre celui qui affirme la
verite des phenomenes.
Car Cudworth demeure convaincu de la validite de la physique corpusculaire ou
atomiste ; il rend hommage a Descartes d'avoir renoue avec cette conception que
MOIse aurait inspiree aux pythagoriciens, qui l'avaient eux-mernes transmis a
l'ecole parmenidienne et de la a Democrite. Mais cette conception, a l'origine et
par nature foncierernent theiste, etait devenue athee entre les mains d'Epicure. II
s'agit done de restaurer une conception originairement chretienne de l'atomisme,
car un atomisme authentique exige la presence d'un Dieu.
D'abord Cudworth reprend a son compte les elements de la physique corpuscu-
laire: la lumiere est un mouvement et une pression de particules emises par un
corps opaque. Ces particules heurtent ce qui leur resiste, et la resistance de la
lentille est identique a celle de I'reil physiologique , identique egalement a celle de
 LA RELATION, DU PLATONISME A L 'EMPIRISME 115

l'esprit. S'il existe done une difference entre lentille, ceil et esprit, elle ne vient
guere (comme Ie supposait Hobbes sans doute vise ici) de la reaction ou de la
resistance, mais d'une activite differentielle de chaque recepteur. Outre la force du
corps, qui se manifeste dans le phantasme sensible aussi bien que dans la reflexion
d'un miroir, il faut une force de l'esprit pour expliquer ce qui est specifique dans la
connaissance.
D'ou iI resulte que les idees, reflexives et morales d'abord, et de relation ensuite'?
sont des idees issues de la seule activite de I'esprit, et non de la passivite des sens:

ThaI there are some Ideas of the Mind which ... must needs arise from the Innate Vigour and Activity of
the Mind itself, is evident ... in that there are . First . .. . Ideas of Wisdom. .. . Verity, .. .Justice .. .
Secondly, in that there are many Relative Notions and Ideas, attributed as well to Corporeal as
Incorporeal things that proceed wholly from the Activity of the Mind Comparing one thing with another.
Such as are Cause, Effect, Means, End, Order. Proportion, Similitude, Dissimilitude, Equality,
Inequality, Aptitude, Inaptitude, Symmetry. Asymmetry, Whole and Part, Genus and Species, and the
like.!"

Ces notions sont suscitees par I'esprit a I'occasion des sensations, mais ne sont
pas produites par les sens. Ce qui se comprend par la comparaison avec la connais-
sance d'une machine telle l'horloge. Dans la sensation, l'homme voit des rouages
sans en saisir Ie sens; ce qui distingue la sensation physiologique de la perception
intelligente, c'est que la perception compare les differentes parties, decouvre la
cause du mouvement, la chaine qui transmet Ie mouvement, les rapports spatiaux
divisant Ie cadran, et

...all these in their several Relations to one another and the Whole. Whereupon the Intellect, besides
Figure. Colour, Magnitude and Motions , raises and excites the Intelligible Ideas of Cause, Effect,
Means, End. Priority and Posteriority. Equality and Inequality, Order and Proportion. Symmetry and
Asymmetry, Aptitude and Inaptitude, Sign and Thing signified, Whole and Part, in a manner all the
logical and Relative Notions that are. ... And if the sentient Eye could dispute with the Mind or Intellect,
It would Confindently avow and maintain. that there were no such Entities as those in this Self-moving
Machine, and that the Understanding was abused and deceived in those Apprehensions; since all that
was impressed from the Object was. by the sentient Eye, faithfully transmitted to it, and the Intellect re-
ceived all its Intelligence or Information from it.!?

Et Cudworth repete comme en une litanie la liste des relations que voyait l'intel-
lect et que ne voit pas l'reil, repetition qui fait penser ala fois au texte de I'evangile
de Jean "Ce que l'reil n'a pas vu, ... c'est ce que nous annoncons" et au texte
fameux des Confessions d' Augustin ou se repete I'interrogation a l'ame sur ce
qu'elle peut saisir d'elle-meme; repetition qui manifeste a la fois \'importance du
propos et son sens: le relatifou (Ie terme est significatif) le logique, c'est cet invisi-
ble, ce spirituel present dans Ie materiel: l'agir de Dieu.
L'allegorie est instructive car elle met en scene l'univers comme une somme de
parties, parties qui sont dites ailleurs les qualites premieres immediatement saisies
par les sens, chaque sens saisissant de maniere differente (toucher, vision), done
produisant une donnee differente que seul associe et compose ce sens commun
116 J . M . VIENNE

qu'est l'entendement (comme chez Locke) pour former un objet. L'ceil (et chaque
sens comme lui) saisit absolument et l'esprit introduit ensuite les relations (4.3.9,
p. 166), qui sont done un supplement d'ame par rapport a la materialite du senti.
L'atomisme democriteen est ainsi revalorise par rapport a l'atomisme epicurien, en
ce que l'esprit est convoque pour reduire la part du hasard et de la materialite. En
cet aspect dernocriteen se retrouvent Hobbes et Cudworth: faire une science, c' est
selon l'expression de Hobbes etablir des consecutions, et pour atteindre ce niveau il
est necessaire de quitter Ie domaine du sensible et de la prudence pour acceder a un
domaine distinct, seul apte a etablir des relations. Hobbes et Cudworth s'accordent
sur ce point avec Democrite : l'ordre de la science n'est pas celui du pur phantasme.

Wherefore the proper and genuine Result of this old Atomical Philosophy, which is the triumph of
Reason over Sense, is nothing else but this, that Sens e alone is not the Criterion or Judge of what does
Really and Absolutely exist without us, but that there is a Higher and Superior intellectual Faculty in us
that Judges of our Senses, which discovers what is Fallacious and Fantastical in them, and pronounces
what absolutely is and is not. And Democritus, who did more thoroughly and perfectl y understand this
Atomical Philo sophy than Protagoras, makes this to be the proper Result and Consequence of it, the
Invalidating the Judgment of Sense concerning Bodies themselves, and the asserting a higher Faculty of
Reason in us to determine what is absolutely True and False."

Ce qui par contre separe Hobbes, et Cudworth, et c'est fondamental, c'est que ce
niveau de la science est pour le premier conventionnel, et pour le second naturel.
Cudworth, du fait de son orientation neo-stoicienne, ne s'en tient pas a ce
desaveu du sensible. Par la, il se separe plus encore du conventionalisme hobbe-
sien. II introduit ainsi la dimension qu'exploiteront les empiristes apres Locke . Et
sur ce point, il suit moins Democrite qu'Epicure utilisant, malgre toutes ses reti-
cences a l'egard de l'atheisme d'Epicure, certains elements de sa solution.'? L'un
des points importants de la difference des systemes de Dernocrite et d'Epicure tient
en effet a ce que Democrite affirme qu' "aucune des [choses qui apparaissent aux
sens] n'apparait selon la verite ...; il appelle la connaissance par Ie moyen de l'In-
telligence legitime, attestant qu'elle merite confiance dans le discernement de la
verite, mais celle par les sens, ilIa nomme bdtarde".2o Cudworth, comme Epicure,
tient au contraire Ie sensible pour vrai; Epicure affirme que "L 'objet visible ne
parait pas seulement visible, mais il est tel qu'il parait. ... Done toutes les images
qui se produisent sont vraies"." Et de son cote, Cudworth affirme parallelement:

. .. external Sense... , is not capable of Falsehood, becau se as such, it does not comprehend the absolute
Truth of any Thing; being only a Phantasm, or Appearance, and all Appearances are such are alike
True .. .. Every Phancy is true. [note: micra <!>aVTacrl.a Ecr-rt &hTJe1]~l that is every Phanc y is a Phancy
or an Appearance, and nothing more is required to it. 22

Verite du phantasme qui n'est ni dans l'esprit de Democrite ni dans celui de

Hobbes. Cudworth voit dans le sensible la verite, meme si toute la verite n'apparait
pas dans cette apprehension limitee; l'erreur consisterait a affirmer un jugement sur
la totalite de la chose a partir du seul aspect sensible: "c'est Ie propre de la sensa-
tion que de saisir seulement ce qui est present et qui la meut, la couleur par
 LA RELATION, DU PLATONISME A L'EMPIRISME 117

exemple, mais non pas de discerner que I'objet est autre ici et la".23 L'empirisme
exploitera cette theorie de la "double verite" , verite de la sensation et verite du
jugement, pour les Iier par un rapport de causalite, apparente aux theses aristoteli-
ciennes de I'induction et aux theses epicuriennes de la prolepse, theses transposees
du champ des substances au champ des qualites ou idees: c'est la force merne de la
verite de l'etre, presente dans la sensation, qui persevere dans l'idee, dans l'associ-
ation des idees, jusque dans la proposition; la these masquee encore chez Locke par
des complexites residuelles, se revele chez Berkeley et surtout chez Hume dans
toute sa clarte. Mais cette these implique I'accord sur un point fondamental degage
par Cudworth apres Hobbes: la relation est Ie fait de I'esprit merne si Ie rapport de
cet esprit a la sensation n'est identique ni a la convention hobbesienne ni ala natu-
ralite transcendante de Cudworth. La theorie atomique, chez Cudworth comme
chez Epicure, fait des corps des melanges et des sommes et permet ainsi de main-
tenir sans contradiction que toute sensation est vraie, tout en affirmant qu'elle ne se
suffit pas et appelle une mise en relation externe.
Mais ici, les interpretations se separent a nouveau. Cudworth apres Epicure parle
d'une autre verite, celie de I'opinion, dujugement ou de la science, mais Epicure ne
se soucie pas de la genese mentale de I'objet: illui suffit d'affirmer que la sensation
ne se preoccupe pas de la substance stable derriere la variabilite des accidents sans
smquieter de la facon dont sont recomposes les objets. La theorie atomiste
moderne depasse la theorie atomiste antique car elle prend au serieux les apories
sceptiques et s'interroge sur l'activite mentale qui leur repond: elle pense une re-
constitution mentale de I'objet a partir des atomes de pensees que sont les qualites
secondes . Et cet atomisme mental exige une relation externe aux choses liees. Deux
solutions sont possibles, toutes deux mises en eeuvre par Hobbes a des points dif-
ferents de sa pensee. Soit la relation entre qualites se fait mecaniquement , comme
dans la prudence hobbesienne; soit la relation est artificielle, comme dans la science
hobbesienne. Cudworth emprunte cette deuxieme voie, mais pour eviter de tomber
dans I'hypothetique, qui greve la science hobbesienne, iI s' inscrit dans la tradition
du Tim ee et de son interpretation neo -stoicienne: la relation est l'reuvre d'une
raison apparentee au monde intelligible. Ainsi, I'atomisme, these centrale de l'epi-
curisme, reinterprete en termes epistemolog iques, ouvre-t-il Ie champ a une trans-
position du vOv<; de la physique du Timee dans Ie champ de Ia logique. Au vov<; de
la physique correspond la relation de la logique. Dans toute l'ecole pythagori-
cienne, on conceit Ie rapport entre choses, entre elements , Ie rapport constitutif
de I'univers comme un rapport "intellectuel": harmonie , limite, rapport,
Ao-yo<;[=raison-rapport], voU<;[=Esprit, Pensee], feu: sous des incarnations diverses,
c'est la meme presence organisatrice d'une forme apparentee au voV<; qui se mani-
feste. Ce que permet I'atomisme mental du dix-septieme siecle, c'est de renverser
Ie rapport du physique et du mental : ce lien entre les atomes physiques sert de
modele au lien entre les sensations ou qualites premieres. Et si Hobbes pense la
science comme connaissance des consecutions entre noms, il faudra, me semble-
t-il, la reaction de Cudworth a ce conventionalisme pour que cette science devienne
consecution entre des sensations existantes.
118 1. M . VIENNE

C' est bien cette exteriorite de la relation qui parait faire l' originalite du propos de
Cudworth - ou au moins je propose ici de la lui attribuer, dans la mesure ou je ne
me souviens pas I'avoir vu presentee en ces tennes ailleurs. Precisons que l'origi-
nalite attribuee jusqu'a plus ample informe a Cudworth est la suivante. II ne s'agit
pas d'avoir fait de la relation entre atomes Ie lieu de la pensee (la these est presente
des Ie Timee 24) , mais d'avoir transpose cette these dans l'ordre de la connaissance
pure et d 'avoir situe, au moins dans l'ordre de la decouverte, cette relation mentale
comme anterieure a la relation physique: puisqu'i1 existe des atomes mentaux, Ie
lien entre eux vient de l'esprit comme la pensee sert dans Ie Timee de principe or-
ganisationnel aux elements physiques. Pour passer de la these physique a la these
epistemologique, iI fallait certes une renaissance conjointe du platonisme et du stoi-
cisme mais aussi une renaissance de l'atomisme epicurien; il fallait aussi une oppo-
sition non-grecque du sujet et de l'objet et enfin un "tournant epistemologique" qui
traduisit en atomisme logique cet atomisme physique.

*
Cette transposition epistemologique d'une these c1assique pennet a Cudworth de
dire que les relations de cause et d'effet, de tout et de partie, etc., sont en nous de
simples notions de l'esprit, et des "modes de concevoir"; elles signifient seulement
ce que les choses sont relativement a l'entendement; comme les essences et les
verites eternelles, les relations n'existent que pour des esprits." On songe evidem-
ment a Kant - mais trop vite sans doute, car il ne faudrait pas prendre ce caractere
spirituel de la relation pour un anti-realisme des essences et des relations. Toute re-
lation est a la fois, pour Cudworth, pensee et reelle. Comment concilier ces deux
aspects? Le premier eclaircissemenr est d'ordre epistemologique: tout ce qu'affinne
I'esprit sur Ie reel est plus reel que ce que la sensation decouvre; et done Ie carac-
tere intellectuel des essences des verites eternelles et des relations ne nuit pas a leur
objectivite, a leur eremite et a leur rationalite 26 mais au contraire I'assure puisque
I'intellect (pas plus que la pensee fregeenne) n'est pas a confondre avec la
representation ou la sensation. Deuxieme eclaircissemenr, toujours d'ordre episte-
mologique: les relations sont universelles et done leur perception correcte par
chaque esprit est identique et ne divise pas la verite une: "For as much as Wisdom,
Truth, and Knowledge, are but one and the same Eternal original Light shining in
all created Understandings".27 La question qui reste la plus importante est la
derniere: sommes-nous dans un univers berkeleyen ou n'existe de relation que dans
la mesure ou tout est esprit? La reponse reside en un troisieme eclaircissement,
d'ordre ontologique: au niveau du macrocosme (sans art ou sagesse, Ie monde
n'aurait guere d'efficacite), et au niveau du microcosme, la relation fait Ie corps, car
elle est cause ou conatus interne; ainsi la force et la sante des animaux viennent de
I'harmonie de leurs parties; iI n'y a de pouvoir mecanique possible que par l'orga-
nisation du corps par ses relations internes. Pour rendre raison de la totalite de la
pen see de Cudworth, iI faudrait done poursuivre: si la relation est reelle, si elle rend
seule raison de l'efficace des corps et s'il n'y a de raison que dans des esprits, iI
 LA RELATION, DU PLATONISME A L'EMPIRISME 119

faut effectivement se resoudre It supposer que I'esprit est present dans la matiere
constituant les relations internes et externes de cette matiere, comme iI est present
dans les intelligences humaines qui saisissent ces relations . Leibnizianisme qui n' a
rien d'etonnant si I'on se refere It la cosmologie de Cudworth, developpee dans
True Intellectual System of the Universe.
Quand Cudworth affirme dans True Intellectual System que Ie monde n' est con-
struit ni par Ie hasard epicurien, ni par la necessite spinoziste ou hobbesienne.P et
encore moins par un interventionnisme divin miraculeux, iI renvoie It un principe
interne d'organisation, premiere forme de la relation qui nous interesse . Mais, pour
affirmer sa position, Cudworth oppose ce principe interne aux conceptions stotci-
enne et stratonienne." Ie principe doit avoir une immaterialite et une transcendance
de type platonicienne qui font defaut aux principes stoiciens. Dans True Intellectual
System, c'est la plastic nature qui joue ce role. Le terme n' apparait pas dans Ie
Treatise concerning Immutable Morality, mais iI y est remplace par cette relation
mentale d'abord, physique ensuite.
Cette interpretation est confirmee par une consideration lexicale. Cudworth
traduit par relation Ie terme grec qu'il cite en note, chaque fois qu'il utilise relation :
<TXE<TL<;. Or <TXE<TL<; est un terme qu'utilisent Zenon'? et Epictete pour designer
l'etat d'un corps, son statut, en merne temps que la relation; la nature d'un corps est
deterrninee par la relation interne qui la constitue. D'ou la reference Ia plus
significative pour Cudworth: I'utilisation du terme par Plotin," dans sa critique de
la conception stoicienne des categories; apres avoir critique, grace au stoicisme , la
conception democriteenne et epicurienne qui fait du concours des atomes la cause
de l'unite du corps et de celie de l'ame, Plotin se retourne contre les stoiciens, qui
font du feu ou du souffle un principe indetermine de l'etre et de son unite: "[Les
stoiciens] eux-memes, conduits par la Verite , ternoignent qu'i1 faut, avant les corps,
une forme d'ame superieure, puisqu'ils admettent que leur souffle est intelligent et
qu'il est un feu intellectuel"; "Qu'est done pour eux ce fameux "principe d'etre"
(1TW<; EXOV) auquel ils ont recours, forces d'admettre une nature active, differente
des corps?" Pour etre coherents, estime Plotin, ils devraient faire du "principe
d'etre" d'une chose, qu 'i1s appellent <TXE<TL<;, "autre chose que Ie substrat et Ie
matiere [de cette chose]; si elle [Ia <TXE<TL<;] est dans Ia matiere et si elle est elle-
meme immaterielle parce que non composee de matiere, elle doit etre un certain
>'0)'0<; [raison-rapport] qui n'est pas un corps mais d'une autre nature" . Les stoi-
ciens auraient ainsi raison, s'i1s comprenaient Ie principe des choses comme It la
fois <TXE<TL<; et >'0)'0<; comme principe et raison, comme maniere d'etre et comme
rapport, comme relation et comme intelligence; Ie tout non point materiel , comme
i1s eu Ie tort de la croire, mais bien spirituel.
La spiritualisation par Plotin du >'0)'0<;, feu corporel qui etait au principe des
corps selon les stoiciens, n'est pas pour deplaire It Cudworth. Cette these neo-pla-
tonicienne critique les points de vue epicurien aussi bien que stoicien, en ce qu'ils
sont materialistes, mais elle reprend ce qui demeure valide aux yeux de Cudworth
dans les systemes critiques: I'atomisme epicurien, qui fait du corps un amas, et Ie
>.o)'o~ stoicien qui fait de I'amas un tout. La <TXE<TL<; prefigure la plastic nature de
120 1. M. VIENNE

la "physique" de True Intellectual System et plus encore la place donnee a la rela-

tion dans la theorie de la connaissance de Eternal and Immutable Morality. De
merne que la critique du mecanisme materialiste de True Intellectual System
exigeait un principe intellectuel de la physique, de meme la theorie de la connais-
sance se constitue par une critique de la connaissance sensible qui ignore la relation
purement intelligible de la CTxE<nc;.
Dans True Intellectual System, a la suite d' Aristote qui parIait de la forme
presente dans l'esprit du charpentier.F Cudworth faisait dependre la nature
physique d'une fin intellectuelle par le biais d'une nature plastique; dans la theorie
de la connaissance qu'il developpe dans Eternal and Immutable Morality, la nature
plastique qui demeurait relativement externe est remplacee par le principe constitu-
tif du corps, la relation ou CTXECTLC;, qui fait "conspirer au tout": "Relations, and
habitudes to one another , (founded in some actions of them as they are cogitative
beings) and by Order all conspiring into one thing". Parce qu'effet de l'ame dans la
chose, la relation ne peut etre percue par le sens corporel .P II y a de l' esprit dans la
chose, comme it y a de l'esprit en l'homme, tout est plein d'esprit. C'est ce neo-pla-
tonisme de la relation qui autorise un atomisme de la connaissance et de l'etre; plus
est pousse le morcellement des idees et des choses, plus la relation est necessaire en
elles et done l'esprit.
L'importance de la relation est telle que le propos de Cudworth est parfois
proche de celui de Berkeley : ce que nous pensons etre des qualites des choses cor-
porelles n'est souvent que phantasme et imagination , et n'a pas plus de realite que
les couleurs de l' arc-en-cielr' - ce qui laisserait penser que la theorie lockienne des
qualites secondes n'a pas pour unique source Robert Boyle. Mais de meme que
dans la couleur se trouve l'essentiel pour l'esprit, de merne c'est dans la relation-a-
nous plus que dans la materialite de la chose que se trouve l'essentieI. L'intention
de Dieu n'est pas de nous tromper en nous faisant saisir les qualites secondes seules
- I' erreur vient seulement de notre tendance ales substantialiser:

Though it was not the Intention of God or Nature to abuse herein, but a most wise Contrivance thus to
beautify and adorn the visible and material World, to add Lustre and Imbellishment to it, that it might
have Charms, Relishes and Allurements in it, to gratify our Appetites; Whereas otherwise really in it
self, the whole corporeal World in its naked Hue, is nothing else but a Heap of Dust or Atoms, of several
Figure s and Magnitudes, variously agitated up and down, which we look upon as such real Things
without us, are not properly the Modifications of Bodies themselves, but several Modifications, Passions
and Affections of our own Souls."

L'importance de la relation est exacerbee au point que l'on en arrive a un para-

doxe. Le monde est intrinsequement constitue de relations: relations entre atomes
physiques, relations entre atomes logiques et enfin relations dans l'esprit humain
entre atomes physiques et atomes logiques ; mais le phenomenisme qui resulte du
dernier type de relation rend inutile la realite physique de la relation: pourquoi
maintenir la beaute intrinseque de l'univers, pourquoi ne suffirait-il pas que toute
beaute soit phenomenale? On comprend mieux la coherence de Berkeley qui
evacue la doublure qu'est la relation physique et ne conserve que la relation entre
 LA RELATION , DU PLATONISME A L'EMPIRISME 121

esprits qu'est la grammaire de la Nature." Cudworth est foncierement dualiste; la

relation intellectuelle est doublee d'une relation physique, et Ie langage de la nature
a un statut different du langage berkeleyen; il s'agit d'un code physique dont Ie
sens est intellectue1: a I'occasion des mouvements locaux dans les nerfs, I'esprit
forme les notions universelles qui subsumeront les signes formes de facon sin-
guliere.F Autre consequence, d'importance pour notre theme principal de
recherche: la relation n'est pas Ie seul element constitutif de I'objet; il existe en
outre une notion, une Idee au sens platonicien du terme, de la chose.P lei encore la
solution est redondante: une des deux solutions pourrait suffire; soit la sensation est
vraie en elle-rneme, et pour constituer un objet I'esprit utilise une relation dont la
garantie divine se reporte sur I'objet constitue: soit la sensation meme est fausse,
elle n'est que I'occasion de former en nous I'idee universelle de la chose (et I'on
entre dans toutes les difficultes du malebranchisme) . Le cumul des deux solutions
est redondant, mais la redondance est significative: Ie platonisme Ie plus c1assique
est juxtapose a une interpretation "moderne" selon laquelle les idees sont produites
par des relations intellectuelles entre atomes logiques.
Pour nous resumer : on obtient, dans I'ordre de I'etre, un schema assez proche du
schema de pensee cartesien; ce n'est pas parce que Ie sens ne voit pas la relation,
que la relation est secondaire; ce n' est pas parce que I'esprit cree de son propre
fonds la relation qu'elle n'est pas reelle: la creation intellectuelle dit I'ordre reel des
choses que ne saisit pas Ie sens. La relation est fondamentale: elle constitue la
chose comme chose, I'efficace de la chose sur les autres et ainsi Ie monde comme
monde . Mais il y a "perte" de contenu quand ce monde exterieur parvient a I'esprit
par les sens - et ce qui est perdu, c'est la relation; I'esprit reintroduit la relation ini-
tiale," il recree ainsi Ie reel, ce qu'il ne peut faire que grace a sa nature divine. II
existe neanrnoins des idees universelles des choses qui doublent cette composition.
Cette theorie de la relation permet a Cudworth d'affirmer a la fois: 1) une theorie
de la relation constitutive des choses, 2) une theorie de la connaissance constituant
les choses et I'univers mieux que le sens corporel, 3) une theodicee, puisque les re-
lations constitutives des choses, du monde et de la connaissance sont des expres-
sions du vouloir divino En reconstruisant en lui ces relations, I'homme decouvre Ie
plan divino

*
3) BURTHOGGE

Cet equilibre instable sera ebranle par divers systemes de l'epoque, notamment par
I'empirisme de Locke. Mais plusieurs elements de la pensee de Cudworth seront
conserves, et notamment a facon de poser les questions. Je ne prendrai qu'un
exemple, chez Burthogge, parfois considere comme "platonicien de Cambridge ",
alors qu'il est plus lie a Oxford qu'a Cambridge, et plus aristotelicien que platoni-
cien: iI se reconnaitra d'ailleurs une parente avec Locke lors de la publication de
I' Essai, ce qui Ie poussera a lui dedier son deuxieme ouvrage (An Essay upon
122 1. M. VIENNE

Reason, 1694), reprenant plusieurs theses de son premier ouvrage I'Organum Vetus
et Novum (1678); nous nous tiendrons au premier des deux ouvrages, afin de mieux
prouver les relations entre platonisme et empirisme, prenant a temoin une texte
redige avant que Burthogge n'ait pu subir une eventuelle influence de Locke . Si la
these se verifie a propos de Buthogge, el1e sera d'autant plus vraie de Locke qui a
longuement travaille avec la fil1e de Cudworth , sinon avec Cudworth meme.
Dans l'ceuvre de Burthogge, la parente entre platonisme et empirisme va parfois
jusqu'a I'identification. Non seulement i1 reprend dans ses sermons les conceptions
de Cudworth et de More.i" mais ses ouvrages philosophiques affirment dans la
ligne platonicienne la superiorite de l'esprit sur la matiere, esprit present dans le
monde et assurant son unite; cette harmonie est a la fois la verite et la raison du
monde, ce que dit Burthogge en un texte syncretique, surdeterminant la relation par
de multiples references antiques :

For Harmony , it is the Reason of the World; the World was made by it, cannot be known but by it. The
Rule of Proportion is the King-Key, unlocking all the Mysteries of Nature. The Great Creator framed all
things in the Universe in Number, Weight, and Measure: Extremes in it are united by participating
Middles; and in the whole System there is so admirable Uniformity as ravishes every one that beholds it:
every thing in its place is aptly knit with what is next it; and all together into one most regular Frame of
most exact Proportions."

C'est cette harmonie que saisit l'esprit, car la verite est source d'harmonie dans
l'esprit, harmonie qui est de meme ordre que l'harmonie des choses mais saisie
dans notre "analogie" (expression classique que l'on peut trouver dans les textes de
Cherbury aussi bien que ceux de Cudworth pour designer l'ame), Cette harmonie
est a cons iderer sous deux aspects. Comme signification d'abord, com me verite
ensuite. La signification , appelee sence (Ie c est systematique) ou mean ing, est cette
conception ou notion formee dans l'esprit sur proposition d'un objet, d'un mot ou
d'une proposition", elle est l'harmonie objective en tant qu'el1e est dans l'entende-
ment et done distincte de I'harmonie des choses (§ 17). Cette harmonie n'est pas
objet des sens. Seuls en effet sont objets des sens les sons, les couleurs , etc. (§ II);
au contraire, reprenant une litanie assez voisine de cel1e de Cudworth, Burthogge
affirme que l'harmonie, ainsi que "Faculties and Powers, Good, Evil, Virtue, Vice ,
Verity, Falsity, Relations, Order, Similitude, Whole, Part, Cause, Effect, etc., are
Notions" qui , loin detre aussi exterieures a l'entendement qu 'on ne Ie croit
couramment, lui sont au contraire aussi interieures que la couleur l'est a l'ceil: "We
general1y conceive Faculties, ... (under which the Minde apprehends things) to be
Realities and to have an Existence of their own without the Minde" (§ 12), alors
que "all the immediate Objects of Humane Cogitatio .. . are Entia Cogitation is [des
etres de pensee] . Al1 Appearences; which are not properly and (may I use a School-
term) formally in the things themselves conceived under them." (§ 10). Pourtant
el1es sont reelles,

not that on their own nature they are in Realities themselves, but that they have their Grounds in those
that are: they are real (as a School-man would express it) not formally, but fundamentally . They are in-
choately and occasionally in the things, but not consummately and formally in the Faculties; not in the
 LA RELATION, DU PLATONISME A L'EMPIRISME 123

things, but as the things relate to our Faculties; that is, not in the things as they are Things, but as they
are Objectsi?

Le Sence qui est pour I'essentiel une saisie des relations est I'objet propre de
I'entendement, et sur ce point Burthogge retrouve les analyses de Cudworth. Mais
il introduit une note aristotelicienne, qu'autorise son vocabulaire scolastique: ces
relations ont dans la realite des premices, elles ne sont pas pures creations de
I'esprit. On reconnait Ie glissement par rapport a Cudworth: la relation, toujours in-
tellectuelle, a dans la realite un indice,
Apres la saisie du sence, en un acte second, I'entendement produit a partir du
sensible un jugement ou assentiment qui est la reconnaissance de la verite ou de la
faussete de ce sence (§ 7). Ce jugement est reconnaissance de I'harmonie du sence
comme harmonie du reel :

And Truth , as it is the Ground , Motive, and Reason of Assent, is Objective Harmony, or the Harmony,
Congruity, Even-Lying, Answerableness, Consistence, Proportion , and Coherence of things each with
other, in the Frame and Scheme [=<TXE<TLc;) of them in our Mindes."

Ainsi la verite est la correspondance de deux harmon ies, ou la reconnaissance

par I'esprit d'un sence , d'une relation interieure a I'esprit, comme signe d'une rela-
tion exterieure.
Cette harmonie qui a son lieu dans I'esprit mais son origine dans les choses,
permet d'accorder une place aux sens, differente de celie que leur accorde
Cudworth. Ce qui a ete dit jusqu'ici porte en effet sur les seconds et troisieme actes
de I'entendement: Ie jugement ct Ie raisonnement. Le premier acte de I'entende-
ment est I'apprehension (qui donne matiere a la relation de jugement). Or I'ap-
prehension est entierement devolue a l'experience: la realite produit Ie sentiment, et
Ie sentiment la notion; du sensible a I'imagination, de I'imagination a I'esprit et de
I'entendement a la raison, la filiere est continue et conditionne la clarte de la notion :

The neerer our Sensories are unto the Objects impressing them, (if not too neer) the clearer and distinc-
ter is the Sensation made by them ; as we more c1eerly and distinctly see an object at a neerer than a
remoter distance: so the nearer the Minde and Understanding is to Sentiments, the more c1eer, distinct ,
and evident its Perception s are ; I mean, the more sensible Notions are, and the neerer to their Grounds ,
the more effective , more impressive, and consequently clearer and more evident they be.44

La naivete du propos rend plus manifeste encore Ie melange d'empirisme et de

platonisme.
Les elements de la proposition sont issus de la sensation (et I'mneite, ici aussi,
est critiquee) et la relation est ceuvre de I'esprit. Cette lecture rapide de Burthogge
aide a saisir par quels amenagements superficiels Ie platon isme peut se convertir en
empirisme ; mais il faut, pour saisir cette parente, admettre que l'empirisme n'est
pas ignorance de l'activite de I'entendement, qu 'elle affecte au contraire a I'enten-
dement la mise en relation que Ie sensible ne peut en aucun cas produire de son
propre fond s. A cote de ce point central, il existe de nombreux autres points
communs qui meriteraient une analyse plus precise, analogue a celie que I'on a
124 J. M. VIENNE

mene ici pour la relation: theorie de I'atomisme corpusculaire et de I'atomisme

mental, theorie des qualites secondes, etc. II demeure que se pose toujours a l'em-
piriste la question de la part de l'entendement dans cette mise en relation: obeit-il
purement et simplement a I'ordre impose par les idees ou recree-t-il un ordre a
partir de la succession ressentie et de sa propre rationalite? C'est dans les differents
choix portant sur ce point que se differencieront les empirismes.

Jean-Michel Vienne

NOTES

J. Yolton, John Locke and the way of Ideas (Oxford : at the Clarendon Press, 1968). S. Hutton,
' Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham : between Platonism and Enlightenment', British Journal for the
History of Philosophy, I, I, Feb. 93, p. 42-43. J'ai soutenu la merne these dans Experience et Raison
(Paris: Vrin, 1991) p. 54-60. J. L. Breteau, Ralph Cudworth. Ie penseur (These Universite de Paris III,
non publiee, 1987).
1 ' Locke, Newton and the Cambridge Platonists on Innate Ideas' , Journal of the History of Ideas ,
1979,40, p. 191-205.
J J. L. Breteau, Ralph Cudworth . Ie penseur, op. cit., notamment t. 2, p. 565-582.
TEI.M., Book IV, chapter VI, § 12, p. 298 (desormais cite sur Ie modele suivant : T.E.I.M. 4 .6.12,
p. 298): "J'ai tente de montrer dans I'expose ci-dessus que la connaissance et I'intellection ne peuvent
surgir des sens ni par Ie rayonnement ni par I'impression de la matiere et du corps sur ce qui connait,
mais par un pouvoir actif de I'esprit qui est une chose anterieure a la matiere et independante de lui,
pouvoir qui I'habilite a deployer, de l'Interieur-meme, des idees intelligibles de toutes choses."
5 Bien evidemrnent, je ne prouverai pas ici I'originalite de Cudworth; je me contenterai de preciser oil
reside la coherence de son propos, quitte a ce que plus informe que moi dise que cette organisation des
theses se trouve ailleurs.
6 Aristote, Seconds Analytiques, II, 19. 99b34---100al3.
Lettre II Herodote, 68-69, in Epicure, Lettres et Maximes (ed . Conche, Paris : P.U.F., 1987)
pp.II4---II7.
8 Ce qui est dit ici ne vaut pas, bien entendu, seulement pour lui: Descartes pose des questions appa-
rentees. II s'agit d'un mouvement plus large que Ie seul empirisme, dont je m'occupe ici, et dont il faut
sans doute chercher les racines dans I'analyse de I' "objectif" par la derniere scolastique .
9 Aristote, op. cit., II, 2, 89 b 36-90 a 3.
10 Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661,ch.20.
11 Human Nature, 1650, ch. 6, p. 51; Leviathan , 1661 , ch. 7 (trad. Tricaud, Paris: Vrin, 1971) p. 60.
12 Dans Ie texte deja cite, Aristote avait juxtapose I'induction empirique et une approche qui faisait
plus de place a I'activite de l'fime (Ibid. 100al4---100b3): Ie sensible lui semblait moins a rnerne de pro-
curer Ie concept authentique.
1J Cf. G. Brykman, 'Sensibles communs et sens commun chez Locke et Berkeley ' , Revue de
Metaphysique et de Morale , 1991, 4, p. 515-529.
14 Kant reconnait a Locke Ie rnerite d'avoir Ie premier distingue ainsi forme et contenu : Critique de la
raison Pure (Paris: P.U.F.) p. 100.
15 Cette association interessante de deux sortes didees se retrouvera chez Locke, a la nuance
significative pres que Ies idees de sensation et les idees de reflexion d'une part seront associees dans
l'ernpirique: les idees morales et les idees de relation seront, elles, regroupees dans les modes, fruits purs
de I'activite mentale.
16 T.E.I.M.. 4. 2. I, p. 149: "II y a beaucoup de notions et d'idees relatives, attribuees aussi bien aux

choses corporelle s qu' incorporeIles, qui precedent entierernent de I'activite de I'esprit comparant une
chose avec une autre. C'est Ie cas de la cause de l'effet, des moyens et des fins, de I'ordre, de la proper-
 LA RELATION, DU PLATONISME A L'EMPIRISME 125

tion, de la similitude et de la dissimilitude, de l'egalite et de l'Inegalite, de l'aptitude et de l'inaptitude,

de la symetrie et de l'asyrnetrie, du tout et de la partie , du genre et de l'espece, etc .".
l1 T.E.I.M .. 4. 2. 4: "Tout ceci dans leurs multiples relations les unes aux autres et de chacune au tout. Et
a partir de la, au-dela de la figure, de la couleur de la taille et des mouvements, l'intellect fait surgir et
eveille en lui les idees intelligibles de cause , d'effet, de moyens, de fins, (etc.)... , en un mot toutes les
notions logiques et relatives qui existent [que ne percoit pas Ie sens] .. . Et si l'ceil sentant pouvait discuter
avec l'esprit ou intellect, ils affirmerait et soutiendrait qu'j[ n'y a rien de tel dans cette machine auto-
mobile ; que l'entendement s'egare en ces impressions, car tout ce qu'il y a dans la chose lui a ete fidele-
ment transmis par les sens et que l'intellect a recu des sens toute son intelligence ou son information".
IK T.E.I.M. . 2.6.3, p. 72 : "Le resultat specifique de la vieille philosophie atom iste, qui est Ie triomphe
de la raison sur Ie sens n'est rien d'autre que ceci: Ie sens seul n'e st ni critere ni juge de ce qui existe
reellement et absolument a l' exterieur de nous, mais il y a une faculte intellectuelle superieure et plus
elevee qui juge de nos sens, qui decouvre ce qui est fallacieux et imaginaire en elle, et enonce ce qui ab-
solument est ou n'est pas. Et Democrite qui a bien mieux et plus parfaitement compris cette philosophie
atomique que Protagora s en tire la consequence suivante : Ie jugement des sens est invalide quand il
porte sur les corps eux-rnerne s, et il affirme qu'if existe une faculte de raison plus elevee en nous, pour
determiner ce qui est absolument vrai ou faux ."
19 Epicure est cite aussi bien dans T.l.S.U. que dans T.E.l.M. Gassendi a pu servir dintermediaire: Ie

Syntagma est cite en T.E.I.M. 1.1.3.

20 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, VII, 138, trad . Conche, Epicure, Lettres et Maximes
(Paris : P.U.F.) 1992, p. 15.
21 Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathemati cos, VII, 204, Ibid. p. 23.
22 T.E.I.M., pp. 267-268: " Le sens exteme .. . n'est pas capable de faussete, parce qu 'en tant que tel if
n 'cnglobe pas la ve rite absolue de qu oi que ce soil. II n' est qu'un phantasme une apparition
(appearan ce) et to ute apparition est vraie."; cf. aussi Glanvill, Vanity of Dogmatizing, ch. X, pp. 91 ss.:
"The a pparitions or our frighted Phancies are real sensibles : But if we tran slate them without the
compass of our Brains, and a ppre he nd them as real objects ; it's the unwary rashness or our
Understanding deludes us?" . Voir Ie texte presque parallele de Locke: .... . in the more ordinary
Acceptation of those Words : ... the Ideas in our Minds, being only so many Percept ions, or Appearances
there , none of them are fa lse." Essay, 2.23.3 . Cudworth avait deja note l'utilisation par Protagoras de
cette affirmation et rejete son relativ isme en montrant qu 'il faut distinguer entre verite absolue et verite
relative: T.E.I.M., 1.5. Locke distingue lui aussi un sens rnetaphysiqu e et un sens ordinaire.
n Sextus Ernpiri cus, Adversus Mathematicos, VII, 207. De cette affirmation , Cudworth tire une con-
seq uence etonnante: que l'erreur soit impos sible quant a la sensation prouve sa limite ; Ie fait que la con-
naissance intellectuelle soit soumi se a I'erreur man ifeste qu'elle n'est pas relative, mais absolue. La
relativite change ici de statuI: ellc devient pejorative, marque la limite du senti relatif au sentant, alors
que l'intellectuel devient absolu en ce qu 'il est libere de toute relation . Deux conceptions de la relation
que Cudworth n'accorde pas, mais qui manifestent son propos : Ie senti est relatif au sens, mais les rela-
tions qui constituent l'aspect intelligible lui font defaut .
24 Par ex . 69 b, le texte Ie plus proche du notre sembl e etre 37b-c qu i associe l'ilme du monde et la
connaissance .
25 TEI.M., 4.5.4, p. 269 ; these voisine chez Henry More, Antidote , I. VI. 3.
26 Ibid. et 4.6.2-3.
27 4.5.5, p. 270 .
2K T.l .S.U., 3.37.2 ., p. 147.
29 Straton de Lampsaque, aristotelicien defenseur d'une theorie materiali ste de l'arne et d'une theorie

non-finaliste de la nature ., cf. T.I.S.U. p. 145.

,0 S. V.F., 1.49, etc.
31 Enneades, IV, 7, 4, 14. Autres emplois, moins sign ificatifs : III, I. 2. 28; IV. I. 29. 17; IV. 4. 26. 2;
IV. 4. 34. 22 ; VI. 1.29. 17. II est interessant de noter que la Theologie d 'Aristote , 59 et Jamblique font
de la <TXECJ'L<; la categoric.
n T.l.S.U., 3.37 .3, p. 149.
33 T.E.l.M., 4.2 .10, p. 166.
126 1. M . VIENNE

:14 T.E.J.M., 4.6.9, p. 295.

35 Ibidem, p. 295-296 .
:l6 Cf. Siris , 251-255, ou l'rdee de langage de la nature est associee avec les references 11 Cudworth,

cite dans T.I.S.U. Mais on retrouve cette idee dans T.E.I.M. , 4. 3.13, p. 215-217.
37 T.E.I.M., 4. 3. 7-13
38 Par exemple, la notion de triangle, qui est une notion non pas cornposee et complexe mais "indivisi-
ble and immutable notion or essence of (the) thing", que I'on acquiert par "Mind's ascending above
sense and elevating it self from individuals to the comprehension of the universal notions and Ideas of
things within itself' (Ibidem § 12 et 13). Merne idee chez H. More, Antidote, I. VI. 1-2.
39 La relation peut done recevoir Ie titre de "mode", puisqu'elle est mode de I'esprit comme toute idee
cartesienne, et More precise (Ibid .): mode de saisie des objets empiriques . Ainsi se justifierait I'appella-
tion de mode pour les relations (notamment les relations morales) chez Locke.
40 Affirmation reprise 11 Landes M. W., The Philosophical Writings of R. Burthogge, Chicago, London:
Open Court Publishing Company , 1921.
41 Ibidem, § 79, ed. cit., p. 42 : "L'harmonie est la raison du monde. Le monde a ete fait par elle et ne
peut etre connu que par elle. La regie de la proportion est la cle royale qui ouvre tous les rnysteres de la
nature. Le grand Createur a construit toutes choses en nornbre, poids et mesure. Les extremes son! unis
par Ie moyen terme participant et, dans tout Ie systerne, il existe une unite de forme si admirable qu'elle
ravit tous ceux qui la voient. Tout est 11 sa place, et lie 11 ce qui est 11 cote. Tout fait ensemble en une
structure tres ordonnee, seton les proportions les plus exactes . " : Galien est significativement cite 11
I'appui de ce melange de textes neoplatoniciens et neo-storciens.
42 Ibid. § 13: "Nous concevous, en general, les facultes (grace auxquelles I'esprit saisit les choses) .. .
comme, des realites, qui ont une existence par elles-rrernes, it I'exterieur de I'esprit" c. . "Tous les objets
immediats de la pensee humaine .. . sont des etres de pensee. Ce sont tous des apparaitres qui ne sont
pas, au sens propre et (pour utiliser un terme scolastique) formellement dans les choses memes concues
grace aux facultes , " .. ... Non pas que de leur propre nature, elles soient daus les realites-memes, mais
elles ont leur fondement dans ce qui est: elles sont reelles (comme Ie diraient les scolastiques) non pas
formellement, mais fondamentalement. Elles sont inchoativement et occasionnellement dans les choses,
mais non formellement et de facon accomplie dans les facultes; non dans les choses, mais entant que les
choses sont en relation aux facultes . Non pas dans les choses comme chases, mais comme objets ....
43 § 75, "La verite, en tant que fondement , motif et raison de I'assentiment est l' harmonie objective , ou
harmonie, congruence, unite, fidelite, consistance, proportion et coherence des choses les unes envers les
autres, dans la structure et Ie scheme qu'elles ont en notre esprit"(cf. 80).
44 Organum, § 25: "Plus nos sens sont proches des objets qui les impressionnent ... plus est claire et
distinete la sensation qu 'i1s produisent. Et de meme que l'on voit plus c1airement et distinctement un
objet proche que lointain , de meme plus I'esprit et I'entendement sont proches des sentiments, plus ses
perceptions sont claires distinctes et evidentes , Je veux dire, plus les notions sont sensibles et proches
de leur fondement, plus elles sont authentiques, fortes (impressive), et par consequent c1aires et
distinctes .' .
PART THREE
 R.CROCKER

THE ROLE OF ILLUMINISM IN THE THOUGHT

OF HENRY MORE

Who seeks for pleasure in this mortalllife

By diving deep into the body base
Shall lose true pleasure: But who gainly strive
Their sinking soul above this bulk to place
Enlarg'd delight they certainly shall find,
Unbounded joyes to fill their boundlesse mind.

When I my self from mine own self do quit

And each thing else; then an all-spreaden love
To the vast Universe my soul doth fit,
Makes me half equall to All-seeing Jove.
My mightie wings high stretch'd then clapping light
I brush the starres and make them shine more bright.

Then all the works of God with close embrace

I dearly hug in my enlarged arms,
All the hid paths of heavenly Love I trace
And boldly listen to his secret charms .
Then clearly view I where true light doth rise,
And where etemall Night low-pressed lies. 1

1.

When Henry More was about fifteen years old he had a dream . In his dream angels
appeared, blowing trumpets through a mist, which gradually cleared before his eyes
as the trumpets grew louder. 2 As the sound from the trumptets increased, they
pained his ears to such an extent that he awoke. On waking from his dream, he tells
his readers, he remained for several days in an "unexpressable" state , "which if it
were in my power to relate would seem to most men incredible't.'
There are a number of other passages in More's writings, letters and poems which,
if they do not attest to a 'mystical experience', at least are suggestive of an extreme
imaginative sensitivity.' More's early biographer, Richard Ward, remarks perceptively
on his passionate love of music, and tendency to be 'enravished' by the contemplation
of all kinds of natural beauty.' and describes his tendency to intense contemplative ex-
periences, sometimes lasting several days at a time. The 'Doctor' , he says,6

was once for Ten Days together, "nowhere" (as he term'd it) or in one continued fit of Contemplation:
During which, though he ate, drank, slept, went into the Hall, and convers'd in a measure, as at other

129
G. A. J. Rogerset al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 129-144.
© 1997 KluwerAcademic Publishers.
130 R.CROCKER

times; yet the Thred of it for all that space was never once, as it were, broken or interrupted; nor did he
animadvert (in a sort) on the things that he did.

Although scholars interested in Cambridge Platonism have rarely shown more

than a passing interest in these glimpses into More's inner life, they are of some
significance," This is because a central belief, even assumption, running through the
published thought of More and his fellow Platonists, is that the ultimate goal of
both religion and philosophy is a state of mystical and intellectual illumination, or
'deification'." The issue here is not whether More, or his fellow Platonists, were ac-
tually 'mystics' in any measurable sense, but rather how and with what results this
illuminism, or mystical aspiration, inspired or influenced their intellectual
development."
In the case of More we are fortunate in possessing two documents which relate
directly to this question: a brief account of his early life and education contained in
the General Preface to his Opera Omnia of 1679, and the semi-autobiographical al-
legorical 'journey of the soul' contained in the lengthy spenserian poem,
Psychozoia, or the Life of the Soul, which appeared in his first published work, the
Psychodia Platonica, or a Platonical Song of the Soul of 1642.10
The first tells the story of More's 'conversion' to Platonism, which occurred
whilst he was a student at Christ's in about 1635-6. Briefly summarized here, More
recounts how whilst still a schoolboy at Eton he began to have serious doubts about
Calvin's 'hard doctrine of Fate' (absolute predestination) in view of his instinctive
belief in God's goodness. II He describes how he ventured to speak of these doubts
to his elder brother and learned uncle, Gabriel More, the patron of his studies, but
was severely reprimanded for his "forwardness in philosophizing concerning such
matters" . 12 Although More does not mention it, these early doubts had probably
ripened under the influence of some of his teachers at Eton, which in this period
was dominated by the well-travelled and intellectually liberal Provost, Sir Henry
Wotton and the 'ever-memorable' and also theologically liberal Fellow, John
Hales. 13
The didactic purpose of this little scene of precocious theological defiance in the
Preface was to establish the grounds for a rejection of Calvinist determinism and
voluntarism, and for an instinctive but 'rational' acceptance of the preeminence of
goodness amongst the divine attributes - in this way giving a personal dimension to
the 'necessitarian' basis of the works of philosophy and theology which follow this
preface in the Opera Omnia. 14 The God of Calvinism, he wished to emphasize here,
appeared to him even as a schoolboy unnatural and cruel.P
In the Preface More then describes how at Christ's in Cambridge, towards the
end of his undergraduate studies (1634-5) he came to a sceptical crisis, triggered by
his readings in scholastic metaphysics." This resulted in a similarly decisive rejec-
tion of the scholastic masters of his undergraduate days, and particularly their ac-
counts of the soul. These, he recalls, had greatly distressed him, since they had
defined the soul in terms of what appeared to be non-essential, even quasi-material
attributes.!? making him wonder whether his own soul was merely a 'limb' of some
 ILLUMINISM IN MORE 131

vast intelligent being, who alone knew who he was, "as a man knows what his
thumb is".18
Antagonism to the determinism and voluntarism of Calvinism and to the materi-
alism and monism suggested by scholastic accounts of the soul are two recurrent
polemical themes in More 's poems and later philosophical works .'? Although More
is not specific in his General Preface, from a despairing Greek poem on the 'per-
plexity of the soul' written about this time, it seems likely that the source of this
early anxiety was not so clearly polemical, but rather the not uncommon fear of the
possible annihilation of the individual's consciousness at death.P
Whatever the exact intellectual dimens ions of this crisis, we can assume that a
major and quite decisive intellectual upheaval occurred in these years. What fol-
lowed More then presents in terms of his discovery of the "Platonic Writers",
namely,"

Marsiliu s Ficinus, Plotinus himself, Mercurius Trismegistus, and the Mystical Divines : among whom
there was frequent mention of the Purification of the Soul and of the Purgative Course that is previous to
the Illuminative; as if the Person that expect ed to have his Mind illuminated of God was to endeavour
after the Highest Purity.

