The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion

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 PLATONISTSIN PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXTPolitics, Metaphysics and Religion

EDITED BYG.A.J. ROGERS, J.M. VIENNE

AND Y.C. ZARKA

Founding Directors:P. Dibonf (Paris) and R.H. Popkin (Washington University, St. Louis & UCLA)

Directors: Brian Copenhaver (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), Sarah Hutton(The University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom), Richard Popkin (Washington Univer-

sity, St Louis & University of California, Los Angeles, USA)Editorial Board: J.F. Battail (Paris); F. Duchesneau (Montreal); A. Gabbey (New York); T.Gregory (Rome); J.D. North (Groningen); M.J. Petry (Rotterdam); J. Popkin (Lexington);

Th, Verbeek (Utrecht)AdvisoryEditorialBoard: J. Aubin (paris); A. Crombie (Oxford); H. Gadamer (Heidelberg);H. Gouhier (paris); K. Hanada (Hokkaido University); W. Kirsop (Melbourne); P.O.Kristeller (Columbia University); E. Labrousse (Paris); A. Lossky (Los Angeles); J.Malarczyk (Lublin); J. Orcibal (Paris); W. ROd (MQnchen); G. Rousseau (Los Angeles);

H. Rowen (Rutgers University, N.J.); J.P. Schobinger (Zurich); J. Tans (Groningen)

THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS INPHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT

POLITICS, METAPHYSICS AND RELIGION

edited by

G. A. J. ROGERSUniversity ofKeele, Keele . United Kingdom

J.M. VIENNEUniversite de Nantes. France

and

Y. C. ZARKACNRS Paris . France

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 desi dees; 150.B1133.C2C292 1997141' . 2 · 094209032- - dc21 97 -10318

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Contributors

Abbreviations

IntroductionJean Michel Vienne

vii

viii

ix

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

PART ONE

The Other-Worldly Philosophers and the Real World :The Cambridge Platonists, Theology and PoliticsG.A. J. Rogers

Liberte et Verite: Politique et morale dans lacorrespondance hollandaise de More et de CudworthLuisa Simonutti

Critique de Hobbes et fondement de la morale chezCudworthYves-Charles Zarka

PART Two

The Heritage of Patristic Platonism in Seventeenth-century English Philosophical TheologyDavid W. Dockrill

John Smith et Ie PortiqueJacqueline Lagree

Cudworth, Boethius and the Scale of NatureSarah Hutton

Ralph Cudworth, un platonisme paradoxal: La Naturedans la Digression concerning the Plastick Life ofNatureAlain Petit

Ixe$"v; et Relation : Du platonisme al'empirismeJean-Michel Vienne

PART THREE

The Role of Illuminism in the Thought of Henry MoreRobert Crocker

v

3

17

39

55

79

93

101

111

129

vi

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

TABLE OF CONTENTS

"La Nature est un art". Le vitalisme de Cudworth et de MoreJean-Louis Breteau 145

Force, Motion and Causality: More's Critique of DescartesJohn Cottingham 159

Cudworth versus Descartes : platonisme et sens commundans la critique des MeditationsMarialuisa Baldi 173

PART FOUR

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Les differentes lectures du System de Cudworth parG. W. LeibnizAndre Robinet

Platonic Idealism in Modern Philosophy fromMalebranche to BerkeleyStuart Brown

ApPENDIX

187

197

Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript n? 4981 (On the Nature ofLiberum Arbitrium) introduced by J. L. Breteau

Bibliography

Index

217

233

245

Marialuisa BaldiJean-Louis BreteauStuart BrownJohn CottinghamRobert CrockerDavid W. DockrillSarah HuttonJacqueline LagreeAlain PetitAndre Robinet

G. A. John RogersLuisa SimonuttiJean-Michel VienneYves Charles Zarka

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

CN.R. Milano, ltaliaUniversite de Toulouse-le -Mirail, FranceThe Open University, United KingdomUniversity ofReading , United KingdomThe Flinders University, AustraliaNewcastle University, AustraliaUniversity ofHertfordshire, United KingdomUniversite de Rennes , FranceUniversite de Clermont-Ferrand, FranceC.N.R.S. Paris, France; Universite Libre de Bruxelles,BelgiqueUniversity ofKeele, United KingdomCN.R. MilanoUniversite de Nantes , FranceCN.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 ofGodliness,(London, 1660).

T.E.I.M. : Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise Concerning Eternal and ImmutableMorality, (London, 1731).