He was also particularly impressed, he adds, by the late medieval devotional

manual, the Theologia German ica, with its practical emphasis on extinguishing the
ignorant ' human will' in order to live only in and through the 'divine will ' already
native in the soul.F
This state of illumination he then set himself to achieve, and for the next four
years (1635-39) submitted himself to a period of spiritual purification or "Holy
Discipline and Conflict" during which time, he says, the "Divine Principle" within
him gradually triumphed over the self-will and "animal nature".23 This eventually
freed him, he declares, from the "insatiable Desire and Thirst.. .after the
Knowledge of Things" which had possessed him during his first years of study .
This quest resulted at length in a "most Joyous and Lucid State of Mind, and such
plainly as is ineffable't."
In his account More then describes how he came to compose in early 1640 the
first of his longer spenserian poems , Psychozoia, in order to express the main fea-
tures of these experiences and their intellectual context. 25 He recounts how this
poem was then supplemented by other explanatory poems on the immortality and
individual conscious life of the soul after death, and how together these poems were
published as the Psychodia Platonica, or a platonicall song of the soul in 1642.26
We should note that More also began to emerge from his self-imposed purificatory
'retirement' at this time , becoming a Master of Arts and a Deacon of the Church
(both in 1639), in preparation for his ordination in 1641,27 In this year he also took
up the fellowship at Christ's vacated by his tutor, Robert Gell, and began taking
students ."
While More does not mention Gell except in passing in his account, it is clear
from a comparison of Gell' s remaining sermons that the young Henry More was
132 R.CROCKER

indebted to his tutor to a considerable extent. Gell was an outspoken anti-Calvinist,

well-versed in the Greek and Alexandrine Fathers and, significantly, was regarded
by orthodox Calvinists with suspicion for a similar illuminism or 'perfectionism' .29
When in 1641 Gell left Cambridge for London to become rector of St Mary
Aldermary, he became renown for encouraging the study of Jacob Boehme's mysti-
cal works , and for promoting the ' pe rfec tio nism ' of Sebastian Castellio
(Chastellion), the French humanist reformer." Castellio had taught , in opposition to
Calvin himself, that "it is possible to give unto God perfect unsinning obedience,
and to have perfection of degrees in this life", a doctrine which Gell defended at
some length in his extant sermons." This same doctrine was taken up and devel-
oped with enthusiasm by More in the Psychodia Platonica of 1642, within a com-
plementary neoplatonic metaphysical framework .V

2.

While More wrote this General Preface nearly forty years after the events they de-
scribe, the poem Psychozoia was composed immediately afterwards, sometime in
1640. The second and third cantos of this poem form an elaborate spenserian allegory
in which More describes the process through which the purification and illumination
of the soul takes place. They are therefore of some value in establishing the role of
this illuminism or 'perfectionism' in More's early intellectual development.
In this elaborate philosophical allegory in the poem the soul, Mnemon ('unforget-
ting') journeys through two 'realms', representing respectively the prior 'animal'
state dominated by self-will, Beiron ('brutishnesse') and the state of inner struggle,
Dizoie, ('double-livednesse'), in which the soul learns to overcome the deluding
'magic' of body and self that dominates the outward life.33 The third state, the goal
of this inner journey, that of illumination or 'deification', Theoprepia ('Iikenesse
unto God'), is not described in the poem , presumably because of its mystical, 'inef-
fable' nature ."
In this allegory the pilgrim soul , Mnemon , like the young Henry More at
Christ's, first encounters in Beiron the religious shortcomings of a scholastic educa-
tion and contemporary religion, in both its Calvinist and Laudian (or 'unreformed')
forms.'> In the second edition of the poem, included in the Philosophicall Poems of
1647, More added 68 stanzas to this section of the allegory, to help clarify his own
view of authority in religion -against the heterodox implications of his illuminism ."
These stanzas contain a debate between characters representing contemporary pres-
byteri anism (for whom scripture is the supreme authority), laudianism (who sup-
ports the claims of tradition) and a rat ional pragmatism (for whom reason is
supreme). His own illumin ism, with its appeals to a personal 'inward sense' and the
overriding authority of the Holy Spirit , is mistaken by each of these characters in
turn as similar to the radical illuminism of the sectarians .F But all these positions
opposing his own , including the radical illuminism of the sects, which he criticizes
at some length, he makes clear, are similarly ' birdlike' and spiritually nescient, the
products of an unpurified 'self-sensedness' .38
 ILLUMINISM IN MORE 133

The soul eventually abandons this realm dominated by the 'animal nature', and
enters the second, more psychological realm of Dizoie." Into and through this second
realm of interior conflict Mnemon, now more recognizably the 'rational soul', is ac-
companied by Simon , the soul's 'obediential nature' , and Simon's 'parents', 'self-
denial' and 'patience' .40 But to pass through this realm of inner conflict and reach
illumination the soul must overcome two preeminent temptations. The first is that of
false intellectual or religious opinion, and the second is the pursuit of knowledge for
its own sake, that hunger for the 'knowledge of things' he described in his General
Preface. False and fanatically-held opinion is represented by the castle ofPantheothen
('all from God' - or as the same place is called by the wise, 'Pandaemoneothen', 'all
from the devil')." The inhabitants of this castle are composed of a formidable list of
the vices and sins of intolerance, pride and ignorance, but it is clear that dogmatic,
'unfeeling' and hypocritical Calvinism is this castle's strongest defence. Speaking of
the castle's impregnable defensive double wall, he writes.'?

The first Inevitable Destiny

Of Gods Decree ; the other they do call
Invincible flesh lie injirmitie:
But Keeper of the Tower 's unfelt Hypocrisie.

Having regained his ' wings' by abandoning the forced restraints of this 'opinion-
ism' and Calvinist dogmatism, the soul is now free to believe in the spiritual goal
of illumination . But the soul now must yet face a second temptation, the mind's at-
tachment to any knowledge or doctrine not specifically of use in the quest for illu-
mination . This occurs on a 'mount of angels', in the presence of its three beautiful
guardians, named appropriately Pythagorissa, Platonissa and Stoicissa, whose
charms momentarily mislead the pilgrim soul into believing he is already in
Theoprepia, the realm of illumination . Then he is reminded by his own inner guide,
Simon , of their subsidary nature, of value only in the assistance they can provide to
the soul' s quest for illumination or deification .P
More's division of the allegorical quest for illumination in the poem into three
stages, that of the 'animal' state (Beiron), the struggle between 'animal' and 'spiri-
tual' (Dizoie), and the final illuminated 'spiritual' state (Theoprepia) probably owes
something to the similar three 'laws of life' of St Paul's Epistle to the Romans. 44
But the immediate aim of More's allegory is to convince the reader of the import-
ance of recognizing the powers characterizing the material and the spiritual realms,
and their respective sympathetic influence over the sou1. 45 Thus a primary spiritual
and moral choice confronts the embodied soul, a choice of identification with its
spiritual or material nature. The nature of this choice, and its related psychological
and metaphysical circumstances, is the central didactic message of the poems, and
also one that underlies many of More's susbsequent writings. One immediate meta-
physical consequence of this choice is a dualistic emphasis which contrasts the
ever-changing, non-intelligent, inert material sphere with an immortal, intelligent,
active spiritual one."
134 R .CROCKER

This emphatic dichotomy can be seen first expressed in the introductory meta-
physical canto of Psychozoia which precedes the allegorical journey of the soul just
outlined. In this canto More describes a 'Christian-Platonicall' trinity of One
(Ahad), Mind (Aeon) and Soul (Psyche),47 on whose 'veil' four further figures can
be discerned: 'nature imaginative' (Semele), ' nature sensative' (Haphe) , ' nature
spermatical' (Physis) and 'nature quantative' (Tasis), which descend towards the
'deadly shadow' of Hyle, or primal matter." This ladder of eight metaphysical prin-
ciples, or 'ogdoas' (if Hyle is included), are formed in More's poems, after
Plotinus, through the creative collision of the 'light' of divine intelligence and the
'darkness' of Hyle. 49 But More's Protestant concern with salvation leads to a much
greater emphasis on the 'magic' delusory powers of matter , and matter, as it is
manifested in body and individuated self, and in the corresponding saving power of
divine love to lead the soul back to its original spiritual home.v
The fundamental collision of spirit (light) and matter (dark) informing the spiri-
tual and material creation, envisaged by More, is expressed at greater length and in
more explicitly psychological terms in the longer explanatory poems accompanying
and following Psychozoia in the Psychodia Platonica. In these poems More again
places the 'return' of the soul to God, the journey towards illumination, within the
context of a hierarchy of metaphysical principles. But to achieve his aim, More
must convince his readers that the present embodied state of the fallen soul is one
of temporary exile from its true spiritual horne." The soul's inherent tendency to
identify with body amounts to an union with the more external and material princi-
ples in the larger creation, and results in a binding association with matter or hyle,
the generator in spiritual and moral terms of ignorance, unconsciousne ss, and thus
of evi1. 52 In fact it is this identification which has led the immortal, spiritual soul on
its prior 'outward' journey from God - through progressive embodiment in increas-
ingly 'gross' vehicles." Firstly, in this descent the soul loses the complete freedom
and pure intellectual capacity of the aetherial vehicle, and witnesses the creation of
an aerial, and then a terrestrial 'vehicle' or body, which becomes its ' prison' in this
world.P' Conversely, the 'sacred method ' More urges on his readers, of deliberate
self-denial, and thus a denial of the 'natural' or 'animal' sympathy with the self and
the body (and by implication, through them, with hyle or matter), results for the
soul in a progressive purification and illumination, and an eventual 'recovery' of its
original status in the spiritual world."

there is a holy Art of Living, or certain sacred Method of attaining unto great and Experimental
Praegustations of the Highest Happiness that our Nature is capable of : And that the degrees of
Happiness and Perfection in the Soul arise. or ascend , according to the degree of Purity and Perfection in
that Body or Matter she is united with: So that we are to endeavour a Regress from the Baser Affections
of the Earthy Body; to make our Blood and Spirits of a more refined Consistency; and to replenish our
Inward Man with so much larger Draughts of Aetherial or Coelestial Matter.

The central role More gives to this determining choice in the poems is also pre-
sented in terms of two universal spirits competing for dominance of the soul's
'middle life', or rational faculty or mind. The first is the universal spirit of God
 ILLUMINISM IN MORE 135

with its 'eternal ideas', while the second is the universal ' mundane' spirit" More
also describes this choice in terms of the image of an inverse cone, representing
both universal and personal aspects of the spiritual universe . The open, up-turned
base of this cone represents God and the spiritual nature, while the closed tip the
'perfect penurie' of matter. As this image suggests, the soul must choose, and ac-
cording to this choice'"

more or lesse doth pen

Herself, as more or lesse she erst did side
With sense and vice, while here she did abide .

3.

As this implies , the soul's quest for illumination, and the prerequisite for a clear
distinction between material and spiritual spheres, not only gives shape to More 's
early intellectual stance but also defines by negation its polemical targets . Thus in
More's poems the Calvinist is attacked for his negative vision of God's mercy and
corresponding denial of the possibility of the soul's perfection and union with
God. 58 Similarly, the scholastic 'naturalist' is attacked for failing to rise above the
deluding influence or 'prejudice' of knowledge derived from the senses.t? In conse-
quence More greets Galileo and Copernicus as fellow-travellers, eminent thinkers
who had freed themselves from the prejudices of sense-based knowledge. The
Copernican system in this way becomes the subject of a whole canto in More's
Psychathanasia, a demonstration of the superiority of knowledge derived from the
'divine' intellect to that derived, like the Ptolemaic system, from the evidence of
the senses alone.s" Scholastic accounts of natural phenomena appear to More to
confuse or undermine the essential dichotomy existing between spiritual and mater-
ial spheres and their respective powers ."
This polemical stance is developed further in More's first extended prose work,
the tongue-in-cheek but highly critical Observations he published in 1650 on two
tracts by the alchemist and hermeticist, Thomas Vaughan the twin brother of the
poet, Henry Vaughan.f Beneath the self-conscious levity of More's chastisement of
Vaughan, his 'brother Platonist', a real concern for the monistic and materialistic
implications of his opponent's alchemical natural philosophy can be discerned.P In
the guise of a 'fellow traveller', Vaughan had bestowed a primitive 'spirit of life' on
matter itself, thus overturning More's carefully articulated denial of independent ac-
tivity or intelligence to matter or hyle.64 Vaughan had also sung the praises of his
own alchemical manipulation of nature as a divinely-sanctioned activity, leading to a
direct understanding of man's soul and God's work - in effect, an illumination or
'deification' like More's.v This appeared to directly undermine the didactic purpose
of More's poems , with their emphasis on the necessity of an intellectual understand-
ing of the soul's nature, current status, and potential purification and illumination.w
The unsatisfactory result of this controversy, in which Vaughan quite under-
standably accused More of enthusiasm for his claim to have discovered a ' true '
136 R.CROCKER

inward spiritual illumination in contrast to Vaughan 's pretended alchemical one,

appears to have directly affected the language and method of More's subsequent
works.v? Although More continues in his later works to speak of the need for
purification and illumination, of the spiritual realms, of the preexistence and life of
the soul, he is noticeably more guarded, and even 'hypothetical', in presenting
ideas which might seem heterodox to his contemporaries/" What can be seen in the
Antidote against Atheism (1653) and subsequent works is an increased committ-
ment to a 'rational' style of argumentation for a wider, and apparently more scepti-
cal, 'philosophical' audience.s? The controversy with Vaughan alerted him to the
dangers of being depicted as an 'enthusiast' for unguarded expressions of his
mystical aspirations .
It was probably More's need to define body as really and intellectually distinct
from spirit which led him at quite an early stage (probably around 1644 or 1645) to
a sympathetic interest in the thought of the ancient atomists, and in that of
Descartes, whom he regarded at first as their most impressive modern Christian
representative." Like Descartes , More felt the need to express the conceptual sepa-
ration of spirit and matter in clearly definite terms, although he differed with him
over the defining characteristics Descartes had attributed to spirit and matter."
More's difficulties with Descartes' metaphysics , and especially his queries on the
locus of spirit, expressed at first in their correspondence (1649-50) and subse-
quently in More's later philosophical works, most notably the Immortality of the
Soul (1659), should alert us to the very different agenda inspiring More's philo-
sophical enterprise.P But the real attraction More had for the French philosopher
lay in Descartes' demonstration that the ancient atomists' 'atheistic' treatment of
matter could be shorn of its original moorings and placed in a dualistic and intellec-
tualist Christian framework, not too dissimilar to More's own early Platonism."
Consequently, as early as 1645 More came to accept that it was possible to treat
bodies as the temporal and spatial compounds of certain minute particles, but that
these could still be moved and ordered by neoplatonic spiritual forces.f Descartes'
'democritan' particles in this way came to be adapted and hypothetically inserted
between the hyle (matter) and tasis (extension) of More's metaphysical schema in
the aptly-named poem, Democritus Platonissans (1646),75
One significant effect of this adoption of some of the concepts and language of
Cartesian physics was that it allowed him to incorporate for apologetic purposes a
mechanical, even mathematical, account of natural phenomena within a broadly vi-
talist Platonic metaphysic ." Arguments drawn from the growing literature of the
new experimental mechanical philosophy could be taken up as supporting, sub-
sidary arguments in a new kind of systematic 'rational' natural theology ." In this
way mechanistic accounts of the behaviour of the air or water from Boyle and
others, medical accounts of the behaviour of the body and the relation of the whole
body to its parts, and even 'verified' accounts of poltergeist and other paranormal
phenomena could be assembled as subsidary , supporting arguments from 'sense-
experience' and nature to add weight to, and verify arguments from 'ideas' or
reason."
 ILLUMINISM IN MORE 137

While More's evolving polemical stance in relation to both mechanistic and vi-
talist scholastic natural philosophers is beyond the scope of this short paper, some
of its determining features can be outlined here. As we have seen, More's pursuit of
illumination and view of the process of purification necessary for its attainment, en-
tailed the mind's conscious withdrawl from identification with the senses. This re-
sulted in the need to distinguish clearly between the realms of spirit and matter and
their respective defining characteristics ." The 'differentia' or defining characteris-
tics of spiritual substances came to be depicted in this way as necessarily and essen-
tially opposite to those of material substances. This position was evolved because
to blur or to confuse these opposing classes of substances would be to comprom ise
or undermine the first stage in the process of purification itself, which More had
outlined first in his poems: the intellectual recognition of the soul's essentially dis-
tinct, immortal , intelligent and active nature .P
More's subsequent apologetic and polemical stance evolved in response to per-
ceived challenges to this 'sacred knowledge' of the nature of the soul and its interior
journey towards illumination. However, as noted above, the method of argument and
presentation he adopted in the 1650s meant that much of his efforts were concen-
trated on removing perceived intellectual obstacles to the reception of this illumin-
ism. 'Atheism' or 'Enthu siasm' from this perspective became summary terms for
heterodox implications perceived in those philosophical or theological positions in
some way incompatible with his psychology of purification and illumination and its
supporting metaphysical dualism." Indeed, the true perception of and recognition of
evil itself - the product of intellectual and moral discrimination - was in itself a part
of More 's illumination. Once the vision of unity was achieved, then82

... clearly view I where true light doth rise

And where eternall Night low-pressed lies.

4.

Having begun with a dream illustrating the importance of the illuminative experi-
ence in More 's interior life and its relation to his subsequent conversion to
Platonism, I would like to end by considering another dream from More's Divine
Dialogues (1668), which attempts to summarize in an emblematic manner the main
features of his subsequent philosophical enterprise.f
In this dream the main representative of More's own position in the Dialogues,
Bathynous, describes to his companions a 'providential' dream he had after having
fallen asleep in a forest. In this dream, he awakes in the same forest and is presented
with the 'two keys of Providence' - 'keys' to the understanding of the material and
spiritual universes respectively - by a 'divine Sage' or messenger from God.84 The
first, silver key contain s a scroll representing the Copernican and Cartesian "true
Systeme of the World". This is revealed only after the dreamer had placed the
jumbled letters on the outside of the key into their correct order. This spells out the
illuminist motto, "Claude Fenestras, ut luceat domus" ('Close the windows in order
138 R .CROCKER

to light the house').85 This restates More's belief that all certain knowledge, even
knowledge of the external world, is dependent on ideas already present within the
mind, 'awakened', as it were, by a divine sympathy with them. Copernicanism was
therefore greeted in More's poems for its conformity to intellectual truth, not for its
conformity to physical reality. The 'awakening' of true intellectual knowledge there-
fore always depends upon a prior withdrawl from the senses.v
In a similar manner, by placing the jumbled letters inscribed upon the second ,
golden key into their correct order, the dreamer reveals the complementary spiritual
or theological motto, "Amor Dei lux Animae" ('The love of God is the light of the
soul'j." This reveals the necessitarian basis of More's illuminist theology : God's
love is effect ively irresistable once the individual soul has made the effort to con-
sciously abandon its habitual identification with self and body.88 The scrolI attached
to this golden key, the key of spiritual or theological knowledge, is unfurled to
reveal the first six of twelve aphorismsr'?

I. The Measure of Providence is the Divine Goodness, which has no bounds but it self, which is infinite.
2. The Thread of Time and the Expansion of the Universe, the same Hand drew out the one and spread
out the other. 3. Darkness and the Abyss were before the light, and the Suns or Stars before any
Opakeness or Shadow . 4. All Intellectual Spirits that ever were, are or ever shall be, sprung up with the
Light, and rejoiced together before God in the Morning of the Creation. 5. In the infinite Myriads of free
Agents which were the Framers of their own Fortunes, it had been a wonder if they had all of them taken
the same Path; and therefore Sin at the long run shook hands with Opacity . 6. As much as the light
exceeds the Shadow s, so much do the regions of Happiness those of Sin and Misery.

Although the remaining aphorisms (except one) on the golden key's scroll are
concealed from the dreamer, taken together the visible aphorism s summarize the
main features of More 's understanding of the preeminence of goodness amongst
the divine attributes, and the consequently ' necessary' beneficence - both personal
and general - of divine providence They also emphasize the soul's free will, and
the resulting fall or 'procession' away from God of some souls in love with their
own 'opacity' . The remaining aphorisms, we might expect to describe the 'return'
of the souls to God , and the 'sacred method' of purification by which this goal
might be achieved. However, before the dreamer can clearly read the remaining
aphorisms, he is rudely awakened by the braying of two asses close by him in the
forest. These most likely represent those two inveterate opponents of truth in
More 's thought: 'opinion' or prejudice, and the beguiling and delusory influence of
the senses.P"
In the conversation in the Dialogue following this description of his dream,
Bathynous denies that the copernican universe depicted on the silver key's scroll
amounts to " a kind of Divine Testimony to the truth of all Des Cartes's
Principles."?' For amongst the remaining aphorisms on the golden key's scroll in
his dream he had caught sight of one more, written in "greater Letters", which
stated "That the PrimordiaIs of the World are not Mechanical, but Spermatical or
Vital; which is diametrically and fundamentally opposite to Des Cartes's
Philosophy.t''? Thus platonic theology must qualify the 'democritan' physics of
 ILLUMINISM IN MORE 139

Cartesianism . As the dreamer, Bathynous, concludes, the philosophy of the 'Divine

Sage' in the forest seemed to him "Pythagorical or Platon ical" rather than
Cartesian."
Writing many years after More's death, the admiring Philadelphian, Richard
Roach, suggested that amongst the missing aphorisms on the golden key's scroll
was the heterodox doctrine of Origen , universal salvation.?" Although this is
perhaps the extreme logical implication of More's necessitarianism or theological
optimism and defence of preexistence, it is probably wrong." It is more likely that
the remaining aphorisms on the golden key's scroll describe the ' return ' of the
fallen souls to their original divine ' home ' , and the 'sacred method' of purification
first outlined in More's poems. Why More should omit them is suggested by their
context in the dialogue, and by the urbane, moderately sceptical, 'philosophical' au-
dience of Bathynous's dream. Like the readers of his philosophical works, these
rather comical citizens of More' s Christian Athens, in his judgment, were not yet
spiritually prepared to accept the complete truth: "Too large a Dos is of Knowledge
may so elate the Spirits, that it may hazard the Brain... and chase away Sobriety
and Humility out of the Soul."96 As in the philosophical works of the 1650s, More
here is assuming that his readers had to be led step by rational step to a belief in the
'fundamental' truths of his Christian Platonism, philosophy being, as it were, a
preparatory discipline or 'handmaiden' to illuminist theology."? His strategy there-
fore is aporetic, to undermine resistance to the truths he values, rather than to reveal
them in a way which might make them the objects of misrepresentation, or polemi-
cal abuse.

Robert Crocker

NOTES

Henry More, Cupid 's Conflict, in Philosophical! Poem s (Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1647), pp.
302-3. In this paper all referen ces to individual works by More are to book. chapter and section number
(eg . I, xii, 4), and to book , canto and stanza number for the poems (e.g. I, iii, 54), except when to those
works with no section numbers, where references are to page numbers only. For recent works relating to
More's illumini sm, see notes 7 and 9 below ; see also my "A Bibliography of Henry More", in S. Hutton
(ed), Henry More (1614-87) Tercentenary Studies (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990), pp. 219-47.
2 More, Mastix his Private Lette r to a Friend . in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (London : J. Flesher,
1656), p. 312ff.
, Mastix his Private Letter , p. 315.
See Richard Ward , The Life of the Learned and Pious Dr Henry More (London, 1710), p. 39 ff.;
More, Cupid's Conflict in Phi/osophicall Poems , op. cit; Psychozoia , iii, 67 ff. in Psychodia Platonica,
or a platonicall song ofthe soul (Cambridge: R. Daniel, 1642); Discourses on Several Texts of Scripture
(London : for B. Aylmer, 1692), p. 54; and D.D., pp. 303--6 and below.
5 Ward, Life, op. cit., pp. 86,94-5 and 147 and below .
Ibid., p. 42.
The main exceptions here are David Dockrill, "The Fathers and the Theology of the Cambridge
Platonists", Studia Patristica, 18 (1982), pp , 427-39; George Panichas, 'The Greek Spirit and the
Myst icism of Henry More ", Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 2 (1956) , pp. 41-61, and C. A.
Patrides , The Cambridge Platonists (Cambridge: CUP, 1969), pp. 16 ff., who all emphasize the revival
140 R .CROCKER

in Cambridge Platonism of a kind of philosophical theology deriving from the early Greek Fathers . See
the discussion below .
H See More. Discourses, op. cit .• pp. 52-3 and 101-3; R. Cudworth. A Sermon (1647). in Patrides, The
Cambridge Platonists, op. cit .• p. 102 ff.; and 1. Smith. Select Discourses (London. 1660). p. 3.
9 The sources More cites, and especially the valuable notes he composed for the second edition of his
Psychodia Platonica (1642), the Philosophical Poems of 1647. upholds Patrides' contention that the
Cambridge Platonists 'inverted' the more usual hierarchy of authority of their day. replacing Jerome
with Origen and Aristotle with Plotinus and Plato. with the result that the little-known Greek concept of
'deification' assumed central importance. See Patrides, op. cit.• pp. 3 ff., and especially pp. 19-22. On
the particular and more contentious issue of the influence of Ficino, see C.A. Staudenbauer, "Galileo,
Ficino, and Henry More's Psychathanasia", J.H.I.. 29 (1968). pp. 565-78. who claims that the structure
of More's poem closely follows that of Ficino's Theologia Platonica. This is rightly denied and severely
qualified by Alexander Jacob, "Henry More's Psychodia Platonica and its relationship to Marsilio
Ficino's Theologia Platonica.", J.H.I.. 46 (1985). pp. 503-22. Allison Coudert, "Henry More . the
Kaballah end the Quakers". in R. Kroll et al. (eds), Philosophy, Science and Religion in England.
1640-1700 (Cambridge. Cambridge U.P. 1992), pp. 31-67 argues that these influences made More si-
multaneously open to , and ambivalent towards Lurianic Kabbalism and Quakerism. both of which
adhered to a similar perfectionism. or notion of the soul's potential for a real union with God in this life.
On this ambivalence to others More classified as 'enthusiasts', see my "Mysticism and Enthusiasm in
Henry More". in Sarah Hutton. (00.) Henry More, op. cit.. pp. 137-55. and the comments below.
10 More . Praefatio Generalissima, sections vii-xi, in Opera Omnia (3 vols.• London. J. Maycock.
1679). vol. 2; and Ward . Life, op. cit.• p. 5 ff.
II Praefatio, vii, in Ward, ibid. pp. 5-7. See also J. Peile. A Biographical Register of Christ's College
(2 vols., Cambridge. CUP, 1910), vol. 2. p. 51. and C. C. Brown. "Henry More's 'Deep Retirement' :
New Materials on the Early Years of the Cambridge Platonist" . Review of English Studies, 80 (1969).
pp.445-54.
12 Ward . ibid.• p. 6 On Gabriel More. D. D., see Peile, ibid.• vol. I, pp. 238-9.
IJ On Wotton and Hales at Eton, see DNB and also R. Birley. "Robert Boyle's Head Master at Eton",
Notes and Records of the Royal Society (1958). pp. 104-14. which contains information on the books
owned by Wotton and his friend John Harrison. now in Eton College Library.
14 More. Democritus Platonissans (Cambridge : R. Daniel, 1646) stanzas 47-51 ; Philosophicall Poems.
op. cit.• pp. 421-2; D.D.. pp. 300-2 and 326-8; Enchiridium Ethicum (London: J. Flesher. 1667). I. iv.
See also George Rust. A Discourse ofthe Use of Reason (London. 1683). pp. 40-1 .
I; See D.D.• Dialogue 3. sections xv-xvi.
16 Ward. Life. op . cit.• p. 10, and Brown, "Deep Retirement" . art. cit.• pp. 451-2.
17 See More's later refutation of scholastic psychology (against Richard Baxter). An Answer to a
Learned Psychopyrist, in Joseph G1anvil (ed More) Saducismus Triumphatus (London , 1682), and the
discussion in J. C. Henry, "Medicine and Pneumatology: Henry More. Richard Baxter and Francis
Glisson's Treatise on the Energetic Nature ofSubstance", Medical History, 31 (1987), pp. 15-40.
18 Praefatio, op. cit.• viii. ommitted in Ward, Life. op, cit. More is referring here to the followers of
Averroes. I cannot accept C. A. Staudenbaur's contention. "Galilee, Ficino and Henry More's
Psychathanasio", JH1. 29 (1968), p. 575, that More included an attack on monopsychism in Psychodia
Platonica, op. cit. only because Ficino had done so in his Theologia Platonica . The parallel between the
structure of More's poems and Ficino's work are striking . as Staudenbaur observes . but there is no
evidence of any direct intellectual dependence. See More, ' Pre face' to Antipsychopannychia.
Philosophicall Poems. op. cit.• p. 216, and below.
19 More, Psychathanasia, in Psychodia Platonica, op. cit .• I. i, 10-18; D.D .. op. cit .• pp. 222-24;
"Digression", in Annotations upon (Rust's) Discourse of Truth, in (Henry More). Two Choice and
Useful Treatises (London : for J . Collins and S. Loundes, 1682), p. 208 ff .; and Fundamenta
Philosophiae, in Opera Omnia. op. cit. (vol. 2. 1679). pp. 523-8. See also A. Coudert, "A Cambridge
Platonist's Kabbalist Nightmare". JHI. 36 (1975), pp. 633-652; and her "Henry More. the Kaballah, and
the Quakers". art. cit. pp. 31-67.
 ILLUMINISM IN MORE 141

20 M. H. Nicolson (ed S. Hutton), The Conway Letters (Oxford: OUP, 1992), p. 299, and Ward, Life,
op. cit., p. II .
21 Praefatio, op. cit., ix, translated by Ward, ibid, p. 12.
22 Ward , Life , op. cit., p. 13. See S. Winkworth (ed . and trans), Theolog ia Germanica (London,
Longman, 1854); and also R. F. Jones, Spiritual Reformers (London : Macmillan , 1928), pp. xxvi and 4.
n Ward , ibid., p. 15, More, Praefatio , op. cit., x. See also Brown, "Deep Retirement" , art . cit.,
pp.451-2.
24 Ward, Ibid.
25 Ward, Life, p. 16. These poems were never translated and so are not in More' s Opera Omnia.
26 Ibid.
27 Brown, "Deep Retirement", art. cit., pp. 449-51.
28 On Gell, see Peile, Biographical Register. op. cit., vol. I, p. 301, and Robert Gell, Remaines (2 vols,
ed. N. Bacon, London , 1676). It should be emphasized here that Gell, not William Chappell , was More's
tutor, and there is little evidence to suppose that More was 'advised' by Joseph Mede-versus the error-
prone A.R. Hall, Henry More: Magic, Religion and Experiment (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), p. 83.
29 Robert Gell, Remaines , vol. I, pp. 148 and 155-80.
30 For the charge of ' familis m' against Gell, see 1. Etherington, A Brief Discovery of ...Familisme
(London, 1645), p. 10; Richard Baxter' s view of Gell as a 'sectmaker' , in M. Sylvester (ed.), Reliquae
Baxterianae (2 vols, London, 1696), vol. I, p. 78. See also Jeremy Taylor to John Evelyn (April, 1659)
seeking information on Gell and his congregation of 'perfectioni sts' , cited in Nicolson (ed. Hutton) ,
Conway Letters. op. cit., p. 155, note 3. Gell was also, a lecturer to the society of Astrologers, which
perhaps accounts for More' s exception al knowledge of astrology and astronomy. See his refutation of
astrology in his Mystery of Godliness (1660), VII, XVII-XX, and his later response to John Butler 's
attack on it, Tetractys Ant i-Astrologica (1681), which includes the original offending chapters .
3\ Jerem y Taylor, in Nicolson , ibid.; see Sebastian Castellio , Concerning Heretics (ed. R. Bainton :
New York, 1935), p. 10 ff.; and Castellio, Of Obedience and A Conference of Faith, (London, 1679);
and Gell's Remaines. op. cit.. vol. I, pp. 148, and 155-80.
32 More's Psychodia Platonica makes it clear that the 'degree' of moral and spiritual perfection he
envisaged is the result of a personal spiritual effort, as well as the action of divine grace in a believer .
See Psychozoia, ii , 122-5 and ff. (1647 edition). See Patrides, op. cit.. pp. 21-2, and below.
33 See G. Bullough, (ed .), The Poems of Henry More (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1931), pp. Ii and Ivi.
34 Psychozoia. op. cit., iii, 67 ff.; see also More, Discourses, op. cit., p. 54, and D.D.. op. cit., pp.
303- 6. The philosophical background is the neoplatonic doctrine of procession (proodos) and reversion
(epistrophe): see Plotinus (ed. and trans. S. Mac Kenna), Enneads (5 vols., London : Medici Societ y,
1917-30), V, 3, 9: Proclus (ed. and trans. E. R. Dodds), The Elements ofTheology (Oxford : OUP, 1963),
props 16,17 and 25-39.
35 Psy chozoia, op . cit., ii, 42 ff.; compare Smith, Sele ct Discourses, op. cit., pp. 466-7 and B.
Whichcote, Aphorisms (London , 1753), # 388.
36 Psychozoia, only in Philosophicall Poems, op. cit. ii, 57-125.
37 Ibid, ii, 89-92, 99.
38 Ibid, ii, 58; and see my "Mysticism and Enthusiasm in Henry More", lococit., pp. 141-4.
J9 Psycho zoia , only in Philosophicall Poems, op. cit., ii, 141; and see ibid, pp . 359-60; More,
Discourses, op. cit . p. 79; and Conjectura Cabbalistica, Philosophical Cabbala, (London : J. Flesher ,
1653) iii, 3; compare Cudworth , in Patrides The Cambridge Platonists, op. cit., p. 112; and Smith, Select
Discourses, op. cit.. pp. 15--6,and pp. 469-74.
40 Psychozoia, ii , 139 ff. only in Philosophicall Poems, op. cit.
4\ Psychozoia iii, 10-22; compare Spenser, Fairie Queene, VI, i, 9-22, in J. C. Smith and E. de
Selincourt (eds), The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser (Oxford : OUP , 1970); Smith, Select
Discourses, op. cit., pp. 353-9 and 472-4; see also More's notes on this, Philosophicall Poems, op. cit.,
pp.364--6.
42 Psychozoia, op. cit, iii, 22.
142 R .CROCKER

43 Psychozoia. op . cit ., iii, 55-62; compare Spenser, Fair ie Queene. op. cit ., VI , viii ; Theologia
German ica, op. cit., xix; and Castellio, Conference. op. cit., p. 54.
44 See St Paul, Romans, vii, 23-viii, 2; and H. Hallywell, Deus Justificatus (London, 1668) , pp.
177-83, which expands on this theme , probably after More.
4~ See Psychozoia, op. cit., ii, 9; and lnsomnium Philosophicum, in Philosophical Poems, op. cit.,
pp, 324-8, esp . 326 ; Conjectura Cabbalistica, Moral Cabbala , op. cit., i, I; and below .
46 See More, Cupid Conflict, cited above, note I; Philosophical Poems. op. cit., "To the Reader upon
this Second Edition", B2; Psychozoia, in ibid., ii, 91-93; and Moral Cabbala. op. cit., i, 2.
41 Psychozoia, op. cit., i, 12-39; and "To the Reader upon the First Canto of Psychozoia", Compare
Plotinus, Enneads, op. cit., I, i, 4; V, ix, 6-7; and see also J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines
(London, Black , 1977), pp. 127-30.
48 Psychozoia. ibid., i, 40 ff. The Ogdoas probably derives via the neoplatoni sts and neopythagoreans
from Plato, Republic, 616d ff. (on the 8 whorls of the spindle of the Fates) and the Pythagorean har-
monic diaspason. See S. K. Heninger, Touches of Sweet Harmony (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington,
1974), pp. 91, ff.
49 Psychozoia, ibid., ii, 7-11. Plotinus , Enneads. op. cit, IV, iii, 9, I1I,vi, 7 and I, viii, 4.
so Psychozo ia, ibid., i, 7; and D.D.. op. cit, pp. 301-2.
~I See Psychozoia, ibid., ii, 23 ff., and Discourses. op. cit., pp. 123ff.
~2 Psychozoia. op. cit, ii,9, and see Psychathanasia. op. cit., III, i, 18-22, and Discourses. op. cit, p. 188.
~3 Plotinus, Enneads . op. cit. , III, vi, 7 and I, viii, 4 and 14-15.
54 See below, and Discourses, op. cit., p. 188., Philosoph icall Poems. op. cit., p. 347, and the discus -
sion in D. P. Walker, "Medical Spirits, God and the Soul", in M. Fattori and M. Bianchi (eds) Spiritus
(Rome , 1984), especially, pp. 225 and 237-9.
~~ Cited in Ward, Life , op. cit., pp. 39-40. Versus Coudert, " Henry More, the Kabbalah, and the
Quakers", art . cit., pp. 50-I, who interprets this and related passages from More 's writings again st
Vaughan as indicative of an initial adherence to a hermetic, 'physicalist' view of spiritual perfection,
later to be abandoned when More came to realize that his ' neoplatonisrn and Christian theology were not
compatible' . Thi s is not substantiated in her account .
56 Psychathanasia, op. cit., III, ii, 58. See also the two orbs of good and evil beings described in the
early poem , lnsomnium Philosophicum, in Philosoph icall Poems. op. cit., pp. 325-28.
~1 Antipsychopannychia. ii,I5 in Psychodia Piatonica. op. cit. Compare also Smith , Select Discourses.
op. cit., pp. 385 ff., and Whichcote, Aphorisms. op. cit., #294 .
58 Psychozoia, op. cit., iii, 20-22, and 112-114.
59 Psychathanasia. op. cit., I, i, 9-17.
60 Psychathanasia, op. cit ., Ill, iii, and the notes on this canto, in Philosophicall Poems. op. cit.,
pp. 385-408.
61 Psychathanasia, ibid., I, i, 10-17; and below.
62 Alazonomastix Philalethes (ie. Henry More), Observation s upon Anthroposophia Theomag ica and
Anima Magica Abscondita (London , J. Flesher, 1650). For a fuller discus sion of this dispute , see my
"Mysticism and Enthusiasm in Henry More", art. cit., pp. 145-8; and also A. Rudrum (ed), The Works
of Thomas Vaughan (Oxford, 1984), pp. 7-12.
63 See (More) , The Second Lash ofAlazonomastix Philalethes (originally London : J. Flesher, 1651), in
More, Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, op. cit., pp. 174-5.
64 E. Philalethes (Vaughan), The Second Wash. or the Moore Scour'd Once More (London, 1651),
p. 10, versus More, Philosophicall Poems. op. cit., pp. 353-4 (referring to Plotinus, Enneads , op. cit.,
IV, ii, 9.)
65 See E. Philalethes (Vaughan), Lumen de Lumine (London, 1651), especially pp. 13-5; and idem,
Anthroposophia Theomagia (London, 1650), p. 5.
66 See my "Mysticism and Enthusiasm in Henry More", art. cit . p. 145.
61 (More), Second Lash, in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, op. cit., pp. 177-84, and Vaughan 's response ,
Second Wash. op. cit., pp. 10 ff. See also More' s apologetic comments, An Antidote against Athe ism
(London: J. Flesher, 1653), ' To the Reader', and Mastix his Letter, in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus,
op. cit., pp. 296-8.
 ILLUMINISM IN MORE 143

68 More, Antidote, ibid., 'To the Reader', and I,ii,5; and the earlier statement, preferring a sincere doubt
to a false certainty, Philosophicall Poems. op. cit., 'Preface to the Reader upon this Second Edition', sig
B4.
69 Antidote, ibid., and see also Conjectura Cabbalistica, op. cit., Preface.
70 Philosophicall Poems. op . cit, ' Preface to the Reader upon this Second Edition', sig . B3 ; and
Democritus Platonissans, op . cit., ' To the Reader'; and see Alan Gabbey , "Philosophia Cartesiana
Triumphata: Henry More, 1646-71", in T. M. Lennon, J. M. Nicholas, J. W. Davis (eds), Problems in
Cartesianism (Kingston and Montreal, 1982), pp. 171-249, especially pp. 173-5 .
71 More to Descartes , Dec. II , 1648, in C. Adam and P. Tannery , (eds), Oeuvres de Descartes (I I
vols, Paris : Vrin, 1964-74) vol. 5, pp. 238-40, and 242-3. See also More, Epistola H. Mori ad V.C
(London: J. Flesher, 1664), sect. 5; and Gabbey, "Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata", art. cit.,
pp.191-2.
72 More , es.p.W., Preface General, p. xi-xii.
73 Gabbey, "Philosophia Cartesiana Triurnphata", art. cit., pp. 173-5 .
74 Philosophical! Poems. op. cit., "Preface to the Reader on this Second Edition", sig.B.3.
75 Democritus Platonissans, op. cit., ' To the Reader' .
76 For example, Philosophick Cabbala , op. cit., i, 6 and i, 8; and see also Appendix to Defense of the
Philosophick Cabbala, i, 8, in Collection of Philosophical Writings, op. cit.
77 See for example the 'physico-theology' contained in Antidote against Atheism, op. cit., II .
78 Antidote against Atheism (3rd edit ion) , II , ii, 7-15, es.p.W., using Boyle, New Experiments
Physico-Mechanical (London , 1660), and More, I. S., III, xii, 4-5, using Helmont on sympathetic cures
and Harvey on the generation of the foetus. Judging by a letter to Hartlib (c.1561) (Sheffield University
Library, Hartlib Papers, 18/1/42a-43b), More had begun his collection of ' verified' tales of witchcraft
and other paranormal phenomenon about this time as experimental proofs for the existence and life of
spirits. This was used in a number of More's works, culminating in the Collection he attached to Joseph
Glanvil 's Saduc ismus Triumphatus (1681) .
79 Antidote,op. cit." I, iv, and Appendix to idem, iv, in second edition (London, 1655), Immortality of the
Soul. op. cit.. I, iii-vii, and II , xviii, I; and the fuller treatment of this in More, The Easie, True.. . Notion ...
ofa Spirit, in Glanvil, Saducismus Triumphatus, op. cit., a translation of More, E. M., xxvii-xxviii .
80 See above and Psychathanasia, op. cit ., III, i.
81 Antidote, Preface.

82 Cupids Conflict, in Philosophical Poems. op. cit. p. 303, cited above, note I.
83 D.D .. pp. 247-53.
84 Ibid., 250 .
85 Ibid .
86 Psychathanasia, op. cit., III, iii, 74.
87 D.D .. op. cit., p. 252. This motto inspired the work of the same title by More's admiring disciple ,
Edmund Elys, Amor Dei Lux Animae (London, 1670).
88 See More, Immortality of the Soul, op. cit., III, xi, 6; and D.D. , dialogue II, xxii, and IV, vii, and also
(Henry Hallywell) , Deus Justificatus . op. cit., p. 269. Similar necessitarian theologies , usually associated
with a defence of the ' hypothesis' of preexistence, can be found in the works of More 's friends and dis-
ciples, Joseph Glanvil , Henry Hallywell, George Rust, F. M. van Helrnont, Anne Conway and Christian
Knorr von Rosenroth . See D. P. Walker , The Decline of Hell (London: Routledge, 1964), pp. 122-55.
89 D.D.. p. 252-3.
90 D.D., p. 253. See Richard Roach's interpretation of this, that the asses represent "the Clamour of
Narrow and Ignorant Spirits", in J. White, The Restoration ofall Things (London, 1712), Sig A.2.
91 D.D.. p. 255.
92 Ibid. , p. 255-6.
93 Ibid., p. 256.
94 Roach , in White, Restoration ofAll Things. op. cit.
95 More refers to the doctrine as a 's toic dream' in the Immortality of the Soul , III,xviii,II-12. See also
More 's early letter to Anne Conway (c. 1652), where he warns his friend against the doctrine of universal
salvation, despite its apparent harmony with his own emphasis on the power of Christ to save all men,
144 R.CROCKER

printed in Ward, Life, op. cit., pp. 303 ff. However, Coudert, "Henry More, the Kabbalah, and the
Quakers", p. 45, suggests (perhaps after Roach's statement) that More really 'leaned' towards the
doctrine.
96 D.D., p. 253.
97 See above, and Philosophical/ Poems, op. cit., "Preface to the Reader upon this Second Edition",
sig.B4, and Antidote , op. cit., I. ii, 5.
 J. L. BRETEAU

"LA NATURE EST UN ART".

LE VITALISME DE CUDWORTH ET DE MORE

La question du vitalisme est I'une des parties a la fois les plus connues, les plus
controversees et, pour beaucoup d'historiens de la philosophie, les plus caduques
de la pensee de Cudworth et de More. Que I'on veuille ou non, elle se situe nean-
moins non pas a la peripherie, mais au coeur de leur problematique, J' en veux pour
preuve, entre autres, les deux excellents articles publies a I'occasion du troisieme
centenaire de More, et sous I'egide de Sarah Hutton, par Alan Gabbey et John
Henry. 1 Ces auteurs soulignent tous deux Ie durcissement dogmatique qui semble
s'operer dans la reflexion de More a la fin des annees soixante. A partir de cette
date, en effet, I'auteur de l'Enchiridion Metaphysicum (1671) affirme I'universelle
valid ite du principe hylarchique ou Esprit de la Nature pour expliquer les
phenomenes naturels alors que precedemrnent, dans I' Antidote Against Atheism
(1653) ou dans The Immortality of the Soul (1659), iI n'y avait recours que pour
rendre compte de certains d'entre eux. Selon John Henry, ce raidissement est parti-
culierement visible dans l'elucidation respective des problemes d'hydrostatique par
More et Boyle. Henry en percoit la source non seulement dans la pure incom-
prehension de faits experimentaux de la part d'un philosophe peu doue pour I'ob-
servation scientifique, mais surtout dans Ie contraste saisissant entre deux points de
vue philosophiques et theologiques radicalement divergents: I'intellectualisme chez
More, Ie volontarisme chez Boyle.
Je souhaiterais prolonger cette remarque tres eclairante en montrant, en partie-
ulier, non seulement que la doctrine dite des natures plastiques est, en aval, Ie fruit
d'une prise de position philosophiquc ct theologique fondamentale, mais qu'elle
constitue aussi, en amont, une pierre indispensable apportee a l'edification d'une
anthropologie chretienne qui me parait, notamment telle qu'elle est elaboree chez
Cudworth, I'une des contributions les plus interessantes des platoniciens de
Cambridge a I'histoire de la pensee britannique.

L 'INSUFFISANCE DU MECANISME

La necessite du vitalisme s'impose a eux, on Ie sait, de maniere simple, que certains

qualifieraient volontiers de simpliste. Le mecanisme cartesien pour lequel ils ont un
temps eprouve une veritable fascination (encore que Gabbey rappelle a juste titre en
examinant les lettres de 1647-48 que les points de rupture entre More et Descartes
sont deja perceptibles) echoue, de leur point de vue, a rendre compte d'un grand
nombre de phenomenes. Le dualisme de I'auteur des Meditations les a seduits .

145
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophi cal Context. 145-157.
© 1997 Kluwer Academi c Publishers.
146 1. L. BRETEAU

Mais, reprise dans leur langage qui fait volontiers l' economie du detour, pourtant
capital pour Descartes , du doute hyperbolique.i l'argumentation qui aboutit a poser
I'existence de deux substances pourrait se resumer comme suit: la substance cor-
porelle etant hetero-kinetique, c'est-a-dire entierement regie par les lois du mecan-
isme , il faut, pour eviter toute "progression a I'infini dans I'ordre des causes, '?
postuler l'existence d'une autre substance qui sera auto-active, incorporelle. Les
principes d'inertie et de la conservation de la quantite de mouvement, si brillam-
ment mis en lumiere par I'auteur des Principes, ne sauraient en effet rendre raison
de tous les types de mouvement; il faut done, pour eviter toute ambiguite, revenir,
au moins pour un temps, a un type de discours "aristotelicien" et affirmer qu'existe
un type d'action totalement different du "mouvement local"; selon Cudworth il
s'agit d'une sorte de "mouvement mental":

All the local Motion that is in the World , was First cau sed by some Cogitative or Thinking Being . which
not Acted upon by any thing without it, nor at all Locally Moved, but only Mentally ; is the Immoveable
Mover of the Heaven, or Vortices . So that Cogitation is in Order ofNature. before Local Mot ion, and
Incorporeal before Corporeal Substan ce, the Former having a Natural Imperium over the Latter.'

Seuls des athees, entierement sous I'emprise de leur enthousiasme, tell'auteur du

De Corpore, peuvent epouser la position materialiste la plus extreme et rendre
compte de tous les phenomenes par le pur mecanisme.
Or , precisement, pour sauver les phenomenes, com me se plait a le repeter
Cudworth dans ses manuscrits non publies concernant le libre-arbitre, il faut non
seulement affirmer le dualisme, mais egalement percevoir les difficultes que ren-
contre la philosophie cartesienne lorsqu'il s'agit de decrire la relation entre les deux
substances ainsi que, de maniere plus restrictive , celIe de l'ame et du corps et pour
finir I'ordre ou "harmonic", du monde.
Non seulement les phenomenes de conscience, mais meme ceux de la vie tout
court, notamment de la vie animale, echappent entierement a I'explication meca-
niste. L'hypothese de I'animal-machine constitue deja une semence d'atheisme, II
n'y a pas loin, pressent Cudworth, de cette hypothese a celIe de l'homme-machine.
Or, affirmer que I'homme est une machine est aussi absurde que de pretendre qu 'un
triangle est un carre .>
S'impose done la necessite d'un tertium quid dont Ie probleme est evidemment
de definir la nature. Aucune des solutions proposees par les disciples ou pretendus
disciples de Descartes ne saurait leur convenir. L' hylozoisme de type spinoziste est
encore moins approprie en ce que, renouant avec l'une formes antiques de
l'atheisme inauguree par Straton de Lampsaque, il attribue a la matiere elle-rneme
une auto-activites
II ne faudra done pas s'etonner que des elements de solution soient cherches,
comme on le verra plus loin, dans l' Antiquite greco-latine: chez Aristote, ou du
moins chez l' Aristote des neo-platoniciens via Plotin et aussi peut-etre chez les
stoiciens. Mais s'agit-il pour autant d'un pur retour au discours paracelsien de
I'Ame du Monde , des archees et des signatures qui avait si profondement marque la
 LE VITALISME DE CUDWORTH ET DE MORE 147

Renaissance? Les emprunts reiteres faits par More a Van Helmont, Ie paracelsien
patente de l'epoque, ainsi que la recurrence de ce type de terminologie dans les
textes? pourraient Ie laisser croire . Un examen plus attentif de ceux-ci peut nean-
moins modifier sensiblement cette premiere impression et justifie peut-etre I'interet
porte au vitalisme des hommes de Cambridge dans les deux siecles suivants par des
auteurs aussi differents que Le Clerc, Leibniz, les redacteurs de La Grande
Encyclopedic ou Paul Janet. Surtout il peut nous montrer que la doctrine dite des
natures plastiques constitue un element essentiel de la reponse que More et surtout
Cudworth entendent donner a la grande question des conditions de possibilite de la
liberte humaine .

***
" NATURE PLASTIQUE" ET " E S P R IT DE LA NATURE"

Les deux definitions les plus claires du principe "vital" sont donnees respective-
ment par I'un et I' autre dans Ie troisieme volume de The Immortality of the Soul et
dans la celebre digression d'une trentaine de pages qui clot Ie troisieme chapitre du
True Intellectual System. "

The Spirit of Nature therefore, according to that notion I have of it is, A Substance incorporeal. but
without Sense and Animadversion. pervading the whole Matter of the Universe . and exer cising a
Plastical power therein according to the sundry predispositions and occasions in the parts ofthe Matter
it works upon. raising such Phaenomena in the World. by directing the parts of the Matter and their
Motion. as cannot be resolved into mere Mechanical Powers?
Wherefore since neither all things are produced Fortuitously, or by the Unguided Mechan ism of
Matter, nor God himself may reasonably be thought to do all things Immediately and Miraculously ; it
may well be concluded , that there is a Plastick Nature under him, which as an Inferior and Subordinate
Instrument doth Drudgingly Execute that Part of his Providence, which consists in the Regular and
Orderly Motion of Matter: yet so as that there is also besides this, a Higher Providence to be acknowl-
edged, which presiding over it, doth often supply the Defects of it, and sometimes overrule it: forasmuch
as this Plastick: Nature cannot act Electively nor with DiscretionV'

Bien que More qualifie sa propre definition de grossiere, ilIa juge neanmoins
suffisante pour donner une idee "assez determinee de la nature de la chose", II
c'est-a-dire pour montrer comment la matiere inerte peut etre agie "spirituelle-
ment" sans qu'il soit pour autant necessaire, ainsi que Cudworth Ie preci se de son
cote, d'imaginer que Dieu intervienne en permanence "immediatement et mira-
culeusement" au sein de sa creation pour y instaurer cet ordre et cette harmonie
que tout observateur cense peut y reconnaitre. II est, juge encore Cudworth,
presque indecent de supposer, par exemple, que, comme certains bigots
I'affirment, Ie Createur "forme pour ainsi dire de ses propres mains Ie corps du
moindre moucheron."12 Cette diatribe vise-t-elle Malebranche, comme on I'a
souvent estime (Par exemple Passmore'")? Rien n'est moins sur. Les simples
reperes chronologiques ne plaident guere en faveur d'une connaissance appro-
fondie par Cudworth des theses de I'oratorien francais: en effet, la premiere
148 1. L. BRETEAU

edition de La Recherche de la verite parut en 1674, quatre ans apres que Ie True
Intellectual System a recu Yimprimatur, et les Entretiens furent publics en 1688,
l'annee meme ou mourut Cudworth." De plus, Malebranche parait bien envisager
une intervention permanente de la volonte divine, puisque, dans son systerne,
"nulle causalite naturelle n'est intelligible"; mais il n'en reste pas moins que la
notion de lois generales qu'il utilise attenue quelque peu I'apparent simplisme de
son occasionnalisme.P En fustigeant la bigoterie de certains penseurs, Cudworth
s'en prend done plus vraisemblablement a quelque theologien fondamentaliste a
moins qu 'il n'imagine cette posit ion pour les besoins de la cause afin de la mettre
en balance avec Ie pur mecanisme.
Conformernent a son habitude, souvent lassante pour son lecteur, l'auteur du
True Intellectual System parcourt, comme on Ie suggerait plus haut, toute l'histoire
de la philosophie pour montrer Ie caractere universel de cette doctrine: Heraclite et
Empedocle sont censes l'avoir enseignee avant Platon et Aristote; pour leur part,
les Peres de I'Eglise tout comme Diogene Laerce signalent chez les stoiciens l'exis-
tence de ces "A0'Y0L <:TTIEpf..L<XTLKOL, moyennant lesquels chaque chose apparait
selon Ie destin ."!" Et c'est bien cette notion que Plotin a reprise en parlant de
"raison seminale",!? qui explique notamment la generation et la corruption des
animaux. Naturellement, seuls les athees de I'Antiquite et leurs modernes epigones
I' ont rejetee. Par un juste retour des choses, I' auteur des Principes devient alors un
Anaxagore du 17eme siecle plus coupable encore de preter Ie flanc a l'accusation
d'atheisme, puisque l'alternative alaquelle aboutit son mecanisme est ou bien d'ac-
cepter l'hypothese occasionnaliste ou de faire equivaloir lois du mouvement et
nature plastiqueP

" L A NATURE EST UN ART" : LE VITALISME , L' ART ET LA SCIENCE

Outre la solution ainsi apportee au dilemme cartesien et Ie fait qu'elle soit acceptee
par l'ensemble des philosophes les plus soucieux de defendre l'Interet de la religion
au cours des ages, la doctrine des natures plastiques presente encore d'autres avan-
tages non negligeables.
D'abord elle repond, selon Cudworth, a un besoin esthetique: Ie spectacle du
monde propose par ceux qui rejettent les causes finales aurait, s'il etait conforme a
la verite, quelque chose de navrant: l'univers ressemblerait dans cette hypothese a
une sorte de cadavre , a une statue sculptee, depourvue de toute vie: "They make a
kind of Dead and Wooden World, as it were a Carved Statue, that hath nothing
neither Vital nor Magical at all in iC}9
Or precisement, pour Cudworth qui, suivant ici au plus pres la reflexion develop-
pee par la Physique d' Aristote sur phusis et techne,2o entend donner une represen -
tation exacte de la nature plastique, celle-ci est en realite un art "And thus we have
the first General Conception of the Plastick Nature, That it is Art it self, acting im-
mediately on the Matter, as an Inward Principle''F:
 LE VITALISME DE CUDWORTH ET DE MORE 149

Ce faisant , il n'annule pas pour autant la realite du couple antithetique

phusis/techne, non plus que l'esthetique de la mimesis qui s'y trouve traditionneIIe-
ment associee; mais iI en renouveIIe la formulation. D'une part, I'art humain n'est
pour lui imitation de la nature que parce que, en definitive, la nature est, comme Ie
soutenait I'Etranger du Sophiste, art divin, c'est-a-dire art parfait. Encore faut-il im-
mediatement lever une ambigurte ace sujet. II ne s'agit pas ici de I'art divin consi-
dere dans sa purete , de cette sagesse eternelle qui ne saurait se meler a la matiere;
Cudworth veut parler de I'art divin concret, incarne.
Si I'on compare ce dernier, en tant qu'il s'exerce dans la nature, a I'art humain,
deux series de proprietes antithetiques peuvent etre degagees, L'art humain s'impose
ala matiere de I' exterieur avec bruit et violence, alors que la nature, ignorant ecart et
mediation, agit de l'Interieur avec douceur et dans Ie silence. Mais si la seconde
s'avere ainsi clairement superieure au premier, iI n'en va aucunement de meme en ce
qui concerne la connaissance que chacun a de ses propres operations. De ce point de
vue, la nature manifeste simultanement sa superiorite, dans la mesure ou eIIe n'hesite
jamais alors que I'art humain recherche et delibere, et son imperfection, puisqu'eIIe
ne connait pas la raison de ce qu'eIIe fait; c'est ce qu'attestait la longue definition
donnee precedernrnent.P De plus, tout en contenant une "partie de la providence
divine", la nature plastique est tres inferieure, comme Ie suggerait la meme citation, a
cette providence "plus haute et plus divine" qui gouverne I'ensemble du monde.P
A ceux qui s'etonneraient que la nature puisse etre traversee par la finalite, agir
en vue de quelque chose (e.vEKa 70U: autre expression aristotelicienne qui revient
constamment dans la digression), Cudworth oppose d'une part I'exemple des habi-
tudes du violoniste qui, bien que conscient de ses gestes, a depuis longtemps cesse
de deliberer pour manier son archet, ou du danseur dont Ie corps est, ainsi que Ie
notait Plotin, "rnfl par I'art lui-merne", d'autre part , celui des instincts naturels
propres aux animaux. Ces derniers , contrairement a ce qu'affirmait Descartes , sont
pour Cudworth conscients de ce qu'iIs font, quoiqu 'ils demeurent incapables de
deliberer et ne soient pas maitres de cette sagesse qui les fait agir. La nature plas-
tique qui les produit ne peut meme pas, quant a eUe, pretendre a la conscience.P
L' Esprit de la Nature defini dans The Immortality of the Soul ne connait pas non
plus la raison de ce qu 'il fait , mais More voit en lui la cause de multiples
phenomenes dont Cudworth, semble-t-il, s'abstient soigneusement de parler. II ex-
plique notamment la "descente des corps lourds" :

And a farther confirmation that I am not mistaken therein, is what we daily here experience upon Earth,
which is the descending of heavy Bodies, as we call them. Concerning the motion whereof I agree with
Descartes in the assignation of the immediate corporeal cause, to wit, the Aethereal Matter, which is so
plentifully in the Air over it is in grosser Bodies; but withall do vehemently surmise, that there must be
some Immaterial cause, such as we call The Spirit of Nature or Inferiour Soul of the World, that must
direct the motions of the Aethereal particles to act upon these grosser Bodies to drive them towards the
Earth .P

"Puissance vicaire de ce grand autom ate qu'est Ie monde",26 iI rend compte

encore non seulement de I' etrange fonctionnement de la "pompe a air", mais de
150 1. L. BRETEAU

faits aussi etonnants que Ie magnetisme, Ie tonnerre et I'eclair, la nature des

couleurs, etc. II est manifestement comme Ie dit joliment Alan Gabbey , commen-
tant la fin de la definition reproduite plus haut, l'''Esprit des sauts dans la causalite
(the Spirit of causal gaps")". Ne reculantjamais devant la difficulte, More s'efforce
meme de decrire comment I'Esprit de la Nature peut se voir "arracher son consen-
tement" par la force de I'imagination d'une femme enceinte qui donnera alors nais-
sance a un enfant quelque peu monstrueux.P
Cudworth, pour sa part, ne fait guere de references a la science moderne dans sa
digression, si ce n' est par deux fois a l' Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et
sanguinis de William Harvey." Sans doute faut-il voir la un signe de la merne pru-
dence qu'iI manifestera a l'egard de la conception morienne de I'espace ou de la
croyance en la preexistence des ames. Mais , plus encore , a mon sens, Ie fait te-
moigne d'une difference dans les priorites que les deux hommes de Cambridge
s'assignent, notamment en ce qui concerne Ie probleme du libre-arbitre.

LA "NATURE NECESSAIRE" ET L'''ESPACE DE LA LIBERTE"

More aborde celui-ci a trois reprises dans son oeuvre : une premiere fois dans The
lmmortalityP pour repondre aux arguments deterministes avances par Hobbes dans
son Of Liberty and Necessity (qui vient opportunement d'etre traduit en francais") ;
dans deux chapitres de I' Enchiridion Ethicum (oil il avoue lui-meme ne Ie traiter
qu'avec brievetei et enfin, quelque temps avant sa mort, dans un echange de lettres
avec John Norris.V Mais, meme s'iI s'avoue a chaque fois interesse par Ie sujet, il
est loin d'accorder a ce theme la centralite qu'il revet dans les derniers travaux de
Cudworth, restes pour I'essentiel, sauf Ie court Treatise of Freewill, a l'etat de
manuscrits. La preface du True Intellectual System brosse, faut-ille rappeler , I'es-
quisse d'un monumental "Discours de la liberte et de la necessite", dont I'ouvrage
publie ne devait constituer que Ie premier volet. Toute I'oeuvre de Cudworth, et no-
tamment I'oeuvre manuscrite, s'inscrit done dans cette tentative de menager "un
grand espace pour la liberte",33 qui permette dechapper tant au determinisme
materialiste de Hobbes qu'aufatalisme theologique des tenants du volontarisme.
A cet effet, Cudworth s'efforce d'elaborer une anthropologie qui echappe aux
dilemmes de ce qu'il nomme "la psychologie vulgaire," (", .. the vulgar psicol-
ogy .. ." [Sic]34) c'est-a-dire celie des "facultes," fruit des analyses de la scolastique
tardive.P Tout en insistant fortement, a I'encontre de cette derniere, sur l'unite de
I' arne, iI distingue pourtant en elle deux etages ou "regions" ( ..... we are to consider
as it were two Stories or Gradations and Regions in the Soul.. ."36). Apres Aristote
(une fois encore!) dont le traite De l'Ame guide sa reflexion, i1 pose la question de
savoir ce qui est en elle principe du mouvementt'" la reponse, estime-t-il, se trouve
dans \' "auto-activite simple?" du sujet dont i1 attribue I'origine aun bouillonnement
interieurs? Le Treatise of Freewill a aussi recours a des metaphores apparentees :
"But there is a thread of life always spinning out, and a living spring or fountain of
 LE VITALISME DE CUDWORTH ET DE MORE 151

cogitation in the soul itself."40 Les sensations de plaisir ou de souffrance, les pro-
duits de l'imagination et les passions proviennent de cette meme source. Bien qu'iIs
jaillissent de l'interieur merne de notre arne, nous avons l'impression qu'iIs echap-
pent a notre controle, qu'iIs naissent malgre nous: ..... these are natural too, come
upon us unawares, invade us, and surprise us with their sudden force, and we have
no absolute, despotic, easy, undisputed power over them ..."41
C'est pourquoi, si en eux se manifeste bien une activite autonome de l'ame, el1e
n'est qualifiee que de simple, car e1le ne dispose d'aucun pouvoir sur elle-meme.
Ces phenomenes ne sont pas des mouvements mecaniques, comme Ie pretendent les
deterministes, mais, ajoute Cudworth, ils se produisent pourtant en nous de facon
necessaire: ils sont "en nous la nature necessaire.r''?
L'une des activites qui permettent Ie mieux de mettre en lumiere cette activite de la
nature necessaire est Ie sommeiI. L'espace manque pour examiner en detail l'interes-
sant chapitre de l'un des manuscrits intitule Les reves.43 Disons, pour faire bref, que
ce phenomene dont "aucun philosophe n'a jusqu'a present donne ou meme pretendu
donner une explication satisfaisante" se caracterise par un double relachement de
tension dans I'esprit et dans Ie COrpS44 qui laisse libre cours au jeu de la nature neces-
saire, mais qui s'accompagne aussi malgre tout d'une certaine forme de conscience:

... it being nothing but Lower Nature that doth toyingly sport and act (play in us, the Soul being as much
unbent as the Body) and that which is properly we ourselves being silent, (sympathetically) charmed
into a Slumber."
.. . when we are awake, by Internal Sense we plainly feel ourselves to be all ourselves, whereas in Sleep
we feel ourselves to be half ourselves, Simple Nature."

Ce que Cudworth appelle encore l'instinct naturel se trouve donc toujours deja a
I'oeuvre avant meme qu'interviennent la raison ou l'action unificatrice du Moi et
fait d'abord de l'homme un etre de desir, Ce dernier regit la vie de son arne tout
entiere et ne pourrait vraiment s'eteindre qu'avec l'annihilation de son etre :

The Spring and Fountain of Life is restless Self-Desire which can never be extinguished but by the ex-
tinction of Life and Annihilation of Being.. . passionate or affective Thoughts, particular Appetites and
Desires that come upon us before we think of it.47

C'est ici que I'on peut percevoir, a mon sens, ce qui constitue aux yeux de
Cudworth la fecondite de la notion de nature plastique. C'est en el1e que la psy-
chologie humaine plonge ses racines . II semble bien qu'existent en l'ame des puis-
sances seminales ou plastiques qui echappent a la conscience." De plus, les
passions, les desirs, qui, eux, s'imposent a la conscience, paraissent bien proceder
egalernent de cette "nature plastique inferieure dans l'ame."49 De maniere sur-
prenante, I'auteur du Treatise of Freewill va meme affirmer que Ie desir ou presage
du bien, cet instinct divin qui transcende la raison humaine participe aussi de la
nature necessaire:

But above all these, and such like things, the soul hath in it !LavrelJ!L<X -rl., a certain vaticination, presage,
scent and odor of one summum bonum , one supreme highest good transcending all others, without which
152 1. L . BRETEAU

they will be all ineffectual as to complete happiness, and signify nothing, a certain philosopher's stone
that can turn all into gold.. . It is necessary nature, in us which is immutable, and always continues the
same, in equal quantity .50
.. . it is an inward simple Divine principle which is readily at hand, a Superrational and Superintellectual
Instinct ... 51

Une fois mis en evidence Ie role de la nature necessaire dont Ie dernier exemple
constitue a l'evidence un cas-limite, Cudworth degage par contraste ce qui con -
stitue veritablement l'essence du Moi , "that which is properly Ourselves,"52 ce qui
etait absent dans Ie reve a savoir Ie pouvoir hegemonique de l'ame, la "vie repliee
sur elle-meme. v-' qu'il baptise (et Ie terme se retrouve egalement parfois chez
More) du qualificatif grec d' a1JTE~a(J(J'tOlJ.54
Ces considerations que nous resumons tres brievernent permettront ensuite a
Cudworth de comparer liberte humaine et liberte divine; il essaiera de montrer que
la liberte d'indifference attribuee par beaucoup a I'homme est en un sens aussi cari-
caturale que l'arbitraire absolu dont les volontaristes voulaient faire la plus grande
perfection divine. L'auto-determination en l'homme n'est pas formellement sem-
blable, affirme -t-il, a la liberte de Dieu, contrairement a ce que soutenait Descartes,
mais appartient necessairement a l' idee ou a la nature d'un etre rationnel imparfait.
Le libre arbitre est la marque de creatures qui ne sont pas essentiellement bonnes,
mais seulement susceptibles de Ie devenir:

Wherefore , this (hJTE~oOOLOV, sui potestas, self-power, commonly called liberty of will, is no arbitrary
contrivance, or appointment of Deity merely by will annexed to rational creatures, but a thing which of
necessity belongs to the idea or nature of an imperfect rational being. Whereas a perfect being essen-
tially good and wise, is above this freewill or self-power, it being impossible that it should ever improve
itself much less impair itself."
The <h.rrE~oOOLO\l<; power or Freewill is a Power in such beings as are not essentially Good, but yet
capable of being unspottedly Pure and Holy and having a participation of the Nature of Divine
Goodnesse (which is the Intellectual and Divine Life) to fix themselves in Good self-actively, or if
lapsed and fallen from it to promote themselves towards the recovery of it,56

La hierarchic des attributs en Dieu, c'est-a-dire la libre soumission de sa volonte

a sa sagesse et a sa bonte peut etre analogiquement representee par l' exercice du
libre arbitre humain. Mais celui-ci n'agit qu'va l'ombre de Dieu (In Umbra Dei)".57
11 n'est pas perfection, mais "puissance de perfection."58

Cette courte esquisse de la meditation de Cudworth sur la liberte nous permet peut-
etre de conclure.
Son vitalisme comme celui de More prete aisement Ie f1anc aux critiques que
n'ont pas manque de diriger contre lui des savants comme Boyle, des penseurs ra-
tionalistes comme Bayle'? ou meme certains philosophes chez lesquels on aurait pu
imaginer queIque sympathie a son egard. Deja Glanvill, Ie fidele ami et disciple de
More, tout en se declarant dispose a reconnaitre queIque dpXf) 11 l' oeuvre dans la
 LE VITALISME DE CUDWORTH ET DE MORE 153

nature, ne se privait pas de railler dans la meme page ceux qui cherchent a definir
de maniere plus precise ux faculte plastique:

The Plastick faculty is a fine word; but what it is, how it works, and whose it is, we cannot learn; no, not
by a return in to the Womb ; neither will the Platonick Principles unriddle the doubt: For though the Soul
be supposed to be the Bodies Maker , and the builder of its own house; yet by what kind of Knowledge,
Method, or Means, is as unknown : and that we should have a knowledge which we know not of, is an as-
sertion, which some say, hath no commission from our Faculties .s?

Quelques quarante annees plus tard, Leibniz auquel Lady Masham fille de
Cudworth, a envoye Ie True Intellectual System en esperant qu'il y reconnaisse
quelque affinite avec sa pensee estime que sa propre doctrine preformationniste
evite d'avoir recours ades "Natures plastiques immaterielles":

Ainsi je n'ay point besoin de recourir avec M. Cudworth 11 certaines Natures Plastiques immaterielles...
J'en puis dire, Non mi besogna, e non mi basta, par cette raison meme de la preformation et d'un organ-
isme 11 I'infini, qui me fournit des natures plastiques materielles propres 11 ce qu'on demande; au lieu que
les principes plastiques immateriels sont aussi peu necessaires , qu'ils sont peu capables d'y satisfaire ."

En revanche, on peut tout de meme s'interroger avec Georges Canguilhem sur

"l'etonnante vitalite du vitalisme'<' qui conduira encore apres deux siecles de con-
troverse un philosophe francais, Paul Janet dans un Essai sur le mediateur plastique
de Cudworth, a disculper I'auteur du True Intellectual System de la "ridicule hy-
pothese qui etait restee attachee a son nom".63 Janet s'insurge, en effet, contre une
deformation qu'aurait subie la doctrine de Cudworth sous la plume de certains cri-
tiques francais comme Larorniguiere. La nature plastique etait, en effet, presentee
par eux comme une sorte d"'agent intermediaire. . . entre I'ame et Ie corps" et par
consequent n'etait, selon Janet, bonne a rien puisque "pour vouloir reunir en une
seule nature deux natures opposees", elle s'aneantissait elle-meme.v' Pourtant iI ne
surestime guere I'homme de Cambridge qui, a son avis, n'est pas un philosophe
moderne, mais un "neo-platonicien, plus sage et plus regle que ceux du seizieme
siecle, mais sans beaucoup d'originalite, et dont la doctrine n'est autre chose que la
theorie antique et surannee de I'ame du monde" .65 Janet ne cache pas ses
preferences pour Descartes et Leibniz.s"
On peut se demander alors pourquoi iI se donne tant de peine. Un element de
reponse tient sans doute dans Ie fait que Cudworth, comme More, sous couvert de
reiterer une doctrine ancienne, a surtout su traduire cette "con fiance ... dans la spon-
taneite de la vie, cette reticence.. . a faire sortir la vie d'une nature decornposee en
mecanismes'"? que partageaient beaucoup de ses contemporains et notamment des
medecins renommes.
J'espere avoir montre aussi combien cette doctrine etait un maillon indispensable
pour assurer la coherence du veritable systeme intellectuel de l'univers dont More
et Cudworth entendaient rendre compte.

Jean-Louis Breteau
154 1. L. BRETEA U

NOTES

Alan Gabbey, "Henry More and the limits of mechanism,"; John Henry, "Henry More versus Robert
Boyle: the spirit of nature and the nature of providence," in Henry More (1614-1687) : Tercentenary
Studies, ed. Sarah Hutton, with a biography and bibliography by Robert Crocker (Dordrecht, Boston &
London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990) respectivement pp. 19-36 et 55-76.
2 Voir notre article "La conscience de soi chez les platoniciens de Cambridge, " in Genese de la
Conscience Moderne, ed, R. Ellrodt (Paris: P.U.F, 1983), pp. 105-115; specialement 106-07. More
parle d'un "concept sauvage," voir Antidote in Patrides, The Cambridge Platonists (Londres: Edward
Arnold, 1990) p. 214.
3 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U.. successivement pp. 47 & 668.
Ralph Cudworth, T.l.S.U., p. 844
Ralph Cudworth, T.l.S.U., p. 850.
Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U., p. 145: ... .. Strato's Ghost (has) begun to walk of late..."
Par exemple, en ce qui conceme Cudworth, T.l.S.U., p. 150: "And by this means the Wisdom of God
will not be shut up nor concluded within his own Breast, but will display itself abroad, and print its
Stamps and Signatures every where throughout the World ... .. ou ibid.. p. 681: .... . to think that the
Frame and System of this whole World, was contrived by a Perfect Understanding Being or Mind (now
also presiding over the same) which hath every where Printed the Signatures of its own Wisdom upon
the Matter ."
A la difference de More, Cudworth mentionne parfois Paracelse (par exemple, T.I.S.U., p. 153), mais
jamais Boehme ou Van Helmont.
8 Ralph Cudworth, T.J.S . U., pp.146-81 (reproduit presque integraleme nt dans Patrides, The
Cambridge Platonists , op. cit., pp. 288-325); la question est reprise de rnaniere plus decousue dans
quelques pages du demier chapitre, pp. 669-90.
9 Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul (1652) in C.S.P.W., 2, p. 193 (3, 12).
10 Ralph Cudworth, T.l.S.U.. p. 150.
II Henry More, The Immortality. C.S.P.W.. 2, p. 193: "This rude Description may serve to convey to
anyone a conception determinate of the nature of the thing."
12 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U.. p. 147: ..... Or else, that God himself doth al1lmmediately, and as it were
with his own Hands, Form the Body of every Gnat and Fly, Insect and Mite, as of other Animals in
Generations ..." et ibid., p. 680: .... . the Other of Bigotical Religionists, who will needs have God au-
tourgein hapanta , to do all things himself immediately: as if all in Nature were Miracle."
13 J. A. Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. an Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1951) p. 24.
14 N. Malebranche, De la recherche de la verite. ou l'on traite de la nature. de l'esprit de l'homme et
de l 'usage qu 'il sait en faire pour eviter l' erreur dans les sciences (Paris, 1674-75); Entretiens sur la
metaphysique et la religion (Rotterdam, 1688); ed. A. Robinet (Paris: Vrin, 1965).
15 N. Malebranche, Entretiens (Robinet), op. cit., pp. 160-61 (7, 10): "Dieu ne communique sa puis-
sance aux creatures, et ne les unit entr 'elles, que parce qu 'Il etablit leurs modalite z, causes occasion -
nelles des effets qu'Il produit lui-meme; causes occasionnelles, dis-je, qui determinent l'efficace de
ses volontez, en consequence des loix generales qu'jJ s'est prescrit , pour faire porter a sa conduite Ie
caractere de ses attributs, et repandre dans son ouvrage l'uniformite daction necessaire, pour en lier
ensemble toutes les parties qui Ie composent, et pour Ie tirer de la confusion et de l'Irregularite d'une
espece de chaos, oil les esprits ne pourraient j amais rien comprendre."
16 "A6"yo~ (T1Tepj.La"TLK6~": "Raisons contenant les germes I capables d'engendrer". Ralph Cudworth,
T.I.S. Ui, pp. 152-55; H. Diels & W. Kranz, ed., Fragmente der Yorsokratiker. tOeme ed., 3 vols.
(Berlin: Weidmannsche, 1960-61) I, pp. 150 et sq., 314 et sq. Athenagore, Supplique au sujet des chre-
tiens , ed. trad . G. Bardy (Paris: Cerf, 1943) p. 6; Ciceron, De Natura Deorum, ed. trad . angl. H.
Rackham (1933 , Londres : Heinemann ; Cambridge Mass.: Harvard UP, 1967) pp. 202--03 (2, 32);
Diogene Laerce, Vies. doctrines et sentences des philosoph es illustres, trad., intr. R. Genaille (Paris:
Gamier-Flammarion, 1965) 2, p. 100 (2, 32).
 LE VITALISME DE CUDWORTH ET DE MORE 155

17 Plotin, Enneades, ed., trad . E. Brehier, 7 vols (Paris : Belles Lettres, 1962--69) 3, pp. 18-21 : "Dans
une raison seminale, toutes les parties d'un animal sont ensemble en un rnerne point , sans qu 'elles
entrent en conflit ni en differend, et sans qu'elles se fassent obstacle ".
18 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U.. pp . 150-51. Sur la reference a Anaxagore, voir ibid., pp . 153-54;
Aristote, dit Cudworth, reproche a Anaxagore d'avoir trop accorde a la "necessite rnaterielle" tout en in-
sistant sur Ie role du "notis", (Aristote, Metapbysique, trad. 1. Tricot, 2 vols [Paris: Vrin, 1964] I, p. 38,
985 a 17-21). L'accusation d"'atheisme" est portee par Platon, Les Lois, ed. trad . A. Dies & E. des
Places, 4 vols. (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1951-56)4, pp. 85-86 (12; 967lH:).
19 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U., p. 148.
20 Aristote, Physique, ed. , trad. H. Carteron, 2 vols (Paris: Belles-Lettres, 1966) I, pp. 76-79 (2, 8; 198
b-199 b); Cuworth reprend la plupart des exemple s cites dans ce texte.
21 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U., p. 155.
22 lbid., p. 156. Voir plus haut, p. 147.
23 Ibid.. p. 163: "And though this Plastick Nature contain no small part of Divine Providence in it, yet
since it is a thing that cannot act Electively nor with Discretion , it must needs be granted that there is a
Higher and Diviner Providence than this, which also presides over the Corporeal World it self.. . So that
it is not Ratio mersa et confusa, a Reason drowned in Matter. and confounded with it, which is the
Supreme Govemour of the World, but a Providence perfectly Intellectual, Abstract and Released'.
24 Ibid.. p. 158-59; Plotin, Enneades, op. cit.. 3 p. 44 (3, 2,16,23-25).
2~ Henry More, The Immortality, es.p.W.. 2, pp. 196-97 (3, 13).
26 Henry More, An Antidote. es.p.w., I, p. 46 : " .. . the Effects of the same Immaterial Principle, (call
it the Spirit of Nature or what you will) which is the Vicarious Power of God upon this great Automaton,
the World ."
27 Alan Gabbey , "Henry More and the limits of mechanism," Tercentenary Studies. op. cit., p. 24.
28 Henry More, The Immortality, es.p.W.. 2, p. 172 (3, 6, 8).
29 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U.. pp. 157 & 161; comme More (voir note precedente), Cudworth cite
parfoi s aussi les oeuvres du medecin Daniel Sennert (ibid., p. 704) . Daniel Sennert, Opera omnia,
3 vols. (Paris, 1641); William Harvey, Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis (Londres,
1625).
30 Henry More, The Immortality. 2, pp. 71-77 (2, 3).
31 Thomas Hobbes , De la liberte et de la necessite, intr. trad. Franck Lessay (Paris : Vrin, 1993).
)2 Henry More, E.E.; An Account of Virtue , or Dr Henry More's Abridgement of Morals put into
English, trad . E. Southwell (Londres, 1690), pp. 172-90 (3, ch. I & 2; Ie chapitre I est reproduit dans
Cragg, The Cambridge Platonists [New-York : Oxford UP, 1968) pp. 300-05) ; John Norris, The Theory
and Regulation of Love, A Moral Essay in Two Parts. to which are added Letters Philosophical and
Moral between the Author and Dr Henry More (1688, Londres , 1694).
33 Voir notre article "Un grand espace pour la liberte: Le dilemme du libre arbitre dans la pensee de
Ralph Cudworth," Archives de Philosophie, 1995,58,3, numero special consacre aux platoniciens de
Cambridge.
J4 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manus cript (British Museum) n" 4980, p. 2.
3~ Voir Anthony Levi, "La psychologie des facultes dans les discussions theologiques du dix-septieme
siecle,' in L 'homme devant Dieu : Melanges offerts au pere de Lubac, 2 vols (Paris : Aubier-Monraigne,
1964)2, pp. 293-302.
36 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (BM) n" 4980, p.l .
37 Ralph Cudworth, T.F. p. 26: " It is a very material question which Aristotle starteth, TL TO -rrpw-ros
KLVOUV, what is that first moveth the soul and setteth all the other wheels on work?" Aristote consacre
tout Ie premier livre de son traite , De l 'time, ed , A. Jannone , trad. E. Barbotin (Paris : Belles Lettres,
1966) pp. 1-28 (402 a-411 b), a une critique des differentes theories sur I'dme proposees par ses de-
vanciers , en particulier celles qui en font Ie principe moteur lui-meme; au contraire, Aristote recherche
ce qui dans l'ame est Ie "principe du mouvernent" et conclut, ibid., pp. 90-91 (433a-b), que ce "principe
moteur premier" est Ie desir ou "faculte orectique ."
156 1. L . BRETEAU

38 "i .. a single Self-Activity of the Soule." Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manus cripts (8M) nO 4979,
p. 3; n04980, p. I; nO 4981 (summary) p. 2 (cf. texte en appendice).
39 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (BM) n04979, p. 3: "These Things . . . must need s arise
from an inward active and bubbling Fountain of Animal Life in us." A Treatise Concerning Eternal And
Immutable Morality, ed. E. Chandler, Bishop of Durham (Londres, 1731) p. 119: .... . for there may be
straggling Phantasms, which come into the Mind we know not how ; and bubble up of themselves .. ...
T.I.S. U., p. 637 : ". . ; those Imaginations that spring and bubble from the Soul it self.. ."
40 Ralph Cudworth, A Treatise of Freewill , p. 26.
41 Ibid., p. 31 .
42 Ibid.. p. 30 : ..It is necessary nature in us." Additional Manuscript (BM) nO4981 (summary), op. cit.,
p. I: ... . . because they cannot Determine, Regulate and Govern them Selfs, therefore we are not thought
to be so much the Cause of them as Nature in us". (voir Ie texte complet que nous transcrivons en appen-
dice) .
43 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (BM) nO 4980 op. cit., pp. 1-10.
44 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manus cript (BM) nO 4980 , op. cit., p. I : ", the Phenomenon of Sleep
and Dream which no Philosopher has yet, so far as we know it, even pretended to give a satisfactory
Account of." et ibid, p. 3, note : "When the Tone of the Mind is intended, the Bodily Tone must needs be
intended also, but when the Tone of the Body is relaxated, the Tone of the Mind must needs be relaxated
likewise".
45 lbid., p. 3.
46 Ibid., p. 4.
47 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscripts (BM) nO 4982 , p. 5 et nO4983 , p. 82.
48 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (BM) n04979, op. cit., p. 5: .... . for the seminal, plantall
and plastick ones (Congruities) belong not to its Cognizance" .
49 Ralph Cudworth, T.F., p. 30.
50 lbid., pp. 29-30.
5\ Ralph Cudworth, Additi onal Manuscript (BM) n" 4982 , op. cit., p. 8.
52 Ralph Cudworth, T.F. p. 36 ; Additional Manuscript (BM) nO 4979, op. cit., p. 6 et nO 4980 , op. cit.,
p.3.
53 Ralph Cudworth, T.F., p. 36: "I say, therefore, that the '1'0 Tt'YEj.l.OVLKOV in every man, and indeed that
which is properly we ourselves, (we rather having those other things of nece ssary nature than being
them), is the soul as comprehending itself, all its con cerns and interests, its abilities and capacities, and
holding itself, as it were , in its own hand , as it were redoubled upon itself, having a power of intending
or exerting itself more or less, in consideration and deliberation, in resisting the lower appetites that
oppose it, both of utility , reason and honesty ; in self-recollection and attention, and vigilant circumspec-
tion, or standing upon our guard ."
54 Ibid . O[1.rrE~oU<TWV : "maitre de soi" , Une variante du terme est avroEKauTo<;, par exemple dans
Additional Manus cript (BM) n04981 (summary) 3: "This is the evroexoo-ros that which is called I my
Self in every man" ou dans Add . Man. 49 79, p. 6: "This is the CxUTOEKU<TTO<; in every one , that whi ch is
properly called we .. ... (A cet endroit, Cudworth ajoute sign ificativement en note: 'T he true personality
is in this .") .
Henry More, An Account of Virtue, op. cit. p. 176 in Cragg, The Cambridge Platonists, op. cit., p. 302 :
"First, libert y of the will, which the Greeks call ewrE~oi><TWV, seems also to imply the having a power to
act or not to act within ourselves."
55 Ralph Cudworth, T.F., p. 63 .
56 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (BM) nO4982 , op. cit., p. 20 .
57 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (BM) nO 4979, op. cit., p. 68.
58 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (BM) nO 4982, op. cit., p. 16.
59 Sur la controverse entre Bayle et Le Cler c 11 propos des idees de Cudworth et de More, voir Rosalie
L. Colie, Light and Enlightenment: A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1957) pp. 117-44 ("The Vitalist Controversy") .
 LE VITALISME DE CUDWORTH ET DE MORE 157

60 Joseph Glanvill , The Vanity of Dogmatizing (Londres, 1661; fac-sim. The Vanity of Dogmatizing:
The Three Versions, ed. S. Metcalf [Hove-Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1970) ) pp. 43-44.
61 G. W. Leibniz, Considerations sur les Principes de Vie. et sur les Natures Plastiques par l'Auteur
du Systeme de l 'Harmonie preetablie in Philosophischen Schriften, ed. c. J. Gerhardt , 6 vols. (Berlin,
1875; Hildesheim: DIms, 1965) 6, p. 544; la correspond ance echangee avec Lady Masham (1703-05) se
trouve dans Philosophi schen Schriften 3, pp. 331-376.
62 Georges Canguilhem, La connaissan ce de la vie (1965, Paris: Vrin, 1969) p. 85.
63 Paul Janet, De Plasticae naturae vita quae a Cudwortho in Systemate intellectuali celebratur (Paris,
1948) Essai sur Ie mediateur plastique de Cudworth (Paris, 1860) p. 74.
M Paul Janet , Essai sur Ie mediateur, op. cit., p. 2.
M Ibid., p. 30 .
M Ibid., pp. 43 & 37.
67 Georges Canguilhem, La connaissance de la vie, op. cit., p. 88.
 J . COTTINGHAM

FORCE, MOTION AND CAUSALITY:

MORE'S CRITIQUE OF DESCARTES

I. CAUSALITY AND THE NEW SCIENCE; INFlUENCE AND TRANSMISSION

We are so used to admiring the mathematically based scientific revolution of the

early modem period that we sometimes forget what it did not achieve . In Descartes'
formulation of a new structure for physics , and his famous critique of preconceived
opinion, there is one concept that never receives systematic scrutiny - that of
causality Descartes gives us new causal principles - both detailed formulae like the
rules of impact, and overarching axioms like the law of conservation - but he never
provides a clear explicit analysis of what it is for two events to be causally related.
That task was taken up later : the occas ionalism of Malebranche the pre-established
harmony of Leibniz and the reductive regularism of Hume can all be seen as at-
tempts to provide a new theoretical account of causality compatible with the emerg-
ing science of mathematical physics.
On one point the new post-Cartesian causal theorists are united - their rejection
of naive traditional models of causality such as the "vulgar hypothesis of influx" .'
One of the principal groups which Leibniz may have had in mind when employing
this label was the Neoplatonists, who invoked the idea of spiritual force as
overflowing from higher realms of being and infusing the material world. Not that
the Neoplatonic school was the only possible target for Leibnizian strictures; as
Eileen O'Neill has shown in an important recent paper,? various brands of scholas-
tics, as well as the Neo-epicureans, were all prepared from time to time to invoke,
whether implicitly or explicitly, some version of the idea of a outflow or transm is-
sion between cause and effect.
A preliminary point worth making here is that despite the scorn of the new causal
theorists, the notions of influx and transmission are by no means inherently absurd.
In some cases, indeed, they convey the literal truth. Why is the water in an estuary
salty? Because there is a literal influx (inflow) of sea water during high tide. Why
does the sun cause the sea to sparkle? Well, photons are emitted, or transm itted
from the sun , through space to the earth, where they strike the ridged surface of the
sea. Why do we catch a cold? Because droplets of moisture are inhaled, and within
those droplets are viruses , which once inside the body break into cells and transmit
instructions to them in the form of bits of DNA . Influx, of the corpuscularian
variety at least, is alive and well today, and actually gives the right answer to many
causal questions. Not, of course, all: magnetism and gravity still defy transmission
or influx explanations - and it is here that talk of "influence" becomes either
metaphorical or occult. And this gives rise to a legitimate philosophical demand: if
metaphorical, how is the metaphor to be cashed out; if occult, how can such talk

159
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 159-171.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
160 1. COTTINGHAM

retain a place in the post-Cartesian scientific world with its demands for clarity and
transparency? But the failure of the influx model to cope with all cases of causal in-
teraction is surely no reason for regarding it as inherently flawed.
Mention of the transparency requirement brings me to a second preliminary
point. Except in cases like gravity where a literal interpretation of influx or trans-
mission breaks down, the transparency of influx and transmission models often
seems quite unexceptionable. And this notwithstanding later Malebranchian and
Humean strictures. When a bacterium infects an animal, we can actually see (under
the microscope) the noxious matter being transferred into the body cells . Nothing
could be more transparent than this, except perhaps a transmission observable at the
macro level of ordinary medium sized hardware. When a horse pulls a cart (causes
the cart to move), the motion is transmitted from horse to cart via the harness. The
actual physical tackle attaching horse to cart gives us about as transparent a case of
causal transmission as we can get. Of course the link between horse and cart is not
what Malebranche calls a liaison necessairei' there is no logically necessary con-
nection between the horse's moving and the cart's moving (we could presumably
imagine the horse pulling away and nothing happening - perhaps if the coefficient
of friction or the elasticity of the rope were suddenly altered) ." If you (following
Malebranche) want a cause such that it is contradictory for it to occur without the
effect ensuing, then only the definitionally efficacious will of an omnipotent being
will be able to qualify. But none of this shows that the mechanism in the horse and
cart case is not wholly transparent to observation: there is a liaison which is, if not
necessaire, then at least pretty darn strong, and arguably has more explanatory
power than the most sophisticated theory could provide: the cart moves because the
horse moves and the horse is tied to the cart."
But while notions like influx and transmission may not be intrinsically suspect,
there do seem to be serious philosophical difficulties with the particular concep-
tion of influx employed in the Neoplatonic, or Neoplotinan, philosophy of the
Cambridge Platonists. The model to which they subscribed stems from Plotinus'
doctrine of emanation: the phenomenal world owes its being to an outflowing from
the higher intelligible realm. But what exactly is it that "flows forth"? As developed
by Henry More the picture is of a Spirit of Nature originating from God and infus-
ing the descending orders of being;" the dominant analogy is that of the Sun irradi-
ating the world, but this is combined with the conception of cause and effect being
related as original to likeness or replica. Thus the soul is "a Ray of Him" [God] in
the sense of "likeness and similitude, she being the image of God as the Rays of
light are of the Sun",? The elements of this picture go back ultimately to Plato -
both the celebrated analogy between the Form of the Good and the sun, and the
notion that particulars are likenesses or replicas of the Forms. Yet the main problem
with models of this kind is that they seem, in effect, to confuse causality with predi-
cation - a confusion which goes back to Plato himself, when he assigned his Forms
a causal as well as a logical role. To say that something derives its being or essence
from a perfect Form from which it emanates, or of which it is an imperfect in-
stance, may be a legitimate way of expressing the point that instantiations of a
 FORCE, MOTION , CAUSALITY, BY MORE 161

concept may not fully possess those properties which define the paradigm. But this
tells us something about what it is for x to be an instance of F; as soon as we switch
to the question of how (from a causal point of view) x gets to become F, then talk
of emanation or outflow from the perfect Form appears deeply unsatisfying. It
seems to provide no information which could help an investigator of efficient
causes (a point on which More's views attracted explicit criticism in the early eigh -
teenth century):" it seems, moreover, that it could radically mislead such an investi-
gator by planting the dubious notion that some kind of similarity relation must
obtain between cause and effect."
Despite Descartes' claim s to be an innovator, it is interesting to note that strong
traces of these emanat ion models of causality are found in his metaphysics (which
was, of course, powerfully influenced via Augustine'? by Platonic and Plotinan
ideas). The influence of the Platonic/Plotinan hierarchy of being is for example to
be found in the principle to which Descartes subscribed that the cause is more noble
than the effect (causa nobilior effectu).11 In the Third Meditation we find that "al-
though one idea may perh aps orig inate from another, there cannot be an infinite
regress here : eventually one must reach a primary idea, the cause of which will be
like an archetype (Latin archetypum; the French version says 'model/pattern or
original', un patron ou un original) which contains in itself formally all the reality
which is present representatively in the idea" . 12 As part of the background to the ar-
gument that my idea of God must ultimately derive from God himself, it is presup-
posed that caus ality operates by a process of emanation or infusion from the more
real to the less real , from the supreme archetype to its lower-grade copies or instan-
tiations, from the source of all being to the objects of creation (the Platonic under-
tones remain despite the fact that Descartes' use of the term "idea" is, of course,
very different from Plato's). 13 Again, in the Conversation with Burman, Descartes
is reported to have said in defence of the principle that effects must resemble their
causes: "here we are talking about the total cause, the cause of being itself, and
anything produced by this cause must necessarily be like it . .. hence even stones
and suchlike have the image and likeness of God, albeit in a very remote and indis-
tinct way, while as for me, God's creation has endowed me with a greater number
of attributes, and so his image is in me to a greater extent"." God is the cause of
created things as the sun is the cause of light (says Descartes in the Fifth Replies,
echoing that other famous Platonic simile used also by More and Cudworth), in the
sense that he is the cause of their very being . IS
It is striking, however, that despite his allegiance to emanation models in meta -
phy sics, in his physics Descartes largel y avoids them. There is of course recourse to
God as the ultimate source of all being (including motion - I shall return to this
later), but when offering specific causal explanations, Descartes for the most part
gives us robustly common-sense mech anical models of ebb and flow, push and
pull , impact and rebound, lever and wedge. We have swirling whirlpools, balls
poured into a tub, the properties of the lodestone explained by the particles of iron
being grooved like the thread of a screw, and so on .!" There may be objections to
these models of causality - e.g. that they are empirically ill-founded, positing
162 1. COTTINGHAM

mechanisms at the micro level on the basis of pure conjecture - but from a philo-
sophical point of view they seem largely free either from the lumber of neo-
Platonic metaphysics, or from the charge of occultism brought by Leibniz against
influx and transmission theorists. Cartesian models of physical explanation are, for
the most part, pretty much of the horse and cart variety.

2. CORPUSCULARIAN IMPACT : MORE 'S CHALLENGE TO DESCARTES

The tentative conclusion from our preliminary survey is that Cartesian approaches
to causality are largely unreflective, sometimes (as in his metaphysics) presuppos-
ing complex Neoplatonic apparatus, but elsewhere (in most of his physics) offering
altogether more robust common-sense models . But how about the (seemingly) most
straightforward case of all - what we intuitively nowadays think of as the paradigm
case of causation, namely a two-body impact ? Given that this is perhaps the most
basic type of event for the corpuscularian programme of explanation, one might
have expected Descartes to have devoted considerable attention to it. But although
he offers a detailed mathematical analysis of the rules for calculating speed after
such impacts, he says remarkably little about the mechanics of the causality in-
volved .'? The Neoplatonists were hardly in a position to do any better. But paradox-
ically it is a Neoplatonic critic of Descartes, Henry More who deserves the credit
for raising the searching quest ions about the causality of impact in the Cartesian
system which its author himself failed to ask.
In his exchanges with Descartes, More begins by extolling the celebrated
Cartesiana lux, 18 but later on succeeds in picking out an obscurity in the seemingly
transparent language of Cartesian physics: what exactly is meant by the transmis-
sion of motion between two particles? The debate begins innocuously with a tech-
nical query about the relativity of Cartesian motion - what is meant by translatio
reciprocal'? - but soon broadens to encompass more fundamental issues. If motion
is a mode, asks More, and thus logically incapable of existing without a subject to
inhere in, how can it "migrate" from one body to another? He continues:

I am completely baffled when I think that so slight and insubstant ial a thing as motion supposedly de-
tachable from one subject and capable of migrating to another. and of so weak and evanescent a nature
that it would immediately perish were it not supported by a subject. nonetheless could have the power to
constrain that subject and drive it with such force in this or that direction .P

At one level the objection is couched in terms of the traditional terminology of

mode, attribute and substance which Descartes employed in the Principles to make
his physics palatable to traditionalists. At this level the question hinges on the onto-
logical status of motion qua mode : given that its existence depends on the existence
of the subject in which it inheres, how can it make sense to speak of its passing
from one subject to another?" But at another, deeper, level, the question is about
the very nature of the causal transaction involved in Cartesian accounts of impact
and in particular, the cash value of Descartes' talk of the transfer of motion from
 FORCE, MOTION, CAUSALITY , BY MORE 163

one particle to another. Underlying More's query is a fundamental challenge to the

new physics: what causal powers, if any, can legitimately be attributed to material
bodies in a universe supposedly characterized purely mathematically, in terms of
size, shape and motion?
According to several recent commentators, Descartes has a ready answer to
More's challenge: causal power, in the Cartesian universe, is exercised by God
alone . On this proto-occasionalist reading, "God is the only cause of motion in the
inanimate world"; he "manipulates the bodies of the inanimate universe as we ma-
nipulate ours".22 It is of course undeniable that Descartes asserts that God is the
primary cause of motion in the universe : "in the beginning he created matter along
with its motion and rest, and now by his regular concurrence he preserves the same
amount of motion as he put there in the beginning" (Principles of Philosophy, Part
II, art. 36). But this is not enough in itself to show that Descartes held to an occa-
sionalist style thesis of divine monocausality in physics. The role of God in the
Cartesian system seems to me essentially connected not so much with causal
agency (in the way it is for Malebranche), as with the new mathematical conception
of physics. In scholastic science, explanation is essentially qualitative: an account
of why things behave the way they do is sought by reference to the question quale?
- what (essential) kind of thing is it? Behaviour is determined by natural kind. But
in Descartes' essentially homogenous universe, there are no natural kinds; there is
simply dimensionality - indefinitely modifiable extension . And it follows that ex-
planatory answers can only be sought by reference to the question quantum? - of
what size (how long, how broad, how deep, how fast)? Now the point about a quan-
titative account is that nothing is fixed in advance in the way in which it is in a
qualitatively specified universe. That is, once you have classified something as
falling under a natural kind (say as a watery kind of thing), you have already deter-
mined its nature and restricted the range of properties attributable to it. But when
you maintain that matter is simply that which has quantity, nothing at all follows
from its essential nature about how it will behave, let alone about how any specific
phenomenon will unfold . In such a universe, everything is left blank, until values
for the variables are filled in. And this, it seems to me, explains the primary role of
God in Descartes' scientific system. A universe characterised merely as "that which
is quantifiable" remains entirely indeterminate until the constants are fixed: it is
preci sely by setting the constants - by creating and conserving a fixed amount of
matter with a fixed amount of momentum, that God fills in the blanks and brings an
actual universe into being. The role of God in short, is that of conserver of the
mathematical equations, not that of quasi-mechanical motive agent.
If (contrary to what I am arguing) Descartes did conceive of his God as some
kind of motive agent, it has to be admitted that he provided precious little informa-
tion about the precise nature of the divine agency . Daniel Garber, for whom God in
the Cartesian system is just such a "genuine causal agent'?3 has recently proposed
two types of divine causation of motion which he suggests Descartes vacillated
between - "cinema style" re-creation, and "divine shove". As to the first, it is true
that Descartes holds to the doctrine of the discontinuity of time," which entails that
164 J. COTTINGHAM

things would slip out of existence without the continuous conserving power of God
(this is fairly standard theological orthodoxy). Further, as already noted, God is cer-
tainly invoked as the general cause of motion, that is, as the cause of there being a
determinate amount of motion in the universe as a whole. But I know of no passage
where Descartes specifically invokes God's conserving power from moment to
moment with respect to a given particle in order to explain its motion after impact
(though of course it is true that neither the particle, nor its motion, nor anything
else, could exist without the conserving power of God).25 And as for divine shove,
despite Descartes' relapse, when talking to More, into the Aristotelian idea that
matter when "left to itself' would naturally be at rest," I cannot find any evidence
that Descartes believed God had to shove things around to keep them moving.
Cartesian descriptions of impact typically seem to invoke the idea of purely physi-
cal transmission between created things; e.g. "if two equal bodies collide, B
moving faster than C, half of the excess speed is transferred from B to C".27 Later
Cartesians may have insisted that extended stuff was wholly passive and inert, re-
quiring God to move it; but Descartes himself seems to have been comfortable at-
tributing causal powers to objects - not, to be sure, occult energies, but powers
possessed by things in virtue of their size and speed. Of course the relevant quanti-
ties have to be conserved by God, but that does not entail that God is regarded by
Descartes as acting as a hidden shover.P
None of this absolves Descartes from the task of meeting More's challenge. If
the language of transference of motion implies, as it seems to, that objects have
causal powers in virtue of their size and speed, then some kind of philosophical
analysis of the underlying causal story seems called for - especially in view of the
Cartesian insistence that physics should invoke only wholly transparent notions.
Descartes may have been clear about the mathematical equations, conserved by the
immutable power of God but when talking about impact, impulse and transfer of
motion between bodies, he seems not to have given any serious attention to the
precise meaning of the concepts he used."