T.F. : Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise ofFreewill, (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 themoral sphere; they held that practical judgement came down in the last instance toindividual conscience ; and they laid the foundations of our modern conceptions ofconscience and liberty. But at the same time they maintained the existenceof eternal truths, and of a Good-in-itself, identical with Truth and Being, refusing toadmit that freedom of conscience implied moral relativism. They were critics ofdogmatism, 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 causeof 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 atthe heart of all true thought, and that human reason had validity only in virtue of itsdivine 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 intorepute; and they sought to provide a detailed account of the causality linking allphenomena. But at the same time they fought against every form of materialismand atheism; they constructed their universe on a finalistic model derived fromPlato ; and they maintained that the world could be understood only on vitalistprinciples .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 theformation of modern thought, and many of their questions are still our own, even iftheir solutions are no longer accepted. Within the framework of inquiry of theirtime, they tried to bring together the most irreconcilable tendencies; and because ofthis, their ideas are far less monolithic, and far harder to classify, than those of theircontemporaries, with the result that they have been largely forgotten in the historyof philosophy. Moreover, the form in which they presented their views provides anobstacle for twentieth-century readers. The problem is one of style, of metaphoricallanguage, of the elaborate erudition of their scholarship, and above all of thedifficulty 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 richnessof their ideas can be lost sight of. But there is, for all that, a unifying thread - onethat the contributors to this volume have tried to uncover, with the aim of restoringthe Cambridge Platonists to the important place that belongs to them in the genesisof our modern culture. This should be particularly evident in the first four chaptersof the book, which are devoted to morals, politics and religion. Hitherto, researchon 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 Moreand 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 ofplace 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 theyadvanced.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. Whatcan be more bewildering is the theological aspect - the system of concepts andmetaphors in terms of which their moral and political (and hence religious) preoc-cupations are worked out. These authors were committed to a pan-psychic vitalismwhich seems all the more foreign to us given that many texts from the same periodare 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 byLeibniz, Newton or Locke, if we ignore the reservoir of ideas which the work of theCambridge Platonists represented for those very thinkers who elaborated their ownsystems 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 reactionagainst the various forms of voluntarism that prevailed at the time. Calvinism andits offshoots , in the course of affirming the transcendence of God, put the divinewill at the centre of their explanation of the universe - a notion that gave rise, inmoral philosophy, to predestination and legalism, and in political theory to state ab-solutism. Hobbes responded to theological absolutism by putting into the hands ofthe 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 muchworse that the evil it is designed to prevent: it degenerates into a relativism which isjust as dictatorial. As the Platonists saw it, it was only by restoring an authentictranscendence that one could resist the kind of relativism that regarded all authorityas an artificial creation . But this authentic transcendence could not be identifiedwith theological voluntarism, any more than with Thomist scholasticism, the latterhaving been compromised by its links with Catholic obscurantism and intolerance.It could only be derived from the prisca theologia - that ancient theology whichhad been embodied (as certain traditions of the time had it) in the teachings ofMoses, as well as those of Pythagoras and Plato, and even Aristotle. A Platonicframework 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 tofollow 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 begiven the ability to use his reason to move away from the sensible world andapproach 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 thedifference 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 thelight of Neo-platonism, itself christianised by the Fathers of the Church, notablyOrigen . Three fundamental elements - emanationism, the scale of being, and theStoic 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 avitali st dimension which was certainly not a feature of Platonism in its originalform. 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 thePlatonic and Neoplatonic theses mentioned. Conceiving of a Trinity not reducibleto three fundamental elements, a creation not consisting of emanation, a divinepresence that is not an internal fire but a natural principle of organization, providinga justific ation of causality that invoked something more precise than mere impact-in short taking advantage of the priority of being , truth and goodness withoutfalling into various forms of pantheism or materialism (the very move Spinoza wasmaking at this precise time) - all these were additional factors demanding amodification 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 - thesewere also the preoccupations of Grotius in the field of law. As a follower ofArminius , 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 ifwe agreed thee was no God, or that human affairs are not an object of concern tohim" (De Jure Bellis ac Pads, Prol. 11). The Platonists followed suit in their desireto think of a universe which was itself so ontologically marked by the divinepresence that one could ignore any interventions made by God under the form ofparticular 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 necessarypresence on the other; here the terms of the subsequent debate between Clark andLeibniz are already clearly laid down.