3. MORE'S OWN ACCOUNT OF MOTION

If Descartes' contribution to what was later to become the intense philosophical

debate over the nature of causality was a slight one, it is natural to ask in turn
whether his Neoplatonic critic has anything more substantial to offer. If the argu-
ment of the previous section is right, then even to challenge Descartes on the
precise meaning of "transfer of motion" was in itself a philosophical contribution of
some importance. But what account can More himself supply? The following
answer is provided in the same letter (of 23 July 1649) where Descartes is
criticised:

The view I am inclined to favour myself is that there is no such thing as a transfer of motion. Instead, a
body, as a result of an impact from another body , is as it were awakened into motion, as a soul is
aroused to thought on this or that occasion . A body does not so much receive motion [from another
body] as throw itself into motion'? [on its own initiative]; what the other body does is merely serve as a
 FORCE, MOTION, CAUSALITY, BY MORE 165

reminder. .. Motion in a body, like thought in a mind, does not involve something's being received from
outside, but rather an arising from within the subject. Moreover, what we call a "body" is in every case
alive - albeit dimly and as it were in drunken stupor. For though it lacks any sense or awareness, it is
nonetheless , at the lowest and most remote grade, a shadow and image of that divine essence which I
hold to be life in its most perfect form."

Descartes never liked to be criticized, and his reply to More 's suggestion was
typically abrupt. Talk of matter being "alive", was just a "pretty phrase" (suavium);
the Neoplatonic notion of the universe as a "shadow of the divine essence" was one
of those imaginative "fabrications" (commentum) which "bar the road to the
truth".32 One reason this retort seems harsh and unfair is that, in general terms at
least, Descartes himself was in no position to take issue with the notion of the uni-
verse as emanating from the divine essence, "Even stones bear the image of God ",
he reportedly conceded to Burrnan.P and the metaphysics of the Third Meditation
clearly commits him to the view that everything found in the material world is con-
tained, at least "eminently", in its divine creator. In so far as Descartes strongly
subscribed to the standard theological conception of God as the source of all Being,
one might have expected him to be broadly sympathetic to the Christianized
Platonism of More, just as More (initially at least) saw Descartes as an ally against
the Godless doctrines of the Neoepicureans and other mechanical materialists."
There are other interesting points of contact. More's comparison between the
way in which a body is "aroused" to move , and the way in which "a mind is roused
to thought on this or that occasion" (anima in cogitationem [expergiscatur] ex hac
vel ilia occasione) strongly calls to mind Descartes' own account - not, to be sure,
his account of body-body causation, but his account of body-mind causation . In the
Comments on a Certain Broadsheet [1648], Descartes insists that when the mind is
acted on by external objects so as to perceive colours and sounds, this cannot be a
genuine case of something's being received into the mind from outside (since all
that is actually going on outside is a series of corporeal motions); rather, such ideas
must arise within the mind itself on the occasion of (occa sione) the corporeal
motions." The model of causality offered is not that of external productive agency,
of A transmitting something to B, or generating something in B, but rather of an
innate faculty being activated. In the case of body-body causation in More, and of
body -mind causation in Descartes, so called "effects" are in reality the unfolding of
inner structural potentialities; the supposed external "cause" is, on this conception,
a mere trigger or "occasion" for the ensuing event to occur.
The fact that both Descartes and More use the term occasio in this connection is
highly significant. Some interpreters of Descartes have taken Descartes' language
to prefigure the later Occa sionalist (with a capital "0") doctrine that God alone "is
the true cause of sensations on the occasion of certain motions in bodies"." But the
fact that Descartes in the passage under discussion is arguing for an active innate
faculty of the mind makes it highly unlikely that he is hinting at a proto-
Malebranchian thesis of divine monocausality . The point rather is that the
contribution of external corporeal events is limited to that of triggering the unfold -
ing of the mind's own innate faculties.F The model, in short , is not Malebranchian,
166 J . COTTINGHAM

but Platonic: external stimuli play the same role vis-a-vis sensations as the
"midwife" Socrates plays to the slave boy in the Meno - not implanting or generat-
ing anything from the outside, but merely assisting the activation of the mind's own
inner powers. Understood this way, Descartes is making about body-mind causa-
tion exactly the same point that More is making about body-body causation: the
model of the awakening of internal powers provides a more plausible account of
what is going on than the idea of a supposed "transfer" from cause to effect. 38
What may have blinded Descartes to the possible merits of More's position is his
mention of matter as "living" - albeit in a rudimentary way (stupide et temulente
vivum). Clearly such language suggested for Descartes the kind of primitive
animism which his mathematical and mechanical physics aimed to bury . His dis-
missive comments, indeed, come close to implying that he had mentally placed
More in the same category as the scholastics, whose talk of substantial forms he
had derided as anthropomorphic and useless from an explanatory point of view .'?
More evidently thought hard about this implied attack, and in the Responsio ad
fragmentum Cartesii, written a few years after Descartes' death," he provides the
following very careful and detailed defence of the language he had used:

There can be no confusion when we introdu ce certain allusions and similes, provided we remember that
the terms involved are used not in a literal but in a metaphorical sense. My calling the matter or univer-
sal body of the universe a shadow ... implies only that it is as it were a shadow of the divine essence.
This allusion does not ass ert that body is really a shadow, but that it depends on God as a shadow
depends on a body." And just as a shadow bears some sort of image of a body, albeit of a very obscure
and feeble kind, so in body or matter there is a certain blind and ephemeral vestige of the divine essence.
Moreover, since the divine essence is, as I said, the most perfect life, the analogy requires that mailer
should not be wholly destitute of any trace of life. As for " fabricating some semblance of life" , it is
Descartes himself who does this : when two bod ies meet, on his account they somehow manag e to ac-
commodate their motions so that they as it were exchange information about their respective accelera-
tion and retardation , and arrive at a single mutually agreed adjustment of motion .. . When he adds that
there is some external power, whether from God or from some incorporeal substance created by God ,42
whereby matter is aroused into motion I approve: this is undoubtedly quite true. But if he means that this
divine force immediately impels every single body that moves, this gives rise to a major difficulty,
namely that the mutual impulses between bodies would be redundant ifrustra enim essent mutui corpo-
rum impulsus}. Yet experience establishes that one body does actually impel another - as we see when
we throw stones, or when cannon balls are expelled from guns . If, however, the [divine] force excites
some particles of matter into motion and not others , the parts which are set in motion by divine power
will be able to excite motion in others by their own impulse. Nevertheless, since no motion passes acros s
from one body to another, it is manifest that one body as it were arouses another from sleep, and the
awakened bodies thus move them selves from place to place by their own force It is this property of
bodies which I regard as a shadow and image of life .43

First, as far as his dispute with Descartes goes, More centres his attack on once
again on the question of transfer of motion from one body to another. Such talk
(and More successfully cites chapter and verse to show that despite his earlier wrig-
glings, Descartes had explicitly employed it44 ) requires Descartes to come clean
about what kind of causal powers are involved. There now follows a devastating
dilemma. If the motive power were to be attributed to God alone , this would make
 FORCE. MOTION. CAUSALITY. BY MORE 167

the actions of bodies redundant: frustra essent mutui corporum impulsus. More
here elegantly anticipates a what was to become a standard criticism of later
Occasionalist views: if God is the sole agent, objects will - counterintuitively - be
robbed of any causal efficacy. Indeed, the contribution of A to the movement of B
will be entirely vain, or idle (jrustra). The other horn of the dilemma is a tu quoque
of surprising effectiveness . The charge of animism is thrown back in Descartes '
face; it is not the Platonists who indulge in pretty fictions, but the Cartesians. The
talk of A's transferring a quantity of motion to B apparently implies that a sup-
posed piece of mere extended matter could somehow impart information to another
piece of matter, in such a way as to generate a "single mutually agreed adjustment
of motion". The effect of More's argument is to present the Cartesians with two
equally unattractive options: either they will be forced to move towards a counter-
intuitive Occasionalism, or else they will have to consider some modification of the
definition of matter as mere extension - thus in effect abandoning the central
concept of Cartesian physics.
More own solution involves two components. First, there is an insistence on that
ordinary empirical observation supports the notion of particular causal efficacy :
when we throw stones, or when a canon ball smashes through a wall, the natural
description of what is going on is that one thing acts on another - unum corpus
alterum impel/ere. Second, such phenomena can properly be explained only by
positing active causal powers which are inherent in created things. The passage is
remarkable for its rich anticipation of later philosophical developments. The insis-
tence on the observational warrant for a belief in causal powers prefigures some of
the arguments advanced in our own day by writers like Harre and Madden against
characterizations of phenomena in terms of mere regular successions of events.v
Moving back closer to More's own era, there is a strongly Leibnizian flavour in the
talk of a vestige of life in all created things; apart from this general resonance, the
notion of the unfolding of inherent active powers calls to mind Leibniz's theory of
pre-established harmony . Such anticipations are perhaps not all that surprising,
since (as suggested above) the reduction of causation to the awakening of inner
powers is already prefigured the innatism of Plato to whose thought both More and
Leibniz are conspicuously indebted.
Beyond these crosscurrents of influence, what philosophical lessons can be learnt
from More's critique of Descartes? The first and most important is the failure of a
purely mathematical physics to provide a convincing account of our intuitive
notions of impulse , energy and force That result is hardly strikingly new to the
modern reader, but it represents an achievement on More's part to have taken a ten-
tative first step towards the systematic scrutiny of the concept of causality that was .
to become a major philosophical preoccupation in the following century. As for
More's own view of physical causation, any accolades granted must be more hesi-
tant. Post-Einsteinian physics has accustomed us to the general idea of matter as
"inherently energetic", but the precise content of that conception, over and above
the truth of certain mathematical equations, remains opaque. What More provides
is not so much a philosophical explication of the notion of matter as active, but
168 1. COTTINGHAM

rather a theological backing for it: matter dimly reflects the active power of its
creator. Beyond that, as More himself seems to admit." the characterization of
matter as "living" offers nothing more than a suggestive metaphor. In this sense,
the sober judgement on the Neoplatonic model of causation must be that it was a
dead end. There is the general assertion that the apparent dynamism of the universe
reflects the power of its divine author, but nothing that can count as a serious rival
to the new physics . Perhaps the only satisfying response to the problem raised by
More would have been for the Cartesians to admit that the new science provided
mathematical description s of phenomena, plus the general hope that these could
always be coupled with transparent micro-mechanical models; but that where the
transparency broke down, as in the crucial case of two bodies impact, nothing
further could be said, beyond the assertion of the mathematically describable regu-
larities (whether "natural" or divinely ordained) that in fact obtained. To have gone
that far would have taken things forward to the post-Humean problematic - and it is
hardly surprising that is a step which neither Descartes nor his acute Neoplatonist
critic had the vision to make.f?

John Cottingham

NOTES

G. W. Leibniz, "Primae Veritates " [c. 1684]. in L. E. Loemker (ed.), Lelbniz; Philosophical Papers
and Leiters, (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1969), p. 269; cited in Eileen O'Neill, " Influxus Physicus ", in S. Nadler
(ed.), Causation in Early Modern Philosophy (University Park, Penn .: Penns ylvania State University
Press, 1993), p. 28 .
2 O'Neill, op. cit.
'Tune] cause veritable est une cause entre laquelle & son effet l'e sprit appercoit unc liaison neces-
saire", Recherche de la Verite [1674-5], VI. ii. 3.
4 Appe als to the presumed logical possibility of such alternative scenarios are in fact rather more
problematic than this - an issue which I will ignore for present purpose s. See J. Cottingham, "The
Cartesian Legacy", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. LXVI (1992) .
; Cf . G. E. Moore , "A Defense of Common Sense" and "Proof of an External World" (Philosophical
Papers, London, 1959). Just as Moore argued that there were paradeigmatically straightforward propos i-
tions so obviously true that no philosophical theory could shake them, so it seems that there are certainly
paradigmatically straightforward cases of causal interaction where the mechani sms of interaction are
so obvious to the ordinary observer that no scientific theory , however sophisticated, could surpass their
explanatory power.
6 Eileen O'Neill distinguishes four components of such Neoplatonic influx models: (i) what flows out
is some kind of likene ss or replica ; (ii) the flowing is from more to less perfect; (iii) the effect brought
about is coexistent with the activity of the agent (like the illumination caused by sunlight); and (iv) the
outflow cannot exhaust or even diminish the essential power of the agent . ("Influxus Physicus", in
Nadler, Causation and Early Modern Philosophy, op. cit., 32-{).)
7 The Immortality ofthe Soul [1659], Bk. III, Ch. XVI, 8. Other More sources referred to in this paper
are : the letters to Descartes of II December 1648,5 March, 23 July and 21 October 1649, and the
Responsio ad Fragmentum Cartesii of July/August 1655 (all reprinted in AT V). All tran slations of
More are my own . In this paper, "AT' refers to the standard Franco-Latin edition of Descartes by
C. Adam, & P. Tannery, (Euvres de Descartes, (12 vols., revised edn., Paris: VrinlCNRS, 1964-76);
" CSM" refers to the English translation by J . Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Mu rdoch, The
 FORCE, MOTION , CAUSALITY, BY MORE 169

Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vols. I and II (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1985), and
"CSMK" to Vol. III , The Correspondence, by the same translators plus A. Kenny (Cambridge
University Press, 1991).
K Compare Leibniz : "The ... Platonists ... are right in seeking the source of things in final and formal
causes, but wrong in neglecting efficient and material causes and in inferring, as did Henry More in
England and certain other Platonists, that there are phenomena that cannot be explained mechanically."
(Letter to Nicolas Remond, of 10 January 1714, in Loemker op. cit. p. 655.)
9 For some of the problems generated by adherence to the "causal similarity principle", see
J. Cottingham The Rationalists (Oxford, 1988) 201f.
10 See E. Gilson, Etudes sur le rsle dans la pensee medievale dans la formation du systeme cartesien

(Paris: Vrin, 1951); N. Abercrombie, St Augustine and French Classical Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1938).
II AT VII 242 : CSM II 168. This principle is defended in Eustachius, Summa philosophiae quadripar-
tita [1609], III 56, and Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae [1597], 26. I. 2.; see E. Gilson, Index sco-
lastico-Cartesien, (Paris : Vrin, (1913) 1966) p. 44.
12 AT VII 42 and IX 33: CSM II 29.
IJ There are of course , many other aspects to the reasoning advanced by Descartes in the causal proof
of God 's existence which 1cannot discuss here (some of them are examined in J. Cottingham, Descartes
(Oxford : Blackwell , 1986), Ch. 3.
14 AT V 156: CSMK 340.
15 AT VII 369: CSM II 254.
16 Principles of Philosophy [1644], Part III, arts. 47, 53; Part IV art. 133ff.

17 So much so that it is a matter of dispute among commentators what he does intend. Cf D. Garber,
Descartes Metaphysical Physics (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992), Chs. 6-9.
IK Letter of II December 1648, AT V 237.
19 Letter of 5 March 1649, AT V 312.
20 Letterof23 July 1649, AT V 382-3.
21 Imaginatio mea non capit , qui possit fieri, ut quicquam, quod extra subjectum esse non potest (cui-
jusmodi sunt modi omnes) in aliud migret subjectum (ibid., AT V 382).
22 Daniel Garber, "Descartes and Occasionalism" in Nadler op. cit. p. 12; Descartes Metaphysical
Physics, p. 116. It should be noted however, that Garber, for reasons I cannot discuss here, prefers not to
label Descartes an occasionalist.
2J Indeed (for Garber) in the physical world, God is the only such genuine causal agent: "Descartes and
Occasionalism", in Nadler, op. cit., p. 12. Garber 's main thesis is that in explaining motion Descartes re-
jected the "tiny souls" of the school men, "only to replace them with one big soul, God" (Descartes'
Metaphysical Physics, p. 116). I cannot discuss this view here, except to note that if this was Descartes '
conception of the role of scholastic substantial forms, it was a grossly distorted one; substantial forms
were never intended by their proponents to function as ghostly quasi-efficient thrusters, and it is hard to
believe that Descartes could have supposed as much.
24 See Third Meditation, AT VII 49: CSM 1133.
25 Garber in fact maintains that the cinematic view is a "natural interpretation" of Descartes' position
rather than an explicitly presented thesis (Metaphysical Physics , 277). One passage Garber cites as sup-
porting the cinematic view is the letter to More of August 1649, when Descartes, discussing the tranfer
of motion, says "vis autem movens potest esse ipsius Dei conservantis tantumdem translationis in
materia quantum a prima creationis momento in ea posuit" (AT V 403-4). But even here what is re-
ferred to is a universally conserved property of matter in general; this falls a long way short of the gen-
uinely cinematic view of, for example La Forge, who sees God as causing motion by recreating the
matter that was in place A, and putting it in place B. (Traite de l'esprit de l'homme [1665], in Oeuvres
philosophiques ed . P. Clair (Paris: PUF, 1974), 240 ; cited in Steven Nadler, 'T he Occasionalism of
Louis de la Forge" , in Nadler (ed.), Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, p. 63.
26 AT V 404 : CSMK 381.
27 The third rule of impact: Principles, Part II, art. 48
2K Cf. the view of Martial Gueroult, who regards the forces of motion, in contradistinction to the divine
will that they manifest, as "immanent in nature or extension" ; that is, he maintains that Descartes ' God
170 J. COTTINGHAM

creates matter which (in virtue of the law of persistence) has an inherent tendency to motion. ("The
Metaphysics and Physics of Force in Descartes", in S . Gaukroger (ed.), Descartes: Philosophy,
Mathematics and Physics (Sussex: Harvester, 1980), p. 198; quoted Garber, Descartes' Metaphysical
Physics, p. 295 .)
29 On Garber's view, Descartes was so clear about the "underlying causal story " (that God causes all
motion in the world, either by "divine shove" or else cinema-style), that he never worried too much
about the language used to describe force in bodies . He was happy to describe bodies as if they had a
force to continue their motion, content in the knowledge that, from an ontological point of view, this
added nothing to the story of divine conservation (Metaphysical Physics, p. 298) . It seems to me,
however, that the best diagnosis of Descartes' often fuzzy remarks about "force", "power", "impulse",
"transfer" and the like is that he was, precisely not clear about the underlying causal story. If I am right,
Descartes' writings betray the failure of almost all pre-Humean thinkers to ask what we can really mean
by notions like "force" and "shove", over and above the regularities (whether merely "natural" or di-
vinely decreed) which the scientist delineates.
:10 .. .. . non tam suscipiat motum quam se in motum exerat" The distinguished More scholar Alan
Gabbey unaccountably mistranslates this crucial phrase, rendering it "does not take as much motion as it
needs for movement"; "Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata", in T. M. Lennon et al., Problems of
Cartesianism (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1982), p. 211.
31 AT V 383 .
32 AT V 405
33 Conversation with Burman, AT V 156: CSMK 340 .
:l4 See Gabbey, 01'. cit.
35 "Tanto magis innatae esse debent ideae doloris, colorurn, sonorum, & similium, ut mens nostra
possit , occasione quorundam motuum corporeorum, sibi eas exhibere" (AT VIIIB 359 : CSM I 304) .
J6 Thus Garber in "Descartes and Occasionalism" (in Nadler 01'. cit., p. 24) .
37 That the use of the term "occasion" should not be taken necessarily to signify Occasionalism with a
capital "0" is a point well made by Stephen Nadler in his paper "The Occasionalism of Louis de la
Forge"; as Nadler notes , "occasional" as applied to a cause in seventeenth century writers can often
simply mean "remote" "accidental" or "inferior" (in Nadler (ed.), Causation in Early Modern
Philosophy, p. 65) .
38 More's own account is developed in his Antidote against Atheism [1653] , p. 17: "[T]he Mind of Man
being jogg'd and awakened by the impulses of outward objects is stirred up into a more full and clear
conception of what was but imperfectly hinted to her from external occasions". Despite important differ-
ences, there is at least something in common between these Platonic metaphors of awakening and the
scholastic notion of "eduction out of potentiality", developed by Aquinas from Aristotle; cf O'Neill,
01'. cit. p. 38.
39 Compare Sixth Replies : conceiving of gravity as a "real quality" involved thinking that "it carries
bodies towards the centre of the earth as if it had some knowledge of the centre within itself' (AT VII
442 : CSM II 298) .
40 Dated by Alan Gabbey July-August 1655; see AT V 642 .
41 The shadow analogy of course derives ultimately from Plato; cf. Republic, 51Oa.
42 Descartes had told More that vis movens could belong either to God (in virtue of his conservation of
as much transfer in matter as he put there in the first moment of creation), or to created substance like our
mind or some other thing to which he gave the power to move a body (letter of 30 August 1649, AT V
403-4, CSMK 381) . Note that More's quotation of Descartes is not quite exact: Descartes does not ex-
plicitly insist that the created substances which might have vis movens, are limited to incorporeal ones .
43 AT V 646-7.
44 In fact More's marginal reference is to the work of Descartes "disciple" Regius (see footnote at AT
V 643) ; but the language of transfer is clearly present in Descartes' own Principles : cf. Part II, art . 46 .
45 See R. Harre and E. H. Madden, Causal Powers (Oxford : Blackwell, 1975).
46 " In adhibendo allusiones quasdam & similitudines ... res propriis nominibus non appellari, sed
tralatitiis" (Ioc. cit., AT V 646) .
 FORCE, MOTION, CAUSALITY, BY MORE 171

47 It could be suggested, however, that the Cartesian doctrine of the divine creation of the eternal veri-
ties, by introducing an element of "arbitrariness" into the status of the relevant laws, effectively places
limits on the possibility that the rationale for such laws could be grasped by human beings, in this
respect at least partially anticipating the Humean position on the limits of reason. For a development of
this theme, see Cottingham, "The Cartesian legacy", op. cit. For futher study of the relationship between
More's philosophy and the new science, see A. Gabbey, "More and Mechanism", R. H. Popkin, ''The
spiritu alist ic cosomologies of Henry More and Anne Conway" and R. Hall, "Henry More and the
Scientific Revolution" , all in S. Hutton (ed .), Henry More (1614-1687), Ter centenary Studies
(Dordrecht, 1990).
 M . BALDI

CUDWORTH VERSUS DESCARTES :

PLATONISME ET SENS COMMUN DANS LA CRITIQUE DES
MEDITATIONS

Dans la longue succession d'argumentations qui structurent Ie chapitre V du True

Intellectual System - A Confutation of Atheism, 1 I'analyse de la preuve cartesienne
de I'existence de Dieu s'avere centrale pour la coherence du systeme tout entier.?
La refutation de l'atheisme se joue sur la discussion de l'idee de Dieu, dont I' "uni-
versalite" et la "naturalite" sont deja par elles-memes Ie signe de la verite. Cette
verite est rendue manifeste par Ie desaveu de l'atheisme: la reponse a la premiere
objection? des incredules souligne Ie caractere contradictoire de la position de ceux
qui nient qu 'il existe un etre intelligent self-subsistent, eternel et infini; car ceux-ci
sont neanmoins obliges d'en admettre l'idee dans leur esprit pour ne pas tomber
dans l'absurde de nier l'existence de rien." La validite et l'efficacite de la these
soutenue par Cudworth, dans une grande partie de son oeuvre reposent sur la diffu-
sion universelle de l'idee de Dieu, dans Ie temps et dans l'espace; les athees sont
des theistes incoherents, des croyants manques, qui se nient a eux-memes les
verites incontestables de la religion . Par cette facon assez courante de proceder
dans Ie syncretisme de True Intellectual System, l'erreur devient une confirmation
de la verite, un moyen par lequel cette derniere affirme sa superiorite dans
l'histoire.
Cependant, I' argumentation ne peut ignorer la reference au contenu objectif de
I'Idee de Dieu, qui est representative d'une existence reelle qui depasse les limites
de l'esprit. De la pensee a la realite, Ie passage est oblige, merne pour Cudworth
qui, s'appuyant sur la validite du consensus gentium, fait de I'idee de Dieu, en tant
qu'etre necessairement existant, Ie pivot de l'anti-materialisme. "Th e General
Perswasion of the Existence of a God, in the Minds of men, and their Propensity to
Religion, in all ages and places of the world" serait inexplicable "if there be really
no such thing in Nature't.> La demonstration de l'existence de Dieu, qui n'est pas
immediaternent intelligible a la "generality of mankind"," est un passage essentiel
du point de vue theorique , et Ie System en demontre avant tout les differentes ver-
sions qui se sont affirmees au cours de I'histoire, au travers de la culture
philosophique et religieuse . Dans ce contexte, la version cartesienne de la preuve
ontologique, exposee dans la Meditation V, constitue un point de reference oblige,
merne s'il est negatif.
La critique envers Descartes est immediatement precedee de la refutation de la
trame logique qui sous-tend la demonstration a priori; selon Cudworth, cette demon-
stration ne peut qu'etre tiree des causes antecedentes necessaires et par consequent
vise a etablir pourquoi une chose est (dioti) et non pas simplement qui est (oti) .
"And certain it is that it implies a contradiction, that God or a Perfect Being should

173
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.) , The Cambridge Platonists in Philosoph ical Context, 173- I 83.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
174 M. BALDI

be thus Demonstrated, by any thing before him as his cause".? Cette consideration,
librement reprise des Seconds Analytiques d' Aristote" sera ensuite exploitee par
d'autres dans la culture anglaise, avec la meme implication anti-deductiviste.?
Pour ne les rappeler que brievement ici, notons que les critiques que Cudworth
avance a l'encontre de la preuve cartesienne sont au nombre de deux - l'une
evoque Arnauld, I' autre Gassendi - et toutes les deux convergent pour denoncer Ie
caractere circulaire de l'argumentation des Meditations. Surtout, Ie cercle vicieux
consiste a demontrer l'existence de Dieu "from our Faculties of Reason and
Understanding", pour prouver ensuite "the Truth of those Faculties, from the
Existence of a God Essentially Good".'? Mais c'est la structure-memo de l'argu-
mentation qui se fonde sur une petition de principe: I I elle ne peut parvenir a l'exis-
tence que si elle I' a admise implicitement des Ie debut. Descartes part de la
premisse d'une necessite seulement hypothetique et en infere erronement une ne-
cessite absolue; mais Ie True Intellectual System affirme que, de lidee de
l'Absolutely Perfect Being, decoule seulement la non-impossibilite de son exis-
tence, et non son existence meme. Cudworth ne dirige pas explicitement cette cri-
tique contre Descartes, mais elle a neanmoins une retombee anti-cartesienne. La
preuve qui ramene I' existence de Dieu a une cause qui lui serait antecedente repro-
duit Ie schema explicatif du determinisme que Cudworth refute dans A Treatise of
Freewill. Elle apprehende la divinite comme un maillon de la "chain of causes from
eternity to eternity, every link whereof is necessarily connected both with that
which went before, and that which follows after".J2 Dans cette formulation, la
polemique vise en premier lieu la theorie hobbesienne de la Iiberte: la these selon
laquelle "nothing takes beginning from itself, but from the action of some other im-
mediate agent without itself'l3 nie la liberte de la necessite chez les etres finis et
chez Dieu qui est le commencement originel des choses, mais se trouve ainsi reduit
a un element de la chaine, une partie du tout.
Descartes affirme que Dieu est pure volonte indifferente a tous "antecedent
motives or reasons of goodness, wisdom, or truth";" mais, selon Cudworth, il le
rend encore plus heteronome, asservi a une necessite extrinseque a sa nature: l' arbi-
traire divin soutenu par Ie philosop he francais est un determinisme deguise. Le
Dieu cartesien ne represente pas la realisation, mais la negation de la liberte qui est
un attribut de la perfection et de la sagesse infinies. Cudworth reprend une image
neo-platonicienne et cabalistique bien connue: la bonte est Ie centre interieur du
cercle infini de Dieu, dont les rayons sont la sagesse qui englobe tout et dont la cir-
conference illimitee est la volonte a travers laquelle toute chose differente de Dieu
tire son existence ." Dans cette perspective, la volonte n' est pas l' essence et 1a regie
de la nature divine: la rationalite de Dieu est Ie fondement de son caractere incondi-
tionnel et n'accepte d'autre limite que celIe posee par Ie principe de non-contradic-
tion, sans lequel il ne peut y avoir ni science ni connaissance.!" Sous cet angle , Ie
soupcon avance par Descartes contre les facultes de la connaissance avec l'hypo-
these du malin genie est Ie signe Ie plus evident de son incapacite a garantir le car-
actere absolu du vrai : celui-ci est soumis alternativement a la volonte du sujet
humain et du sujet divin qui cherchent l'un dans l'autre la cause extrinseque de sa
 CUDWORTH VERSUS DESCARTES 175

validite. La "monstrueuse et prodigieuse idee" de Dieu definie par Descartes est

aux yeux de Cudworth un hybride contradictoire: Ie pretendu caractere incondition-
nel du Dieu cartesien est en realite l'expression supreme du conditionnement par
des causes exterieures non rationnelles , conditionnement qui ceuvre a l'interieur de
la nature meme de Dieu et se repercute sur tout ce qui depend de lui. De la l'in-
adequation de la preuve pour demontrer I'existence de Dieu et les consequences
sceptiques qui en derivent. Descartes ne parvient pas a expliquer la self-subsistence
de Dieu et entraine toute la science et toute la connaissance dans les conclusions
desastreuses de sa demonstration.
II faut remarquer Ie caractere tres specifique des critiques avancees contre la
preuve cartesienne.!? Dans Ie Treatise, la refutation de I'arbitrarisme des
Meditations est motivee precisement par l'excessive propension de Descartes a
s'approprier les observations critiques de Gassendi - "where it is probable he
would set down the genuine Sense of his own Mind more undisguisedly , before
he was assalted by these Objectors, and thereby forced to turn himself into
several Shapes" ." Dans les Cinquiemes Reponses, l'assimilation des verites eter-
nelles aux decrets eternels de Jupiter - immuables dans Ie temps car voulus ainsi
par lui - indiquera it la mesure de la dependance de Descartes envers les
premisses metaphysiques du nominalisme: la difference entre raison et foi, la ne-
gation de l'eternite des essences, ouvriraient la route au refus de la permanence et
de l'extra-subjectivite des idees, rendues ainsi "in their own Nature mutable".'?
Cudworth se pretend Ie veritable interprete de l'idealisrne dans une direction al-
ternative a celie de Descartes, accuse a la fois d'apriorisme et de compromis avec
Ie relativisme et Ie nominalisme. Au-dela de la polernique contre l'arbitraire, la
repon se aux Meditations se developpe en suivant ces deux lignes directrices et va
au coeur de la theorie cartesienne de la connaissance, a laquelle Cudworth oppose
la sienne.
La connaissance est "the Comprehension of that which Absolutely IS and IS
not";20 ses objets sont "Eternal and Immutable Essences and Nature of Things, and
their Unchangeable Relation s to one another' V! La coincidence de idee, verite et
etre est une consequence du platonisme et de la polemique anti-relativiste et anti-
hobbesienne. "Sense [. .. J doth not reach to the Absoluteness either of the Natures,
or of the Existence of things without us, it being as such, nothing but Seeming,
Appearance, and Phancy".22 La condamnation touche Ie relativisme et I'atomisme
athee de Protagoras, mais elle contient aussi une allusion transparente au sensua-
lisme de Hobbes qui est correlatif de son determinisme; ce determinisme nie la
liberte et les concepts ethiques et metaphysiques fondamentaux . Ainsi Ie Treatise
peut s'arreter sur les Troisiemes Objections et montrer Ie manque de fondement de
la critique nominaliste hobbes ienne, qui reduit Ie raisonnement a une simple "copu-
latio et concatenatio nominum sive appellationum per verbum hoc est".23 Avec
Descartes, Cudworth revendique la portee objective des concepts "purs" de I'intel -
lect contre Ie relativisme des conventions linguistiques. Mais l'accord avec Ie
philosophe francais est plus etendu; puisque la verite n'est pas extrinseque a
I' esprit, les idees claires et distinctes sont Ie critere du vrai: "the Entity of all
176 M. BALDI

Theoretical Truth is nothing but Clear Intelligibility, and whatever is Clearly

Conceived, is an Entity and a Truth".24
Pourtant Cudworth prend ses distances par rapport a la logique du cogito: cette
clarte et cette distinction ne sont pour lui que des caracteres de denotation, des
manifestations psychologiques du vrai dans la psyche." La conception neo-platoni-
cienne qui comprend les esprits humains comme des images reflechies de celIe de
Dieu 26 - "Signatures of that one Archetypal Seal" - marque Ie decalage entre les
idees du cogito, d'une part, et la verite et la realite, de I'autre. Du point de vue de
I'intellect fini, la realite ideale elle-rneme, bien qu'elle ne lui soit pas etrangere,
depasse les actes qu i Ie constituent en tant que sujet connaissant, et ne trouve pas
dans ces actes son fondement.i?
Tout comme Ie rapport entre I'intellect humain et I'intellect divin, celui qui
existe entre les idees dan s I'esprit fini et la realite objective manifeste une marge
dIndetermination et n'est pas explicable en termes de parfaite identite. Le
Treatis e soutient que I'idee ne precede pas dans Ie temps la chose existante en
dehors de I'esprit; celle-ci n'est pas un "new outside Garment", de telle maniere
que Dieu pourrait "Sartoris instar Rerum Essentias Vestire Existentia'Y" ce qui
reviendrait a affirmer que I"'essence of Things could Exist apart separately from
the Things themselves'V? Les choses ne sont pas de simples copies, des images
evanescentes sans consistance reel Ie; la these selon laquelle " the Con stitutive
Essences of all Individual Created Things were Eternal and Uncreated'<? n'est
pas recevable, car Dieu "created the whole of them"." Cependant, dans Ie syn-
cretisme chretien et neo-platonicien de Cudworth, on ne peut pas identifier les ex-
istences contingentes avec les essences co-eternelles a Dieu, immuables et
parfaites. La distinction entre Wisdom et Will dans la nature divine - I'une est la
cause formelIe, l' autre est la cause efficiente des choses - explique aussi Ie
rapport essence - exi sten ce . Les rapports qui lient I'esprit divin a I'esprit humain,
l'Idee a la realite, I'essence a I'existence ne sont pas explicables en termes de
causalite efficiente, mais en termes de causalite formelle et exemplaire - of Skill
and Art, pour employer une expression du Treatise - selon la conception de la
verite et de l'etre ernpruntee a la tradition neo-platonicienne. La difference de
l'Idealisme cartesien intervient precisement au niveau de la participation de la
raison humaine a la raison divine, ainsi que du rapport entre Wisdom et Will en
Dieu. Selon l'mterpretation de Cudworth, I'Idealisme cartesien - nous I'avons vu
ci-dessus - en tant que subjectif, risque de detruire la verite et la sc ience,
"making truth and falsehood as well as the moral differences of good and evil
mere arbitrary things, will and not nature":32 Descartes ne voit pas que les intel -
lects finis are derived et depend de la Sagesse divine qui "comprehends within it
self the Steady and Immutable Rationes of all Things and their Verities 'F' - ces
Rationes etant "antecedent to the will of God".34
Chez Cudworth et chez Descartes les idees sont des modifications de I'esprit,
mais la polemique envers Ie cogito a montre que les esprits finis ont seulement "a
Derivative Participation" a la verite, "their Understanding being Obscure, and their
Erring in many things, and being Ignorant of more" .35 D'autant plus que les idees
 CUDWORTH VERSUS DESCARTES 177

dans I'esprit humain ne peuvent etre connues comme un patrimoine inne de "rules
or Propositions, arbitrarily printed upon the Soul as upon a Book".36 Elles sont au
contraire des fonctions de la pensee, anticipations de I'esprit " N ative and
Domestick", une expression de son activite relationnelle et systematisante, qui
repose sur la participation a I'esprit divin o Cette participation n'exclut pas que
I'esprit cree soit , dans son domaine et dans ses propres limites, Ie juge de la verite
"looking inward into it self":" connaitre ou comprendre quelque chose "is nothing
else but by some Inward Anticipation of the Mind, that is Native and Domestick,
and so familiar to it, to take Acquaintance with it".38 Tout cela se repercute sur la
connaissance de la realite materielle. La confrontation avec Descartes dans une
grande partie du Treatise se joue sur cette question ; s'appuyant sur l'exemplarite de
l'Idee, I'argumentation de Cudworth aboutit - nous Ie verrons tout de suite - a des
resultats problematiques.
L'idee fonde I'ordre et la proportion de "all Compounded Corporeal Things [... J,
whether Artificial or Natural" : elle structure la realite en tant que totalite organisee
- "Harmony, into which all the several Parts conspire" - et en expIique "Beauty
and Pulchritude [. .. J Strength and Ability".39 A l'interieur de la realite materielle>

soit I'Automaton ou Self Mover, soit I'organisme - oeuvre "a Vital and Active
Principle [. . . J, which is affected with Concord and Harrnony'"? et qui ne peut
dependre "from any Mechanical Cause" . Cudworth fait siens les motifs vitalistes de
la tradition neo-platonicienne et affirme la theorie de la nature plastique, qui est Ie
soutien de la conception de I'univers en tant que Vital Machine," Principe
d'organisation immanente, Yidee ne determine cependant pas la constitution de la
chose au dehors de I'esprit. Le Treatise ne se propose pas non plus de fournir une
justification de I'existence des realites materielles artificielles ou naturelles "com-
posees", dont I'element significatif est I'ordre qui les structure. Le rapport entre
essence et existence s'impose dans la connaissance des "simple Corporeal Things
themselves, which by the Sense we have a Passive Perception of, in Individual
Bodies without US".42
Dans Ie livre IV du Treatis e, Ie modele cartesien offert par Ie morceau de eire de
la deuxieme Meditation est rernplace par "a White or Black Triangular Superficies,
or a Solid Four-Square included all within a Triangular Superficies"." Objet irnrne-
diat du sens qui Ie percoit confusernent comme chose individuelle existant en
dehors de l'esprit Ie triangle n'est connu que par I'intellect grace a ses "Inward
Notions and Active Anticipations't.v' A un premier niveau d'abstraction, encore
conditionne par l'imagination, I'intellect resout Ie caractere entierement fantasma-
tique en ses elements simples, que l'on peut ramener a des substances ou a des
modifications de substances: c'est ainsi qu 'il trouve Ie blanc, Ie triangulaire et la
substance corporelle comme sujet commun de ces affections . A un niveau plus
eleve, ces memes elements sont consideres "Universally and abstractly from
Individuating Circumstances and Matter"," c'est-a-dire que I'on peut les ramener
aux essences ou aux idees universelles de I'esprit pour qui ils sont native et dome-
stick: Ie triangle est une chose etendue impenetrable determinee quantitativement
selon les trois dimensions de longueur, largeur et profondeur; tandis que les
178 M. BALDI

attributs qualitatifs s'averent depourvus de realite objective et sont expliques

comme des affections du sujet causees par le mouvement local des atomes dans
I'objet. Le triangle blanc ou noir peut etre connu en tant que substance etendue tri-
angulaire. Son essence est I'''active Noematical Idea inwardly exerted from the
Mind it self':46 elle est la "Rule, Pattern and Exemplar" par laquelle on peut juger
les idees sensibles "outwardly impressed from those Material Objects from without
upon the Sense of the Beholder"."
Du point de vue qui nous interesse ici, il faut remarquer que l'exemple de
Cudworth en dit plus que celui de Descartes. En premier lieu, il elargit Ie concept
cartesien de substance etendue, par l'attribut de l'impenetrabilite que More jugeait
fondamental pour la comprehension de la realite materielle; en second lieu, il ne se
limite pas a affirmer ce qu'est Ie corps et a en subordonner la connaissance a celle
de l' arne; il se prononce egalement sur son existence - resultat auquel Descartes
parvient seulement dans la Meditation VI, apres les preuves de l'existence de Dieu
et grace au dualisme de la res extensa et la res cogitans. Dans Ie Treatise, la de-
monstration de la matiere part de I'existence contingente temoignee par Ie sens et
parvient a l'existence necessaire donnee par la pensee - "not here Considered
meerly as a Notion or Objective Cogitation, but as Thing actually existing without
the Mind".48 L'idee d'existence s'ajoute a celle de l'essence et sanctionne l'exteri-
orite du corps a l'esprit qui a deja ete admise par la sensation. Le probleme de I'ex-
istence des corps est simplifie par rapport a ce que Descartes en disait dans la
Meditation VI. Cudworth n'explique pas Ie passage de I'existence empirique a
l'idee qui lui correspond dans la raison et rend, avant tout, moins consequente la
definition du corps. Selon More, Ie corps est extension impenetrable: Cudworth
accepte cette conception, sans faire siennes les premisses methodologiques qui
l'avaient soutenue.'? En effet, la reference a l'impenetrabilite que More avait invo-
quee en critiquant Descartes detonne avec la methodologie rationaliste du Treatise ,
car cette propriete appartient a la dimension sensible; elle trahit neanmoins la per-
sistance chez Cudworth de la meme motivation anti-materialiste qui avait inspiree
son ami More . Tous les deux jugent que la theorie cartesienne de la res extensa
aboutit a l'affirmation de la necessite de la matiere: en niant qu'on puisse connaitre
l'essence de cette-derniere, ils visent a refuter l'attitude materialiste que les heri-
tiers du philosophe francais avaient explicitee." Pour l'auteur du Treatise Ie corps
est bien sur une substance etendue, mais il n'est connu que par son impenetrabilite,
c'est a dire par une determination qui ne constitue pas son essence: "We have not
such an Adequate and Comprehensive Knowledge of the Essence of any
Substantial thing, as that we can perfectly Master and Conquer it".5\
D'autre cote, Cudworth se sert de facon massive de l'explication mecaniste de la
sensation que Descartes avait proposee.P La confrontation des textes indique une
reprise presque a la lettre de certains lieux cartesiens, meme si Cudworth, comme
d'habitude, ne devoile pas ses sources. Le Treatise repete un passage de la
Deuxieme Meditation qui assimile la sensation a une vision exterieure incapable de
cueillir la substance des choses, celle-ci etant l'objet de la faculte de juger.i' Afin
de soutenir cette conclusion negative, Cudworth rappelle l'explication mecaniste de
 CUDWORTH VERSUS DESCARTES 179

la sensation qu'on Iisait dans la Dioptrique : "as the Atomical Philosophy instructs
us, there is nothing Communicated in Sensation from the Material Objects without,
but only Certain Local Motions, that are propagated from them by the Nerves into
the Brain ">' Les mouvements locaux expliquent egalement la lumiere et la vision
des corps opaques, determinee par la pression des particules etherees globuleuses.
En regle generale, comme l'affirme Le Monde, les sens sont comparables au
langage; ils sont des signes qui renvoient a quelque chose d'autre, a qui ils ne sont
lies par rien de necessaire - "Nature as it were talking to us in the Sensible Objects
Without, by certain Motions as Signs from thence Communicated to the Brain"."
Les theses que Cudworth tire des oeuvres de Descartes sont d'autant plus appre-
ciees par Ie philosophe anglais qu'elles lui semblent des hypotheses qu'il faut ad-
mettre, non pas en vertu de leur verite, mais parce qu'elles expliquent les
phenomenes d'apres le modele mecaniste. Vu dans cette perspective hypothetique,
I'atomisme cartesien s'avere compatible avec l'anti-rnaterialisme de Cudworth: la
science qui se rapporte a la matiere et au mouvement ne definit pas la realite des
choses, mais s'en tient a des presomptions et des interpretations, a la fois , co-
herentes et proches de la realite. De plus, c'est le cartesianisme dans son ensemble
que Ie Treatise presente comme un hypothese au sens platonicien, c'est a dire
comme point d'appui qu 'il faut depasser pour rejoindre la connaissance du vrai.
Dans l'echelle du savoir, telle que Cudworth la conceit, Ie mecanisme cartesien se
situe au niveau Ie plus bas: il peut expliquer la sensation en tant que mouvement
local, mais non pas les "Perceptive Cogitations in the Soul", qu'elles soient les
Phantasms ou les Conceptions of the Mind. Les uns "Belong to the Inferior Part of
the Soul, whereby it sympathizes with the Body" - c'est la "Vital and Magical
Union" de I'ame avec Ie corps -, les autres sont les "Intelligible Ideas of Thing,
Virtually Contained in its own Cognoscitive Power, that are Universal and Abstract
Notions, from which, as it were looking downward it comprehends Individual
Things"." De ce point de vue, Ie mecanisme est compris dans une perspective
theorique qui Ie depasse: c'est au platonisme de rejoindre la verite des choses, un
platonisme auquella philosophie de Cudworth aboutit en puisant ses arguments a la
tradition vitaliste.
L'auteur du Treatise reagit de cette facon a un cartesianisme qui s'approche de
plus en plus, a ses yeux , du determinisme hobbesien; il n'empeche que Ie mecan-
isme represente pour lui I'antidote Ie plus puissant contre Ie rnaterialisme.F puisque
Ie dualisme de la res extensa et de la res cogitans garantit l'Independance de
I'esprit et sa superiorite par rapport au corps. C'est pourquoi Cudworth adopte
envers Descartes une attitude double, a la fois, polemique et ouverte au dialogue.
Quant a la definition de la realite materielle individuelle, sa position differe du ra-
tionalisme cartesien autant que de I'empirisme de Gassendi: en soutenant l'extra-
subjectivite des idees iI selcigne de I'empirisme; mais, comme il affirme
l'irreductibilite de l'experience par rapport a la raison et de l'existence par rapport a
I'essence, il se detache aussi du rationalisme - d'ou les remarques sceptiques sur
les limites de la connaissance humaine'" et la tonalite empiriste des critiques
sou levees contre la version cartesienne de la preuve ontologique. D'autre part,
180 M . BALDI

Cudworth n'est pas non plus reellement interesse par l'experience: elle n'est que
I' occasion de la connaissance.t? tandis que I'image sensible et fantasmatique est
l'enveloppe, "the Crasser Indument"60 de l'Idee intelligible.
La critique du cartesianisme qu'on a ici consideree par rapport au Treatise, nous
revele que l'experience n'etant pas constituee par l'idee tend a etre confinee a la di-
mension pre-philosophique du sens commun. De ce point de vue, quoique develop-
pees sur un autre plan, ces argumentations s'averent coherentes avec I'enquete
historique et comparative du System, ou la validite de l'idee est mesuree sur les
croyances communes. Dans cette oeuvre, le critere du vrai repose sur l'universalite
et la naturalite de l'idee, non pas sur la coherence logique interne de cette derniere,
Dans le Treatise aussi, Cudworth ecrit que la verite est "Catholic and Universal
[... ], as the Stoicks speak, throughout the whole world";61 mais il vise a affirmer
surtout l'objectivite du vrai: "the Entity of all Theoretical Truth" n'est que Clear
Conception - celle-ci etant "the Criterion of true Knowledge [...] not to be looked
for any-where Abroad without our own Minds".62 Cependant, dans la theorie de la
connaissance meme, la philosophie decouvre des territoires impenetrables a la de-
duction rationnelle, que Descartes exemplifiait. D'ailleurs, la polemique envers le
materialisme entraine Cudworth asouligner les limites de la raison humaine, qui est
incapable de tout expliquer a cause de son inferiorite par rapport a la pensee divine ,
dont elle participe quand meme :

There is another Perfect Mind or Understanding Being above us in the Univers e, from which our
Imperfect Minds were derived , and upon which they do depend. Wherefore if we can have not a Full and
Perfect Comprehension, then can we not have an Idea or Conception of the Nature of any Substance .f

Le decal age entre concevoir et comprendre constitue Ie lieu ou les convictions

les plus solides du sens commun , celles que la critique philosophique ne saurait pas
entamer, peuvent s'epanouir. Mais Cudworth nous revele aussi une autre perspec -
tive: au dela du monde des essences eternelles et immuables comcidant avec la
raison divine , histoire et experience peuvent s'affirmer selon l'imperfection propre
a l'etre cree . Ces deux dimensions, explorees I'une dans Ie System, I'autre dans le
Treatise , representent pour Ie platonicien Cudworth le probleme incontournable de
la philosophie.
Marialuisa Baldi

NOTES

R. Cudworth , T.I.S.U., cf. I, V, pp. 633-899.

Sur le s rapports entre Descartes et Cudworth, cf. J . C. Gregory, Cudworth and Descartes,
"Philosophy", VIII (1933), pp. 45~67; J. A. Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretat ion, (London :
Cambridge U.P., 1951), pp. 7-11 et passim; J. E. Savenson, "Differing Reactions to Descartes among
Cambridge Platonists" , Journal of the History of Ideas , XXI (1960) , pp. 560-567 ; D. B. Sailor,
"Cudworth and Descarte s" , Journal of the History of Ideas, XXIII (1962), pp. 133-140; L. Gysi ,
 CUDWORTH VERSUS DESCARTES 181

Platonism and Cartesianism in the Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth, (Bern : Lang, 1962); A. Pacchi ,
Cartesio in Inghilterra . Da More a Boyle, (Bari: Laterza, 1973); S. Hutton, Ralph Cudworth : "God,
Mind and Nature" dans R. Crocker (ed.), Reason, Religion and Nature, a paraitre. Cf. aussi S.
Lamprecht, "The role of Descartes in Seventeenth Century England", Studies in the History of Ideas, III
(1935), pp. 181-240.
1 Selon cette objection, "there is no Idea of God, and therefore , either no such Thing existing in
Nature, or at least no possible Evidence of it" (ibid , I, IV, i, p. 192).
4 Ibid . I, IV, ii , p. 194.
Ibid . I, V, p. 654 .
"The belief of the existence of a God, of the natural immortality of soul, and consequently of
rewards and punishments after his life, are things which the generality of mankind have no clear concep-
tion nor demonstrative science of' (R. Cudworth, T.F.. X, p. 41).
7 R. Cudworth , T.I.S.U., I, V, p. 716.
Seconds Analytiques, I (A), 2, 71b.
Cf. S. Clarke, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God More Particularly in Answer to
Mr. Hobbs , Spinoza, and their Followers , (London: Botham-Knapton, 1705; reimpression anastatique,
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstat : Fromann Verlag, 1964), p. 28. Clarke s'etait inspire de Cudworth dans la cri-
tique de I'apriorisme cartesien, afin de prouver la superiorite de la methode experimentale de Newton.
Sur la preuve ontologique cartesienne en Grande-Bretagne cf. M. E. Scribano, "La prova a priori dell'esi-
stenza di Dio nel Settecento inglese. Da Cudworth a Hume", Giornale critico della filosofia italiana,
LXVIII (LXXX) , 1989, pp. 184-212 ou dans L'esistenza di Dio. Storia della prova ontologica da
Descartes a Kant, (Bari: Laterra, 1994), passim, et M. Micheletti, Pascal-Butler. L 'argomento onto-
logico. Studi sui pensiero etico-religioso inglese dei secoli XVII e XVlll, (Perugia: Benucci, 1979). Pour
I'analyse de la preuve en general cf. D. Henrich, Der ontologis che Gottesbeweiss, (Tubingen, 1967).
10 R. Cudworth, T.l.S.U., I, V, p. 717; cf. R. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia, in Oeuvres,
p.p. C. Adam et P. Tannery, II vols., 1969-1974 , Objectiones IV, VII, p. 215.
II Cf. ibid. , Objectione s V, VII, p. 325.
12 R. Cudworth, T.F., II, p. 7.
U Ibid., XVIII, p. 66.
14 Ibid ., XIV, p. 49.

15 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., I, III, 8, pp. 36-37.

16 Ibid ., I, III, 4, pp. 32-33.
17 Cudworth n'analyse que la preuve cartesienne dite a prori: iI ne s' interesse pas a la demonstration de
Dieu que Descartes avait exposee dans la Meditation Ill; a propos de cette argumentation Descartes
avait ecrit: "considerationern causae efficientis esse primum et praecipuum medium, ne dicam unicum,
quod habeamus ad exi stentiarn Dei prob andam, puto omnibus esse manifestum" (R. Descartes,
Medita tione s de prima philosophia, op. cit., IV Responsiones, VII, p. 238). Puisque Cudworth ne
s'arrete pas sur la discussion cartesienne concernant Ie rapport entre I'idee et sa cause, on peut mieux
comprendre l' accusation qu'il adresse au philosophe francais d'avoir sombre dans Ie vice du cercle.
18 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., I, III, 3, pp. 30-31.
19 Ibid., I, III, 3, p. 31.

20 Ibid.. IV, V, 2, p. 265.

21 Ibid ., IV, VI, I, p. 284.
22 R. Cudworth , T.I.S.U., I, V, p. 719.
n R. Descartes, Meditationes, op. cit., Objectiones III, p. 178; cr. R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., IV, III, 15,
p.225)
24 R. Cudworth , T.E.I.M., IV, V,S, p. 272.
25 Cf. A. Pacchi, Cartesio in Inghilterra . Da More a Boyle, op. cit., p. 185; selon Pacchi, l'idealisme de
Cudworth est objectif parce qu' il est "tutto teso a rilevare l' esistenza di una verita che trascende anche la
volonta di Dio, identilicandosi con gli intelligibili presenti nella sua mente".
26 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., I, III, 7, p. 36.
27 Cf. ibid., IV, IV, 65, p. 248: les Rationes "have a Constant Being, when our Particular Created
Minds do not actually think of them, and therefore they are immutable in another Sense likewise, not
182 M. BALDI

only because they are Indivisibly the same when we think of them, but also be cause they have a
Constant and never-failing Entity; and always are, whether our Particulars Minds think of them or not" .
28 Ibid., V, VI, 2, p. 285 .
29 Ibid. Dans I' Entretien avec Burman. Descartes ecrivait: "essentia ante existentiam non fuit, cum ex-
istentia nihil sit a1iud quam essentia existens, ut proinde unum altero non prius. nee ab eo diversum aut
distinctum" (Oeuvres . op. cit., p. 164).
JO R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., IV, VI, 2, pp. 284-285.
31 lbid., IV, VI, 2, p. 285 .
32 R. Cudworth, T.F., XIV. p. 50.
33 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., IV, VI, 2, p. 284 .
J4 R. Cudworth, T.F., p. 50.
35 R. Cudworth, T.I.S.U., I, V, p. 720 .
J6 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M.• IV, VI, 4, p. 287 . Sur Ie probleme des idees innees chez Cudworth et Ie pla-
tonisme de Cambridge, cr. J. W . Yolton, John Locke and the Ways of Ideas, (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1956). qui montre la diffusion du concept de "prolepsis", ou "preassumed notion", depuis la seconde
decade du XVIIe siecle en Grande-Bretagne. Voir auss i R. L. Armstrong, "Cambridge Platonists and
Locke on Innate Ideas", Journal of the History of Ideas. XXX (1969) , pp. 187-202; R. McRae, "Idea as
a Philosophical Term in the Seventeenth Century", Journal of the History of Ideas, XXVI (1965), n. 2,
pp. 175-190.
37 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M.. III, III, 4, p. 97.
38 Ibid., III, III, I , pp. 93-94. Sur les idees en tant que "anticipations", cf . J. A. Passmore, Ralph
Cudworth. An Interpretation. op. cit.• pp . 37-39 et L. Gysi, Plat onism and Cartesian ism in the
Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth, op. cit., pp. 33 ss.
39 R. Cudworth. T.E.I.M., IV, II, II, p. 172; 13, p. 178; 7, p. 160.
40 Ibid., IV, II, 15, p. 183.
41 C'est la " Inte ri o u r Simmetry and Harmony in the Relations. Proportions, Aptitudes and
Correspondencies of Things to one another in the Great Mundane System, or Vital Machine of the
Universe, which is al1 Musical1y and Harmonically composed; for which Cause the Antients made Pan,
that is Nature to play upon an Harp" (ibid., IV, II, IS, p. 184).
42 Ibid., IV, III, I, pp. 189-190.
43 Ibid., IV, III, 3, pp. 192-193.
44 Ibid., IV, III, 3, p. 195.
45 lbid ., IV, III, 3, p. 194.
46 Ibid., IV, III, 6, p. 200.
47 Ibid., IV, III, 9, p. 209 .
48 Ibid ., IV, III, 4, p. 195.
49 Epistola Prima H. Mori ad R. Cartesium, in H. More, Opera Omnia, II, 2, p. 235 .
50 Chez More, on ne peut pas connaitre les essences (cf. Epistola Secunda H. Mori ad R. Cartesium, in
H. More, Opera Omnia. op. cit.. Ad Responsum circa primam Difficultatem, Instantia I, II, 2, p. 243 :
"c um radix rerum omnium ac essentia in aetemas defossa lateat tenebras") : iI definit Ie corps "ab habitu-
dine aliqua", qui "proprietas dici potest in substantiis, cum non sit substantia" (ibid.). Attendu que cette
"habitudo" n'est evidenrnent pas "res absoluta" (ibid.). on peut refuter la necessite de la matiere. que
Descartes affirme, selon More , en identifiant I'extension avec I'essence.
51 R. Cudworth, T.I.S.U., I, V, pp. 638-639.
52 Sur ce sujet, ainsi que sur la theorie de la connaissance de Cudworth, cr. M. Baldi , "Il 'vero sistema'
dell'universo e iI conftitto del1e tradizioni in Cudworth", dans G. Canziani et Ch . Y. Zarka (CUL). L 'in-
terpretazione nei secoli XVI e Xvll, (Milano: Angeli , 1993). pp. 183-206.
53 Voir R. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia, op. cit.. II. p. 32: "nisi jam forte respexissem ex
fenetra homines in platea transeuntes, quos etiam ipsos non minus usitate quam ceram dico me videre.
Quid autem video praeter pileos et vestes, sub quibus latere possent automata? Sed judico homines esse";
cf. R. Cudworth, T.I.S.u. , III, III, 3, p. 96 : "Just as when a Man looking down out of a Window into the
Streets, is said to see Men walking in the Streets, when indeed he perceives nothing but Hats and Cloaths,
 CUDWORTH VERSUS DESCARTES 183

under which , for ought he know s, there may be Daedalean Statues moving up and down" . Les emprunts a
Descartes sont soulignes par J. A. Passmore, Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation, op. cit.
:14 R. Cudworth, TE.I.M.. IV, III, 13, p. 214 . Cudworth auss i la similitude du baton de Descartes
tDioptrique. Discours Premier, (Euvres, op. cit., VI, pp. 83-86): "in the same manner as we feel things
at a Distance in the Dark, by the Resistency which they make upon the further end of the Staff that we
hold in our hands" (R. Cudworth, TE.I.M.. op. cit., III, 1,2, p. 77).
55 Ibid., [V, III, 13, p. 215 ; cf. R. Descartes, Le Monde ou Traite de la lumiere, Oeuvres. op. cit., IX,
p. 4 et La Dioptrique, Discours IV, Ibid., VI, p. 112.
56 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M.. [V, III, 13, pp. 217-218.
57 " And here we ca n never s uffici ently applaud that ancient atomical Philosophy, so succesfully
revived of late by Carte sius, in that it shews distinctly what Matter is, and what it can amount unto,
namely, noth ing else but what may be produced from meer Magn itude, Figure, Site, local Motion and
Rest ; from whence it is demonstrably evid ent and mathematically certain, that no Cogitation can possi -
bly arise out of the Powe r of Matter" (R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M., IV, VI, 15, pp. 301-302); sur l'atomisme
en Angleterre, cf. R. H. Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1966).
58 Sur Ie scepticisrne chez Cudworth, cf. R. H. Popk in, "The Crisis of Politheism and the Answers of
Vossiu s, Cudworth and Newton " , dan s J. E. Forces and R. H. Popkin (eds .), Essays on the Context,
Nature , and Influence of Isaac Newton 's Theology, (Kluwer: Dordrecht, 1990), pp. 9-25; maintenant
dan s The Third Force in Seveenteenth Century Thought, (Brill: Leiden, 1992) , pp. 334-350. Selon
Popkin , Cudworth " used a semi-scepticism and a commonsense Platonism to rebut the overall attack of
Hobbe s and Spinoz a, thereby 'j ustifying ' the appeal to universal religion based on an innate conception
of an infinite deity" tibid., p. 349) .
59 R. Cudworth, T.E.I.M, IV, III, 7, p. 204.
6/) Ibid., IV, III, 12, p. 2[3.
61 Ibid. IV, V, 4, p. 271.
62 Ibid.IV,V,4,271.
61 R. Cudworth, TI.S.U.. I, V, pp. 639 .
PART FOUR
 A . ROBINET

LES DIFFERENTES LECTURES DU SYSTEM DE CUDWORTH

PAR G. W. LEIBNIZ

II me semble assure que la "reception" la plus accomplie qu'aient jamais eue "les
Platoniciens de Cambridge" se rencontre dans Ie concept de "monde leibnizien", et
notamment dans I'investissement accompli par Leibniz autour du terme et du
concept de "monade". L'abondance des impacts dans l'ceuvre de Leibniz serait telle
qu'i1 y faudrait un livre pour la mettre en place. Pour qu'on en juge en con -
sequence, je centrerai cette note sur les seuls marginalia de I' ouvrage de Cudworth,
The true Intellectual System , edition R. Royston de 1678 (LandeslbibI., Hannover,
Leibniz Marg. 137). Non sans souligner que la meme methode serait a appliquer a
More, a Ann Conway, a Catherine Trotter-Cockburn, a E. Stillingfleet et a J.
Norris I ainsi qu'a bien d'autres membres de l'ecole platonicienne de Cambridge,
prise au sens strict ou au sens large. J'assortirai cette observation d'une caracteris-
tique qui la rend auss itot relative a I'ensemble des autres "receptions" que Leibniz a
organisees autour d'une multitude d'autres oeuvres. Mais iI y a, avec l'Ecole de
Cambridge, une triple complicite: sur la mise en valeur du platonisme dans un con-
texte ou les scolastiques aristoteliciennes ou modemes sont devenues pesantes sur
les termes memes de "monas-monade" qui connaissent un traitement exceptionnel
dans les oeuvres de Cambridge et dans celie de Leibniz sur les affinites circonstan-
cielles avec la fille de Cudworth, Lady Masham, dans la lutte contre Descartes
Hobbes, Spinoza et Locke.
D 'un mot a Remond (22 juin 1715, GP, III, 646), Leibniz condense la
signification de sa reception du System : "J' ai oublie de vous dire qu'autrefois Lady
Masham, fille de M. Cudworth, grande patronne de M. Locke, m'envoya Ie Systeme
lntelle ctuel de feu Monsieur son Pere, ou je trouvais bcaucoup de savoir, mais pas
assez de meditation". Cette fete de l'erudition cudworthienne, Leibniz la partage
goulOment; quant a la meditation, elle rebondit sur plusieurs themes centraux. De
ses deux sejours en Angleterre des annees 1673 et 1676, Leibniz garda Ie souvenir
constant de sa rencontre avec Lady Masham: il a rencontre Locke a cette epoque
"souvent a Londres et quelques fois a Oates, chez Milady Masham, digne fille du
celebre M . Cudworth, grand philosophe et theologien anglais, auteur du Systeme
Intellectuel, dont elle a herite I'esprit de meditation et I'amour des belles connais-
sances ... ", proposition en chiasme avec celIe qui sera adressee a Rernond
(Nouveaux Essais, II, I, § I, des I' entree du chapitre sur "les idees innees"),
Lors de la reprise de contact avec Lady Masham qui s'effectue en 1703, il est
essentiellement question des Nouveaux Essais, en pleine genese, et du Systeme
Intellectuel qui, selon Leibniz ne peut etre qu'oppose a Locke. Y aura-t-il a ce propos
un impact de Leibniz sur Locke via Lady Masham et Cudworth qui aurait conduit aux
revisions du livre IV de l'Essay, bien plus favorable que les premieres editions ala
theorie de l'inneite des idees?2 Ce serait Ill. un autre sujet. Mais cette correspondance

187
G. A. J . Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. 187-196.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
188 A. ROBINET

pennet de determiner avec precision que l'envoi de I'exemplaire Marg. 137, fait suite
ala lettre de Lady Masham de decembre 1703 et a la reception qu'en assure Leibniz
Ie 30 juin 1704: "Je viens de recevoir votre beau present, Madame, et je commence
deja a en jouir, ce qui renouvelle rna reconnaissance" (GP, ill, 357).3
En effet, nous disposons de deux series de feuillets, paleographiquement dif-
ferencies, historiquement situables, qui accumulent les donnees convergentes
emanant du "savoir" de Cudworth et qui amorcent des remarques sur le defaut de
ses "meditations". Nous disposons ainsi de quatre cles d'entree leibnizienne dans le
Systeme lntellectuel: les marginalia, les deux dossiers de lecture, les lettres a Lady
Masham. Encore convient-il de s'y reconnaitre paleographiquement et histor-
iquement.
1011 est assure que Leibniz n'a pas pris contact avec le System avant une premiere
serie de notes de lecture, composee a Rome en juin-juillet 1689 (Leibniz-
Handschriften IV, 3, 3, f. 1-2). Paleographiquement , nous sommes sur du papier
romain relevant des folios utilises pour le Phoranomus, pour les notes sur Fludd,
mais pas pour le debut de la Dynamica . Nous avons etabli dans I'lter ltalicumt
comment les riches rencontres avec Auzout que Leibniz connaissait depuis son
sejour parisien, aboutissaient a cette remarque tiree de la lettre a Lady Masham de
decembre 1703: "Je vis Ie livre (de M. Cudworth) la premiere fois a Rome ou M.
Auzout, mathematicien francais de grande reputation I' avait apporte, et je fus
charme de voir les plus belles pensees des sages sur l'antiquite mises dans leur jour
et accompagnees de solides reflexions; en un mot, beaucoup d'erudition, et autant de
lumieres, jointes ensemble" (GP ill, 336). Au sens strict ces notes de lecture ne sont
pas encore publiees: mais elles figurent dans la Vorausedition de la Leibniz-Stelle de
MUnster, N. 406, pp. 1882-1892. C'est dire l'ampleur du document. Mais ce n'est
pas lu a partir de l'exemplaire Marg. 137 comme I'indique clairement la reference
au pret que lui fit Auzout de son exemplaire apporte de Paris. Leibniz parcourt dans
l'ordre ce gros volume et ses releves suivent la pagination de Cudworth du debut a la
fin. 11 n'en ira pas de meme en 1704: la consultation est alors plus de recherche de
themes porteurs que d'information documentaire. Mais ces premieres notes ne
seront pas recuperees en 1704, ce qui donnera lieu a des doublons.
2 0 L'envoi par Lady Masham a Leibniz de ce qui est I'exemplaire Marg. 137, va
done provoquer les remarques marginales de 1704. Elles sont encore inedites aussi
bien qu'inexploitees, Nous en livrons ici Ie contenu, (signalant entre parentheses,
apres n.d.l.r., les annotations de Leibniz au texte de Cudworth).

Pref., p.*2v: Moreover, we have made it undeniably Evident, that the Intrinsick
Constitution of this Atomick Physiology also is such, as that
whosoever admits it, and rightly understands it, must needs ac-
knowledge Incorporeal Substance which is the Absolute
Overthrow of Atheism. [N.d.l.r.: trait vertical en marge].

and on the contrary, Those Forms and Qualities which he

Epoused, the Natural Seed thereof they, besides their unintelligi-
 LA RECEPTION DE CUDWORTH PAR G. W. LEIBNIZ 189

ble Darkness, bringing Something out of Nothing, in the

Impossible Sense; we shew to be, the Inlet of all Atheism .
[N.d.I.r.: trait vertical en marge].

Preface, p.**r: And here do we first of all, make a Discovery of a certain Form of
Atheism never before taken notice of, by any Modern Writers,
wich we call the Hylozoick . [N.d.l.r.: Hylozoick est souligne] .

Pref., p.***v: or that the whole System of things taken all together, could not
have been Better Made and Ordered then it is. [N.d .I.r. : trait
vertical en marge].

Notwithstanding which, it was far from our Intention, therefore

to Conclude, That Nothing neither in Nature nor Providence
could be Otherwise then it is; or, That there is Nothing left to the
Free Will and Choice of the Deity. And though we do in the
Third Section, insist largely, upon that Ancient Pythagorick
Cabbala, that Souls are always United to some Body or other; as
also, That all Rationall and Intellectuall Creatures, consists of
Soul and Body and suggests several things , from Reason and
Christian Antiquity, in favour of then both. [N.d.I.r. : trait vertical
en marge].

p.18: Wherefore the same Plato telI us, that there had been always , as
welI as there then was, a perpetual War and Controversie in the
World, and as he calI it, a Kind of Gigantomachy betwixt the two
Parties or Sects of men. The one that held there was no other
Sub stance in the World besides Body. The Other that asserted
Incorporeal Substance. [N.d.l.r.: trait vertical en marge].

p.22: [.. .] Opinion before Plato's time, which had been delivered down
by some of the Pythagoricks. Wherefore, I conceive, this must
needs be one of those Pythagorick Monstrosities, which Xenophon
covertly taxes Plato for entertaining [... ]. [N.d.I.r.: trait vertical en
marge] .

p.63: This seems to be intimated by a Modern Writer in these words;

The Attributes of God signifi e not True nor False, nor any
Opinion of our Brain, but the Reverence and Devotion of our
Hearts, and therefore they are not sufficient Premises to inferr
Truth or convince Falshood. [N.d.l.r.: en marge "Hobb"].

p.107: [... ] concerning an Eunuch striking a Bat; [N.d .I.r.: " B at"
souligne] .
190 A . ROBINET

p.175: But shortly after this Cartesian Restitution of the Primitive

Atomology that acknowledgeth Incorporeal Substance, we have
had Q.lf! Leucippus and Democritus too, who also revived and
brought again upon the Stage, that other Atheistick Atomology,
[...]. [N.d.l.r.: "our" souligne, avec en marge "Hobb].

p.206: And now we have proposed the Three Principal Attributes of the
Deity. The First whereof is Infinite Goodness with Fecundity, the
Second Infinite Knowledge and Wisdom. and the Last Infinite
Active and Perceptive Power. [N.d.l.r.: trois mots soulignes].

p.207: From the Idea of God forasmuch as there cannot possibly be more
than One Supreme , more than One Omnipotent or Infinitely
Powerful Being, and more than One Cause of all things besides it
self. [N.d.l.r.: souligne de "more" a "things"].

p.873: So that the Controversie betwixt the Atheists, and these Theists,
seems to be no other than this ; Whether Sensless Matter
Fortuitously moved, or a Fortuitous Will Omnipotent, such as is
altogether undetermined, by Goodness Justice and Wisdom, to be
the Sovereign Numen, and Original of all things. [N.d.l.r.: trait
vertical en marge].

3° Une seconde serie de notes de lecture est contemporaine de ces marginalia,

datable de l'ete 1704. Elle est recueillie dans les Leibniz-Handschriften, I , 1,4, ou
clle occupe Ies folios 49 a 53, soit l' ampleur de cinq pages in-folio bien remplies
sur double colonne. Ces nouvelles notes ne sont pas encore editees, ni dans les edi-
tions deja publiques, ni dans des epreuves de laboratoire. Pour les composer,
Leibniz feuillette l'exemplaire qu'il vient de recevoir. Paleographiquement le
papier est atteste de 1704. L'ensemble du volume est parcouru dans le desordre,
avec passages relevant de la p. 13 et a l'autre extremite de la p. 873. Comme pour
les notes de 1689, Leibniz transcrit en latin les passages qu'il releve, mais il re-
cueille de nouveau nombre de textes en grec, dont Cudworth est friand. Mais ici, la
plupart du temps, Leibniz note les references aux auteurs cites par Cudworth sans
mentionner la reference a son ouvrage. Si bien que l'identification des passages
transcrits en latin ou en grec ne peut s' effectuer que par le recensement des cita-
tions effectives du System . De plus, Leibniz note et commente plusieurs pages de
Cudworth meme. Remarquons enfin que deux des passages transcrits I' avaient ete
deja dans les premieres notes de 1689.
4° Quant aux lettres a Lady Masham elles constituent un commentaire a chaud
et, si je puis dire ad hominem. qui survole et integre aussi bien les deux series de
notes de lecture que les marginalia.
Pour donner une idee de la portee de ces lectures de Cudworth, je retiens deux
exemples illustres par les marginalia ci-dessus: Hobbes et la substance incorporelle.
 LA RECEPTION DE CUDWORTH PAR G. W . LEIBNIZ 191

Dans ces documents sur Cudworth Ie nom de Hobbes apparait aquatre reprises.
a) Les notes de 1689 mentionnent pour la p. 662 du System:

Ita recentior (+Hobb+) jus Deo esse a sola potentia irrestibili, obligationem ad praestandam ipsi obedi-
entiam incumbere horninibus propter imbccillitatern.'

Cette allusion au De Cive, XV, 5 et 7, avec I'identification de Hobbes dans les

parentheses, signaletiques des remarques propres de Leibniz sur ses transcriptions,
tombe au terme d'une diatribe de Cudworth contre I'opinion depravee des atheistes
qui, selon Ciceron font de la charite et de la bienveiIIance une sottise, et de l'amitie
un marchandage relatif a l'utilite, Leibniz ne pouvait que reconnaitre la un de ses
premiers themes en jurisprudence consistant a opposer a la these de Carneade sur la
stupidite du juste, les theses platoniciennes et Ie droit nature\. Des 1663, Leibniz a
denonce I'insuffisance des fondements de la jurisprudence humaine par Hobbes et
I'absence de tout fondement par lajurisprudence divine.
b) Mentionnons d'abord les citations de 1704 puisqu'elles se rapportent a ce
meme theme de la justice. En voici Ie texte, encore inedit:

(f. 53v) Hobbesio bonum per se amatur, justum per accidens (+non intelligit justum virum delectari
actionibus rectis-)."
Plato Hobbesianam doctrinam eleganter exhibat de rep. lib. 2. p. 358. 359. quidam statuunt injuriam
inferre bonum esse, sed pati malum, sed quia plus mali est in patiendo quam boni in inferendo, hinc
tandem in pacta tum ut a nullo inferrentur aut ferrentur, sed aequalibus servaretur ita qui talis potens
esset aut latere posset, non posset facere quae liberet. Haec iIIe id Hobbesii mentem, sed non apparet cur
aliquis pactis obligetur, si nulla vis justitiae est, si natura non jubet pacta servari. Sed si haec jubet cur
non et alia jubeat vix nihilo nihil fit, si nulla est realis justitia nee est artificialis.?

La difference des deux theories du pouvoir et du pacte est ici tres apparente et
Leibniz se retranche derriere la tradition Platon-Cudworth pour adherer a la these
d'une justice reelle, qui commande les pactes plutot qu'elle n'en resulte. On recon-
nait dans la parenthese initiale Ie rappel de ce fondement de la theorie de la justice
propre a Leibniz: Hobbes n'a pas compris que I'homme de bien trouvait sa felicite
dans les actions droites.
c) Alors que ces deux notes de lecture se rapportent a la critique de la doctrine
hobbesienne du droit, critique affirmee par Cudworth et confirmee par Leibniz, les
deux occurrences de Hobbes qui apparaissent dans les Marginalia 137 visent autant
que la doctrine du juste, la doctrine du vrai Pour la p. 63, Leibniz tire un trait en
marge pour accompagner Ie texte de Cudworth relatif a la critique des ecrivains
modernes pour qui les attributs divins ne signifient rien qui soit vrai ou faux, ni rien
qui soit du ressort de I'opinion de notre jugement: mais ce sont des marques de
reverence et de devotion qui viennent du coeur et non du cerveau, dont les
premisses ne sont absolument pas valides pour qu'on en puisse inferer quelque
verite ou convaincre de quelque erreur. Alors que Cudworth n'a nomme personne,
Leibniz inscrit en marge: "Hobbes". Dans nombre d'autres occasions, Leibniz
ajouterait Spinoza: il est vraisemblable qu'il s'en retient etant donne Ie contexte
192 A . ROBINET

anglais du debut, et quil peut se demander si Cudworth avait pu connaitre les

Opera de 1677 . Quant a la notation de la page 175, elle donne un tour meta-
physique aces remarques puisqu'elle vise plutot, apres une Atomologie premiere,
une seconde Atomologie moderne, designee par Cudworth comme une "atheis-
tique", meconnaissant la veritable substance, faisant revivre Leucippe et
Dernocrite; que nous ayons "notre Leucippe et Democrite"; conduit Leibniz a
souligner Ie "our", et a donner sa cle en marge: "Hobbes".
Voici done , a propos de ces emergences de Hobbes dans ces simples notes, la
doctrine de la justice, de la verite et de I' etre qui se detachent du "monde" atomiste
de Hobbes et qui sont convergentes avec l'ecrit de Cudworth qui se recommande
d' autre chose. Sur cette meme page 175, les notes de 1689 avaient deja retenu un
passage voisin, dont on peut dire qu'il constitue l'articulation architectonique cen-
trale de ce "monde", dont l'interface avec celui de Hobbes est ici si present : "tout
ne peut pas etre explique mecaniquement".
Ainsi, l'invocation des Gigantomachies qui decrivent le monde de l'action aux
prises entre deux principes du bien et du mal, precurseurs du Leviathan, a la fois
fascinant pour le sens interne leibnizien et redoutable pour les raisons qu'il retient,
dressent-elles l'arriere-plan d'un "monde" auquel Cudworth se heurte en invoquant
le platonisme de l'unicite de la valeur. On ne peut pas ne pas etre frappe dans ces
quelques notes ou Marginalia, par la reference spontanee aux lignes et paragraphes
de Cudworth qui proclament la triplicite des attributs divins, amorcant une "causa
Dei" fondee dans les perfections essentielles de la justice et de la sagesse, qui com-
mandent, comme dans le leibnizianisme, les actes accomplis par la puissance. Si
Cudworth ne donne pas a son propos une dimension combinatoire des attributs
divins entre eux comme cle de la distribution dans Ie fini des perfections intra-
mondaines , il oriente ccpendant son propos vers une affirmation expresse de
I'optimum dont Leibniz ne pouvait que tirer profit, a quoi il n'a pas manque.
Venons-en a la presence de monade dans ces extraits de Cudworth. Les margina-
lia 137 n'en concernent pas l'expose, mais les deux series de notes s'y arretent, au
benefice de trois citations , dont I'une est reperee aussi bien en 1689 qu'en 1704.
Celle-ci concerne la page 13 du System . Elle concerne Ie Livre I, § XII de
Cudworth alors que, a propos dEcphantus , la question tourne sur les
Pythagoriciens qui invoquent les Monades interpretees comme "Atomes incor-
porels". Selon Stobee et Ecphante les Monades pythagoriciennes etaient cor -
porelles: ce sont des atomes qui ont une grandeur. La Monade est un "corpuscule",
un petit corps. Gassendi lui-memo a remarque que les Epicuriens nommaient
souvent leurs atomes des Monades . II faudra que Platon intervienne pour que la
substance incorporelle voie ses droits reconnus. Ce passage de la p. 13 du System
est ainsi condensee dans la premiere mention qui en est recueillie en 1689:

Ex autoritate Ecphanti Pythagorei Monades Pythagorae nil aliud quam Atomi, nam ita Stobaeus de ipso:
7ao; 'lTU8a-yOpLKao; J.Lovcillao; ofrroo; 1TPW700; d1TE<\>1\va7o O"WJ.LanKao;. Et Aristoteles de ipsis: 7ao;
J.Lovcillao; ll1ToAaJ.Ll3civo\JO"Lv ~XEtV J.L€-yE8ov. Et Gassendus notavit ex Graeco epigrammatista et
Atomos Epicuri dictas Monades."
 LA RECEPTION DE CUDWORTH PAR G . W . LEIBNIZ 193

Or les notes de 1704 d'arretent de nouveau a ce passage du System, encore

inedites Cf. 53v):

Atomi veteribus Monades forte cap. Pythagorae, Ecphantus Pythagoricus dixit Pythagorae Monades
fuisse atomos corporeas. Nam de eo Stobacus ora<; 'lTlJ6(XOyOpLKa<; lJoovcilla<; oUro<; 1TpworO<; Q1TE<lriivaoro
O'WlJoanKa<;. Et ipse Aristoteles de Pythagoricis: ora<; lJoovcilla<; U1TOAalJo~civO\JO'LV €XELV IJoE"(E90v. Et
alibi OOOEV llLacl>EpEL lJoovcilla<; AE"(ELV -Ii O'wlJociorLa O'IJoLKpa. Et quidam Graecus Epigrammatista, de
Atomis Epicuri .
-------lJociTT]V E1TtKovpoveciO'ov
noii oro KEVOV ~T]orE'tV Kat ortVE<; at MovcillE<;.9

Ces deux citations de Cudworth sont d'une importance architectonique interes-

sante . Je n'en dispose que maintenant. Si elles avaient ete reperables au moment OU
je composais l'Architectonique disjonctive, I 0 j'aurais pu ajouter au titre des "auto-
mates systerniques" cette double remarque, confortant cette argumentation. II est
manifeste, comme je I' ai etabli , que Ie lexique de la "monade est bien connu des les
premieres etudes de Leibn iz, ne serait-ce que par I' enseignement de Jakob
Thomasius. Comme tout Ie lexique non moderne, l'emploi en est tombe pendant
une longue diachronie arch itectonique. Comme je l'ai constate pour "forme sub-
stantielle", quand Leibniz les "rappelle" en 1679 et dans Ie Discours de meta-
physique, c'est parce qu'illes avait autrefois "appelees" pour subvenir aux besoins
de son architectonique archaique. De meme, pour "entelechie premiere" qui ne
reverra Ie jour qu' en ete 1691. Enfin on sait que "monade" ne sera employe dans Ie
discours leibnizien qu'en septembre 1696. A tel point que "forme substantielle" est
bannie de l'autorite architectonique et decretee couvrir un concept fallacieux tant
que dure la reference de Leibniz a la modernite cartesienne, dont il se debarrasse
definitivement en janvier 1678, avec la critique de la loi de conservation de la
meme quantite de mouvement, fondatrice du concept de corps etendu . On observe
qu'en 1684 dans l'article sur la connaissance, l'entelechie est encore prise comme
exemple de concept confus. Quant a la monade nous avons deja montre comment
elle est rencontree dans More et aujourd 'hui dans Cudworth, sans pour autant inter-
venir dans Ie discours constructif propre de I' oeuvre leibnizienne. Or ce passage
doublement recopie l' est a deux moments architectoniquement fort differents, En
1689, si les "formes substantielles sont de nouveau operationnelles, l'entelechie ne
I'est pas encore, ni la monade. Et on comprend ici pourquoi par un parfait exemple:
selon toute la tradition Ecphante-Gassendi La monade est confondue avec l'atome.
Or elle I'est toujours autant selon Ie meme texte de Cudworth en 1704, mais elle ne
l' est plus pour Leibniz. Car en 1696, la monade a ete "rappelee" a son tour comme
plus expressive de la force singuliere de la substance, de sa perpetuite, parce que la
notion de "simple" ne recoit plus pour modele Ie cliche atomistique, mais devient
une congruence et une serie d'equipollences qui permettent au multiple de con-
verger dans I' entr' expression intermonadique. Mais il fallait, pour que la monade
puisse etre accompagnee de I' investissement lexicographique de "substance
simple", que Ie resserrement conceptuel permit une sirnplicite qui supportait la
variete dans la multitude.
194 A . ROBINET

Evidemment, ce n' est pas Cudworth qui pouvait conduire Leibniz a ses propres
investigations architectoniques. Mais it recoit de Cudworth comme de More et des
Platoniciens de Cambridge, Ie label qui l'autorise a reinvestir "monade", dans un
contexte conceptuel entierement decharge des pesanteurs simplistes de l' atome, et
oriente vers un concept du "simple" qui pouvait beneficier a la fois de toutes les
specieuses mathematiques nouvelles dans Ie champ de ses representations relatives
aux forces derivees et de cette simplicite qui alliait Ie mecanistique a la finalite dans
Ie domaine de la pensee representante, greffee sur les considerations non modernes
d'un esprit independant du corps. Si toutefois, pour Leibniz , it subsiste des corps
qui soient autre chose que des concepts mentaux bien regles par les lois de la nature
finalisee . On voit a cela comment Leibniz capte la documentation de Cudworth
pour I'amener a de nouvelles conclusions meditatives , qui font passer Ie savoir et
les connaissances de More et de Cudworth du monadographique documentaire au
monadologique architectonique.
Faisons apparaitre I'autre reference a "monade". Celle-ci ne se trouve que dans
les notes de 1704 avec cet enonce inedit (f. S2v):

Proclus in Instil. Theol. n. 21. A primo uno sunt multae Eva8EC;, a prima mente multae mentes, a prima
anima multae animae . Nempe tria prima constituunt TO ~v, voUv, Ijroxilv . Respondent Patri, Logo, et
Spiritu i sed rectius explicantur per potentiam, cognitionem et voluntatem seu amorem . Add. Simplic . in
Epict. Enchirid. pag. 9. (+Sed revera et mentes. et animae sunt Monades. Vera limitas non ex substantiis
compon itur, sed principiis ut Monas creata ex activo et passivo. At ipsum activum ex tribus Trinitati re-
spondentibus, nam in Deo nil passivum . In activas, potentia, regula secundum quam exercetur, boni af-
fectus, T'eX-ya8ov et EV veteres conjungunl. Non male, sed hoc de toto Monadis complexae+ ).11

On saisit a ce dernier texte qu'un tel commentaire n'aurait pas ete possible en
1689, faute du reinvestissernent du terme "monade", faute d'une distinction du
passif et de l'actif qui s'applique au primitif et au derive, faute d'une conception
possible de la "monade complexe" a partir de la "monade-atorne", faute du concept
de "simple" instruit dans Ie sens d'une presence du passif des corps dans l'activite
de la substance primitive. Nous sornmes ici a I'intersection des deux membres de la
disjonction architectonique: ou bien les corps sont des substances ou bien ils ne
sont que des phenomenes.
Dissuade par la mort de Sophie-Charlotte de Prusse, qui est en tiers dans la cor-
respondance avec Lady Masham, Leibniz n'enverra que Ie 10 juillet 1705 I'avis
global : "Le systeme intellectuel de feu Monsieur Cudworth me revient extreme-
ment ... ." (GP III, 368). Leibniz "est avec lui" contre la fatalite, pour la justice na-
turelle nullement arbitraire, qu'il faut admettre des substances immaterielles, que
l'hypothese hylozoique est insoutenable, que les ames ne quittent jamais entiere-
ment les organes qu'elles ont, que la substance incorporelle a une energie ou une
force active interne. Mais pour ce qui est de la nature plastique "je I'admets en
general", mais "cette force plastique est mecanique d'elle-meme, et consiste dans
une preformation et dans des organes deja existants, qui ont ete seuls capables de
former d'autres organes". "Pour ce qui est des Atomes, je les admets si on les tient
pour des corpuscules d'une tres grande petitesse, mais si on les prend pour des
 LA RECEPTION DE CUDWORTH PAR G . W . LEIBNIZ 195

corpuscules infiniment durs, je ne Ies admets point, puisque Ia matiere est plast ique
ou organique partout.. . ", Sa conclusion, temperee pour Lady Masham, est qu'il
"explique seulement ce que M, Cudworth Iaissait sans explication", La commence
sans doute Ie XVIIIeme sieclel

Andre Robinet

NOTES

La bibliographie leibnizienne concernant ces auteurs comporte un certain nombre d'etudes, Nous en
detachons celie qu' Anne Becco avait accomplie en mettant en evidence les impacts de "monade" dans
I'oeuvre de More, consultee largement par Leibniz. II n'y a pas de Marginalia des publications de More
au sens strict, mais de nombreuses notes de lecture en partie publiee s dans les editions de Leibniz. Voir
la Leibniz-Bibliographie de A. Heinekamp et les Index des Studia leibnitiana qui publient chaque annee
un releve complet des publications leibniziennes .
2 Nous avon s precise a plusieurs reprises que I' onginalite de la quatrierne edition de I' Essay consistait
dans les nouveaux apports du Livre IV, ou Ie statut de l'idee retrouve "un assentiment a la lumiere irre-
a
sist ible d'une evidence i mmedi ate" ; cf. notre ouvrage sur Le langage /'age classique, (Paris :
Klincksieck, 1978), pp. 182-187.
J Cette correspondance est accessible dans Gerhardt , Phil. Schrift. (GP), III.
A. Robinet, G. W. Leibniz, Iter Italicum (mars /689-mars /690). La dynamique de la Republique
des Lettres, (florence: Olschk i, 1988); sur Auzout, 4.4.5, pp. 139-146.
; " Ainsi, tres recemment (+Hobbes+) [soutint quel le droit vient de Dieu par sa seule puissance irre-
sistible , et I'obligation de lui obeir incombe aux hommes du fait de leur faiblesse" ,
6 "Pour Hobbes, Ie bien est aime par soi et Ie juste par accident. (+i1 ne comprend pas que I'homme
juste se plait aux actions droites+)" .
7 "Platon presente adroitement la pensee de Hobbes dans la Republique, livre II, 358-359: 'Certains
affirment que commettre I'injustice est un bien, mais que la subir est un mal. Et parce qu 'il ya plus de
mal a la subir que de bien ala commettre, ils en sont venus a un pacte, afin que personne ne la commette
ni la subisse, mais qu 'elle soit observee par des hommes egaux : ainsi, celui qui serait assez puissant ou
assez secret ne pourrait faire ce qui lui plait .' Tel est bien I'esprit de Hobbes. Mais on ne voit pas
pourquoi on est oblige 11 un contrat si la justice n' a aucune force, si la nature n' ordonne pas d' obeir aux
contrats. Mais si elle I'ordonne, pourquoi n'ordonnerait-elle pas aussi que de rien, rien ne peut surgir?
S'il n'y a pas de ju stice naturelle, il n'y en a pas non plus d' artificielle ."
8 "Selon Ie pythagoricien Ecphante, les monades de Pythagore ne sont rien d' autre que des atomes, car
Stobee parle ainsi de lui: 'C'est lui qui Ie premier a rnontre que les monades de Pythagore paraissaient
corporelles' . Et Aristote disa it d'elles: ' lis ont estirne que les monades ont une grandeur' . Et Gassendi a
releve chez l'epigrammatiste grec que les atomes d'Epicure sont appele s aussi monades".
9 " II est arrive que les anciens ont pris les atomes pour les monade s de Pythagore, et Ecphante Ie
pythagoricien a dit que les monades des Pythagoriciens avaient ete des atomes corpore Is. Car Stobee dit
de lui: ' C'est lui qui Ie premier a montre que les monade s de Pythagore paraissaient corporelles' . Et
Aristote dit lui-rneme des pythagoriciens: ' lis ont estime que les monades ont une grandeur' . Et ailleurs:
'Cela ne change rien de parler de monades ou de petits corpuscules' . Et un epigramrnatiste grec, [Ie ditl
des atomes d'Epicure: ' ... Laisse Epicure chercher en vain ou est Ie vide et ce que sont les monade s' ".
Texte original de Cudworth: T./.S.U., chap . I, XII, p. 13: "But that which is of more Moment yet ; we
have the Authority of Ecphantus a famous Pythagorean for this, that Pythagoras his Monads, so much
talked of, were nothing else but Corporeal Atoms. Thus we find it in Stobteus , Ta.; 1TlJ9Cx-yOpLKa.;
!LovallOt.; OUTO'; 1Tp6YrO'; cX1TE"''''VOtTO CTW!LOtTLKa.;, Ecphantus (who himself asserted the Doctrine of
Atoms) first declared that the Pythagoricck Monads were Corporeral , i.e. Atoms . And this is further
confirmed from what Aristotle himself writes of these Pythag oreans and their Monads , Ta.; !LovallOt.;
\nro>'Ot!L~avo\J(Jw EXHV !LE'YE90v. They suppose their Monads to have Magnitude : And from that he
196 A . ROBINET

elsewhere makes Monads and Atoms to signifie the same thing, 6uMv l)La<!>€PEL 1L0vcXl)a~ AE'(ELV ij
O"WlLcXTLa O"ILLKpa. Its all one to say Monades or small Corpuscula . And Gassendus hath observed out
of the Greek Epigrammatist, that Epicurus his Atoms were sometimes called Monades too;
--------ILCXTT\V E1TtKOUPOV l1cXO"ov
noii TO KEVOV t1JTEi.V Kat TtVE~ oL MovcXl)E~."
10 A. Robinet, Architectonique disjonctive, automate s system iques et idealite transcendantale dans
l'oeuvre de G. W. Leibniz , Pari s, Vrin, 1986; voir Ie sens precis de " monade" en 2.3. L 'automate
systemique (MO), L 'investissement de "monade " (1696), pp. 72-82.
II "Proclus, dans les Institutions Theologiques, n. 21; A partir du premier Un, il y a plusieurs unites; du
premier Esprit, plusieurs Esprits; de la premiere Arne, plusieurs ames . L'Un, l'Esprit, I' Arne, sont
principes . lis correspondent au Pere, au Logos, 11 l'Esprit, mais s'expliquent mieux par la puissance , la
connaissance, la volonte ou amour (Add. Simplicius , sur I' Enchiridion d'Epictete, page 9) (+ Mais en
fait, les esprit s, les ames sont des monades. La limite authentique n'est pas composee de substances,
mais de principes, comme la monade creee 11 partir de l'act if et du passif. Mais l'actif meme [vient] des
trois [principes] correspondant 11 la Trinite , car en Dieu il n'y a rien de passif. Dans I'actif, la puissance,
la regle selon laquelle on agit, l'affection du Bien, le Bien et l'Un anciens se conjuguent. Ce n'est pas
mal, mais cela ne concerne que les monades complexes-e)" .
II La bibliographie leibnizienne concernant ces auteurs comporte un certain nombre d'etudes. Nous en
detachons celie qu ' Anne Becco avait accomplie en mettant en evidence les impacts de "monade" dans
l'oeuvre de More, consultee largement par Leibniz. II n'y a pas de Marginalia des publications de More
au sens strict, mais de nombreuses notes de lecture en partie publiees dans les editions de Leibniz. Voir
la Leibniz-Bibliographie de A. Heinekamp et les Index des Studia leibnitiana qui publient chaque annee
un releve complet des publications leibnizienne s.
 S . BROWN

PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY

FROM MALEBRANCHE TO BERKELEY'

The revival of Platonism associated with Cambridge philosophers such as Henry

More and Ralph Cudworth was in part a reaction against Calvinism with its stress
on faith rather than reason and its pessimistic view of human nature. It was not,
however, the only revival of Platonism in England in the late seventeenth century.
There was another more broadly European revival that lasted well into the eigh-
teenth century. This new Platonism was in some respects significantly different,
both in its inspiration and in its nature, from that of Henry More and his associates.
The Cambridge Platonists largely regarded Descartes and the mechanical philos-
ophy as a challenge and even a threat to religious faith. The new Platonism, by con-
trast, had its beginnings in a new perspective on Descartes and the mechanical view
of nature in which they came to be regarded as actually conducive to piety. This
new perspective came to be quite widely shared thanks to the popularity of the writ-
ings of Malebranche in whose thought Cartesianism was harmonised with an
Augustinian Christian philosophy and theology.
Malebranche was particularly well-received by those Moderns who were already
inclined to Platonism. Though they all reacted to him critically, a number of
philosophers were decisively influenced by Malebranche and developed his thought
in a Platonic direction. In this paper, I consider two younger contemporaries
of More and Cudworth - Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and John Norris
(1657-1711). I also consider the striking convergence between the idealisms of
George Berkeley (1685-1753) and one of Norris's followers, Arthur Collier
(1680-1732). I seek to show how the Platonic tendencies of these philosophers
were stimulated by reflection on Malebranche. But I also connect those tendencies
with a continuing Platonic tradition and with religious concerns about the implica-
tions of cert ain philosophical positions. Collier and Berkeley, I bring out, each
arrived at a Platonic idealism quite independently of one another. The existence of
such similarities as can be found between the thought of Leibniz, Collier and
Berkeley is evidence of the extent of the Platonic revival in the early eighteenth
century .

The four philosophers whom I discuss were all professional or semi-professional.

They were all at universities at times when they would encounter Modern ideas but
still be trained in the Scholastic tradition. In Leibniz's student days the Scholastic
tradition at German universities predominated across all areas of philosophy. By
the end of the century it had retreated but still predominated in areas like philosoph-

197
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. 197-214.
© /997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
198 s. BROWN

ical theology and so formed an important part of the training of Anglican clergy at
Oxford and elsewhere. The English semi-professionals who took to Malebranche -
Norris Collier and Thomas Taylor - were Oxford-trained Anglican clergymen who
were influenced not only by Aquinas but by the Scholastic revival associated with
the Spanish Jesuit and Dominican philosophers of the late sixteenth and early sev-
enteenth century . They had read Suarez as well as Descartes and were respectful in
their references to them both. Yet they did not seek to be Thomists or Cartesians.
They were Modem in their style of philosophy, conceiving of it as a subject to be
pressed further by developing better arguments rather than as merely concerned
with interpreting or rediscovering the philosophy of the past.
Collier indeed went so far as to suggest at one point that his reason for invoking
the support of the ancients, including Plato and the Platonists, was purely tactical.
Such citations would, he complained, "avail me more in the event, than ten thou-
sand the most evident demonstrations without it".2Such a remark shows a percep-
tion of his readers that is remarkable for an English philosopher writing more than
20 years after the first publication of Locke's Essay. Collier appears to have
thought that a significant number of his readers continued to entertain
"Renaissance" expectations about how truth in philosophy should fit in with the
wisdom of the ancients. Such people would have been more impressed by a quota-
tion from Augustine to the effect that matter is the most base of all things and
almost nothing than by "Modem" arguments.' They were intended to conclude that
he had "a vast authority" on his side and that his views were neither strange nor
novel.
The existence of such sympathy for Platon ism amongst lay readers may have
been one of the factors which led Modems to make more of Platonic elements in
their philosophies. But there were reasons why Anglican clergymen such as Collier
and Berkeley were unlikely to be out-and -out Modems and were bound to pay
some lipservice to the authority of the ancients. The Bible from which they
preached and taught their flocks was a book taken to be full of ancient wisdom and
believed to be true, however difficult to interpret. There was, of course, no need to
link the wisdom of Moses with that of Plato. But it was a natural enough extension
and one which, in Renaissance Neoplatonism , had been common place. It is not
surprising, then, that both Collier and Berkeley were willing to link the authority of
the Bible with the authority of ancient philosophers.
Berkeley, who in his Principles of Human Knowledge had adopted a thoroughly
Modem style of argumentation, himself reflected in later life that there was a risk
that extreme Modems would treat the Bible as an old book no more worthy of
study than the texts of the ancient philosophers.' That may be one reason why he
increasingly began to link his own philosophical thought with the ancients, espe-
cially with the ancient Platonists."
There is the further consideration that both men were much attracted by a highly
philosoph ical quotation from the Bible in which Saint Paul is reported as having
spoken to some Greek philosophers of the God "in whom we live, and move, and
 PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 199

have our being't.s The thought in this quotation is Stoic and ultimately Platonic and
provides a Biblical license for a Stoic or Platonic philosophy. Malebranche had
already appealed to it in defending his doctrine that we see all things in God .? It
became a favourite Biblical quotation for both Berkeley and Collier. 8 As with
Malebranche their philosophies were motivated partly by a concern to produce a
theological outcome. In the case of all three it seemed to have been to defend the
omnipresence of God and the total dependence upon Him of the whole creation.
Collier's Credo, written in July 1709, expressed a Platonic theocentrism which is
reflected also in his Specimen of True Philosophy of 1730. In this later piece he
sought to authorise his idealism from an account of the first verse of the first
chapter of the Book of Genesis."
Amongst Collier's manuscript remains there is a striking indication of how a
Platonic idealism can be derived from this verse which declares that in the begin-
ning God made heaven and earth:

There is an infinite fulness of meaning in this text. I will offer some of the most remarkable particulars
in it; as, taking the words heaven and earth to stand for all things except God. we may learn from this
text that God only is without beginning. or that everything else in nature began to be or exist. Hence we
must infer. that if time, and space, and matter, are not God, they are neither of them eternal or without
beginning.'?