*

To provide its "guiding thread" for readers of the Cambridge Platonists, thevolume thus opens with the moral and political dimension in their writings andtheir lives, a dimension that is all too often ignored. The Cambridge Platonists wereardent defenders of freedom of conscience, and they based this defence on a law ofnature, 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 JohnRogers, shows how this theory is exemplified in the actions and sermons andtreatises of Cudworth and More. The doctrine of freedom of conscience, close tothat of the Latitudinarians, would arouse the interest of the Remonstrants inHolland, who were engaged in a struggle against rigorous Calvinist dogma, andvarious forms of intolerance. Chapter II, by Luisa Simonutti, clarifies the nature ofthis liberal morality, and compares the positions of the Arminians with those of thePlatonists by examining the correspondence between Cudworth and More on theone hand, and the writings of Van Limborch, spokesman for Arminianism, on theother. Peace must take precedence over dogmatic rigour, whether it be that of theCalvinist 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." Butthis freedom must be based on the transcendence of Truth and Goodness . Thesetheses, and the practical moral and political conclusions which flow from them, areopposed to those of Hobbes - at any rate as he was understood when his workswere published. Chapter III, by Yves-Charles Zarka, examines the moral positionof Cudworth by analysing three aspects of his opposition to the relativism attrib-uted to Hobbes - epistemic, theological and political - which call into question thethree principles of ethics: free action, subject and norm. Cudworth's opposition wasthe 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 difficultiesinvolved in trying to adapt the Christian revelation to the conceptual forms ofPlatonism; this difficult enterprise begun by the Fathers of the Church, notablyOrigen, brought about certain transformations which gave modern Platonism itsspecific character : God cannot be distinguished from Intelligence; He cannot be amonad unrelated to a world emanating from Him, since He must possess the idea ofall things before freely creating them. In order to Christianise this Platonism, usewas 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, byJacqueline 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: thePlatonists 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 Christianthought. Chapter VI, by Sarah Hutton, makes a more precise study of the metaphorof the Chain of Being borrowed from Boethius, to underline this hierarchy in theuniverse 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 theexpression "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 theologicalone : by introducing his "plastic nature", Cudworth seeks a via media betweenmechanism and hyper-voluntarism, between a God who does nothing and a Godwho 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 themind and the priority it gives mankind over sensible data, one can understand theirinterest in ancient atomism and Cartesian mechanism; the latter provides the disor-ganised material elements which only the mind, according to the Platonists, can putinto their proper relations. Chapter VIII, by Jean-Michel Vienne, studies the im-portance of these relations, and shows that, paradoxically , a new empiricism wasdestined 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 mustexpress the pre-eminence of the mind: three chapters analyse this form of pan-psychist vitalism which provides a rationale for the causal relationship betweenthings. Chapter IX, by Robert Crocker, concentrates on More's life to show howthe successive styles of his works correspond to his own experiences , whether mys-tical, intellectual or literary, and how his conception of atoms, of their interactionsdue to spiritual forces, and of causality in general, underwent a corresponding evo-lution . Chapter X focuses on vitalism itself: Jean-Louis Breteau shows how theconcept develops by diverging from Cartesian mechanism, and taking the form ofCudworth's "plastic nature" , or More's "spirit of Nature" . Chapter XI continues thestory by analysing the concept of causation : John Cottingham shows how, facedwith 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 causallink 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 ofthe 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 positionsbased on a vitalist Platonism ; nevertheless, dangerous as Cartesian ism may havebeen, its mechanistic atomism was an antidote to materialism in so far as it stillallowed 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 byLeibniz in the course of his successive readings of Cudworth's vitalist arguments.Andre Robinet sees in the different passages which Leibniz noted not the influenceof 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 reactin different ways to the same text of Cudworth . Finally, Chapter XIV, by StuartBrown, 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 revivalwhich 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 ofours, nor yet of God's either", as Norris puts it. These new Platonists rediscoveredthe 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'sreaders of the interest of their views and analyses. The importance of the physicaland metaphysical theories of these Platonists cannot of course be ignored; but theirconception 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 coherenceand scope if they are considered as stemming from their concern to place man atthe very centre of their inquiries - man in his personal relationship to God,achieved thanks to his free conscience. In the twentieth century where there hasbeen a separation of science and morals, fact and value, philosophy and religion, itis easier for us to understand Descartes and Newton, concerned as they were tokeep theology and morality separate . But this separation was sometimes due to fearof 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, theseboundaries, and insisted on the necessity of achieving an overall conception of thevarious dimensions of human existence. But for all that, the stress on theology andmorals could not be at the expense of the autonomy of the subject and his search fortruth - a delicate balance which they never quite managed to achieve. But the factthat they did not succeed in producing a fully unified conception of the world doesnot 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 Viennetranslated by John Cottingham