For Collier the denial of absolute space, time and matter is a correlate of the
proper affirmation of God as the creator of all things. He held a view that is some-
times called panentheism - that the whole universe and everything that happens in
it is already contained in God from all eternity. II All things "terminate and exist in
one, viz . the Son of God who is apxTi 1"11<; K1"L<TEW<;,12 or substance of the whole
creation". 13 Collier grants that, though all things "exist in one common substance;
yet there are many substances, both in heaven and in earth, which ... may not im-
properly be called by this sacred name"." Panentheism, which allows for a plurality
of created substances, is distinct from pantheism. But where no autonomy is or can
be allowed to the created world panentheism, may in practice tend to monism and
so collapse into pantheism This is a tendency that reappears in the history of
Platonism (in John Scotus Erigina and even in seventeenth-century figures like
Fludd) and which was compounded by Malebranche's philosophy, because of his
denial that there are any other true causes than GOd.15
Collier, as we will see, is a Modern whose philosophy is a development of
Platonic tendencies already latent in Malebranche. The revival of Platonism
amongst such avant-garde professional and semi-professional Modern philosophers
had other causes as well, as we have seen. It is in part a reaction to materialism and,
in England, to empiricism. But it was given a particular impetus by Malebranche,
in whom some of its common tendencies are manifested. I have mentioned the ten-
dency to monism though I will not discuss it further in this paper. Here I will con-
sider the tendency to idealism as one of the most distinctive of the Platonic
tendencies of Modern philosophy after Malebranche.
200 S. BROWN

II

Malebranche in his Recherche de La Verite, considered various accounts of how it is

that we see the world around us. He rejected as unintelligible those accounts ac-
cording to which bodies send forth representatives of themselves which somehow
impinge on our sense organs, producing some kind of representation in our minds.
He claimed that the only explanation that made sense was that we see all things in
God. One reason for accepting his vision in God, according to Malebranche is that
"cela met les esprits creez dans une entiere dependance de Dieu, la plus grande qui
puisse etre. La cela etant ainsi, non seulement nous ne scaurious rien voir, que Dieu
ne veiiiIIe bien que nous Ie voyons, mais nous ne scaurions rien voir, que Dieu
meme ne nous Ie fasse voir"." The doctrine of seeing all things in God is closely
connected with occasionalism.
If, however , material bodies are not needed as causes of our sense perceptions, it
is not clear why they are needed at all. Malebranche did not accept the argument of
Descartes which purported to demonstrate the existence of material bodies. But he
thought it highly probable that there were and indeed he believed a Christian should
accept that there are bodies as a matter of faith. This suggestion was taken up by
Bayle as a concession to scepticism.!?Bayle seems genuinely to have believed that
complete scepticism was conducive to faith. But most philosophers have supposed
that excessive reliance on faith was in turn likely to lead straight back to sceptic-
ism. Locke and other critics objected that Malebranche had no good reason to
suppose that there were material bodies at all - that indeed, since God does every-
thing in the simplest possible way, it would be more reasonable for Malebranche to
deny the need for bodies:

.. .since God does all things by the most compendiou s ways. what need is there that God should make a
sun that we might see its idea in him when he pleased to exhibit it. when this might as well be done
without any real sun at all? JS

Malebranche was not tempted either seriously to doubt or to deny the existence
of bodies. He would have been aware of the dangers of falling into theological het-
erodoxies of just the kind that Platonism had encouraged in the early Church. If
there are no bodies then God did not really assume the body of a man and those
heretics were right who denied that he did. Again, in the Eucharist, there cannot be
a question whether the bread and the wine do become the very body and blood of
Christ unless there are material substances in the first place. A metaphysics without
material bodies is subversive of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation - a con-
sideration which both Collier and Berkeley thought an advantage'? but which would
surely have been sufficient to deter Malebranche from it.
There seems to have been a quite sudden rise in the interest in Malebranche in
England. His Recherche de La verite appeared in two separate English translations
in 1694. When Joseph Addison went to Paris in 1700 he visited Malebranche
whom he reported to the Bishop of Lichfield as having "a particular Esteem for the
English Nation, where I believe he has more admirers than in his own".20 Addison
 PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 201

himself was one of those admirers and had written, when a student in 1693, a
defence of the new philosophy. Amongst his contemporaries at Magdalen College
who also produced such defences was Thomas Taylor who shortly became one of
Malebranche's translators." Addison would certainly have known also of John
Norris who was still at All Souls in the early 1690s and who was perhaps the best
known English Malebranchean of the time. Malebranche seems to have taken a
gloomy view of his own standing in France at the beginning of the eighteenth
century . So, of course, Addison may not have wished to imply that Malebranche
enjoyed a substantial following in England. Nonetheless there is evidence of a
following in England by this time not only amongst the professional and semi-
professional philosophers but amongst laypeople as welI.22

III

I will not here demonstrate the importance of Malebranche for Leibniz's mature
philosophy. This has been well-documented by M. Robinet and others have taken it
Up.23 Less well documented is the increasing Platonism of Leibniz's philosophy in
his later years. Leibniz had already re-discovered Plato during his stay in Paris in
the early l670s, when he essayed translations into Latin of the Phaedo and the
Theaetetus. Right into the 1690s he conducted himself in relation to Descartes as a
rival, and it was something of a home truth for him to be accused of attempting to
build his reputation upon the ruins of Descartes 's. Leibniz, of course , denied this 24
but thereafter abandoned the spirit of censurae and animadversiones . Freed from
focusing on what was wrong with Descartes he now concentrated on what he
thought was right about him. Descartes emerged in a new and improbable perspec-
tive, not as an innovator who rejected tradition but as a Renaissance-style reviver of
Plato and the Academic Sceptics . Already in 1694 this new perspective was hinted
at:

It is undeniable that Descartes has made some outstanding contributions. In particular he was right to
restore the study of Plato by leading the mind away from the senses, thus usefully adding the doubts of
the Academics ."

By the time he drafted his Nouveaux Essais in the early eighteenth century,
Leibniz had placed himself both in relation to the development of Cartesian-
Malebranchean philosophy and in the context of this revival of Plato. His own
Systeme nouveau (1695) was to be seen as a development from the Cartesian
philosophy and the pre-established harmony as a solution to problems with
Malebranche's occasionalism. In the Nouveaux Essais (c. 1704) he associated
himself with Descartes, Malebranche and Plato as against Gassendi and Locke.P
Leibniz was too original and complex a thinker to be a disciple of anyone. He
had in any case a particular hatred of all sectarianism that made him shy of labels.
Nonetheless he did acknowledge an affinity between his philosophy and that of
certain others - especially Malebranche and the Platonists. This is evident in his
202 S. BROWN

correspondence late on in life with the French courtier, Nicolas Remond, to whom
he elsewhere referred as "un excellent homme ...et grand Platonicien'V' In a letter
to Remond Leibniz came as close as ever he did to putting himself forward as a
modem Platonist:

Si quelcun reduisoit Platon en systerne, il rendroit un grand service au genre humain, et I'on verroit que
j'y approche un peu. 28

I have been suggesting that, in his later writings, Leibniz distinguished his views
from those of Malebranche and Plato but positioned himself quite close to them .
Appropriately he came to the defence of Malebranche against the Refutation pub-
lished by Rudolphe du Tertre in 1715, putting Augustine and thereby Malebranche
in a Platonic perspective in doing so. Du Tertre had claimed that Augustine's lan-
guage and therefore Malebranche's system was too much infected by Platonism. To
this charge Leibniz replied:

Ce langage mystique du Pere n'etoit done point necessaire, mais je trouve qu'i1 est utile, car il nous fait
mieux envisager nostre dependance de Dieu. II semble merne que Platon parlant des idees, et S.
Augustin parlant de la verite, ont eu des pensees approchantes, que je trouve fort raisonnables, et c'est la
partie du systeme du Pere de Mallebranche que je serois bien aise qu' on conservat avec les phrases et
formules qui en dependent, comme je suis bien aise qu'on conserve la partie la plus soli de de la
Theologie des Mystiques. Et bien loin de dire avec I'auteur de la Refutation (T. 2, p. 304) que Ie systeme
de S. Augustin est un peu infecte du langage et des opinions Platoniciennes, je dirois qu'il en est enrichi,
et qu' elles luy donnent du relief. 29

Leibniz was a keen student of Plato and he often distinguished the true Platonism
from the obscurities and the distortions of the so-called "Platonists". There is much
rhetoric in those passages where he does this - often a Renaissance rhetoric about
the decline of philosophy since the ancients but also a Modem rhetoric about the
need for philosophy to be reformed, These are combined in his paper "De primae
philosophiae emendatio. . ... of 1694 where he complains that the progress made by
Plato and Aristotle had not been subsequently built upon : "the later Platonists
lapsed into enouncing omens: the Aristotelians, especially the scholastics, took
more care about raising questions than settling them". 3o
Leibniz is often very critical of what seemed to him to be the debased Platonism
of the Renaissance and the early modem period . Platonists had, he seems to have
thought, a tendency to go to extremes and to lapse into mysticism, enthusiasm and
fanaticism . Thus he wrote against the debased, extravagant and mystical develop-
ments of Plato into which Ficino and Patrizzi were led instead of pursuing the exact
definitions Plato himself tried to give.'!
The implication is that Plato himself, with his concern to establish things that
were clear and simple, was well suited to the spirit and style of modern philosophy.
A modern Platonism was possible that was solid, i.e. well-established and believ -
able. Or so Leibniz implied. But critics have from his own time to the present noted
in Leibniz's philosophy a tendency to much more extreme and implausible views
than those he was willing to acknowledge as his conclusions.P
 PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 203

Simon Foucher for instance, expressed his surprise at the way in which Leibniz
had encumbered himself with the problems of the Cartesians by presenting his
system as a development from Descartes and Malebranche The criticism of
Malebranche's system had been that matter and material bodies became "useless"
and that Malebranche ought, in consistency, to have adopted an extreme idealism.
The same criticism applied, Foucher observed, just as much to Leibniz's system.P
Leibniz's reply , that God chose to create more rather than fewer substances,
alludes to his principle of plenitude.f Certainly the principle of plenitude provides
a Platonic defence to the charge of solipsism. A perfect God would not be content
to create only me and my states of consciousness. This reflection does not,
however, solve the problem. For, on Leibniz's view, the true substances are not ma-
terial or extended and bodies are no more than well-founded phenomena that result
from the true substances or, as he later called them, monads. On that view material
bodies do not strictly add to the number of substances . The principle of plenitude
does thus not straightforwardly protect Leibniz's philosophy from its tendency to
idealism. Leibniz himself spoke of Plato as the greatest of the "idealists't.P He
himself sought a middle way between materialism and idealism in which he would
be able to say, as he did against Berkeley that matter is not nothing . It is, however,
problematic whether he can reasonably resist the tendency of his philosophy
towards idealism.

IV

Norris was a Platonist before he came to the study of Malebranche. At one level the
influence of Malebranche was to make him more Modern . Thus, for instance, he ac-
knowledged that the modern "theory of the ideal world in which we contemplate all
things" was hinted at by scattered remarks of Plato, Philo Judaeus, Plotinus,
St. Augustine, Aquinas, Marcilius Ficino and others. But

Mr Malebranche has ventured furtherest of anyone I know upon this discovery . He is the great Galileo
of the intellectual world . He has given us the point of view, and what farther detect ions are made, it must
be through his telescope... 36

Norris claimed that Malebranche had only gone halfway , leaving "the finishing
of it" to less able people such as himself. But he developed Malebranche's thought
in a more Platonic direction, for instance with his radical distinction between the in-
tellectual and the sensible world. Like Collier he claimed to be making acknowl-
edgement to the ancients (such as Plato , Plotinus and Augustine) because of his
readers. He was doing it in order to avoid prejudice against what he had to say on
the ground of "novelty".J7 At the same time he, like Leibniz , was led by Descartes
and Malebranche to recognise the insight of the ancient Platonists that the existence
of an intelligible world is more certainly known than that of the natural or sensible
world." Like them he was led to the brink of idealism, but held back from doubting
the existence of bodies altogether because he did not wish to be suspected of "in-
dulging a sceptical humour". 39 Norris elsewhere seems, like Malebranche, to make
204 S . BROWN

some appeal to the notion of "natural judgement" .40 He also invokes the support of
Suarez But his position did not seem plausible to Collier who took Norris's view
one final stage to a denial of the existence of an external material world.
It seems hard at first to believe that Collier and Berkeley should independently
have arrived at such a similar theory around the same time without there being any
collusion or influence of one upon the other . But, on closer examination, that does
seem to be the case. Collier had drafted his Clavis before Berkeley's Principles ap-
peared in 1710. It seems that among the Collier manuscripts now lost there is an
outline in three chapters on the question whether the visible world is without us or
not. This manuscript is dated January 1708, two years before the appearance of
Berkeley' s Principles." It might be thought that he could have benefited in the
details of his arguments from reading Berkeley . But the details of their arguments
are in too many respects different, as is their language.f Collier seems to have
existed in a high degree of intellectual isolation in his Wiltshire parish and it is pos-
sible, as he implies in his Specimen, that he knew Berkeley only by his Three
Dialogues, a work published slightly after his own Clavis.43 All the reading referred
to in Clavis relates to texts available in his student days, more than a decade before
he published his thoughts . It is not even certain, though it is likely, that he dis-
cussed some of the issues between him and Norris directly with his "illustrious
neighbour".
The belief that Collier must have borrowed without acknowledgement from
Berkeley is based on there being too great a similarity between their views to be put
down to coincidence. However the convergence, such as it is, can be seen as result-
ing from the parallel development of two similar proto-philosophies. Both Collier
and Berkeley seemed to recoil against accepting the existence of absolute space,
time or matter because, so conceived, space, time and matter would be on the same
level as God. Both were drawn to the Platon ic view that God is a spirit and is the
creator of all things. They interpreted this view to imply that nothing exists outside
the mind of God and that space, time and matter only exist in a dependent way.
When it came to working out this dependence, however, Berkeley expresses
himself by denying the existence of matter entirely . Collier, by contrast, denies the
existence of an external world, by which he means a world that is "absolute, self-
existent, independent etc."." Berkeley was consciously developing a theory of
ideas from Locke whereas Collier was developing his philosophy partly from the
Scholastic background and partly in the context of the Modern philosophy of
Descartes, Malebranche and Norris. For these reasons there are broad similarities
but the differences of detail are too great to give substance to the charge of
plagiarism.
Collier's Scholastic background appears to have confronted him with the
Aristotelian view of matter as eternal. He seems to have been appalled by its setting
of matter up on a level with God. He was led to a life-long preoccupation with the
Biblical account of creation and, in particular, with the first verse of the Book of
Genesis. In one (undated) comment on the value of this text Collier wrote that from
it "we must infer, that if time, and space, and matter, are not God, they are neither
 PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 205

of them eternal or without beginning"." It does not follow that there is no matter at
all. But by 1709 he had come to the view that God is the efficient, formal, material
and final cause of everything that exists. This led him to hold that "particulars. . . as
such, have no distinct substances of their own, but only different forms or simili-
tudes to the one true substance, which one substance is the common substratum to
all particulars"." This is inconsistent with belief in an "independent", "absolute"
matter. So far from matter supplanting God, as is partly threatened in the
Aristotelian view, God supplants (absolute) matter. Collier, like other Christian
Platonic philosophers, gave an idealistic interpretation to the Biblical saying that in
God we live , and move and have our being."
Collier was probably, then, reacting as a Christian Platonist to Aristotelian matter
and was disposed to idealism quite apart from the problems of the Moderns. The ar-
guments of his Clavis are indeed addressed partly to his "Aristotelian reader"."
They are also addressed to Modems with whom (unlike the Aristotelians) he other-
wise identified.t? His Platonic idealism and his Modern immaterialism may have
been fixed in his student days. He himself claimed, in the Introduction to his Clavis,
to be publishing his opinions "after a ten years pause and deliberation't.t" It is
perhaps significant that he waited till after the death of his "late ingenious neigh-
bour" (Norris) before venturing into print. He expressed a reluctance to "voluntarily
oppose this author, for whose writings and memory I have a great esteem">'
I have suggested that Berkeley shared a common proto-philosophy with Collier.
There is a good deal of evidence that Berkeley had the same anxiety about matter
and extension being elevated to the status of a deity. Berkeley's concerns are
reflected in his early Philosophical Commentaries - for instance in the remark:

The great danger of making extension exist without the mind. in that if it was it must be acknowledged
infinite immutable eternal etc. which will be to make either God extended (which I think dangerous) or
an eternal, immutable, infinite, being beside God.52

Berkeley noted the difficulty of conceiving matter as produced out of nothing

and remarked that this was the reason why "the most celebrated among the ancient
philosophers, even of those who maintained the being of a God, have thought
Matter to be uncreated and co-eternal Him" .53 This seems to be the reason for his
remark: "matter once allowed. I defy any man to prove that God is not matter. .. ".54
Berkeley's concerns are more addressed to Locke and Hobbes than to Aristotle.
Like Collier, however, he opposes the acceptance of such absolute uncreated beings
other than God by affirming a spiritualistic panentheism This he expresses early in
the Principles in the statement that "...all the choir of heaven and the furniture of
the earth .. .subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit.. .". Of course Berkeley does
not merely assume that view but argues for it. It is not merely a paradoxical conse-
quence that he must embrace to follow through the logic of his argument. If, on the
contrary, it is thought of as one of the pivot-points of Berkeley's philosophy his
affinity with Collier can be seen as consisting largely in a common Christian
Platonic proto-philosophy.
206 S . BROWN

In spite of these similarities, Berkeley's development seems to have been differ-

ent. He seems to have been as anxious to counter scepticism as materialism and his
central thought (esse est percipi) was seen by him as a bulwark against both." Like
Collier, Berkeley was familiar with Malebranche's thought. But he was much more
critical, denying, for instance, that the doctrine of seeing all things in God even
made sense. 56 Berkeley's philosophical agenda is much more extensive and he saw
problems for a Malebranchean metaphysics that Collier did not consider - for in-
stance, in relation to human free will. Berkeley made use of the stock argument, of
which Collier shows no awareness, that bodies are redundant in Malebranche's
system .P Collier also refers to there being no purpose he knows of in God's creat-
ing "an invisible [external] world"58 but he was not making a scientific appeal to
simplicity of hypotheses. Collier makes more of theological and Scriptural issues
than Berkeley. He takes up Malebranche's appeal to Scripture to defend the exter-
nality of "the material world'; denying that this is implied by the claim at the begin-
ning of Genesis that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth".59
Given the relevance of this chapter both to his critique of Malebranche and his op-
position to the Aristotelians, it is not difficult to see why his Specimen should be an
attempt to evolve his Christian Platonist philosophy from Genesis I: 1. While this is
central to Collier it plays almost no part in Berkeley's deliberations.w Berkeley was
content that his account should be consistent with the Bible and so considered
Genesis only when challenged by his correspondent Percival to reconcile his
account with the Mosaic account of the Creation. To this challenge he replied :

I do not deny the existence of any of those sensible things which Moses says were created by God. They
existed from all eternity in the Divine Intellect. and then became perceptible (i.e. were created) in the
same manner and order as is described in Genesis."

Berkeley can hardly have been unaware of the Platonic language he was using in
this letter. Yet he seems to have been at this stage rather ambivalent in his attitude
to the Platonists, with whom he disagreed on a number of points of importance and
from whose obscurantism he dissociated himself. Nonetheless he seems increas-
ingly to have acknowledged and eventually even to have exaggerated the affinity
between his thought and that of Plato, Plotinus and others.
By the time he wrote his Siris he was encouraging his readers to think of him as
a Platonist. For instance, he wrote:

Proclus in his Commentary on the Theology of Plato, observes that there are two sorts of philosophers.
The one placed Body first in the order of beings, and make the faculty of thinking depend thereupon,
supposing that the principles of all things are corporeal : that Body most really or principally exists, and
all other things in a secondary sense, and by virtue of that. Others. making all corporeal things to be de-
pendent upon Soul or Mind, think this to exist in the first place and primary sense, and the being of
Bodies to be altogether derived from and to presuppose that of the Mind.62

That Berkeley intended to align himself with the second category of philoso-
phers is put beyond doubt a few sections later when he writes that the
 PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 207

Pythagoreans and the Platonists "had a notion of the true System of the World".
He goes on to list some of the points on which, by implication, his philosophy and
theirs agreed :

The y allowed of mechan ical principles, but actuated by a soul or mind ... they saw that a mind infinite
in power, unextended, invisible, immortal, governed, connected and contained all things : they saw that
there was no such thing as real absolute space: that bod ies exist only in a secondary and dependent
sense...They knew that the whole mass of corporeal beings was itself actually moved and directed by a
mind ; and that physical causes were only instruments, or rather marks and signs. 63

These remarks show how Platonic a Platonic Modern could be.64

Siris was published as late as 1744 and perhaps it was a curious and eccentric
work for Berkeley to have written. It is not entirely without philosophical rigour ,
however, and shows signs of Berkeley 's determination to hold onto many of the
features of his earlier philosophy, including his immaterialism and his occasional-
ism At all events it is evidence that the Platonic revival lasted well into the
eighteenth century.

v
I have sought to show how the philosophies of Berkeley and Collier converged on a
Platonic idealism Both wished to deny the absolute existence of space, time and
matter outside the mind of God. Both affirmed, on the contrary, the dependence
upon God of all created things and expressed this by asserting that all things were
in some sense contained in God. This tendency to idealism was certainly not new
with these Modern philosophers and a tendency to it was already present in the
Platonic tradition .
I have suggested that a common Christian Platonist proto-philosophy, together
with the stimulus of Malebranche and a common aversion to materialism were the
main factors making the philosophies of Collier and Berkeley converge. The same
factors appear to have been at work in promoting a degree of convergence between
the philosophy of Berkeley and Leibniz. Berkeley was unaware of this convergence
and seems to have known Leibniz largely from contributions to the Acta erudito-
rum which are rather unrepresentative of Leibniz's philosophy and in particular
give little hint of his liking for Malebranche and Plato. Leibniz, on his side, was
aware that there was a degree of convergence between their philosophies. He wrote
on his copy of Berkeley's Principles:

Much that is here is right and fits in with my way of thinking. But it is expressed rather paradoxically.
For there is no need for us to say that matter is nothing . It is sufficient to say that it is a phenomenon like
a rainbow. Nor need we say that it is a substance ; rather that it is a result of substances; nor need we say
that space is no more real than time; it is sufficient to say that space is nothing but the order of co-
existing things ; and time the order of successive things . The true substances are monad s, all things that
are perceived. But the author should have gone much further , certainly as far as infinitely many monads
out of whi ch, by means of pre-established harmony , everything is cornposed .v
208 S. BROWN

In one way Leibniz exaggerated the difference between himself and Berkeley.
He seems to have thought that Berkeley wanted to deny the reality of bodies and
indeed the reality of space and time. In fact it is not so easy to distinguish
Berkeley's position from Leibniz's since both deny the existence of absolute space
and time and Leibniz, like Berkeley, holds that there is nothing physical in isolation
from spirit-like substances.
Because of their rejection of absolute space and time both Leibniz and Berkeley
were committed to important disagreements with Newton . Disagreements that were
crucial for their Platonism. That may be one reason why the revival of Platonism
manifested in their philosophies did not extend later than it did.

VI

I have attempted to bring out something of the source and nature of a second
Platonic revival in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. I have sug-
gested it had its beginnings in a changed perspective on Descartes and, relatedly, in
the influence of Malebranche. In focusing on the tendency to idealism I have sought
to fasten on one feature that distinguishes those associated with this revival from
the Cambridge Platonists.
The older figure s, Norris and Leibn iz do prov ide some points of continuity.
Norris had read the works of Henry More and corresponded with him. Leibniz like-
wise had read several of More's writings and acquired the Opera Omnia when they
were published in the late I670s. There is, however, little evidence of significant
influence in either case.66 Both Norris and Leibniz distanced themselves from the
vitalism characteristic of More and the Cambridge Platonists. Both found ways to
accept the mechanical philosophy and reconcile it with their religious beliefs. At
the same time, Leibniz always referred to More with respect, as indeed he did also
to Cudworth to whose writings he may have owed some debt.s?
Cudworth's commitment to reject occasionalism is evident from his opposition
to those puritan divines who suppose God " to Doe all things in the world
Immediately " (Preface to T.I.S. U.) . Leibniz would have agreed. Where Leibniz
differed from Cudworth was in wanting to allow the completeness of physical ex-
planations that introduced no final causes. Cudworth's "plastic natures" were the
means whereby "the Wisdom of God" can

display itself abroad, and print its Stamps and Signatures every where throughout the World ; so that God, as
Plato (after Orpheus) speaks, will be not only the Beginning and End, but also the Middle of all things ... '68

Cudworth's plastic natures are God's intermediary in the world, enabling the
divine intelligence to be reflected by dimly intelligent active causes throughout
nature . Inanimate things cannot obey divine or other commands :

Wherefore the Divine Law and Command, by which the things of Nature are administered, must be con-
ceived to be the Real Appointment of some Energetick, Effectual and Operative Cause for the
Production of every Effect.69
 PLA TONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 209

It was, of course, common ground to all Platonists that the natural world reflects
the wisdom of its Creator. And Leibniz, in his "Considerations sur les Principes de
Vie, et sur les Natures Plastiques. .. " found much to approve in Cudworth - "dont
l'excellent ouvrage me revient extremement dans la plus grande partie". He agreed
in particular that "les loix du Mechanisme toutes seules ne souroient former un
animal". But it was not necessary to suppose immaterial plastic natures to explain
organic life:

Car les animaux [accord ing to Leibniz's system, at any rate] n'estant jamais formes naturellement d'une
masse non organ ique, Ie mechanisme incapable de produ ire de nouveau ces organes infiniment varies ,
les peut fort bien tirer par un developpment et par une transformation d'un corps organique preexistant.?"

Leibniz was by this means able to stick to what he regarded as the essential
Modern principle that natural phenomena were to be explained mechanically and
still there is nowhere in nature where there is not an infinity of living things.
The two Platonisms thus differ in important respects. But there are important
similarities. There is a tenden cy in each to avoid fideism and to oppo se its corre-
sponding stress on the arbitrary and inscrutable will of God. For the Cambridge
Platonists this was largely a reaction to Calvinism, with its emphasis on the corrup-
tion of human nature, the impotence of human reason, the necessity of grace and
revelation and, on our part, of faith .
Typical of this opposition to fideism is the extreme remark of Henry More:
" .. .take away Reason and all religions are alike true; as the Light being removed,
all things are of one colour"." The Cambridge Platonists, moreover, stressed that
there is a reason for things being the way they are other than the arbitrary will of
God . Thus Benjamin Whichcote denied that divine punishment is an arbitrary im-
position of God's will: "It is the Reason of things , and of our Minds, not the Power
of God only, which condemns't.P Similarly Cudworth argued that morality is
eternal and immutable and insisted that "everything is what it is by Nature, and not
by Will",73
Cudworth and Leibniz agreed in opposing the "voluntarism" of Descartes ac-
cording to which not only the truths of mathematics but those of justice and moral-
ity were dependent upon the arbitrary will of God ,74 This is, by reaction, a common
starting-point for both these developments of Platonism. Malebranche's notion of
"laws of grace" was already intended to counter the view that God's decrees are en-
tirely arbitrary and Leibniz sought to take Malebranche's notion still further."
Leibniz insisted that a theology in which God was represented as having created
the principles of goodness and justice would represent Him as an arbitrary despot
and deprive the words "good" and "just" of their meaning. The principles of good-
ness and justice were, for him, as for other Platonists, eternal truths." Norris like-
wise insisted, against Descartes that eternal truths were "no Creatures of ours, nor
yet of God 's either" ." He also saw that, if all truth was subject to the will of God,
everything we think we know would depend upon faith in its having been revealed
to us. Malebranche allowed that eternal truths were independent of the will of God .
But, as we have seen, our belief in an external world is based, according to
210 S. BROWN

Malebranche, on the Bible, and so on faith The new Platonists, like the Cambridge
Platonists, were unwilling to take such a poor view of human reason. Human
reason, like human nature, was for them not as base and incapable of perfection as
fideism implied .
A further Platonic feature of both the Cambridge group and the Moderns I have
been discussing is their concern to represent Nature as an expression of the divine
nature. This we have already seen in Cudworth's view that the wisdom of God dis-
plays itself abroad and puts "its Stamps and Signatures every where throughout the
World". Leibniz also held this view, expressing it in terms of his own system by
saying that "every substance is at it were an entire world and a mirror of God, or
rather the whole universe, expressing it in its own way ... ".78 Berkeley suggested
that "the steady consistent methods of nature may not unfittly bestiled the language
of its Author, whereby He discovers His attributes to our view ... " .79 Berkeley
usually refers to his near contemporaries only to criticise them and he acknowl-
edges no debt to Cudworth. He had, however, read the True Intellectual System and
it may be that he was positively influenced by it as well as finding in it points with
which to disagree . In his Siris he acknowledges Plotinus as a forerunner of his own
view about the language of nature.P It is likely that here, and elsewhere, the simi-
larities between the Cambridge Platonists and the Moderns I have been discussing
have at least as much to do with their common roots as with the influence of one
upon the other.

Stuart Brown

NOTES

lowe a general debt to the work of Andre Robinet for a sense of the importance of Malebranche for
Leibniz 's philosophy . I am also indebted to Charles McCracken's Malebranche and British Philosophy
(Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1983). Sarah Hutton has encouraged me to expect that Platonism continued to
flourish in early eighteenth century England more than historians of the philosophy of that period have
recognised. I am indebted for the discussion of an earlier draft of the paper at the Nantes Conference on
"Le Monde des Platoniciens de Cambridge " in 1993, particularly to the contribution from Roselyne
Degremont.
2 Ciavis Universalis, or. a New Inquiry After Truth being a Demonstration of the Non-Existence. or
Impossibility of an External World. (London: Gosling, 1713), ed. E. Bowman, (Chicago: Open Court,
1909), p. 100.
3 "Materia est infima omnium rerum, & prope nihil" ("Matter is the lowest of all things, and strictly
speaking, nothing") (ibid, p. 97).
4 See Siris 332. The unfashionable Renaissance Platonist sentiment is partially reflected also in the
remark that "though , perhaps, it may not be relished by some modem readers, yet the treating in physical
books concerning metaphysical and divine matters can be justified by great authorities among the an-
cients" . (Siris, 297) .
5 See Sect. IV below.
Acts 17: 18. As Stoic philosophers were listed among Paul's audience the author of Acts of the
Apostles may be presumed to have intended the phrase to be taken in a Stoic way. But Berkeley clearly
interpreted the phrase in a Platonic way, assuming God to be a pure Spirit. See below, Section IV.
7 See Recherche de la Write, III, ii, 6.
 PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 211

The Berkeley citations include Philosophical Commentaries, 827, Principles of Human Knowledg e,
66 and 149 and the title page of the Theory of Vision Vindicated. For citations in the Three Dialogues
see A. A. Luce and T . E. Jessop (eds) , The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne , (Edinburgh:
Nelson , 9 vols , 1948-57), Vol. 2, pp . 214 & 236. In the case of Collier some of the evidence is probably
lost, but according to Robert Benson, who had access to the lost manuscripts, this was one of Collier's
"favourite maxims". (Robert Benson , Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Reverend Arthur Collier,
(London: Lumley, 1837, reprinted Bristol: Thoemmes Antiquarian Books, 1990), pp. 54f.) One citation,
from Collier's Logology of 1832, is quoted by Benson (ibid ., p. 76). Collier seems to have interpreted
the "Platonic" passages of the Bible in the light of one another and took the early verses of John I to
mean that God made all things by, through and in the Son . (Clovis . p. 104). He may have used Acts 17:
18 to support his unusual view that the whole creation exi sted not only by and through but in the Son of
God .
This work is in a number ways reminiscent of a book by an English Neoplatonist of the early seven-
teenth century, Robert Fludd . In that book, called the Mosaicall Philosophy, Fludd had held that the true
natural philosophy was to be found in a correct interpretation of the beginning of the Book of Genesis .
Th e id ea that Moses wa s a div inely inspired philosopher was much favoured by Renaissance
Neoplatonists who linked Moses with Plato through various legends of which the most famous was that
Plato learned his philo sophy from the Hebrews . Collier, writing nearly a century later, did not pretend to
extract the true science from the Book of Genesis but only the true metaphy sics .
10 Robert Benson, 01'. cit., p. 55.
II The term is not without its difficulties and controversies. In a way, too, it is mislead ing, since pan-
theis ts (e.g. Spinoza) also hold that all things are contained in God . It is necessary to make clear that
panentheists do not think of this relation ship as a part-whole one . Collier, accepting a Scholastic concep-
tion of "cau se" as containing its effects, would naturally embrace panentheism as a consequence of God
being the "first cause". Thus he wrote that" ... before these created minds, there is, or was, an uncreated
mind, in which a whole heaven and earth existed, and does exist.. ." (Memoir s, p. 51). Berkele y, for his
part, held that everything is cont ained in the Divine Intellect prior to being created, i.e. made percepti-
ble. Since everything is contained in the Divine Intellect "from all eternity " it cont inues to be so con-
tained after the Creation. (See Works, VIII 36) .
12 Revelations 3: 14.
D Collier, Arthur, A Specimen of True Philosoph y: in a Discou rse on Genesis, the First Chapter and
the First Verse, (Sarum: Horton 1730), reprinted in Samuel Parr (ed.) Metaph ysical Tracts by English
Philosoph ers of the Eighteenth Century, (London : Lumley , 1887), p. 12.
14 01'. cit., pp. 13-4.
Ij Assuming, as was generally don e without question in this period, that causes are substances.
Malebranche did not, however, deny human agency, though he restricted human freedom to a certain
control over our thoughts. Leibniz included both Fludd and the occasionalists as among "those who deny
a true and proper activity to created things", (01'. cit., Vol. IV, p. 509) . (Leibniz, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, Die
Philo sophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz, (Berlin, 7 vols, 1875-90), reprinted Hildesheim and
New York : Olms 1978.
16 Recherche de la verite, III . 2.6. in (Euvres completes de Malebranche , (Paris: Vrin, 1958-67),

Vol. I, p. 439 .
17 Bayle wrote in his famous article on Zeno :"11 est utile de savoir qu'un pere de l'oratoire, aussi iIIus-
tre par sa piete que par ses lumieres philosophiques, a soutenu que la foi nous convaine legitemernent de
l'existence des corps . La Sorbonne, ni aucun autre tribunal , ne lui a point fait d'affaires 11 cette occasion .
Les inqui siteurs d'Italie n'en point fait 11 M. Fardella , qui a soutenu la meme chose dans un ouvrage
imprime. Cela doit apprendre 11 mes lecteurs qu 'il ne faut pas qu 'il s trouvent etrange que je fasse voir
quelquefois que sur les rnatieres les plus mysterieuses de I'Evangile, la raison nous met 11 bout ; et
qu 'alors nous devons nous contenter pleinement des lumieres de la foi." Dictionnaire historiqu e et cri-
tique , (ed. 1820-24 Paris) , Vol. XV, p. 52. (Reprinted Genev a: Slatkine , 1969).
1& Locke , John , An Examination of Pere Malebranche 's Opinion ofSeeing All Things in God, Sect. 20,

first published in King, P. (ed . 1706) Posthumous Works ofMr. John Locke, London, 1706.
212 S . BROWN

19 Collier claims that to remove an external world is to quench the "very vital flame" of the "doctrine

of transubstantiation". (Clavis, p. 126) Berkeley makes a more oblique reference in Principles, section
124, where he claims that it would be impossible for the abstract idea of an infinitely invisible extension
to gain the assent of any reasonable creature if "he was not brought to it by gentle and slow degrees, as a
pagan convert to the belief of transubstantiation" .
20 Walter Graham, (ed.) Letters ofJoseph Addison, (Oxford : OUP, 1941), p. 25, quoted in McCracken,
Malebranche and British Philosophy, p. 32.
21 Addison's oration Nova philosophia veter proeferenda est was not published until after his death.
His tendency to a Modem Platonism seems to have been initially the influence of his teacher at the
Charterhouse, Thomas Burnet, in whose honour he wrote a Platonic poem. His letter on Malebranche
was addressed to John Hough, formerly President of Magdalen and perhaps himself a supporter of the
new philosophy. The third orator was Richard Smallbroke, who himself became a Bishop of Lichfield.
22 One of Norris's correspondents, Elizabeth Thomas, learnt French specially to be able to read
Malebranche in the original . She defended his views about the love of God against the Lockean Richard
Gwinnett. See Pylades and Corinna or. Memoirs of the lives amours. and writings of Richard
Gwinett.. ..and Elizabeth Thomas, (London, 1731), Volume 2, pp. 31-2.
23 Andre Robinet, Malebranche et Leibniz; (Paris: Vrin, 1955). See my Leibniz, (Brighton : Harvester
Press, 1984), Ch. 7. See also my introduction to R. N. D. Martin and Stuart Brown, (eds) G. W. Leibniz:
Discourse on Metaphysics and Related Writings, (Manchester: University Press, 1988, and
"Malebranche's Occasionalism and Leibniz's Pre-established Harmony: an ' Easy Crossing' or an
Unbridgeable Gap?" in Stuart Brown, (ed .) Nicolas Malebranche : His Philosophical Critics and
Successors, (Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum , 1991), pp. 81-93.
24 Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften, Vol. IV, p.337.
2' "Cartesium attulisse aliqua egregia negari non potest, et recte inprimis Platonis studium revocasse
abducendi mentem a sensibus, et Academicas dubitationes utiliter subinde adhibuisse ... "Op. cit.,
Vol. IV, p. 468.
26 Leibniz, ed. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, Siimtliche Schrijten und Briefe, (Darmstadt
and Leipzig ; Akademie-Verlag, 1923-), Series VI, Vol. vi, pp. 47 and 70.
27 Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften, Vol. Ill , p. 568.
2R Op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 637.
29 Op. cit., Vol. III, p. 659 .
30 "Platonici posteriores ad loquendi portenta sunt lapsi; Aristotelicis , praesertim Scholasticis, movere
magis questiones curae fuit, quam finire.' Op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 468.
3\ "Ficinus et Patritius ont ensuivi Platon, mais mal a mon avis, parce qu'ils se sont jettes sur les
pensees hyperboliques, et ont abandonne ce qui estoit plus simple et en meme temps plus solide , Ficinus
ne parle partout que d'idees, d' Ames du monde, de Nombres Mystiques et choses semblables, au lieu de
poursuivre les exactes definitions, que Platon tache de donner des notions. Je souhaitterois que
quelqu'un tirat des anciens Ie plus propre a l'usage et Ie plus conforme au goust de nostre siecle ......
Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 380.
32 Russell , in his Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz ; (London : Allen and Unwin, 1900),
accused Leibniz of being committed to both pantheism and determinism and of being much closer to
Spinoza in his metaphysics than he cared to acknowledge .
33 " ... a quoi peut servir tout ce grand artifice dans les substances , si non pour faire croire que les
unes agissent sur les autres, quoique cela ne soit pas? En verite, it me semble que ce systerne n'est
gueres plus avantageux que celui des Cartesiens; et si on a raison de rejetter Ie leur, parce qu'it suppose
inutilement que Dieu considerent les mouvements qu'il produit lui-meme dans Ie corps, produit aussi
dans l'ame des pensees qui correspondent aces movemens ; comme s'il n'etoit pas plus digne que lui
de produire tout d'un coup les pensees et les modifications de l'ame, sans qu'il y ait des corps qui lui
servent comme de regle, et pour ainsi dire, lui aprennent ce qu'il doit faire; n'aura-t-on pas sujet de
vous demander pourquoi Dieu ne se contente point de produire toutes les pensees et modifications de
l'ame, soit qu 'it Ie fasse imrnediaternent ou par artifice, comme vous voudriez, sans qu'it y ait des
corps inutiles que I"esprit ne scauroit ni remuer ni connoistre?" (Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften,
Vol. IV), p. 489 .
 PLA TONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY 213

.14 Op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 495 .

35 Op. cit., Vol. IV, p. 560 .
36 John Norris, A Theory towards the Ideal or Intelligible World, (London: Manship, 1701) Vol. I, p. 4.
37 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 14.
38 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 134.
J9 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 191.
40 Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 207.
41 According to Benson , Collier Memoirs, p. 18. Some confirmat ion is provided by the "Credo" of July
14, 1709 in which Collier affirms that God is the efficient, formal, material and final cause of alI things .
He goes on to expl ain : "As material cause, etc., I mean the will that created is the very substantial matter
of their being ; in other words , that particulars, as such, have no distinct substances of their own , but only
different form s of similitudes to the one true substance, which one substance is the common substratum
to alI particulars, which , as such, are creatures". (Memoirs , p. 192). That doctrine excludes the poss ibil-
ity that matter is the substratum of physical things and seems to be directed against the scholastic notion
of matter.
42 Partly for reasons of space I shall not attempt to bring this out in detail here. Nor can I hope to
review the not inco nsiderable literature on this topic . But in any case I believe the presumption of pla-
giari sm is based on a mistake and there is no need to undertake to prove that Collier did not benefit from
reading Berkeley's Principles . It is sufficient to show, as I attempt to do, how their philosophies could
have converged to the extent that they did .
43 Collier's claim, in his Specimen of True Philosophy , that Berkeley "s Dialogues was the only other
work that put forward views like his show him, if true, to be ill-read . He seems to have regarded discus-
sion and correspondence as a good way to progres s philosophy iClavis, p. 123) and not to have been
concerned with learn ing in the traditional manner.
44 Ciavis, p. 6.
45 Memoirs, p. 55 .
46 Op. cit., p. 192.
47 Acts ofthe Apostles , xvii, 29. See above, Notes 7-8.
48 Op. cit., p. 40. He later abuses his "Aristotelian reader" by saying that his (Aristotelian) studies have
made him " long unqualified to receive or apprehend pure unbodied truths". (op. cit., p. 130).
49 Clavis, p. 40.
50 Op. cit., p. 5.
51 Op. cit., p. 100.
52 Philosophical Commentar ies, 290.
53 Principles, Section 92.
54 Philosophical Commentaries , 625
55 Collier's purpose is not to attack scepticism, but he is anxiou s to defend himself against the charge
of scepticism which it could be Norris made against him personally and which is represented as if it
were an objection coming from Norris (Clavis, pp. 1IOff.).
56 Collier, by co ntrast, regards it as a variat ion on a familiar (Augustinian) doctrine: "Everyone, I
suppose, has heard of the doctrine of seeing the divine ideas, or (as Mr Malebranche expres ses it), seeing
alI things in God ". (Clavis , p. 38f.).
57 Principles, Sect . 19.
58 CIavis, p. 60.
59 Op. cit., p. 103.
60 Berkeley does consider the objections that his teachings are contrary to the Bible but denie s this, "I
do not think, that either what philosophers calI matter, or the existence of objects without the mind is
any where mention"d in Scripture". (Principles, Sect. 812).
61 Works, VIII 36.
62 Siris, 263 .
63 Siris, 266.
M Even if Berkeley was exaggerating his own Platonism, forgetting that on some matters (e.g. his
account of mathematics) he had taken a view quite opposed to Platonism throughout his works .
214 S. BROWN

60 Transcribed by Willy Kabitz in "Leibniz und Berkeley", Sitzungsberichte der Konig Preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1932, p. 635 . The passage is translated in full in Brown, Leibniz,
pp. 42-3 and 48.
66 Norris's lack of debt to More's philosophy is argued for in Acworth, Richard, The Philosophy of
John Norris of Bemerton (1657-1712), (Hildesheim : Olms, 1979). On Leibniz's reception of More's
thought , see my "Leibniz and More's Cabbalistic Circle" in Sarah Hutton, (ed .) Henry More
(1614-1687) Tercentenary Studies, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1990), pp. 77-95.
61 As is claimed by Catherine Wilson in her Leibniz's Metaphysics (Manchester: University Press
1989).
611 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U., 13 xxxvii, 5.
6'l Op. cit., p. 147.
10 Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften, VI 544.
11 es.p.W., quoted in Ernst Cassirer, trans. J. P. Pettigrove, The Platonic Renaissance in England,
(Cambridge University Press, 1950), p. 84.
12 " Moral and Religious Aphorisms", No. 129, quoted from C. A. Patrides, (ed .) The Cambridge
Platonists, (London : Edward Arnold, 1969), p. 328.
n T.E.I.M., I ii 3, p. 17.
14 See , for instance , Descartes ' Reply to the Objections of Mersenne , (Euvres de Descartes . (eds.
C. Adam and P. Tannery) (Paris: Vrin , 12 vols. 1964-76), IX A 432. See Leibniz's Discours de
Metaph ysique , Sect. 2.
15 I have enlarged on this topic in "The Regularization of Providence in post-Cartesian Philosophy", in
Robert Cro cker , (ed .), Religion , Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe , (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic, forthcoming) .
16 Discours de metaphysique, 2.
11 Norris, A Theory towards the Ideal in Intelligible World, Vol. I, p. 314.
1K Discours de metaphysique, 9.
1<J Principles, Section 108.
KO Siris, 252.
APPENDIX
 R . CUDWORTH

RALPH CUDWORTH
ADDITIONAL MANUSCRIPT N° 4981
(ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARBITRIUM)*
SUMMARY PP . 1-12

PRESENT A TION

Les manuscrits de Cudworth concernant le Iibre arbitre, logiquement intitules

Freewill, constituent un ensemble de volumineux folios detenus depuis la fin du
dix-huitieme siecle, a la suite d'une histoire mouvementee, I par Ie Manuscript
Department de la British Library ou ils sont repertories comme suit: Additional
Manuscripts n04978 , 4979, 4980, 4981 et 4982 (respectivement 120p., 263p.,
316p., IISp. et 131p.). On peut egalement considerer qu'en font partie, a certains
egards, les folios 4983, intitule A Collection of Confused Thoughts, Memorandums
Relating to the Eternity of Torments, Collected out of my Little Book, et 4984-4985
qui portent pour titre Moral Commonplace Book (respectivement 108p., 138p. et
109p.).
De cette mas se imposante de manuscrits, seulle premier (4978) a ete jusqu'a ce
jour integralement public en 1838 par John Allen.? Le fait ne surprendra guere si
I'on observe qu'il s'agissait de I'un des rares textes veritablement prets pour I'im-
pression, I' autre etant Ie Resume qui figure en appendice du manuscrit n04981 et
qui parait pour la premiere fois in extenso dans Ie present volume.
Pour un lecteur qui serait peu familier avec la perspective des platoniciens de
Cambridge, ce Resume offre I'avantage d'exposer de maniere a la fois concise et
rigoureuse Ie coeur de leur meditation concernant ce problerne majeur de la
reflex ion philosophique et theologique de leur temps .
Cudworth y retrace brievernent les etapes fondamentales de la demarche adoptee
dans la plupart des manuscrits, singulierement au sein du Treatise of Freewill et
dont on trouve un echo dans la deuxieme partie de notre article '''La nature est un
art. ' Le vitalisme de Cudworth et de More". Soulignant d'abord, comme en maintes
occasions;' la difficulte du sujet aborde, Cudworth prend ensuite immediatement
ses distances par rapport a I'argumentation hobbesienne qui constitue a ses yeux ,
comme aceux de More, Ie defi deterministe Ie plus dangereux pour une philosophie
authentiquement "theiste" . Citant Ie chapitre XI du De Homine consacre a
"l' appetit et l'aversion, Ie plaisir et Ie deplaisir et leurs causes",' iI concede a
Hobbes qu 'appetits et passions n'ont en eux aucun "pouvoir auto nome" et que la
seule liberte dont disposent les animaux, qui leur sont entierement soumis, consiste
afaire ce vers quoi ils sont pousses sans que vienne s'interposer aucun obstacle ex-
terieur . Mais , a ce compte, ces creatures ne meritent ni louange, ni blame et n'ont
done aucune vie "morale". Et surtout, il n'en faudrait pas conclure, ce dont Hobbes
ne se prive pas , que la sensation et a fortiori la perception, I'imagination et dans un

217
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context, 217-231.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
218 R. CUDWORTH

sens general toute cogitation se reduisent au simple "mouvement local", seul type
de mouvement reconnu par la doctrine mecaniste, Certes, les objets exterieurs im-
priment aux sens des "mouvements corporels", mais la perception et l'imagination,
de meme que les passions et les appetits manifestent deja une "auto-kinesic" ou
"auto-activite" attestant qu'existe en l'ame une "source active et bouillonnante de
vie animale",
Neanmoins, il ne s'agit la que d'une forme "simple" de l'auto-activite, oeuvre en
nous de la "nature necessaire", II en existe un autre type, doue d'un pouvoir "auto-
determinant" que 1'0n assimile habituellement a la volonte. On constatera aisement
que la definition courante de cette derniere comme "appetit intellectuel et rationnel"
n'est guere satisfaisante, car elle conduit a des apories: ce qui est purement ra-
tionnel ne peut jamais conduire a I' erreur ou au peche, qui sont pourtant des faits
d'experience quotidienne, et l'entendement rationnel ne peut s'inciter lui-meme a
s'exercer; de plus, la volonte ne peut se contenter de suivre la "derniere injonction
de I'entendement" car elle n'agirait pas alors librement. Mais si, a l'inverse, elle se
determine "a l'aveuglette", sans se soucier de la lumiere de l'entendement, elle est
aussi irrationnelle que l'''appetit'' d'un animal.
Pour faire piece aux apories induites par la "psychologie des facultes" que
Cudworth critique ici avec vehemence, comme en bien d'autres textes, il faut donc
proposer une "nouvelle hypothese psychologique". II convient de reconnaitre pre-
mierement qu'il existe dans la vie de l'ame plusieurs "etages" ou "regions", par
exemple: les appetits et passions, la raison inferieure "de notre propre utilite" et la
raison superieure ou "instinct de l'honnetete"; et il faut deuxiemement admettre
qu 'il existe dans l'ame un "foyer ou toutes ces lignes se rencontrent, ou elles sont
reconciliees et nouees ensemble". Ce dernier est constitue par l'ame "redoublee -
ou repliee-sur elle-meme" qui "est consciente de tout et comprend tout a l'interieur
d'elle-meme", et qui "se tenant pour ainsi dire dans sa propre main, se tourne elle-
meme dans un sens, puis dans un autre".
C'est la ce qui, chez les etres doues de libre arbitre, joue vraiment le role de
"principe hegemonique", ce que 1'0n peut vraiment appeler le "moi-rnerne" en
chaque homme, source veritable de la vie morale. Et Cudworth de preciser ici en
note (notes 2 et 3) d'une part que le "relachement" de ce pouvoir rend compte des
phenomenes oniriques (plus abondamment etudies dans d'autres textes-voir notre
article) et d'autre part que l'hegemonique represente "ce que nous sommes" vrai-
ment a la difference de ce "que nous avons".? Le jugement pratique (moral), et par
extension tout autre jugement, depend de ce pouvoir; il n'appartient pas plus a I'en-
tendement rationnel qu'a la volonte en tant que telle, mais bien a l'ame en tant que
"redoublee" et "auto-active".
En effet, l'essence de la liberte ne consiste aucunement en l"'indifference active"
si prisee par certains. Nous ne pouvons consciemment adherer a des choses c1aire-
ment fausses ou mauvaises. Mais il existe d'innombrables cas ou Ie caractere de
I'objet est douteux ou incertain. Nous "nous etendons alors nons-memes plus loin
que nos perceptions naturelles" et commettons ainsi des erreurs ou des peches,
Vivant dans un monde de c1air-obscur, ou regnent le doute et I'ambiguite, nous ne
pourrions d'ailleurs rien faire si nous ne disposions d'un pouvoir de ce genre. La
 ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARBITRIUM 219

religion elle-rneme, observe Cudworth, ne nous demande-t-elle pas d'adherer par la

foi a des verites fort necessaires mais qui depassent notre capacite d'apprehension?
Dans tous ces cas, I'''ame redoublee sur elle-merne" "surajoute'" quelque chose qui
determinera son assentiment dans un sens ou un autre . Une fois l'acte accompli,
elle prend la forme de la "conscience" approuvant ou desapprouvant sa propre
conduite.
Le drame de la creature humaine finie est de vivre dans cet entre-deux ou elle
demeure "libre" vis-a-vis du bien supreme, qui n'est naturellement pas Ie "plaisir
animal" comme I'affirme Ie "theoreme" hedoniste ou epicurien, mais Ie "bien de
l'honnetete ou vie divine". Bien sur, I'homme ne peut desirer consciemment Ie mal
absolu, mais il suffit de la moindre etincelle de bien apparent pour qu'il se deter-
mine pour telle ou telle option . Et comme il existe "une grande latitude , un grand
espace"? de choix possibles entre Ie mal absolu depourvu de toute trace de bien et
Ie bien absolu depourvu de toute trace de mal, il doit livrer un combat moral et
spirituel incessant. Ses choix successifs renforceront ou, au contraire, amoindriront,
suivant qu'il est plus ou moins "sur ses gardes", "tenant sa lampe allumee","
I' habitus ou conatus moral qui lui permettra soit de se transcender lui-meme soit de
se nuire a lui-rneme.
Aussi ne devra-t-on pas s' etonner de voir ici Cudworth conclure, comme dans
beaucoup d'autres textes, que Ie pouvoir du libre arbitre est "batard", monstrueux
comme la sirene d'Horace9 et tout a fait etranger a Dieu que la hierarchic de ses
attributs rend toujours parfaitement "ffirrE~01XTLOV" , "maitre de lui-meme",

Jean-Louis Breteau

*****
ADDITIONAL MANUSCRIPT W 4981 : TEXT

Because this Business is in it Self very nice and the Doctrine of it has much con-
founded and perplexed, therefore, we shalI endeavour in this Chapter briefly to
comprise and summarily to represent in one word what we have to say concerning
the nature of Liberum Arbitrium.
It is acknowledged that Sensitive and AnimalI Appetites, Passions and 0PIL'l1
whether they be Corporeall as Hunger and Thirst, or whether they arise from
Cogitation as Anger and Feare and the like, have no Liberty or Self-Power in them,
which seem s to be sufficiently Evident by every mans owne inward Sense and
Experience. And of those hormetick Inclinations that of the Author of the Booke
De Homine may be allowed in a Sense to be true:

Neque Appetitus noster. neque fuga nostra causa est. quare hoc vel iIIud cupimus vel fugimus, (hoc est)
non ideo appetimus quia volumus, nec fugimus quia nolumus, sed quia tum Appetitio, tum aversio ab
ipsis rebus cupitis vel exosis generat a est. sequiturque Necessario praeconceptum jucunditatis molesti-
aeque ab ipsis object is ad futura quid enim an esurimus caeteraque naturae necessaria. (Appetimus quia
volumus an fames. Sitis et Cupidines voluntariae sunt) Appetentibus agere quidem Liberum esse potest,
ipsum autem Appetere non potest.
220 R . CUDWORTH

So that if Brutes have no other Principle of action than those hormetick

Inclinations, though they might be said to have a Liberty to doe what they have an
Appetite unto, when there is no externall impediment to hinder them, yet they could
not be said to have a Liberty or Power over their Appetites.
Neither can such Beings be said properly to be the cause of their owne Actions
so as to deserve blame and Commendacion upon that account, for what they doe, it
being Nature that acts in them rather than themselves!" and obtrude themselves
upon us, that they are stubborne and contumatious, stiff and refractory thinges .
They have no Self-power in them, no power to stop or excite, retard or accelerate
themselves, no internal Self-flexibility, but are meer swinges and Impetuocitys of
Nature and have no internal Self-flexibility in them.
But yet, notwithstanding, that is very false which the forecited Author contends
for, that those are all meer Passions from Objects of Sense without and nothing but
corporeall Motions mechanically caused in us. For as we have before showed,
Sense it Self is not a meer Passion in us and nothing but the Activity of outward
objects upon us as he (will take for granted who) affirms that every conception and
therefore intellection as well as Sense and Imagination are the Actions of the things
conceived and not of the conceiver. For besides the Locall Motions impressed upon
by Sense to which the Sentient is meerly passive, there is Phancy Appearance and
Perception which is a motion or action that the Sentient is the Original Cause of,
and not a Locall Motion or a Motion from place to place, as this Author foolishly
conceives Cogitation to be, but a Motion of a different Species such as does not
belong to Body but to an incorporeall Substance. Phancy and Perception in all
Sensations is a thing really distinct from the locall (p. 2) Motion antecedent, and a
far greater Reality than that, being a Motion of a different Species from it, an
Autocinecy and not an Heterocinecy: a Motion which is not caused though it be oc-
casioned and invited from something without that which is moved but does orig-
inally springe from the Sentient and concipient it Self, (Le.) an Incorporeall
Substance whose Nature is to be Self-active to exert Motion, Activity and Energy
from it Self; Hunger, Thirst, Lust are Sensations of something that is troublesome
in the Body with an Appetite or Desire consequent thereupon to be eased or freed
from the Same. But there are certain other Appetites in Animals which none that
well considers them can deny, but that they are the Activitys of the Animal or Soul
it Self, such as are Ambition, Emulation, Pride, Desire of praecellency, Honour and
Applause which none but a mad man can thinke to be meer Mechanicall Motions.
Neither can they be things impressed upon us from Objects without, but they must
needs arise from that Active and Bubbling fountaine of Animall life within .
Wherefore these things are not meer Passions Mechanically caused in us, but there
is a Single Self-Activity of the Soul in them which because it necessarily arises,
and puts forth it Self in such and such Circumstances and because they cannot
Determine, Regulate and Govern themselves, therefore we are not thought to be so
much the Cause of them as Nature in us.
We are therefore in the next place to enquire what is that Will and Freewill that
is thus distinct from Appetite and 0Pf-L'ii so that though both of them partake of the
nature of Lubency, yet in one of them there is no Self-Determining power, in the
 ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARBITRIUM 221

other there is, that one hath a Single Self-Activity in it only, so that it acts indeed
from it Self but necessarily, it is not above its owne Action nor Master of it, nor
commands it as the other which is Will doth ; which Will is a thing we are plainly
Sensible of within ourselves as we are of the Swinges and impetuocity of Appetite,
but what it is and how to define it seems to be no small difficulty .
It is commonly defined to bee a Rational or intellectual Appetite, a Thinge which
does so depend upon and Result from the Rational Understanding as Appetite and
0PIJ.-T1 result from Phancy and Imagination. But this definition is Iyable to some
very great Exceptions. For first if Will be a Rationall Appetite, then it could never
act irrationally and so there could not be sin in the world. All sin is by will and to
say that that Will which determines all sinfull that Actions and is the Cause of them
is a Rationall Appetite is it Self irrationall, Reason being the only Natural Rule of
Vertuous and Morally good Actions.
Againe if Will be the Result of Rationall Understanding, then it alway s follows
after the Natural Understanding, whereas it is commonly conceived and likewise
confirmed by inward Experience that the Natural Understanding is determined both
to its Exercise and its Object by a Free Principle in us or by Will ; Lastly if Will be
the Result of the Rationall Understanding, then it must necessarily follow the last
dictate and Resolution of it ; for indeed it would be nothing else but the
Understanding it Self (p. 3) extended outward towards action, And so there would
be as little Liberty and Self-power in it as there is in Brutish Appetites themselves;
Neither could there be any liberty, any Self-flexibility anywhere in the whole Soule
because the understanding acts necessarily and the Will necessarily follows that
Necessary Understanding. And this will again destroy the Nature of Sinne. Now if
this Will doth not necessarily follow the Dictate of the Understanding but being a
blind Faculty and devoid of all Understanding, determines it Self any way it must
needs be as irrationall as Bruti sh Appetite it Self if not more.
Wherefore, for the salving of this Phaenomenon of Freewill and rightly explain-
ing the Nature of it, we have proposed another Psychologicall Hypothesis after this
manner. That whereas there is in the Soul lower and higher Principles of Actions
(Life) , as above particular Appetites and Passions, Inferior Reason which is a larger
comprehension of our owne Utility and Superior Reason or the instinct of Honesty,
besides the Speculative Understanding and other Powers, there must of necess ity be
in the Soul one common focus or Center in which all these Lines may meet, some
one thing in which all is reconciled and knit together, something that is conscious
of all congruitys both higher and lower, of all the Cogitative Powers and Faculties
in the Soul (for the Seminall and Plantall ones - if she has any such - belong not to
its cognisance), which also can wield, steer and guide the whole Soul and exercise a
Power and Dominion over the Several Faculties of it. Now this is the whole Soule
redoubled upon it Self which (is) both (conscious of all within it Self and) compre-
hends it Self; and houlding it Self as it were in its owne hand, turns it Self this way
and that way.
This in all freewilled Self-powerfull Beings is the Head and Summ ity or Top of
them, the 1'0 -f)'YEIJ.-0VLKOV the Ruling Principle in them and not the Notional or
Speculative understanding as some conceit, the inconveniences of which Assertion
222 R . CUDWORTH

have been already hinted, neither is it a thing devoid of all Light and understanding
as that blind will which others would have to be the Mistress and Governess of the
Soul, it summing up and comprehending all that is in the whole Soul.!' This is the
AlJTOEKCW'TOC;, that which is properly called I my Self in every man and according
to the disposition of it as it turns and fabricates it Self (as it converts it Self, as it
frames and), as it exerts its owne Activity towards the Higher Principle in the Soul
more or lesse so is everyone morally denominated good or bad.P This is that
which is commonly called Will, when that word is taken properly, not for any
Lubency in generall but as distinct from animall Appetite: the Soul as redoubled
and reflected upon it Self, recollected and knit up together into it Self, hanging tite
and loose, hovering in suspence, acting upon it Selfe and determining it Self and
being nimbly Self-flexible this way and that way.
All the acts of this power called Will plainly argue a Duplicity in the Soul as
when by it the Soul resists its inferior animall Appetites, inclinations and strives
against them, the issue of which contest is that either that which strives, or that
which is striven against, conquers and prevails, accordingly whereunto the Soul of
man is said to be either seipso major or inferior EalJTW Kpei.TTwu Kal.'Ti6'uwu.
(p. 4) Where the Soul is plainly double and as it were twice repeated, it is first it
Self as Nature, where it hath higher and lower inclinations, divine and animall,
acting necessarily and obtruding themselves ; Secondly , it is the Soul rebounding
upon it Self, acting upon it Self, and determining it Self to one or other of them for
when it seems conquered by the inferior, it is not meerly passive, but doth actively
determine it Self to a sluggish Succumbence to the Same.P
Againe the Soul thus redoubled upon it Self, doth also act upon it Self, when it doth
actively determine it Self, and is thereby master of it and not a Servant to it, it being it
Self the cause of the changes of its actions; now for a thing to change it Self is to work
or act upon it Self which implys a certaine duplicity, for when the same thing is both
Agent and Patient, it is both one and the same thing and yet it is double (within it Selfe
and superior to it Selfe). Moreover this redoubled and reflexive ray of the Soul can
again reflect upon it Self, in which it is like a Secondary Echo, or an Echo repeated or
reverberated upon it Self. It can more or lesse attend to it Self, and tum it Self inward
closely, recollect it Self, excite, quicken and awaken it Self, gird up and set it Self to
action, it can fix it Self and predetermine its future volitions by anticipated purposes,
vowes, and resolutions all which are instances of that Self-power that is in the Soule
that command that it hath over it Self and argue a reflexive duplicity in it.
Now it is plain that that which wills and determines it Self must make a judg-
ment of what it determines. It cannot be one thing that judges and another thing that
determines the action for that which determines would not know what is deter-
mined. Wherefore that Judicium Practicum that is so often mentioned by
Scholastick writers and attributed by them to the understanding as a distinct faculty
from the will doth plainly belong to this redoubled Self-active life of the Soule and
indeed it is really one and the same thing with the will; the last Practicall Judgment
of what is to be done hic et nunc is really one and the Self Same thing with the voli-
tion it Self. And therefore that vulgar controversy whether the will doth always
follow the last practicall judgment is very absurd (for it is as if they should dispute
 ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARBITRIUM 223

whether the will follows it Self), and yet that determination is still more absurd
which resolves that the will doth not always follow the last practicall judgment, that
is in theire sense that it doth dissent from it, for this is to make it dissent from it
Self. But it is very true that the will and last Practicall Judgment which are all one
doe often dissent both from the dictate of honesty which is Superior Reason and
from the understanding as nature in us. The not distinguishing of which two
Regions in the Soul, nature and reduplicate Self-activity hath caused so much ob-
scurity and confusion in that controversy . It is therefore a great error in Philosophy
to make all Judgment to belong to the naturall and necessary understanding that is
the perceptive power in us for judgment doth properly belong to the Soul as redou-
bled and Self-active. That it is so in practicall things in what is to be done or not
done in life is plaine. Neither is there more liberty (here) in willing than in practi-
call judging they being really the same thing, whence it comes to passe that freewill
is often called by the name of Arbitrium and signifies Judgmen t.
(p. 5) Nay it seems probable that not only practicall Judgment, but also the judg-
ment of opinions concerning truth and falsehood doth properly belong to this which
we call the Soul redoubled and Self-active. For whatsoever passes through the
whole Soul must needs have a Stroke here . Perception is indeed an Act of the
natural understanding which is something in us, but it is not we ourselves, but the
Judgment is the act of the man, or the whole Soul, and nothing passes through the
whole Soul but what appears in this Scene of life, which we call reduplicative Self-
activity . It is true indeed that we doe necessarily Assent and Judge such things to be
true as the natural understanding clearly perceives, but this is no argument that
therefore this Judging and Assenting doth properly belong to the Understanding as
nature , or the perceptive power in us. For we doe also in like manner necessarily
will in some cases as shall be showed afterwards (neither are we free to evill as
such); the redoubled Self-active life of the Soul is not free or indifferent to every-
thing as some suppose, who make will and Liberum Arbitrium to be the same thing
and the essence of both to consist in indifferency to everything till it be determined
by it Self which some call Activa Indifferentia. for there is not, nor cannot be any
natural power or faculty that is indifferent to all things and hath no propension to
one thing, no more than there can be any being without some determinate form in
nature. Where there is evill without any appearance of good imaginable , there the
aversation is necessary . In like manner we cannot assent to things clearly false or
dissent from things evidently true. But in Doubtful or Uncertaine cases when there
are some probabilitys both wayes, but the natural understanding doth not clearly
perceive the thing to be or not to be, there we do moveably Judge and assent, ex-
tending ourselves further than our natural perceptions, and often changing our opin-
ions and judgments therein. It is true , as some have observed, that this is the
originall of all error, that the will (as they call it, but we the Soul redoubled upon it
Selfe and Self-active) doth often extend it Self further in judging and assenting than
our natural perceptions goe. But yet it is necessary that in such beings as we are
whose knowledge is so imperfect, there should be a power of extending our assent
and Judgment beyond the c1earnesse of naturall perceptions. All our practicall
Judgments are judgments of good and evill pro hic et nunc. and therefore of truth
224 R . CUDWORTH

and falsehood, that is what is truly good or evil in these cases, and if we could
judge nothing to be good or evill in life but what we clearly perceived to be such
without any doubt or ambiguity, the actions of humane life would be very often at a
stand. And as for other Speculative opinions, Religion supposes that assent and
Judgment beyond knowledge and perception is not only possible, but also often
necessary in that it urgeth and recommendeth faith to us. Men may assent to the ex-
istence of a God, and the immortality of their owne Soules that have no certaine
demonstration of either of them. And it is necessary that they should have a power
in these cases of extending their assents farther than certaine knowledge. Hence it
comes to passe that there is culpability in errors of Judgment concerning
Speculative opinions as well as in actions of life, that is in practicall Judgments .
In all Judgments that are beyond clear perception the Soule as redoubled and
Self-active doth superadd something of its owne to the moments of things whereby
its assent is determined this way and that way, it doth resolve to account this for
True and that for False and to let it passe for such so far as concernes it Selfe and
its own actings . (p. 6) Which is that which is commonly called Judging, which
Judging is in Man what the cognitio causarum or Forensick Judgment is in a
Commonwealth, which is not always infallibly Right according to the Lawe, but
where Interest and Affection have often a great Stroke. Though sometimes through
want of attendance or by reason of Self-conceit, men conclude they have clearly ap-
prehended when they have not and (that) the thing is absolutely otherwise than it is.
We conclude therefore that Judgment as well as Will doth belong to the Soule as
redoubled upon it Selfe and Self-active, which hath a kind of moveable Light,
Reason or Understanding belonging to it.
Lastly, it is the same thing that is often called also by the name of Conscience The
same thing which acts or determines it Self to vertuous and vitious actions, reflecting
upon it Self afterwards doth either approve or disapprove of what it hath done and
accordingly accuse and condemn it Self. These are various denominations for one
and the same thing differently displaying it Self; that is the redoubled Self-active life
of the Soule is Judgment, Will, and Conscience, it being both the common sense of
the Soule and the Supreme Arbiter and Judge and Commander in it.
Now this redoubled activity of the Soule which is that which presides and gov-
ernes in us, acteth in some things naturally and necessarily as it is commonly ob-
served and acknowledged, that Voluntas, the Will, is not free to everything, and
therefore that Voluntas and Liberum Arbitrium are not terms of equal extent but
that the Will acteth in some things as nature and in other things as free and having a
power over its actions. It is impossible that any natural power should be indifferent
to all things, as it is commonly said that all motion must be upon something that is
immoveable ; so self-power and freewill must needs be founded in something that is
naturall and necessary. Wherefore this redoubled Self-active life of the Soule which
is really the same thing with that which is called Will must needs have some natural
and necessary inclination upon it. For we do not will merely because we will but it
is always for the sake of some good, Nemo eligit ut eligat. nemo vult ut velit. nemo
facit ut faciat. the end of all motion and action is something that is not moved but
standing .
 ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARBITRIUM 225

Now it is vulgarly said that the Will is not free ad Summum Bonum but that it is
always naturally and necessarily determined towards it. But since it is confessed
that the chief good of man is the Bonum Honestatis or the Divine Life which is not
essentiall to humane Souls, it follows from thence that the will or Soule is free to
this, though this freedome be partly a perfection and partly an imperfection. For it
is the imperfection of its nature, that it is not essentially just and righteous, but may
fall from it, but again it is a perfection that it hath a capability hereof and by Self-
active endeavours can promote it Self towards it; wherefore some (must) conclude
that virtue and honesty is not the chiefe goode and that it is desired only by acci-
dent , but that Animall pleasure and delectation is the only Summum Bonum which
is desirable, and so for its own sake and honesty or right morality only for the sake
of it, that Delectatio quae ex virtute et honesti rectique studio existit posterior est
postponenda naturae ordine delectationi quae ex voluptatum carnalium commercio
est, which is a right epicurean theoreme .
(p. 7) But if moral rectitude and honesty, which is the same thing with the Divine
Life be the highest and chiefest of all goods, then it must be acknowledged that
man hath freedom or Liberty to the Summum Bonum, but this is the great imper-
fection of his nature that it is so with him. What then is that which the will is neces-
sary to? It is good in generall or a confused notion of good apprehended as
jucundity or delectation or rather as congruity . It cannot possibly pursue after any
evill as such, that is as it is incongruous to it, but only as taking notice of something
of good in it. Wherefore if we suppose extremity of bodily tortures and Death to be
exposed as that no manner of good can emerge from it, neither the good of honesty
nor the good of Fame, nor the good of Relations to be left behind, the will, that is
the Soule redoubled upon it Selfe, would have a necessary aversation from it, as
necessary as the descent of a stone downward. There are likewise many cases that
happen in human life in which the good of Utility of pleasure, honour and honesty
doe so conspire as that the Will doth in a manner naturally and necessarily, without
any wavering or hesitation, embrace the same. Moreover , besides this immutable
nature of the will, or redoubled Self-active life, there is also a factitious nature
which is Iyable to habituall dispositions, Self-contractable,!' which doe strongly
incline it one way more than another and are not, whensoever we please, immedi-
ately vincible and destroyable in us.
But though the will or redoubled Self-active Life of the Soule bee thus naturally
and necessarily determined to the pursuing of good in generall, that is of what hath
some naturall congruity or other with the Soule, and to avoid the contrary evill and
in particular cases where goods of all kindes meet without any appearance of evill,
it cannot but choose and embrace, as likewise it cannot but avoid such actions in
which extremity of evill in some kind appears without the least mixture of good in
any other kind. Yet notwithstanding there is a greate latitude and compasse betwixt
both these cases, there being something of evill, some discongruity or other, com-
monly discoverable in the greatest good and many times something of good in the
greatest evill, for the evill of dishonesty hath often in it the good of pleasure , ease
and profit, and the greatest bodily tortures together with Death it Selfe may be boni-
fyed and made good by the prospect of longer felicity to be enjoyed afterwards and
226 R . CUDWORTH

by the good of honesty in undergoing of them in some cases. Wherefore here is a

greate compasse for the Will or redoubled Self-active life to exercise contingent
liberty in and actively to determine it Selfe to this or that particular good that is
either to the good of honesty or to the good of utility and Jucundity , to the Divine
or AnimalIlife.
First, therefore, when the Soule is distracted between two different goods or con-
gruitys in the nature of it here the redoubled Self-active life that presides and gov-
ernes as the power to end the Strife and determine the difference one waye or other.
SeveralI instances may be given of such disputes, contests, and competitions in the
Soule as between particular lusts and AnimalI Appetites, betwixt particular ap-
petites and inferior reason, but that which is greatest of alI betwixt the whole
Animalllife and the Divine instinct.
(p. 8) There must be some active power in the Soule to compound and arbitrate
these differences and to determine the loose infinitude or Capability of nature one
waye or another. 15
Thus also in alI other doubtful opinions where the naturall understanding discov-
ers probabilitys both wayes and doth not clearly perceive the truth or falsehood of
either , it being very often necessary or highly convenient that some resolution or
other should be made, the Soule as redoubled and Self-active doth here interpose
and venture to determine its assent either to this or that, Adding something of its
own to the moments of Reason that appear on one side or other to cast the Scale
thus endeavouring to supply its own defect of knowledge and understanding by this
Self-actively judging power which is often too pragmaticall and very much abused
by such who, though they know scarcely anything, yet will judge and determine all
things in the whole Universe . But in matters of life, there is a necessity of making
practicalI judgments of good and evill that by long suspense the opportunitys of
action may not be lost.
Secondly, contingency in human actions arises in that the Will or redoubled Self-
active life of the Soule hath plainly a power in it of considering and deliberating
more or lesse , and accordingly may temerariously act one way or other or use
mature consultation , which must needs produce divers effects for when it doth not
deliberate sufficiently it may determine otherwise than it would have done if it had
used mature consultation and both these are in the power of the Soul as calIed by the
name of Will. The Soul may more or lesse introvert it Selfe or turne the way of its
cogitation inward upon it Selfe, attend to its owne actions and expand the different
Sentiments of its own mind and weigh them within it Self. It may be more or lesse
watchfull, carefulI and circumspect, excite or quicken it Selfe more or lesse to the
use of endeavours , fortify it Selfe by resolution and rayse up considerations both ra-
tionalI and fantastical, more or lesse to confirme its purposes. In the contest betwixt
the higher and lower principles, the Animall instinct, and the instinct of honesty and
morality, the Soul as redoubled and Self-active hath plainly in it a power or strength
to promote it Selfe towards the higher good which is it Self determinable and may
be more or less exerted by it. It may either put forth a vigorous force or Conatus to
resist the lower Animall inclinations when repugnant to the dictate of honesty or de-
termine it Selfe to a sluggish, lazy and languid Complyance with them.
 ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARBITRIUM 227

The Soul may plainly either relaxate its own powers and Vigours or put forth it
Self into a tonick exertion of those Sinewes and Nerves," those powers and
strengths which it is conscious to it Selfe of. Accordingly as it is either in such an
exerted or non exerted condition, will it be apt to have different Judgments of
things and consequently to act differently; when it is recollected into it Self and
stands upon its watch, it will immediately repell those assaults and temptations
which at another time it would be vulnerable by. It will have different Sapors,
tastes, and relishes of things and be apt to make different Judgments not only in
practicalls but also in theoreticalls. Accordingly as it doth Stir up it Selfe to a
higher pitch or let it Self fall to a lower pegg, hence are those exhortations in the
Holy Oracles to have our Loynes girt and Lamps burning and (p, 9) to gird-up the
Loynes of the mind . Now according to those differences mentioned which the Soul
hath a contingently Self-determining power over, will arise great differences of
outward actions .
Lastly, when designs of life or action of great consequence are taken into debate,
the Soul as redoubled Self-active may determine it Selfe to attend more to some
one consideration than to another and thereby add more or lesse to the weight of
some Reasons and considerations and so resolve otherwise than it should do if it
had maturely and impartially examined all.
Upon these and such like accounts proceeds the contingent uncertainty that is of-
tentimes in Freewilled Actions which is not to be understood as if in all states of
Freewilled Beings these Actions were always perfectly contingent, and there was
no more certainty aforehand of theire doing one thing than another. For a Being
constantly so indifferent to all things would be a meer monstrosity in Nature. But
so much may be granted that in all Freewilled Beings which are neither Good nor
Bad essentially, there may be a contingent possibility in Length of time of their
changing from Vertue to Vice and again from Vice to Vertue, of their ascending to
the Divine Life and of theire descending againe from it, which are those Circuitus
Animarum. those Circuits of Souls which some Philosophers have supposed. I say
according to Reason and Philosophy unless a Divine Fate interposing fix them any-
where, this may be granted for freewilled Beings which are not essentially
Righteous but only by Self-active Exertion, will stand as much in need of a contin-
ued new Exertion , to keep them up in the same height, as the Bodys of Animalls
need continuall refection and reparation to preserve them in the same state of health
and strength and if this be wanting would of themselves insensibly, by little and
little, decline and decay, which in length of time will amount to that which is sensi-
ble and considerable.
But it is here diligently to be observed that this contingent uncertainty of free
willed Beings arises from the imperfection of theire Natures, that they are not
essentially Good and Wise, this ranke of selfpowerful freewilled Beings being a
certaine middle rank of natures that transcend the state of brutish Animality, but fall
short of that Being which is absolutely perfect or of those created vase;, if there be
any such as are unchangeable and unpaireable.
Moreover, it is to be observed that this Self-power or Freewill is likewise it
Self of mixt nature, a mongrel compound of perfection and imperfection, like that
228 R. CUDWORTH

monster in the poet: Mulier formosa superne Desinet in piscem. an amphibious

thing, and therefore, according to the different use of it deserves Commendacion
or Blame; it is a self-determinable power or weaknesse . Whenever it exerts its
strength and vigour towards (p, 10) a higher principle, it is a power indeed , and
its actings deserve praise and commendacion, but when it doth determine it Self
to a languid complyance with the lower principle of brutish appetite or selfish an-
imality, then it is spurious and degenerate, it is a Strength or power Self-deter-
minable and when it doth determine it Self to the exerting of strength and Vigour,
this is its true nature, but when it determines it Selfe to a non-exertion and
passive sluggish complyance with Brutish Appetite, it abuseth it Selfe and makes
it Self become unnaturall. There is nothing in the whole world that can be an
active cause of its own Unnaturality and degeneracy, besides this, wherefore it is
a great mistake of those Philosophers who make Liberum Arbitrium to be a uni-
forme thing and in all the motions of it to be equall perfection. It is a power in
beings not essentially and immutably perfect to grasp after their own perfect ion
by a Self-exerted Conatus of their own, a power actively to promote themselves,
further and further by degrees to surmount and transcend themselves; as the
bodys of animalls move by a successive advancing and setting of one leg before
another so in freewilled Self-powerfull beings which are redoubled upon them-
selves , the whole can move, promote, and advance the whole further and further,
as it were per saltum, they being able to act upon themselves . But this power is in
their own hand and dispose, Self-determinable and therefore they may fail in the
use of it, they have a power also of vitiating and depraving themselves, of remit-
ting the same as well as of intending it, and of determining themselves to a
pass ive compliance with the worse Principle, as well as to a vigorous exertion
towards the better, and consequently of vitiating and depraving themselves,
which act is imputable to themselves .
So that this is the Property of a Self-powerful being that he may be ,
Ecnrrw KpEI:TTwv Kal.llcruv', better or worse than him Self
To conclude therefore, Liberum Arbitrium is not Indifferency but Self-power, a
Power which the Soul as redoubled and Self-active hath of exerting a Vigorous
Conatus towards the Higher Principle of Honesty and Reason, or of not exerting
the same , of Determining it Selfe towards the better or the worse, of exerting it
Selfe more or lesse together with full Command over the Famulative Powers, the
Understanding as to Exercise and Object and the locomotive.
The severall propertys of a self-powerful Freewilled Being are these:
First that it is ai:T!.a Ka!. apXll 1Tpa~Ewv : the cause and principle of actions
because it doth not only act from it Self as those things that are endowed (p. 11)
with appetite and 0Pf.Lll but also doth determine its own actions. It hath a power
over it to exert or suspend, to act this way or that way, which is that which is com-
monly meant by a Dominion and Lordship over action.
It peculiarly belongs to this ranke of beings that it can change it Self or worke
upon it Selfe.!? This kind of being is capable either of benefiting, improving and
advancing it Selfe or else of deteriorating or injuring it Selfe. A freewilled Self-
powerful Being may be emrrw KpE!.'T'TWV ill emrrw -llcrcrwv, either ~ melior
 ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARBITRIUM 229

or seipso pejor. prevail over the imperfection which its nature is Iyable to and
master it, or else be worsened by it. Consequently it deserves either commenda-
cion or blame, and likewise rewards and punishments may be due to it. I S It is
capable of Selfe-satisfaction or Self-dissatisfaction, of inward regret, remorse and
repentance and sometimes of a Desire of Self-revenge. This is the only being that
hath a Self-condemning and Self-acquitting Conscience; Conscience a reflexive
Jugdment upon its owne actions and Volitions as being either laudable or
culpably defective onely belongs to this. Lastly, it is a peculiar millo') of this
being that many times it might have done otherwise that it did doe, that some-
thing is possible to it which is not necessary. It is the only thing to which uncer-
tain contingency belongeth, all other things in the world being either above or
below it.
From what we have now declared concerning the nature of Liberum Arbitrium or
Self-power, it is sufficiently evident that it cannot properly belong to God which is
a Being infinitely perfect and with whom there is no Variableness nor Shadow of
change, who therefore can neither transcend him Self, nor fall short of him Self,
cannot intend him Self more or lesse, who never consults nor deliberates as being
to seek what to doe, who doth not keep up or repair his flitting being by any new
exerted Conatus contention or tugging within him Selfe, but comprehends and is all
his possibility with ease at once. Lastly, who is lyable to no uncertaine contin-
gency . Howbeit God may be said in a pure and refined sense to be most perfectly
a&rE~OU(no'), Sui Dominus. Lorde and master of him Self and most truly free not
in a compounded manner as if there were such a duplicity in him as in Freewilled
beings or as if he were so much distant from him Selfe and hung so loose together,
but as being essentially simple goodnesse the root of all wisdome, excellency and
perfection .
But because there is an inveterate opinion in the minds of many that God must
needs have contingent freewill in him, or else he can neither be God nor happy or
exercise Dominion over the world in so much as that those Authors who doe not
assert God to be free to everything (p, 12) but to be necessarily determined by some
differences of good and evill as to a few things, so that he cannot doe something ad
extra, yet as to the most of his actions, they contend that he must have a Liberum
Arbitrium and determine them only by a contingent Arbitrary Will, we will first
consider what kind of Notion of Freewill it is which they suppose.
It is therefore supposed by these, that Liberum Arbitrium or Freewill is a naturall
power or faculty of Selfe-determination whose glory and perfection consisteth in
doing only what one listeth, willeth, or pleaseth, meerly because one so willeth, that
it can free it Self from all necessary determinations of reason and wisdome, and
that it can act as well against reason as with it. And this seems to be the true
meaning of that vulgar definition of Freewill or Liberty that it is Positis omnibus ad
agendum requisitis posse agere vel non agere: that it consisteth in indifferency of
acting or not acting after the last dictate or resolution of Judgment, reason and un-
derstanding which is all one as if they should say (their meaning is) that the essence
and perfection of Freewill consisteth in acting contingently, blindly and irra-
tionally, any thing that a man wills because he wills; that he can defye and abandon
230 R . CUDWORTH

not only wisdome and Morall goodnesse, but also the reason of his own good, that
reason which dictates what is most agreeable to his owne private utility ; now the
ground reason of this assertion seems to be this because such an indifferency hath
an appearance of Dominion and power absolute and uncontroulable. So that happi-
nesse in their apprehension consisteth in nothing else than such a free indifferent
undetermined liberty of doing what one lists, because one listeth together with irre-
sistible power of executing or accomplishing the same. And many conceive that the
glory of the deity consisteth only in such a liberty of will assisted with infinite
power to execute the same,'? but others who think that God's will is determined in
some few things by the natures of Justice and Injustice , yet they imagine that he
could not be God unlesse in all other things, that is in the most of things, he had
such a freewill as this which is indifferent to all reason and wisdome and doth con-
tingently and arbitrarily determine them in such a manner as that there is no reason
of his will but his will it Selfe. For they apprehend that otherwise God would have
no dominion over his creatures if he were desisted of such an arbitrary freewill. But
this is a spurious and adulterate notion of Freewill, it is not the description of the
power of freewill , but of the vice of freewill. This is not freewill but Self-will,
Selfish Animality and irrationality. It is not Liberum Arbitrium , but libido, it is
nothing else but lust and animall appetite or animal freewill, freewill respecting
only the animall life (if there be any such freewill existing by it Selfe in the world)
or else it is Morall freewill abused.

NOTES

L'edition de ce manuscrit est due aux soins de J. L. Breteau , qui remercie la British Library de I'avoir
rendue possible . La pagination en cours de texte est celie du manuscrit. Les notes ou ajouts appelees par
des nombres son! de Cudworth et sont portees par lui dans I'orig inal au verso de chaque feuillet.
J Cette histoire est contee dans un article anonyme du Gentleman's Magazine 58 (decembre 1788) . re-
produit au debut de l'edition du Treatise of Freewill par John Allen (voir ci-dessous).
2 Ralph Cudworth, A Treatis e of Freewill , ed. J. Allen (Londres, 1838); traduction francaise: Traite de
morale et Traite du libre arbitre , int, trad., notes par J. L. Breteau, (Pari s: P.U.F., 1995).
3 Par exernple, Add. Man. n04982, p. I : "If what I shall say concerning Freewill seems unsatisfactory
to any , I shall think it no Marvel at all, for I never was myself fully satisfied in any Discourse which I
read of it." & Add. Man. n04979, p. 16: "The nature of Freewill [.. .] hath been indeed more perplexed
than elucidated by those voluminous Discourses that have been written concerning it".
4 Th omas Hobbes, De Homine, xi, 2, trad . ang. Ch, T. Wood, T . S. K. Scott-Craig and Bernard Gert in
Man and Citizen (New-York : Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1972), pp. 45-46:
From this it can be under stood that neither our appetite nor our aversion causeth us to desire or shun
this or that ; that is we do not desire because we will . For will itself is an appet ite ; and we do not shun
something because we will not to do it, but becaus e now appetite, then aversion, is generated by those
things desired or shunned, and a preconception of future pleasure and displeasure nece ssarily follows
from those same objects. What then : Do we desire food and the other necessities of nature because we
will? Are hunger, thirst and desires voluntary? When desiring, one can, in truth , be free to act; one
cannot however, be free 10desire.
; Notons qu'il va ici j usqu' a utiliser Ie couple aristotelicien "forme/matiere" pour expl iquer la dif-
ference entre Ie principe hegernonique et Ie reste de la vie psychologique.
6 Cudworth parlera dans Ie Treatise of Freewill de "pouvoir stochastique" .
Voir notre article '''Un grand espace pour la liberte ' : Le dilemme du Iibre arbitre dans la pensee de
Ralph Cudworth", Archive s de Philosophie, 58, 3 (1995), pp. 421-441.
K Lc 12,35; Mt 25 , 1-13.
 ON THE NATURE OF LIBERUM ARB/TRIUM 231

"Mulier formosa superne desinet in piscem" , p. 9 (Horace, Art poetique , v. 4; Satires, Epistles and
Ars Poetica , ed. trad. ang. H. Rushton Fairclough [London: Heinemann et Cambridge Mass.: Harvard
UP, 1966], p. 450).
10 And we men are conscious to ourselves that those Animall Appetites, Passions, and Hormetick incli-
nations doe invade us.
II This holds the whole Frame, Fabrick and Machine of the Soule together and makes it move and act
coherently and consistently and therefore when this is Relaxated or in a Languor, as in Sleepe , all the
other Strings of the Soul played upon make no Music or Harmony. Thoughts being absurdly incoherent
with one another . This is the arbitrator of all Differences, the umpire of all controversies in the Soul, it
being neither the same thing with Passion and Appetite, nor with Reason and Honesty, (but they and it
being two,) and makes a judgment to it Selfe and determines it Selfe either way.
12 Other things in Nature, as Animall Appetites, Dictates of Honesty or Conscience, We have, but this
We Are. This informes and actuates the whole Soule and determines all the infinity and Indetermination,
Capability of it. All the other is Matter to this, determinable by it. Whatsoever Morall dispositions,
lodged in this, this is the Man him Selfe; Other things, he only has them, but is them not. That which is
concocted into this Redoubled Self-active Life of the Soul, it is our very Selves and nothing else.
13 Again, when the Soul determines it Selfe actively this waye or that waye, and is thereby a Master
and not a Servant of its owne Action. It changing it Selfe, does in a manner Work or Act upon it Selfe,
and therefore being both Agent and Patient hath a kind of Duplicity in it. It is not a Strait Line, but a
Circle, a thing collected and turned in it Selfe within itselfe and superior to it Selfe.
14 And from hence they would give an account of Freewills Vertibility to Morall Good and Evill. There
is a Talk of Hating Good as Good, and Loving Evill as such. But it is rather to be thought impossible
that there should be any such Being in the world.
15 The Soul Redoubled and Self-active may attend to some Evill in the greatest Good of Honesty, as
that it is ungratefull to the Animall Appetite, or some Good in the Evill of Vice, Pleasure, and accord-
ingly reject the Former and choose the Latter.
16 As we can either intend the Nerves and muscles of the Arme, and stretch it out stiffly, or relaxate

them and let it fall down.

17 It hath a higher and lower principle in it, it is capable of many gradations upward and downward so
that there is a vast distance betwixt the extremitys of it, and most probably all self-willed beings are
capable of morality or honesty which is a higher principle of life and action, than Selfish Animality and
Appetite .
IX Commendacion and blame belong to this being in a particular manner from all other beings, for this
is blamed or commended as being the active cause of its owne good or hurt, and there is no Culpa in the
proper Sense anywhere else. This is the only being that hath a self-exerted Conatus of its own, that can
set it Self and gird up it Self to action, that can intend more or lesse its owne activity , diligence, care,
watchfulnesse or circumspection. This is the only Being that is in its own government or in the hands of
its own counsell.
19 And therefore that Gods will was free, that is indifferent ad omnem rationem Veri et Boni to make
anything to be true or false, good or evill, this being the greatest argument of his power and Sovereignty .
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

G. A. J. Rogers, "Die Cambridge Platoniker", F. Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie,
Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, Band 3: England, ed. : J. P. Schobinger (Basel :
Schwabe & Co, AG Verlag, 1988) pp. 240-290.
Crocker, R., "A bibliography of Henry More" in S. Hutton, Henry More (1610-1687) : Tercentenary
Studies, (Dordrecht, Boston & London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), pp. 218-234.

WORKS BY THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS

Cudworth, Ralph , A Sermon Preached before the Honorable House of Commons. (Cambridge, R.
Daniel , 1647) (ed. without the prefatory address in The Cambridge Platonists, ed. C. A.
Patrides (London: Edward Arnold, 1969).
Dantur boni et mali rationes aterna et indispensabiles; Dantur substantia incorpora sua
natura immortales, (Cambridge, 165\).
The True 1ntellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein. all the Reason and
Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and its 1mpossiblity demonstrated, (London : Richard
Royston, 1678; Facsim. Stuttgart: Fromamm, 1964). Reprint with notes and Dissertations of
Dr. J. L. Mosheim, with an Introduction by G.AJ. Rogers, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995,3
Vols (vol. 3 contains also T.E.l.M.) (abbreviated as T.l.S.U.). Lat. Trans.: Mosheim: Systema
intellectuale huius universi, (lena, 1733). Trad. ital.: Sistema intellettuale dell'universo di
Radolfo Cudwort compendiato e tradotto or per la prima volta in lingua italiana dal march-
ese Luigi Benedetti, (Pavie: P. Bizzoni, 1823-4).
A Treatise concerning Eternal and 1mmutable Morality, (London : J.& J. Knapton, 1731,
reprint ed : a) in T.1.S. U., 3 vol. (London, 1845), vol. 3; b) New York, London : Garland
Publishing Inc., 1976); new ed. by S. Hutton, (Cambridge : C.U.P., 1996). (abbreviated as
T.E.1.M.).
A Treatise of Freewill, (ed. John Allen, London, 1838; reprint ed: a) Hildesheim, New York:
DIms, 1979; b) Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995) (new ed. by S. Hutton, (Cambridge: C.U.P.,
1996). (abbreviated as T.F.).
Collected Works. (ed. B. Fabian, Hildesheim: G. DIms, 1977),3 vol.
Additional Manuscripts , British Library, n? 4978 (l20pp.), 4979 (263pp.), 4980 (316pp.),
4981(1 15pp.), 4982 (I31pp.): Freewill ; n? 4984 (l38pp.) & 4985 (109 pp .): Moral
Commonplace Book.; n? 4983: A Collection of Confused Thoughts, Memorandums Relating
to the Eternity ofTorments. Collected out of my Little Book. (108 pp.).
Traite de morale, et Traite du libre-arbitre, trad. J. L. Breteau, (Paris: P.U.F., 1995)
Culverwell , Nathaniel, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature (1652), eds.: R.A.
Greene and H. MacCallum, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971).
More, Henry, ljIuXWO"ux Platonica, or a Platonicall Song of the Soul, (Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1642).
Demo critus Platonissans, (Cambridge : Roger Daniel, 1646; reprinted: Augustan Reprint
Society, 1968).
Philosophical Poems, (Cambridge : Roger Daniel, 1647). The Poems of Henry More, ed.:
G. Bullough, (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 193\) .
Alazonomastix Philalethes (ie . Henry More), Observations upon Anthroposophia
Theomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita, (London: J. Flesher, 1650).

233
G. A. J. Rogers et al (eds.), The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context. 233-242.
© 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
234 BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Second Lash of Ala zonomastix Philalethes, (originally London: J. Flesher, 1651), in
More, Enthusiasmus Triumphatus .
An Antidote Against Atheism . Or An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man.
Whether there be not a God. (London : J. Flesher. 1653; 2nd ed., London : W. Morden, 1655;
in C.S.P. W.. t.I, & Opera Omnia. 1.11,2).
Enthusiasmus Triumphatus, (London: J. Flesher. 1656, in C.S.P. w.. t.I , & Opera Omnia.
1.11,2) (abbreviated as E.T.).
The Immortality ofthe Soul. Sofarre fortlt as it is demonstrable from the Knowledge ofNature
and the Light of Reason (London : J. Flesher, 1659, in C.S.P.W.. 1.2) (ed. A. Jacob , Dordrecht :
Nijhoff. 1987)
An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness. Or A true and Faithful Representation of
the Everlasting Gospel Of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. the Onely Begotten Son ofGod
and Sovereign over Men and Angels. (London : 1. Flesher, 1660. in Opera Omnia. t.l) (abbre-
viated as M.G.).
Epistola quatuor ad R. Des-Cartes . (in C.S.P.W.. 1.1. et Correspondance avec Arnauld et
Morus , texte et traduction, introduction et notes par G. Lewis (Paris: Vrin, 1953) .
Enchiridion ethicum, praecipua mora lis philosophiae rudimenta complectens, (London,
1667, in Opera Omnia. 1.11,1» (abbreviated as E.M .) Trans\.: An Account of Virtue. or
Dr Henry More's Abridgement ofMorals put into English, (London : B. Tooke , 1690).
Divine Dialogues , (London : J. Downing, 0668, 1713, in Opera Omnia. 1.11,1) (abbreviated
as D.D.)
Enchiridion Metaphy sicum : sive de Rebus Incorporeis succincta et lucculenta Dissertatio ,
(London , 167lin Opera Omnia. 1.11,1) (abbreviated as E.M.).
Discourses on Several Texts of Scripture, (London : for B. Aylmer, 1692).
A Colle ction of Several Philosoph ical Writings, (London, 1662; reprinted: New -York et
London: Garland, 1978) (abbreviated as C.S.P.W.).
Opera Omn ia, (London : J. Maycock for J . Martyn & W. Kettilby, 1675-79, 3 vol s .,
reprinted, Hildesheim : G. Olms , 1966,2 vol. in 3 tomes .)
The Conway Letters, ed .: M. Nicolson, rev. S. Hutton , (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1992).
Smith, John, Select Discourses , (1660), (ed., H. G. Williams ; Cambridge: Cambridge Universit y Press,
1859; New-York : Garland 1978).
Sterry, Peter, A Discourse ofthe Freedom of the Will, (London , 1675)
" The Rise . Race and Ro yalty of th e Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man, (London :
T. Cockerill , 1683).
The Appearance of God to Man in the Gospel. and the Gospel Change, (London, 1710).
Whichcote, Benjamin, Moral and Religious Apho risms Collected from the Manuscript Papers .. .
published ... with very large Additions by Samuel Salter (London, 1753).
The Works, (Aberdeen: Alexander Thomson, 1751).

XV 11TH & XVIIITH CENTURY WORKS

Baxter, Richard , Reliquae Baxterianae, M. Sylvester (ed.), (2 vols, London , 1696).

Bayle, Pierre, Dictionnaire historique et critique, (ed. 1820-24 Paris) (Reprinted Geneva: Slatkine, 1969).
Berkeley, George, The Works of George Berkeley. Bishop of Cloyne, eds : A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop,
(Edinburgh: Nelson 1948-57),9 vol.
Browne, Thomas, The Works , ed .: G. Keynes, (London : Faber and Faber, 1964)
Religio Medici, (London : Dent, 1965).
Burnet, Gilbert, History of my own time (1st ed . 1723-34; Oxford : Th. Ward, 1833),6 vol.
Burthogge, Richard, The Philosophi cal Writings of R. Burthogge, ed. M. W. Landes (Chicago, London :
Open Court Publishing Company, 1921).
CastelIio , Sebastian, Concerning Heretics. ed. R. Bainton, (New York, 1935)
 BI.BLIOGRAPHY 235

OfObedience and A Conference of Faith, (London , 1679).

Chauffepie, J. G.. Nouveau Dictionnaire historique et critique. pour servir de supplement ou de continu-
ation au Dictionnaire historique et critique de Mr. Pierre Bayle (Amsterdam-La Haye :
Chatelain, etc ., 4 vol.)
Clarke, Samuel, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God More Particularly in Answer to
Mr. Hobbs, Spinosa. and their Followers, (London: Botham-Knapton, 1705), (reprinted:
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstat : Fromann Verlag, 1964).
Collier, Arthur, A Specimen of True Philosophy: in a Discourse on Genesis. the First Chapter and the
First Verse . (Sarum: Horton 1730), reprinted: ed .: Samuel Parr, Metaphysical Tracts by
English Philosophers (if the Eighteenth Century, (London : Lumley, 1887).
Cia vis Universalis , or a New Inquiry After Truth being a Demonstration of the Non-
Existence. or Impossibility (if an External World. (London: Gosling, 1713; ed.: E. Bowman,
Chicago: Open Court , 1909).
Descartes, Rene, (Euvres de Descartes, (ed. C. Adam, & P. Tannery, edition revue, Paris: Vrin/CNRS,
1964-76), 12 vol.
(Euvres philosophiques, (ed. F. Alquie, Paris: Garnier , 1963-73).
Philosophical Writings , trans., E. Anscombe and P. Geach (London : Nelson, 1964),3 vol.
The Philosophical Writings of Des cartes. (ed ., transl. : J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff,
D. Murdoch, A. Kenny; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985-1991).
Correspondance avec Arnaud et Morus, (ed. G. Rodis-Lewis, Paris: Vrin, 1953).
Elys, Edmund, Amor Dei Lux Animae, (London, 1670).
Episcopius, Simon, "Admonitio ad lectorem christianurn", Operum theologicorum. Pars altera (Gouda:
J. van der Hoeve ; Rotterdam : A. Leers, 1665).
Etherington, J., A Brief Discovery of ...Familisme, (London , 1645).
Gale , T., The Court (if the Gentiles, (2nd ed .: London : Thomas Gilbert , 1676).
Gell, Robert , Remaines, ed. N. Bacon (London, 1676), 2 vol.
Glanvill , Joseph , Lux Orientalis, (London, 1662).
Saducismus Triumphatus, ed . More (London, 1682).
The Vanity ofDogmutizing, (London, 1661; reprinted .: ed.: S. Metcalf, Hove: The Harvester
Press, 1970).
Greville, Robert, The Nature (if Truth , (1640) (reprinted : London : Gregg, 1969).
Hallywell, H., Deus Justificatus, (London : W. Kettilby, 1668).
Harvey, William , Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis, (London, 1625).
Herbert, Edward, Lord of Cherbury , De Veritate (1625) trans . M. H. Carre, (Bristol : Bristol University
Press, 1937).
Hobbes Thomas, The English Works. (ed . William Molesworth, London, 1839-45: reprinted: Aalen:
Scientia, 1966), II vol.
Critique du 'De Mundo' de Thomas White, (Paris: Vrin, 1973).
Leviathan, trad . F. Tricaud, (Paris : Sirey, 1971).
De fa liberteetde fa necessite. trad. F. Lessay, CEuvresde Hobbes, T XI-I, (Paris: Vrin, 1993).
Questions concernant la liberte, la necessite et la chance , trad.: L. Foisneau et F. Perron in,
(Euvres de Hobbes, t. XI-2 ; (Paris : Vrin, 1994).
Jackson , Thomas, A Treatise (if the Divine Essence and Attributes, (1628), Works , (Oxford : University
Press, 1844).
Jenkes, Henry, The Christian Tutor. (London : H. Faithorne and J. Kersey, 1683).
La Forge, Traite de l 'esprit de l 'homme [1665], in (Euvres philosophiques, ed. P. Clair (Paris: PUF,1974) .
Leibniz, G. W., Sdmtliche Schriften und Briefe, ed. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, (Darmstadt
and Leipzig : Akademie-Verlag, 1923-).
Die Philosophischen Schriften , ed . C. I. Gerhardt, (Berlin, 1875-90),7 vol.; (reprinted:
Hildesheim and New York : Olms, 1978 abbreviated as G.P.).
' Primae Veritates ' [c. 1684], in L. E. Loernker (ed.) , Leibniz; Philosophical Papers and
Letters, (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1969)
236 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Discourse on Metaphysics and Related Writings, S. Brown & R. N. D. Martin, eds

(Manchester: University Press, 1988)
Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain, (Siimtliche Schriften, Band . 6) (Paris, G.F.).
New Essays on Human Understanding , trans ., P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982).
Limborch (von) , P., De Veritate Religionis Christianae, amica collatio cum erudito judaeo, (Gouda :
1. van der Hoeve, 1687).
Theologia Christiana ad praxin pietatis ac promot ionem pacis Christianae unice directa ,
(Amsterdam: H. Wetstein, 1686)
Locke, J., An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. H. Nidditch, (Oxford : Clarendon Press,
1979).
An Examination of Pere Maiebranche's Opinion of Seeing All Things in God, ed . King ,
P.: Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke (London, 1706).
Malebranche, Nicolas, De la recherche de la verite, ou l'on traite de la nature, de l'esprit de l'homme et
de l'usage qu 'il sait en faire pour eviter l' errreur dans les sciences, (Paris, 1674-75; ed.
G. Rodis-l..ewis, Paris : Vrin, 1972-76).
Entretiens sur la metaphysique et la religion, (Rotterdam, 1688; ed. A. Robinet, Paris: Vrin,
(965).
Norris, John, A Theory and Regulation of Love, A Moral Essay in Two Parts, to which are added Letters
Philosophical and Moral between the Author and Dr. Henry More, 1688, (London , Manship ,
1694).
Reason and Religion, (London: S. Manship, 1697).
The Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, (London : S. Manship & W . Hawes,
1701-(4).
Cursory Reflections Upon a Book call'd "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" ,
(London : S. Manship, 1713).
Oldenburg, Henry, The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. A. Rupert et M. Boas Hall (Madison ,
etc.: 1961-86), 13 vol.
Paracelse, (Theophrastus von Hohenheim ), Siimtliche Werke, ed. J. Strebel. (St Galen : Zollikofer,
1944-49), 8 vol.
Patrick, Simon, A Brief account of the new sect of Latitude-men. Together with some reflections upon
the New Philosophy. By S.P. of Cambridge. In answer to a letter from his friend at Oxford
(London , 1662; ed. T. A. Birrell, Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library,
1963)
Autobiography, (Oxford, 1839).
Philalethes, E. (Vaughan), Anthroposophia Theomagia, (London, 1650).
Lumen de Lumine, (London, 1651).
The Second Wash, or the Moore Scour'd Once More, (London, 1651).
Pico Della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man .. ., (Indianapolis : Bobbs Merrill, 1965).
Pylades and Corinna or, Memoirs of the lives amours, and writings of Richard Gwinett....and Elizabeth
Thomas , (London, 173\).
Rust, George, A Discourse of the Use of Reason, (London : W. Kettilby, 1683).
A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen , (\66\), (New York : Facsimile Text Society,
1933).
Sennert , Daniel, Opera Omnia, (Paris , 1641),3 vol.
Stillingfleet, Edward, Origines Sacrae, (\662) (London : H. & G. Mort1ock, 1709).
The Bishop of Worcester 's Answer to Mr Locke's Letter, (London: H. Mortlock , 1697)
Vaughan, Thomas, The Works, ed. Rudrum , (Oxford, 1984).
Wallis, J., Truth Tried, (London : S. Gellibrand, 1643).
Ward , Richard, The Life ofthe Learned and Pious Dr Henry More, (London : Joseph Downing, 1710).
Theologia Germanica, (S. Winkworth, ed. and trans, London: Longman, 1854).
White, J., The Restoration of all Things, (London, 1712).
Worthington, J., The Great Duty ofSelf-Resignation, (London : W. Kettilby, 1689).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 237

The Doctrine of the Resurrection, (London : A. Churchill , 1690).