PART ONE

G.A .J. ROGERS

THE OTHER-WORLDLY PHILOSOPHERS AND THE REAL

WORLD: THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS, THEOLOGY AND

POLITICS

Ralph Cudworth was just thirty years old when, in March 1647/48 , he travelleddown from Cambridge to London to preach before the House of Commons. At firstsight this would seem to be a case of a young and unworldly academic entering intothe 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 waysof the world would have feared to tread? Or was it that he, and perhaps others ofthe Cambridge school, knew, if not fully well, at least well enough, what they wereabout?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 whichwould 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" asthat 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, explainssomething of More's unhappiness in his later years as resulting from his shelteredcollege existence which had prote cted him from the painful fact s of the widerworld.? He also saw this unworldiness as the source of some of the failures inMore' s reasoning and in part accounting for the lack of influence of the school inthe subsequent century." Cassirer too, in his famous account of the Cambridgeschool 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 experimental 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 lookedupon by them as the absolute negation , subversion and perversion of all that in which they saw themeaning 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 "thepure 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 ecclesiasticalpower. . . 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 hisreligion; 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 theCambridge Platonists as very much aware of the political landscape in which theirphilosophy was set and maintaining a position which they saw as advancingtowards a political settlement in the troubled and dangerous years of mid-seventeenth century England. For what they had to offer, and I shall limit myselfprimarily to the two leading figures of the school , Cudworth and More, were someimportant 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 centralbeliefs for which they stood were to be absorbed into the more comprehensive casefor 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 therest with Plato. It has often been said that the so-called Cambridge Platonists werein reality much closer to Plotinus than to Plato." And the defence of the claim toregard them as Platonists sometimes amounts to no more than the identification ofall religious philosophy as somehow merely a series of footnotes to Plato. Moresaid of himself that it was the "Platonick Writers, Marsilius Ficinus, Plotinushimself, Mercurius Trismegistus; and the Mystical Divines"," not Plato, that hadbeen his early inspiration. We should also remember that More was also indebted toAristotle, 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 ofAristotle, and ranks them well above those of the perceived enemy, the ancientatomists: "The Aristotelical system of philosophy is infinitely to be preferred beforethe whole Democritical; though the former has been so much disparaged, and theother cried up of late amongst US."9 And with regard to its implications for religionhe places Aristotle well above Descartes, for the former fully understood thatnature was "no fortuitous principle, but such as doth nothing in vain, but all forends, 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 executionerof it" . In contrast, the Cartesian hypothesis requires "God to contribute nothingmore to the fabric of the world , than the turning round of a vortex or whirlpool ofmatter".10More 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 firstparticipation from God: therefore, he that observes Reason observes God" .1 1Reason, he held - and others of the Cambridge Platonists followed him - "is aPrinciple, 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 Rationalas 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 wouldappear to support the view that the Cambridge philosophers were essentially un-worldly in their outlook. Granted that Plato's whole philosophy appears to pointaway from this to another, higher, reality, he was, nevertheless, enough in contactwith 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 wouldseem . But, if the argument that I offer here has any merit, then at least aqualification 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 wecan find many ways in which Platonic themes enter their philosophies and it is thePlatonic philosophy that most pervades many of their most central tenets, they wereall in part responding to a complex intellectual context in which all of the followingplayed 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, ashis early poetry makes clear. Both More and Cudworth were of course stronglyaware of the implications of the new accounts of motion, especially that ofDescartes, 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 warthat had threatened almost every aspect of their lives. At the personal leveltheir livelihood as academics remained problematic for many years, and forsome there was serious hardship inflicted on their families .!" More widely, itthreatened 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 religionthere were the various radical Puritan sects; in natural philosophy there were,for example, the disciples of Paracelsus. That More himself had a "Naturaltouch of Enthusiasm" as he admitted," only made the vice worse for beingpersonal.

4. Perhaps most threateningly, because most closely argued, there was the newmaterialist philosophy of Hobbes. And there was not only Hobbes . For thedisciples 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 tobecome so prevalent in both England and France."

II

Richard Ashcraft has recently argued for a position with regard to the place ofLatitudinarianism in the development of toleration in England which includessomething of the following. The latitudinarians placed great weight on the centralplace of reason in theology and in everything else. But because they were loyalmembers of the Church of England, a church that insisted on providing a set bodyof doctrine , they did not really believe in liberty of conscience. They thereforestood in marked contrast to the nonconformists. The latter, in accepting that everyindividual is made in the image of God, held, too, that each has reason and free willand is capable of acting morally according to his private judgement. And, becauseof the special status of conscience as God's way of instruction in moral matters, hisprivate judgement would indeed coincide with God's will. In contrast , Ashcraftargues, "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 wildenthusiasms 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 believein 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 isworth noting that his list of latitudinarians is not very long - in this particularcontext he refers to Glanvill, Fowler, Stillingfleet and Sprat, but indicates there areothers. Specifically, he does not include either Cudworth or More, or indeed any ofthe 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 thePuritan, 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 reasonis an essential precept of religion. That is, God as the Author of reason, has given mankind the Law ofNature as a law of reason and has created individuals with those faculties and powers of reason thatenable 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, wemight 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 thathe may make those choices which are of the greatest importance to him. Religiouspersecution ran quite contrary to the principles of Natural Law.19


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 toshow that these principles are to be found in the Anglican royalist, Henry More, andarose from within the Cambridge school and its early and deep commitment to thecentral place of reason, and its limitations, in the human condition. Moreover, thiscommitment on More' s part dates from at least 1661, sixteen years before the Owenpassage 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 importanceof conscience was Edward Fowler. He had written, in The Design of Christianity(1671): "no Pleasures are comparable to those that immediately result from virtueand holiness: for that man's Conscience is a very Heaven to him that busieth himselfin 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 ofCommons. I began by noting that this event was not his first brush with the worldof politics . Cudworth had been a firm supporter of Richard Holdsworth, committedroyalist and Master of Cudworth's college, Emmanuel , in his struggle withParliament. It was a battle that lasted until Holdsworth 's death in 1649. Althoughalways regarded as puritan, Emmanuel College, with the rest of the University , wasalways to support the king, which must make us wary of assuming any simpleidentification between puritan theological convictions 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 impressionon Cudworth, and no doubt confirmed his horror of war and militant confrontationgenerally ."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 toAlan Gabbey , "by the Long Parliament, and which were preached, two at a time, onthe 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 otherthan 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 ofscholastic mastery of the theological argument, but in keeping God's command-ments with a righteous heart. It was a warning against precipitate action - includingprecipitate legislation on matters of religious doctrine - that was done without aclear commitment to God's word, and arising from that, a commitment to God'scommands through our actions. He said:

Christ came not into the world to fill our heads with mere Speculations to kindle a fire of wrangling andcontentious 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 towardsheaven; not he whose head spinneth out the finest cobwebs."

Cudworth goes on to say that the true Christian is not one who believes "all thevulgar 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, thatno man shalI ever be kept out of heaven, for not comprehending mysteries thatwere beyond the reach of his shalIow understanding.t'P The whole tone of thesermon 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 thereare undoubtedly limits to what we may understand, everyone of us can certainlyunderstand enough to obtain salvation. In other words, what we need to know toobtain 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 theliker unto God; whilst in the mean time there is no such care taken about keeping ofChrists 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 keepingGod 's commandments rather than attempting to determine and impose specificmatters of doctrine . Clearly Cudworth believed both that the parliamentari ans werecapable of absorbing his message and that they were in danger of ignoring it - whyelse preach that sermon ? Cudworth's line of argument, furthermore, in warningParliament of the real dangers inherent in entering too deeply into theologicalniceties , anticipated the position of the Church of England that was to emerge asdominant 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 someconfidence 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 atEmmanuel, it was an appeal to the House of Commons which rightfulIy led to theconfirmation of Worthington 's appointment. Those supporting Worthington'scandidature included the Master, Holdsworth, Whichcote, and Cudworth, alIRoyalists, but their candidate was nevertheless preferred by the Commons to thatof their opponents for what were apparently exactly the right reasons, namelyWorthington's academic superiority.P Cudworth was the secretary of the colIegecommittee that conducted the election and recorded a minute confirmingWorthington's acknowledged superior merit, even by those opposing hiselection."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 ofjudgement were further confirmed by his appointment by Parliamentary authority tothe Mastership of Clare HalI in 1645, when he was just 27, and also by the House


of Commons to the regius professorship of Hebrew. He went to the Mastership ofChrist's College in 1654. Nor were his relations with the government of Cromwellaffected by his personal convictions about church and monarchy, for John Thurloe,Secretary of State to both Oliver and Richard Cromwell, often consulted Cudworthabout possible appointees to government positions and with evidently successfuloutcomes.P At the Restoration he had some difficulty in obtaining confirmation ofhis appointment as Master of Christ's. Clearly his close involvement with Thurloeand perhaps other leading figures in the government of the Interregnum had raisedquestion marks in the minds of some. One in particular, Ralph Widdrington, at-tempted all in his power to have Cudworth removed . At the Restoration Cudworthhad Widdrington ejected but the battle between them was to continue for severalyears . 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 seenby most impartial observers to be largely above politics and was also a man ofintegrity 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 toaccount 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 theargument 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 themisfortune to be aimed at scholars, not natural philosophers, when it was thetheories 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 onthe three leading English thinkers of the period, Boyle, Locke, and Newton. ButLocke and Newton , at least, were to read him, were impressed by his achievements,and were to some extent influenced by him.32The 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 bethought that it was a contribution to that view of the world that denies the accountof human beings offered by Hobbes in Book I of Leviathan. Gilbert Burnet wellcaptures the contemporary response to Leviathan, which he described as that "verywicked book, with a very strange title":