SECONDARY LITERATURE ON THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS

.. .. ... .. . .. Archives de Philosophie , 58, 3, (1995) : n? special (ed: Y. C. Zarka) : Une metaphysique pour
la morale; les Platoniciens de Cambrid ge : Henry More et Ralph Cudworth.
Alexander J., " Henry More ' s Psychodia Platoni ca and its relationship to Marsilio Ficino 's Theologia
Pluton ica", Journal of the History (If Ideas, XXXXIV , (1985) , pp. 503-22
Anderson, P. R., Science in defense of liberal Religion. A study of Henry More's attempt to link seven-
teenth Century Religion with Science, (New York : Putnam & sons, 1933)
Armstrong, R. L., "Cambridge Platonists and Locke on Innate Ideas", Journal of the History of Ideas ,
XXX, (1969) , pp. 187-202.
Baldi , M ., "II 'vero sistema' dell'universo e iI co nftitto delle trad izioni in Cudworth", dans
G. Canziani et Ch . Y. Zarka (CUL), L'interpretazione nei secoli XVI e XVII, (Milano:
Angeli , 1993).
Baldi , M. L., "Confutazione e conferma: I'origenismo nella traduzione latina del True Intellectual
System (1773) ", in Baldi, M. L., op. cit., pp. 163-204.
(ed) Mind Senior to the World stoicismo e origenismo nella Filosofia platonica del Sei cento
ingle se, (Milan : Franco Angeli, 1996)
Bianchi, M. L., "Conoscere immediato e cono scere discursivo in Herbert of Cherbury e in alcuni autori
dell a Scuola di Cambridge", in Baldi, M. L., op. cit., pp. 11-34.
Breteau, J. L. , "Conscience de soi chez les Platoniciens de Cambridge", Genese de la consci ence
moderne, ed. R. Ellrodt, (Paris : P.U.F., 1983), pp. 105-115.
Ralph Cudworth, Ie penseur, These Universite de Paris III , non publiee , 1987.
"Ralph Cudworth et la Bible" , Le Grand Steele et la Bible, ed . J. R. Armogathe, (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1989), pp. 75-81.
" Tnlassable quete du merne ou double incon stance ?' : Le platonisme chretien de Cudworth et
de More" , Bulletin de la Societe d 'Etude s anglo-americaines des XVII et XVII/" steeles, 33,
(1991), pp. 33-42.
'''Un grand espace pour la liberte?' : Ie dilemn e du libre arbitre dans la pensee de Ralph
Cudworth", Archi ves de Philosophic. 58, 3, (1995), pp. 421-441 .
"Origene etait-il pour Cudworth Ie modele du philosophe chretien?", in Baldi, M. L.,
op, cit., pp. 127-149.
Cudworth, (French Transl.): "Action et liberte'. resume du manuscrit additi onnel n04981 " ,
Philosophie, 53, (1997), pp. 5-27.
Brown , C. C; " Henry More 's ' Deep Retirement' : New Materials on the Early Years of the Cambridge
Platoni st", Review of English Studies , 80, (1969), pp. 445-54.
Brown, S., "Leibniz and More 's Cabbalistic Circle", in S. Hutton , op. cit., pp. 77-95.
"The regularization of Providence in post-Cartesian philosophy", in R. Crocker, op. cit.
Cassirer, E., Die Platonische Renaissance in England und die Schule von Cambridge, (Leipzig, Berlin
1932), transl : The Platon ic Renaissance in England, (Edinburgh: Nelson , 1953).
Chadwick, H., "Christian Platonism in Origen and in Augustine ", Heresy and Orthodoxy in the Early
Chur ch, (Aldershop, Hamp .: Variorum, 1991).
Chadwick, H., Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition , (New York : Oxford , 1966).
Colie, R. L., Light and Enlightenm ent : A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians,
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1957).
Coudert, A., "A Cambridge Platonist's Kabbalist Nightmare", Journal of the History of Ideas, XXXVI,
(1975), pp. 633-652.
" Henry More, the Kabbalah and the Quakers" in Kroll, Ashcraft, Zagorin , 01'. cit.
Cragg, G. R., From puritanism to the Age ofReason, (Cambridge: At the University Press 1950).
The Cambridge Platon ists, (New -York : Oxford UP, 1968).
Cristofolini, P., Cartesiani e Sociniani. Studio su Henr y More (Urbino, 1974).
238 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crocker, R., "Mysticism and enthusiasm in Henry More", in S. Hutton, op. cit., pp. 137-155.
" "A Bibliography of Henry More", in S. Hutton, op. cit., pp. 219-47.
"Henry More: a biographical essay", in S. Hutton , op. cit., pp. 1-18.
(ed.), Religion, Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic,
forthcoming).
Darwall, S., The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought' 1640-1740, (Cambridge,: Cambridge U.P.,
1995), ch 2, 5.
De Pauley , W. C., The Candle of the Lord. Studie s in the Cambr idge Platonists (London , 1937)
De Sola Pinto , V., Peter Sterry, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934).
Dockrill, D. W. , "T he 'Via Negativa' in English Philosophical Theology 1600-1900", The Via
Negativa, eds . D. W . Dockrill and R. Mortley, Prudentia, (Auckland), Supplementary
Number, (1981) .
"The Fathers and the Theology of the Cambridge Platonists' ', Studia Patristica, 17, ed ., E. A.
Livingstone, (Oxford : Pergamon, 1982), pp. 427-39.
"Spiritual Knowledge and the Problem of Enthusiasm in Seventeenth Century England ", The
Concept of Spirit, eds . D. W. Dockrill and R. G. Tanner, Prudentia, Supplementary Number ,
(1985).
'''No Other Name' : The Problem of the Salvation of Pagans in Mid-Seventeenth Century
Cambridge", The Idea of Salvation. ed s., D. W. Dockrill and R. G. Tanner, Prudentia,
Supplementary Number, (1988) .
"The Authority of the Fathers in the Great Trinitarian Debates of the Sixteen Nineties",
Studia Patristica, 28, pt.4, ed . E. A. Livingstone, (leuven: Peeters, 1990).
Gabbey, A ., " Anne Conway et Henry More: lettres sur Descartes (1650-1651)", Archives de
Philos ophie, 40, (1977) , pp. 279-404.
"Philosophia Cartesiana Trumphata: Henry More. 1646-71", in T . M. Lennon, J. M.
Nicholas, J. W. Davis (eds), Problems in Cartes ianism (Kingston and Montreal : McGill &
Queens Universities, I982), pp. 171-250.
"Cudworth, More , and Mechanical Analogy", in Kroll, Ashcraft and Zagorin, op. cit.,
pp. 109-127.
"More and and the limits of Mechani sm" , in S. Hutton, op. cit., pp. 19-36.
"Henri Mor e lecteur de Descartes: philosophie naturelle et apologetique", Archives de
Philosophie, 58, 3, (1995), pp. 355-369.
Gregory, J. C., "Cudworth and Descartes", Philosoph y, VIII (1933) .
Greene , R. A., " Henry More and Robert Boyle on the Spirit of Nature" , Journal of the History of Ideas.
XXIII, (1962) pp. 451-474.
Gysi, L., Platonism and Cartesian ism in the Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth . (Bern : Lang, 1962).
" Ralph Cudworth. Mystical Thinker, (Newport Pagnell : Press of the Greek Monastery, 1974).
Hall, A. R., Hen ry More : Magic , Religion and Experiment (Oxford : Blackwell , 1990).
" "Henry More and the Scientific Revolution ", in S. Hutton, op. cit., pp. 37-54.
Henry , J., " A Cambridge Platonist's Materialism. Henry More and the concept of the Soul" , Journal of
the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , 49, (1986), pp. 172-195.
"Henry More versus Robert Boyle : the spirit of nature and the nature of Providence" , in
S. Hutton, op. cit., pp. 55-76.
Henry, J. C; "Medicine and Pneumatology: Henry More, Richard Baxter and Franci s Glisson ' s Treatise
on the Energetic Nature of Substance", Medical History , 31 (1987), pp. 15-40.
Hunter Jr ., W. B., "T he Seventeenth Century Doctrine of Plastic Nature", Harvard Theological Review,
43, (1950).
Hutin, S., Henry More , Essa i sur les do ctrines theo sophiques chez les platoniciens de Cambridge.
(Hilde sheim : G. Olms, 1965).
Hutton, S., "Thomas Jackson, Oxford Platonist and William Twisse, Aristotelian", Journal of the
History of Ideas , 39 (1978).
"The Neoplatonic Roots of Arianism : Ralph Cudworth and Theophilus Gale", in Socinianism
and its Role in the Culture ofXVlth to XVlJIth Centur ies, (Warsaw & Lodz, 1983).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 239

"Reason and Revelation in the Cambridge Platonists, and their Reception of Spinoza" ,
Spino za in der Friihzeit seiner religiosen Wirkung, ed. K. Grunder und W. Schmidt-Biggenau
(Heidelberg : L. Schneider, 1984), pp. 181-200 .
(ed.) Henry More (16/0-/687) : Tercentenary Studies, (Dordrecht, Boston & London :
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990).
"Henr y More and Jacob Boehme", in S. Hutton, op. cit.. pp. 157-168 .
"Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham: between Platonism and Enlightenment", British Journal
for the History of Philosophy , I, I, (Feb. 93).
"Edward Stillingfteet, Henry More, and the decline of Moses Atticus: a note on seventeenth-
century Anglican apologetics", in Kroll, Ashcraft et Zagorin, op. cit.. pp. 68-84.
"Anne Conway critique d'Henry More: l'esprit et la matiere", Archives de Philosophie, 58, 3,
(1995), pp. 371-384.
"Ralph Cudworth: God, Mind and Nature" dans R. Crocker (ed.), Reason, Religion and
Nature , 11 paraitre.
"Henry More and Anne Conway on Preexistence and Universal Salvation", in Baldi, M.L.,
op. cit., pp. 113-126 .
Inge, W. R., The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought, (London: Longmans, Green and Co,
1926).
Janet , P., De Plasticae naturae vita quae a Cudwortho in Systemate intelle ctuali celebratur, (Paris,
1848); Essai sur Ie mediateur piastique de Cudworth , (Paris, 1860).
Jacquot, J., "Le Platonisme de Ralph Cudworth", Revue Philosophique de la France et de I'Etranger,
Paris, (1964).
Koyre, A. From the closed World to the infinite Universe (Baltimore, John Hopkins Press, 1957; trad.:
Du monde clos (/ l 'univers infini, Paris: Gallimard, 1973).
Lagree, J., "Lumiere naturelle et notions communes : Herbert de Cherbury et Culverwell", in Baldi,
M. L., op. cit., pp. 35-54.
Lamprecht, S. P., "Innate ideas in the Cambridge Platoni sts" , Philosophical Review, 35, (1926),
pp.553-72.
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 INDEX

Accident, 112, 113, 117 CANGUILHEM, 153

Action, 40, 41, 42, 43, 229 CARNEADE, 192
Activity, 221 CASSlRER,3, 101
ADDISON, 200 CASTELLION, 28, 132
Alchemy, 135 Cause,40,42,43,47,51,84, 102, 108, 113,
Analogy, 122 115, 118, 124, 125, 159, 160, 161, 164,
Anglicanism, 17 165,174,175,177,200,221
Animism, 166, 167 CHARRON,28
Anticipations!ProlepsislPrenotions, 81, 113, CHERBURY, Herbert of, 65, 84,122
117,177 CHILLINGWORTH, 28
Antidote against Atheism, 136 CHRIST,8
Apparition, 125 CICERON, 28, 80, 83, 85, 192
Appetite, 221, 227 , 229 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, 57, 66 , 79
AQUINAS, 57, 68 Cogito, 176
ARISTOTLE, 4, 17, 18, 28, 50, 56, 80, 88, COLLIER, 197, 198, 199,200,204,205,206
106,107,112,113,120,146,148,150, Common notion, 80
174,202,205 Conatus,44, 118,227,229,230
Arminianism, 25, 27 Conscience, consciousness, awareness, 6,
ARMINIUS, 26 13,66,149,151,222,225,230
ARNAULD, 174 Contingency, 51
Art, 148, 149 Conversion, 130
Atheism, ix , 18,20,83, 102, 137, 146, 148, CONWAY, 11, 187
173,189 COPERNICUS, 135, 137
Atom, Ill, 113, 114, 117,118, 120,178, 195 CROMWELL,9
Atomism, 116, 117, 119, 136, 179, 193 CUDWORTH, 3-6, 8-11, 18-26, 39-42, 45,
AUGUSTINE (St) , 55, 56, 68, 70, 115, 161, 46,48,49,58,65,69-71,79,101-123,
198,202,203 145-153,161 ,173-179,187,188,
Automaton, 177 191-195,208-210
AUZOUT,188 CULVERWELL,57,64,66,69

BACON, 3,17,28 Deliberation , 41

BAYLE, 106, 152,200 Democracy, 12, 138
BERKELEY, 69,113,114,117,120,197,198, DEMOCRITUS, ix, 39,114, 116, 125, 191,
200,203-208,210 193
Bible, 198 Democritus Platonissans, 136
Body, 39,62,64,67,81 ,86, 119, 132, 134, DESCARTES,ix,x,4,5, 17,24,27,47,59,79,
136,146,165,177-179,189,206,221 114, 136, 138, 145, 149, 152, 153, 159,
BOYLE, 9, 120, 136, 145, 152 161-166,168,173-180,187,197,198,
BRAHE (Ticho), 17 200,201,203,208,209
BRAMHALL, 40, 41, 42 Desire, 44 , 151,221
BROWNE,56 Destiny, 148
Burnet, 9, 10,28 Determinism, 130, 179
BURTHOGGE, 112, 121, 123 Divine Dialogues, 137
DOlLEY, 19
Calvinism, x, 12,25,26,58,130,131,135, Dream, 137, 138, 139, 151,152
197 DU TERTRE, 202

245
246 INDEX

EcPHANTE, 193, 194 HALES, 130

Emanation, 160, 161 HALLYWELL, 64
EMPEDOCLE, 148 HAMMOND, 21, 28
Empiricism, 111,112,113,114, 123, 179 Harmony, 123, 126, 146
Encyclopedie, 147 HARRE, 167
Energy, 167 HARTLIB,I2
Entelecheia, 194 HARVEY, 17, 150
Enthusiasm, ix, 5, 6, 18,20,24,60,63,137, Hegemonikon , 45, 80, 81
146 Hell,85
EPICrETE, 86, 119 HELMONT (Van), 147
EPICURE, 88, 112, 114, 116, 117 HENRY, 145
episcopacy, 12 HERACLITE, 148
Esiscomus , 20, 21 HOBBES,5,9,11 ,23,39,40,42,45,46,47,
Epistemology, 65 49,60,69,85,113-117,150,174,175,
ERASMUS, 28 187,190-193,205
ERIGINA, 199 HOLDSWORTH, 7, 8
Essence, 47, 118, 176-180 HOOKER,28
Eternal and Immutable Morality, 120 HOWARD,3
Experience, 59, 66, 81, 179, 180,219 HUME, 58, 114, 117, 159
Extension, 167, 205 HUTTON,145
Hydrostatics, 145
Faith,70, 175, 197,200,210,225
Fall , 67 Idea, 107,112, 113,1l5,I17,121, 124, 161,
FICINUS, 4, 131, 202 175-180
FLUDD, 188, 199 Idealism, 175, 197, 199,205,207,208
Force, 166, 167, 195 Identity, 45
Form; substantial form, 113, 161, 188, 194 Illumination, ix, 64, 68, 130-137
FOUCHER,203 Imagination, 177,221
FOWLER,6,7,II,64 Immaterialism, 71, 205
Freedom, see Liberty immortality, 84, 131
Free will, 23, 146, 150, 189,228,230 Immortality ofthe Soul, 136
Impact, 162, 164
GABBEY,7, 12, 145, 150 Impenetrability, 178
GALE,65 Impulse, 167
GALILEO, 5,17,135,203 Independence, 87
GASSENDI,5, 17,28,174,175,179,193, Indifferent things , 49
194,201 Influx, 159, 160
GELL,131 Information, 167
Gigantomachias, 193 INGE,3
GILBERT, 17, 18,28 Inherence, 112
GLANVILL, 6, 64, 113, 152 Innate, 24, 66,67,69,114,165,177
God, 5-8, 11-13, 19,22,24,26,43,47,48, Instinct, 152
55-58,68,80-85,101-108,115,120, Intellect, 108, 145, 177,221
130-132, 134, 137, 138, 147, 152, Intelligible, 107, 117, 125
160-167,173-178,190-192,195, Inward sense, 132
198-210,230,231
Good,22,44-46,56,84, 104, 138, 152, JACKSON,57,59,64-69
160,174,191,192,209,223,226,227, JANET, 147, 153
228 JENKES, 19,28
Gravity, 159, 160 JEWELL,28
GREVILLE, 57, 60, 61, 68 JOHN (St) , 60
GROTIUS, 28 Judgrnent, 224,225,230
GUNNING,20 Justice, 11,39,42,46,48, 192
 INDEX 247

KIDDER,20 Natural law, 6, 49,85,106,195

knowledge, 10,25,46,67,69, 113, 115, Natural right, 192
120,124,135,139,175,177,179,180 Nature , 4. 24, 25, 82, 101-109, 149,210
Necessitarism, 39
LABRCE (Diogenes), 148 Necessity, 9, 41, 45,51,108,119,150-152,
LAROMIGUIBRE,153 160
Latitudinarianism, 6, 17 NEWTON,X,9,208
LAUD,28, 132 Nominalism, 175
LE CLERC, 147 Nonconformists, 7
LEIBNIZ, ix, x, 69, 105, 147, 153, 159, 162, Norm, 46
167,187,191,194,195,197,201-210 NORRIS, 62, 68, 150, 187, 197, 198, 201,
LEUCIPPUS, 191, 193 203,204,208,209
Liberty, Freedom, Liberum Arbitriurn, v; 13,
20-27,41-43,46,84.87,134,147, Obligation, 48
152,174,217,219,222,224,226,229, Occasionalisrn, 165,200,207,221
230 Occultism, 162
LIMBORCH (von), 19,20,23,25,27 OCKHAM,47
LIPSIUS, 79, 81, 84, 87, 88 OLDENBURG, 28
LLOYD,18 Opinion, 86, 224
LOCKE, x, 6, 9, 64, 69,111-115,117,121, ORIGEN, xi, 56, 58, 61-67, 81, 88, 139
187, 198,200,201 ,204,205 OWEN,6
loi naturelle,
Logoi spermatikoi, 148 Pantheism, 199,205
PARKER,28,64,69
MADDEN,167 Passions, 44, 86, 219
Magistrate, 26 PASSMORE, 105, 147
Magnetism, 159 PATRICK, Simon, 17, 18,28
MALEBRANCHE,68,70, 105, 147, 159, 160, PATRIZZI,202
163,197-200,203,207,209 PAUL (St), 62, 63,133,198
Malin genie, 174 Perception, 221, 224
MASHAM (Lady), 153, 187, 188, 191, 195 Phancy, 221
Materialism, ix, 5, 9, 39, 69, 179, 180,206 Phantasm, 112, 125
Matter, 42, 101-108, 119, 122, 124, Phantasy, 66
134-136, 147, 149, 163-168, 179, 199, Phenomena, 195
204,205,207 PHILO,56
Meaning, 122 PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, 57
Mechanicism, 102, 105, 108, 136, 146, 179 PIERCE,21
MELANCHTON, 17 Plastic natures, 102-108, 119, 147-149,
Middle term, 113, 126 151,153,195,208
MILTON,28 PLATO,ix,x,4,23,28,55-67, 70, 79,85,
Mind, 60, 165 104,148,160,161,167,189,192,201,
Monads, 187, 193, 194, 195,203,207 202,203,206,208
Monarchy, 12 PLOTINUS,4,56,58-61,68,79,84,85 ,
Monism, 199 101-109,119,131,134,146,148,149,
Morals, 40 , 43 160,203,210
MORE, Henry, 3-7,11-13,18,19,26,27, PLUTARQUE,83
39,55,58,60-68,79,122,129,130, POELENBURG,19,20,21
132, 134, 137-139, 145, 147, 149, 150, Politics, 4, 10, 12,26-28,48
152, 153, 160-167, 178, 187, 194,208 Power, 12, 101, 167,222,227,228
Moses, x, 55, 79,114,198 Predestination, 20-26, 43
MOSHEIM, 101, 104, 106, 108 Predetermination, 43
Motion, 5, 146,162, 163, 164, 166, 178, Pre-existence, 64
179,194,221 Preformation, 153
248 INDEX

Prejudice, 138 Speed, 164

Presbyterianism, 12, 132 SPINOZA, 27,114,146,187,192
PRocLUs,206 Spirit, 113, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122,
PROTAGORAS,46, 114, 125, 175 125, 134, 136, 177, 178
Providence, 84, 85, 102-107, 138, 147, 189 Spirit of Nature, 160
Psychathanasia, 135 SPRAT, 6
Psychozoia, 132, 134 State, 13,22
PUFENDORF, 28 STERRY, 57, 60
Puritanism, 17, 18, 20 STEUCO, 79, 81
PYTHAGORAS, X, 87, 139 STlLLlNGFLEET,6, 18,59,61,65,66,67,187
STOBEE, 193
Qualities, 113-117, 120, 188 Stoicks, 79, 80, 85, 86, 88, 101, 102, 118,
119,146,148,180
Reason, x, 5, 6, 18,25,43,60,80,83,86, STRATON DE LAMPSAQUE, 146
106,118,119,125,126,174,175,179, SUAREZ, 198,204
180,222,227,230,231 Substance, 112, 113, 117, 137, 146, 162,
Relation, iv, 47 ,111-123 195,203,205
Relativism, x, 39,46 Superstition, 20, 24, 83
Religion, 5, 12, 83 Symbols, 57
REMOND, 187, 202
Remontrants, 19,21 TAYLOR, 198,201
Representation, 200 ThNISON,18
Res cogitans, 179 The Candle of the Lord, 5
Res extensa, 178, 179 The Immortality ofthe Soul, 147, 149
Revelation, 24, 28 THOMASIUS, 194
ROACH, 139 THURLOE,9
ROBINET,201 TILLOTSON, 18,28
ROUSSEAU, 88 Time, 163, 199,204,207
RUST, 64 Timeus,118
Toleration, ix, 4, 6, 12, 21,25, 26, 27
Scepticism, 113, 114,200,201,206 Treatise concerning Immutable Morality,
Scholastic, 7,17,135,150,163,166,197, 119
204,223 TRISMEGISTUS (Hermes Trimegistus), 4, 79,
Sel~45, 134,223,224,227,228,229 131
SENECA, 28, 80,84, 87 TROTTER-COCKBURN, 187
Sen sation, 10, 82, 178, 179 True Intellectual System of the Universe,
Sense, 112, 114, 115, 120-126, 135, 138, 119,120
180,221 Truth (eternal), 22, 24 , 28, 116, 122, 123,
SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, 112 174-176,180,190,192
Shape, 163 TUCKNEY,69
Signatures, 176, 208 TULLOCH, 39
Sign, 179 TwISSE,69
SIMPLICIUS, 86
Sin, 67 , 222 Understanding, 22, 28, 44 , 57,123,176,
Size, 163, 164 178,180,223,224,229,230
SMITH, 4, II, 18,60,66,79,80,83,88 Unworldliness , 3-5
Socinianism,21 Utilitarism, 39,226
SOCRATES, 56, 60, 62, 166
Soul, 10,44-46,60-62,67,80,81,84,86, VANINI,19
87,105,119,131-139,146,150,152, VAUGHAN, 135
153,178,179,189,195,206,221-229 Vertue, 28, 85
Soul of the world, 59 ,107,146,153 Vitalism, x, 136, 145, 152, 153
Space, 199,204,207 Voluntarism, x, 47, 102, 104, 145
 INDEX 249

WALLIS, 69 World 187, 193

WARREN, 64, 69 WORTHINGTON, 8, 80
WHICHCOTE,4,5,8, 18,56,79,209 WOTTON, 130
WIDDRINGTON, 9
WILKINS, 28 XENOPHON, 189
Will, 9, 22, 24, 41, 44, 48, 49,62,104,174,
176,221-227 ZENON, 119
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1. E. Labrousse: Pierre Bayle. Tome I: Du pays de foix a la cite d'Erasme. 1963; 2nd
printing 1984 ISBN 90-247-3136-4
For Tome II see below under Volume 6.
2. P. Merlan: Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness. Problems of the Soul in the
Neoaristotelian and Neoplatonic Tradition. 1963; 2nd printing 1969
ISBN 90-247-0178-3
3. H.G. van Leeuwen: The Problem of Certainty in English Thought, 1630-1690. With a
Preface by R.H. Popkin. 1963; 2nd printing 1970 ISBN 90-247-0179-1
4. P.W. Janssen: Les origines de la reforme des Carmes en France au 17e Siecle, 1963;
2nd printing 1969 ISBN 90-247-0180-5
5. G. Sebba: Bibliographia Cartesiana. A Critical Guide to the Descartes Literature
(1800-1960).1964 ISBN 90-247-0181-3
6. E. Labrousse : Pierre Bayle. Tome II: Heterodoxie et rigorisme . 1964
ISBN 90-247-0182-1
7. K.W. Swart: The Sense ofDecadence in 19th-Century France. 1964
ISBN 9O-247-0183-X
8. W. Rex: Essays on Pierre Bayle and Religious Controversy. 1965
ISBN 90-247-0184-8
9. E. Heier: L.H. Nicolay (1737 -1820) and His Contemporaries. Diderot, Rousseau,
Voltaire, Gluck, Metastasio, Galiani, D'Escherny, Gessner, Bodmer, Lavater,
Wieland, Frederick II, Falconet, W. Robertson, Paul I, Cagliostro, Gellert, Winckel-
mann, Poinsinet, Lloyd, Sanchez, Masson, and Others. 1965 ISBN 90-247-0185-6
10. H.M. Bracken: The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism, 1710-1733. [1958]
Rev. ed. 1965 ISBN 90-247-0186-4
11. R.A. Watson: The Downfall of Cartesianism, 1673-1712. A Study of Epistemological
Issues in Late 17th-Century Cartesianism . 1966 ISBN 90-247-0187-2
12. R. Descartes: Regula: ad Directionem Ingenii. Texte critique etabli par Giovanni
Crapulli avec la version hollandaise du 17e siecle. 1966 ISBN 90-247-0188-0
13. J. Chapelain: Soixante-dix-sept Lettres inedites a Nicolas Heinsius (1649-1658).
Publiees d'apres le manuscrit de Leyde avec une introduction et des notes par B. Bray.
1966 ISBN 90-247-0189-9
14. C. B. Brush: Montaigne and Bayle. Variations on the Theme of Skepticism. 1966
ISBN 90-247-0190-2
15. B. Neveu: Un historien a l'Ecole de Port-Royal. Sebastien le Nain de Tillemont
(1637-1698). 1966 ISBN 90-247-0191-0
se
16. A. Faivre: Kirchberger et l'Illuminisme du 1 siecle, 1966
ISBN 90-247-0192-9
17. J.A. Clarke: Huguenot Wa"ior. The Life and Times of Henri de Rohan (1579-1638).
1966 ISBN 90-247-0193-7
18. S. Kinser: The Works ofJacques-Auguste de Thou. 1966 ISBN 90-247-0194-5
19. E.F. Hirsch: Damiiio de Gois . The Life and Thought of a Portuguese Humanist (1502-
1574).1967 ISBN 90-247-0195-3
20. P.J.S. Whitemore : The Order ofMinims in 17th-Century France. 1967
ISBN 90-247-0196-1
21. H. Hillenaar: Fenelon et les Jesuites. 1967 ISBN 9O-247-0197-X
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22. W.N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley: The English Della Cruscans and Their Time , 1783-
1828. 1967 ISBN 90-247-0198-8
23. C.B. Schmitt: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola (1469-1533) and his Critique of
Aristotle. 1967 ISBN 90-247-0199-6
24. H.B. White: Peace among the Willows. The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon.
1968 ISBN 90-247-0200-3
25. L. Apt: Louis-Philippe de Segur. An Intellectual in a Revolutionary Age. 1969
ISBN 90-247-0201-1
26. E.H. Kadler: Literary Figures in French Drama (1784- 1834). 1969
ISBN 9O-247-0202-X
27. G. Postel: Le Thresor des propheties de l' univers. Manuscrit publie avec une
introduction et des notes par F. Secret. 1969 ISBN 90-247-0203-8
28. E.G. Boscherini: Lexicon Spinozanum. 2 vols., 1970 Set ISBN 90-247-0205-4
29. C.A. Bolton: Church Reform in 18th-Century 1taly. The Synod of Pistoia (1786). 1969
ISBN 90-247-0208-9
30. D. Janicaud: Une genealogie du spiritualisme francais. Aux sources du bergsonisme:
[Felix] Ravaisson [1813-1900] et la metaphysique. 1969 ISBN 90-247-0209-7
31. J.-E. d'Angers: L'Humanisme chretien au 17e siecle . St. Francois de Sales et Yves de
Paris. 1970 ISBN 90-247-0210-0
32. H.B. White: Copp'd Hills towards Heaven. Shakespeare and the Classical Polity.
1970 ISBN 9O-247-0250-X
33. P.J.OIscamp: The Moral Philosophy ofGeorge Berkeley. 1970
ISBN 90-247-0303-4
34. C.G. Norefia: Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540). 1970 ISBN 90-247-5008-3
35. J. O'Higgens: Anthony Collins (1676-1729), the Man and His World. 1970
ISBN 90-247-5007-5
36. F.T. Brechka: Gerard van Swieten and His World (1700-1772). 1970
ISBN 90-247-5009-1
37. M.H. Waddicor: Montesquieu and the Pilosophy ofNatural Law. 1970
ISBN 90-247-5039-3
38. O.R. Bloch: La Philosophie de Gassendi (1592-1655). Nominalisme, materialisme et
metaphysique.1971 ISBN 90-247-5035-0
39. J. Hoyles: The Waning of the Renoissance (1640-1740). Studies in the Thought and
Poetry of Henry More, John Norris and Isaac Watts. 1971 ISBN 90-247-5077-6
For Henry More, see also below under Volume 122 and 127.
40. H. Bots: Correspondance de Jacques Dupuy et de Nicolas Heinsius (1646-1656).
1971 ISBN 9O-247-5092-X
41. W.C. Lehmann: Henry Home, Lord Kames, and the Scottish Enlightenment. A Study
in National Character and in the History ofIdeas. 1971 ISBN 90-247-5018-0
42. C. Kramer: Emmery de Lyere et Mamix de Sainte Aldegonde. Un admirateur de
Sebastien Franck et de Montaigne aux prises avec le champion des calvinistes
neerlandais.Iavec le texte d'Emmery de Lyere:] Antidote ou contrepoison contre les
conseils sanguinaires et envinemez de Philippe de Marnix Sr. de Ste. Aldegonde. 1971
ISBN 90-247-5136-5
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43. P. Dibon: lnventaire de La correspondance (/595-1650) d'Andre Rivet (/572-165/).

1971 ISBN 90-247-5112-8
44. K.A. Kottman: Law and Apocalypse. The Moral Thought of Luis de Leon (1527?-
1591).1972 ISBN 90-247-1183-5
45. F.G. Nauen: Revolution, Idealism and Human Freedom. Schelling, Holderlin and
Hegel, and the Crisis of Early German Idealism. 1971 ISBN 90-247-5117-9
46. H. Jensen: Motivation and the Moral Sense in Francis Hutcheson's [1694-1746]
Ethical Theory. 1971 ISBN 90-247-1187-8
47. A. Rosenberg: [Simon] Tyssot de Patot and His Work (/655-1738). 1972
ISBN 90-247-1199-1
48. C. Walton: De La recherche du bien. A study of [Nicolas de] Malebranche's [1638-
1715] Science of Ethics. 1972
ISBN 9O-247-1205-X
49. P.J.S. Whitmore (ed.): A IZth-Century Exposure of Superstition. Select Text of
Claude Pithoys (1587-1676). 1972 ISBN 9O-247-1298-X
50. A. Sauvy: Livres saisis II Paris entre 1678 et 1701. D'apres une etude preliminaire
de Motoko Ninomiya. 1972 ISBN 90-247-1347-1
51. W.R. Redmond: Bibliography of the Philosophy in the Iberian Colonies of America.
1972 ISBN 90-247-1190-8
52. C.B. Schmitt: Cicero Scepticus. A Study of the Influence of the Academica in the
Renaissance. 1972 ISBN 90-247-1299-8
53. J. Hoyles: The Edges of Augustanism. The Aesthetics of Spirituality in Thomas Ken,
John Byrom and William Law. 1972 ISBN 9O-247-1317-X
54. J. Bruggeman and A.J. van de Ven (eds.): Inventaire des pieces d' Archives francaises
se rapportant a l' Abbaye de Port-Royal des Champs et son cercle et a la Resistance
contre la Bulle Unigenitus et a l' Appel. 1972 ISBN 90-247-5122-5
55. J.W. Montgomery: Cross and Crucible. Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654),
Phoenix of the Theologians. Volume I: Andreae's Life, World-View, and Relations
with Rosicrucianism and Alchemy; Volume II: The Chymische Hochzeit with Notes
and Commentary. 1973 Set ISBN 90-247-5054-7
56. O. Lutaud: Des revolutions d'Angleterre II La Revolution francaise. Le tyrannicide &
Killing No Murder (Cromwell, Athalie, Bonaparte). 1973 ISBN 90-247-1509-1
57. F. Duchesneau: L'Empirisme de Locke. 1973 ISBN 90-247-1349-8
58. R. Simon (ed.): Henry de Boulainviller - (Euvres Philosophiques,Tome I. 1973
ISBN 90-247-1332-3
For (Evres Philosophiques,Tome II see below under Volume 70.
59. E.E. Harris: Salvationfrom Despair. A Reappraisal of Spinoza's Philosophy. 1973
ISBN 90-247-5158-6
60. J.-F. Battail: L'Avocat philosophe Geraud de Cordemoy (/626-1684). 1973
ISBN 90-247-1542-3
61. T. Liu: Discord in Zion. The Puritan Divines and the Puritan Revolution (1640-1660).
1973 ISBN 9O-247-5156-X
62. A. Strugnell: Diderot's Politics . A Study of the Evolution of Diderot's Political
Thought after the Encyclopedic. 1973 ISBN 90-247-1540-7
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63. G. Defaux: Pantagruel et les Sophistes. Contribution a I'histoire de I'humanisme

chretien au 16e siecle. 1973 ISBN 90-247-1566-0
64. G. Planty-Bonjour: Hegel et la pensee philosophique en Russie (1830-1917). 1974
ISBN 90-247-1576-8
65. RJ. Brook: [George] Berkeley's Philosophy ofScience. 1973 ISBN 90-247-1555-5
66. T.E . Jessop : A Bibliography of George Berkeley. With: Inventory of Berkeley's
Manuscript Remains by A.A. Luce. 2nd revised and enlarged ed. 1973
ISBN 90-247-1577-6
67. E.I. Perry: From Theology to History. French Religious Controversy and the Revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes. 1973 ISBN 90-247-1578-4
68. P. Dibbon, H. Bots et E. Bots-Estourgie: Inventaire de la correspondance
(1631-1671) de Johannes Fredericus Gronovius [l611-1671]. 1974
ISBN 90-247-1600-4
69. A.B. Collins: The Secular is Sacred. Platonism and Thomism in Marsilio Ficino's
Platonic Theology. 1974 ISBN 90-247-1588-1
70. R. Simon (&I.): Henry de Boulainviller. <Euvres Philosophiques, Tome II. 1975
ISBN 90-247-1633-0
For <Evres Philosophiques, Tome I see under Volume 58.
71. J.A.G. Tans et H. Schmitz du Moulin: Pasquier Quesnel devant la Congregation de
l'Index. Correspondance avec Francesco Barberini et memoires sur la mise a I'Index
de son edition des <Euvres de Saint Leon, publies avec introduction et annotations.
1974 ISBN 90-247-1661-6
72. J.W . Carven: Napoleon and the Lazarists (1804-1809).1974 ISBN 90-247-1667-5
73. G. Symcox : The Crisis of French Sea Power (1688-1697). From the Guerre
d'Escadre to the Guerre de Course. 1974 ISBN 90-247-1645-4
74. R. MacGillivray: Restoration Historians and the English Civil War. 1974
ISBN 90-247-1678-0
75. A. Soman (ed.): The Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Reappraisals and Documents .
1974 ISBN 90-247-1652-7
76. R.E. Wanner: Claude Fleury (1640-1723) as an Educational Historiographer and
Thinker. With an Introduction by W.W. Brickman. 1975 ISBN 90-247-1684-5
77. R.T. Carroll : The Common-Sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stil-
lingfleet (1635-1699). 1975 ISBN 90-247-1647-0
78. J. Macary: Masque et lumieres au IBf [slecle}. Andre-Francois Deslandes, Citoyen et
philosophe (1689-1757) .1975 ISBN 90-247-1698-5
79. S.M. Mason: Montesquieu's Idea ofJustice. 1975 ISBN 90-247-1670-5
80. DJ.H. van Elden: Esprits fins et esprits geometriques dans les portraits de Saint-
Simon. Contributions a l'etude du vocabulaire et du style. 1975 ISBN 90-247-1726-4
81. I. Primer (ed.): Mandeville Studies. New Explorations in the Art and Thought of Dr
Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) .1975 ISBN 90-247-1686-1
82. C.G. Norefia: Studies in Spanish Renaissance Thought. 1975 ISBN 90-247-1727-2
83. G. Wilson : A Medievalist in the 18th Century. Le Grand d'Aussy and the Fabliaux ou
Contes .1975 ISBN 90-247-1782-5
84. J.-R. Armogathe: Theologia Cartesiana. L'explication physique de l'Eucharistie chez
Descartes et Dom Robert Desgabets. 1977 ISBN 90-247-1869-4
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85. Berault Stuart, Seigneur d' Aubigny : Traite sur l' art de la guerre. Introduction et
edition par Elie de Comminges. 1976 ISBN 90-247-1871-6
86. S.L. Kaplan: Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Re ign ofLouis XV. 2 vols.,
1976 Set ISBN 90-247-1873 -2
87. M. Lienhard (ed.): The Origins and Characteristics ofAnabaptism I Les debuts et les
caracteristiques de l' Anabaptisme. With an Extensive Bibliography I Avec une
bibliographie detaillee . 1977 ISBN 90-247-1896-1
88. R. Descartes : Regles utiles et claires pour la direction de l' esprit en la recherche de la
verite. Traduction selon Ie lexique cartesien, et annotation conceptueIIe par J.-L.
Marion . Avec des notes mathematiques de P. CostabeI. 1977 ISBN 90-247-1907-0
89. K. Hardesty: The'Supplement' to the 'Encyclopedie' , [Diderot et d'Alernbert] . 1977
ISBN 90-247-1965-8
90. H.B. White: Antiquity Forgot. Essays on Shakespeare, [Francis] Bacon, and Rem-
brandt. 1978 ISBN 90-247-1971 -2
91. P.B.M. Blaas: Continuity and Anachronism. Parliamentary and Constitutional
Development in Whig Historiography and in the Anti-Whig Reaction between 1890
and 1930. 1978 ISBN 9O-247-2063-X
92. S.L. Kaplan (ed.): La Bagarre. Ferdinando Galiani 's (1728-1787) ' Lost' Parody. With
an Introduction by the Editor. 1979 ISBN 90-247-2125-3
93. E. McNiven Hine: A Critical Study of (Etienne Bonnot de] Condillac's [1714-1780]
'Traite des Systemes' , 1979 ISBN 90-247-2120-2
94. M.R.G. Spiller: Concerning Natural Experimental Philosphy. Meric Casaubon [1599-
1671] and the Royal Society . 1980 ISBN 90-247-2414-7
95. F. Duchesneau : La physiologie des Lumieres. Empirisme , modeles et theories . 1982
ISBN 90-247-2500-3
96. M. Heyd: Between Orthodoxy and the Enlightenment. Jean-Robert Chouet [1642-
1731] and the Introduction of Cartesian Science in the Academy of Geneva. 1982
ISBN 90-247-2508-9
97. James O'Higgins: Yves de Vallone [1666/7-1705]: The Making of an Esprit Fort.
1982 ISBN 90-247-2520-8
98. M.L. Kuntz: Guillaume Postel [1510-1581]. Prophet of the Restitution of All Things .
His Life and Thought. 1981 ISBN 90-247-2523-2
99. A. Rosenberg: Nicolas Gueudeville and His Work (1652-172?). 1982
ISBN 9O-247-2533-X
100. S.L. Jaki: Uneasy Genius: The Life and Work ofPierre Duhem [1861-1916]. 1984
ISBN 90-247-2897-5; Pb (1987) 90-247-3532-7
10I. Anne Conway [1631-1679]: The Principles of the Most Ancient Modern Philosophy.
Edited and with an Introduction by P. Loptson. 1982 ISBN 90-247-2671-9
102. E.C. Patterson : {Mrs.] Mary {Fairfax Greig] Sommerville [1780-1872] and the
Cultivation ofScience (1815-1840).1983 ISBN 90-247-2823-1
103. C.J. Berry: Hume, Hegel and Human Nature. 1982 ISBN 90-247-2682-4
104. C.J. Betts: Early Deism in France. From the so-called 'deistes' of Lyon (1564) to
Voltaire's 'Lettres philosophiques' (1734). 1984 ISBN 90-247-2923-8
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105. R. Gascoigne: Religion, Rationality and Community. Sacred and Secular in the
Thought of Hegel and His Critics. 1985 ISBN 90-247-2992-0
106. S. Tweyman: Scepticism and Belief in Hume's 'Dialogues Concerning Natural
Religion'. 1986 ISBN 90-247-3090-2
107. G. Cerny: Theology, Politics and Letters at the Crossroads ofEuropean Civilization.
Jacques Basnage [1653-1723] and the Baylean Huguenot Refugees in the Dutch
Republic. 1987 ISBN 9O-247-315Q-X
108. Spinoza's Algebraic Calculation of the Rainbow & Calculation of Changes. Edited
and Translated from Dutch, with an Introduction, Explanatory Notes and an Appendix
by MJ. Petry. 1985 ISBN 90-247-3149-6
109. R.G. McRae: Philosophy and the Absolute. The Modes of Hegel's Speculation. 1985
ISBN 90-247-3151-8
110. J.D. North and JJ. Roche (eds.): The Light of Nature. Essays in the History and
Philosophy of Science presented to A.C. Crombie. 1985 ISBN 90-247-3165-8
Ill. C. Walton and P.J. Johnson (eds.): [Thomas] Hobbes's 'Science of Natural Justice'.
1987 ISBN 90-247-3226-3
112. B.W. Head: Ideology and Social Science. Destutt de Tracy and French Liberalism.
1985 ISBN 9O-247-3228-X
113. A.Th. Peperzak: Philosophy and Politics. A Commentary on the Preface to Hegel's
Philosophy ofRight. 1987 ISBN Hb 90-247-3337-5; Pb ISBN 90-247-3338-3
1l4. S. Pines and Y. Yovel (eds.): Maimonides [1135-1204] and Philosophy. Papers
Presented at the 6th Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter (May 1985). 1986
ISBN 90-247-3439-8
115. TJ . Saxby: The Quest for the New Jerusalem, Jean de Labadie [1610-1674] and the
Labadists (1610-1744). 1987 ISBN 90-247-3485-1
116. C.E. Harline: Pamphlets, Printing, and Political Culture in the Early Dutch Republic.
1987 ISBN 9O-247-351l-4
117. R.A. Watson and J.E. Force (eds.): The Sceptical Mode in Modern Philosophy. Essays
in Honor of Richard H. Popkin. 1988 ISBN 9O-247-3584-X
118. R.T. Bienvenu and M. Feingold (eds.): In the Presence ofthe Past. Essays in Honor of
Frank Manuel. 1991 ISBN Q-7923-1008-X
1l9. J. van den Berg and E.G.E. van der Wall (eds.): Jewish-Christian Relations in the
17th Century. Studies and Documents. 1988 ISBN 9O-247-3617-X
120. N. Waszek: The Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel's Account of 'Civil Society'. 1988
ISBN 90-247-3596-3
121. J. Walker (ed.): Thought and Faith in the Philosophy ofHegel. 1991
ISBN 0-7923-1234-1
122. Henry More [1614-1687]: The Immortality of the Soul. Edited with Introduction and
Notes by A. Jacob. 1987 ISBN 90-247-3512-2
123. P.B. Scheurer and G. Debrock (eds.): Newton's Scientific and Philosophical Legacy.
1988 ISBN 90-247-3723-0
124. D.R. Kelley and R.H. Popkin (eds.): The Shapes ofKnowledge from the Renaissance
to the Enlightenment. 1991 ISBN Q-7923-1259-7
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125. R.M. Golden (ed.): The Huguenot Connection. The Edict of Nantes, Its Revocation,
and Early French Migration to South Carolina. 1988 ISBN 90-247-3645-5
126. S. Lindroth: Les chemins du savoir en Suede. De la fondation de I'Universite d'Upsal
a Jacob Berzelius. Etudes et Portraits. Traduit du suedois, presente et annote par J.-F.
Battail. Avec une introduction sur Sten Lindroth par G. Eriksson. 1988
ISBN 90-247-3579-3
127. S. Hutton (ed.): Henry More (1614-1687). Tercentenary Studies. With a Biography
and Bibliography by R. Crocker. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0095-5
128. Y. Yovel (ed.): Kant's Practical Philosophy Reconsidered. Papers Presented at the 7th
Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter (December 1986). 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0405-5
129. J.E. Force and R.H. Popkin: Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac
Newton's Theology. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0583-3
130. N. Capaldi and D.W. Livingston (eds.): Liberty in Hume's 'History ofEngland'. 1990
ISBN 0-7923-0650-3
131 . VI. Brand: Hume's Theory ofMoral Judgment. A Study in the Unity of A Treatise of
Human Nature. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1415-8
132. C.E. Harline (ed.): The Rhyme and Reason of Politics in Early Modern Europe.
Collected Essays of Herbert H. Rowen. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1527-8
133. N. Malebranche: Treatise on Ethics (1684). Translated and edited by C. Walton. 1993
ISBN 0-7923-1763-7
134. B.C. Southgate: 'Covetous of Truth'. The Life and Work of Thomas White
(1593-1676).1993 ISBN 0-7923-1926-5
135. G. Santinello, C.W.T. Blackwell and Ph. Weller (eds.): Models of the History of
Philosophy. Vol. 1: From its Origins in the Renaissance to the 'Historia Philosphica'.
1993 ISBN 0-7923-2200-2
136. M.J. Petry (ed.): Hegel and Newtonianism. 1993 ISBN 0-7923-2202-9
137. Otto von Guericke: The New (so-called Magdeburg) Experiments [Experimenta Nova,
Amsterdam 1672]. Translated and edited by M.G.Foley Ames. 1994
ISBN 0-7923-2399-8
138. R.H. Popkin and G.M. Weiner (eds.): Jewish Christians and Cristian Jews. From the
Renaissance to the Enlightenment. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2452-8
139. J.E. Force and R.H. Popkin (eds.): The Books ofNature and Scripture. Recent Essays
on Natural Philosophy, Theology, and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands of
Spinoza's Time and the British Isles of Newton's Time. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2467-6
140. P. Rattansi and A. Clericuzio (eds.): Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th
Centuries. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2573-7
141. S. Jayne: Plato in Renaissance England. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3060-9
142. A.P. Coudert: Leibniz and the Kabbalah. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3114-1
143. M.H. Hoffheimer: Eduard Gans and the Hegelian Philosophy ofLaw. 1995
ISBN 0-7923-3114-1
144. J.R.M. Neto: The Christianization of Pyrrhonism. Scepticism and Faith in Pascal,
Kierkegaard, and Shestov. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3381-0
145. R.H. Popkin (ed.): Scepticism in the History of Philosophy. A Pan-American
Dialogue. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3769-7
 ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
*
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

146. M. de Baar, M. Lowensteyn, M. Monteiro and A.A. Sneller (eds.): Choosing the
Better Part. Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678). 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3799-9
147. M. Degenaar: Molyneux's Problem. Three Centuries of Discussion on the Perception
of Forms. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3934-7
148. S. Berti, F. Charles-Daubert and R.H. Popkin (eds.): Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free
Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe. Studies on the Traite des trois
imposteurs.1996 ISBN 0-7923-4192-9
149. G.K. Browning (ed.): Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reappraisal. 1997
ISBN 0-7923-4480-4
150. G.A.J. Rogers, J.M. Vienne and Y.C. Zarka (eds.): The Cambridge Platonists in
Philosophical Context. Politics, Metaphysics and Religion. 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4530-4
151. R.L. Williams: The Letters ofDominique Chaix, Botanist-Cure. 1997
ISBN 0-7923-4615-7
152. R.H. Popkin (ed.): Scepticism in the Enlightenment. 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4643-2

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