His [Hobbes '] main principles were, that all men acted under an absolute necessity ... He seemed to thinkthat the universe was God, and that souls were material , thought being only subtle and imperceptiblemotion. He thought interest and fear were the chief principles of society : and he put all morality in thefollowing 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 hewrote his book at first in favour of absolute monarchy, but turned it afterwards to gratify the republicanparty."

Indeed Burnet saw the Cambridge school as the chief - because intellectuallymost 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 difficultiesbetween the rival religious sects, which, anyway, by the 1670's were clearly not theenormous political threat that they had been thirty years before. And there can beno 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 atheisticmaterialism, was one of Cudworth's central targets. So in this sense Cudworth'swork was an attack on a specific philosophy which was attached to a very specificpolitical 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 theuniverse, and this clearly does have some kind of political implications, or at leastwas 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 subjectivistethics of the atheists. And to shore up the ramparts against that enemy was verymuch one of Cudworth's objectives. To that extent it was an attempt to uniteChristendom against a far more serious enemy than that which divided the variousprotestant Christian sects to be found in seventeenth-century England. It was, ifanything, a warning that whilst the fiddling debate between the sects continued amuch 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. AsBurnet put it "this set of notions came to spread much. The novelty and boldness ofthem set many on reading them. The impiety of them was acceptable to men ofcorrupt 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'saccount of ethics is directly challenged. The whole burden of Cudworth's argumentis 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 Soulfatally 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 "arbitrarynor fantastical". It stands in marked contrast with the claims of the author ofLeviathan, Cudworth says, who claims that there is "no common Rule ofGood andEvil 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 areinflicted upon malefactors for their unjust and illegal actions past , by civil magis-trates in particular commonwealths."39 The Treatise of Freewill was aimed onceagain at Hobbes. It is clear that Cudworth saw the Hobbist account of liberty andnecessity as a direct moral threat to the justification of punishment and therefore athreat to order in the state as well as incompatible with the Christian understandingof the relationship between God and human purpose . The political dimensions ofCudworth's thought could hardly be more obvious .

IV

I wish now to turn to Henry More. At first sight the grounds for regarding More'sthought as having any kind of political dimension look even more unlikely thanthose of Cudworth. He, more than any of the other Cambridge Platonists, exceptpossibly John Smith , is the paradigm of the academic don who chose deliberatelyto 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 importantand 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 thelatter pOSt)?40In 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, totake 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 andphilosophy. The offer was simply without attractions to him. The Christ Churchdeanery is perhaps another matter, though he was well aware of the responsibilitiesthat 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, wasnot sufficiently attractive to warrant a move from Cambridge. More was very happyto recommend Edward Fowler instead , from which he went on to become Bishop ofGloucester.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 theInterregnum. More was one of only three Fellows to remain in Christ's after theejection 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 oneshould accept the Pauline injunction in Romans 13 that one should obey the powersthat be, even that of usurping govemments.f The picture which emerges is thatMore wished to be allowed to continue his writing with the least involvement in theparticular 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 politicallife. It was, rather, that he believed that the issues raised by those making the noisewere 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 conspicuousgodly in the Kingdome .. . are about such things are not at all essential to Godlinesse, nay are indeednothing 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 bedisputes amongst Christians about issues which did not touch the essentials of thefaith "in life and doctrine". On matters not essential people should be "free tothinke 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 thatMore deplored, and this was in itself good reason for keeping clear of the argumentand 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. Thesewere 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 Morewith 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 giveus much argument for his preferences, but they are perhaps not hard to reconstruc t.Almost certainly he feared the democratic tendencies of presbyterianism which hebelieved had helped to produce the turmoil of recent times. Evidence for thisreading of More is to be found in the Apology that he published three years later,which was a defence of the Grand Mystery of Godliness against criticism that theearlier work had received. In the Apology he specifically makes the connectionbetween monarchy and episcopacy on the one hand and presbytery and democracyor "populacy" on the other, and of course he favours the former.vIt 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 themagistrate is determined, he says, by the rights which men have as men . Andthe first of these , More holds, is that of freedom in their religion " . . .which isinviolable, and such as the power of the Magistrate ought not to invade, unlessthere be some perverse mixture in it that forfeits their Right"." It is fundamental torational men who believe there is a God that they may serve God in the best waythat their lights decide . Men do not have to accept the first religion proposed tothem. They have the right, if they do not like the one proposed , to seek a better . Wemight remember that More himself had done just that in rejecting Calvinistorthodoxy on predestination in his youth, an event which was undoubtedly a veryimportant one in his development."


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 urgedin the Apology, and "[tjhere shall be nothing held Essential or Fundamental but theindispensable law of the Christian life, and that Doctrine that depends not upon thefallible deductions of men, but is plainly set down in the Scripture". He goes on togive clear recognition to the place of conscience. Other things, he says, should be leftto the free recommendations of the Church, "ensnaring no man's conscience'vsAs 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 theseventeenth century. It was not only the ultimate court of appeal for all humanbeings 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 Moreargued that all this showed was that God spoke with a different voice to differentpeople. It did not in any way undermine the authority of that voice, nor took awaythe obligation to obey it. More could combine a commitment to an episcopalianchurch with a commitment to the primacy of conscience , because he held that a trueChristian church would always allow freedom to its members, either to leave thechurch if prodded to do so by their conscience, or, within the episcopal fold, to varyits practices 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 orintimidation that provided the ultimate political dimension to the beliefs of theCambridge Platonists. For all their other-worldliness, especially in the case ofMore, they saw their philosophical and theological investigations as having directbearing 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 publicsphere. What they stood for, and what they articulated in their philosophy, con-tributed to the wider understanding of that relationship between church and statewhich , if not always followed, was to become more widely recognised and tobecome 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 anIntroduction 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 farmore", 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 -SaxonPhilosophy (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 hiddenInfluence" 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 Manuscript 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 infinancial difficulties, almost certainly as a result of the war, for some time . Worthington was anotherwho 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: "Latitudinarianism and Toleration" in Philosophy. Science, and Religion inEngland. 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 andPerez 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 ofCommons 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 (ifhe was indeed the author) The Whole Duty ofMan (1658) that it "epitomized the commonsensical, non-controversial, brand of theology on offer in the Restoration Church of England. It was typical of acertain practical ethos which had emerged in reaction to the speculative and 'experimental' religion ofthe 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" inT.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 theLatitude-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", Journalof the History of Ideas, 49, no. 3, 1988, pp. 511-538; Richard Popkin : "The Crisis of Polythei sm and theAnswers of Vossiu s, Cudworth, and Newton", in James E. Force and Richard Popkin : Essays on the


Context , Nature , and Injluence of Isaac Newton's Theology (Dordrecht, 1990) pp. 9-25; and RichardPopkin: The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought (Leiden, 1992), ch. XXI.]) Bishop Burnet 's Histo ry ofHis 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 Treatiseconcerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (London, 1891) RoutiedgelThoemmes Press, London,1992).]9 lbid., p. 3.40 Cf. The Conway Letters , edited by Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Revised Edition with an Introductionand New Material by Sarah Hutton (Oxford, 1992) pp. 298-99, 414, 415, 419, 423 . The Deanery ofChrist Church is given as a pos ition offered to More in the article in the Dictionary of NationalBiography. 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 (byconstantly deny ing the Covenant) to the loss of that little preferment I had before those times, as I neverreceived 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 whichMore says that the book Hartlib has just sent him "came to my handes j ust immediately after I had takenthe engagement". Cf. Gabbey: "Cudworth, More, and Mechanical Analogy" , p. 113.4 ] On this see Quentin Skinner: "Conquest and Consent : Thomas Hobbes and the EngagementControversy", The Interregnum, edited by G. E. Aylmer (London, 1972) pp. 79-98, esp. p. 80.44 Gabbey , 01'. cit., p. 114.45 The Apology ofDr 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, editedby 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 parfoisapologetiques, la description que Simon Patrick! donne en 1662 du milieu deCambridge acette epoque apparait toujours comme tres significative.? II s'arrete surles 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'etaitimposee "a cote" de la plus rigoureuse orthodoxie . Dans son oeuvre Brief accountof the new sect of Latitude-men.' Patrick decrit a son correspondant anonymed'Oxford les caracteristiques culturelles essentielles de ce groupe de theologiens,d'erudits et de polemistes qui se regroupaient sous Ie nom - alors a I'acceptionironique 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 mediocritywhich our Church observes between the meretricious gaudiness of the Church of Rome, and the squalidsluttery of Fanatick conventicles,"

II confirme leur adhesion aux articles de foi, ala politique de I'Eglise anglicane,al'enseignement neo-testamentaire et aux dogmes fondamentaux de la doctrine desPeres de l'Antiquite qui etait d'une simplicite et d'une comprehensibilite naturelleet originaire, et ce, contre les modern doctrines des" . . .Spinose school-men, orDutch systematicks, neither from Rome nor Geneva, the Council of Trent, norSynod of Dort..."7Apres 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 lapensee religieuse des latitudinaires, Patrick s'associe, dans la deuxieme partie dutexte, aux arguments philosophiques du neo-platonisme contre la tradition scolas-tique aristotelicienne." En prenant I'idee dans l'apologue amusant mais neanmoinseloquent de I'horloge et de la Clock-Philosophy, Patrick esquisse une defenseouverte 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 ensciences 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 "infinitedesire 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 theold, 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 moreGeography than is found in Strabo orMela .1O

Bien que peu de philosophes interesses aux science!' ou de savants aient figureparmi les latitudinaires de la premiere et de la deuxieme generation, et bien queI'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 audebat philosophique et scientifique qui caracterisait I'institution universitaire deCambridge.t3Patrick continue sa defense en rappe1ant que ces nouveaux philosophes ne man-

quent pas de reconnaitre la grande valeur de certains aspects de la penseed'Aristote et d'etre d'attentifs lecteurs'" bien que ces derniers (l'alIusion a More eta Cudworth est evidente) considerent la philosophie platonicienne comme la seulecapable 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 seulephilosophie qui, en faisant appel a la sagesse antique, etait capable de garantir uneutilisation equilibree de la raison natureIle et qui sauvegardait les latitudinaires deI'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 philosophiquesd'un moment particulier du monde acadern ique religieux de Cambridge a l'epoquede 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 lamorale veritables ont besoin du soutien de la raison, puisqu'il existe "an eternalconsanguinity between all verity ; and nothing is true in Divinity, which is false inPhilosophy, or on the contrary".J7 La raison est la faculte qui nous perrnet, nonseulement de juger chaque chose, mais aussi d'acceder aces principes qui sont la"Candle of the Lord" situee dans nos ames .ISCe fut justement dans ce milieu culturel en effervescence, dans l'entourage de

Whichcote, More et des autres neo-platoniciens (qui d'ailleurs n'accepterent jamaisde 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 Iedomaine latitudinaire comme par exemple Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Lloyd, Tenison etGilbert 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 cadrepolitico-theologique, differences parfois legeres et soulignees par l'accent despolemiques qui caracterisaient I'Eglise anglaise a l'epoque de la Restauration et quidistinguerent les deux courants de pensee, latitudinaire et neo-platonicien," et lacomplexite 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 champde 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 auxtheologiens, aux historiens et aux polemistes latitudinaires ci-dessus cites, entreautres ades personnages comme Henry Jenkes et Oliverus Doiley qui, bien que liesaux deux penseurs neo-platoniciens, prospererent dans ce champ culturel commun,esquisse avec perspicacite dans Brief Account par Patrick. Ce milieu deviendra lareference culturelle privilegiee du theologien arminien et, avant lui, de son co-reli -gionnaire Arnold Poelenburg, tous les deux conscients d'une affinite non fortuite depensee 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 calvinismeanglais-' remontent au debut du XVIIO siecle, Poelenburg - qui preceda Limborchdans 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 aLimborch, il se promettaitd '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 debartheologique et ethique propre au courant arminien hollandais, mais surtout avec lesneo-platoniciens et les latitudinaires qui soutenaient la paix entre les chretiens ainsique la libre quete de la verite selon les regles de la raison a un niveau aussi bienphilosophique que religieux . II est done tres eloquent que Limborch designe HenryMore 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 zeledeploye par I'Eglise protestante anglaise, qui defendait des dogmes plus complexesque solides . Cela avait favorise les querelles et la haine religieuse au detriment dela recherche et de la defense de la verite: une verite qui, selon Limborch , ne pouvaitpas etre sereinement recherchee, si ce n'est en garantissant la paix religieuse entreles chretiens zeles et les chretiens dissidents.PDepuis longtemps, Ie neo-platonicien avait Mite ses oeuvres parmi les plus

connues et il les avait proposees a nouveau , presque systernatiquement, dans unrecueil decrits philosophiques publie aLondres en 1662.27 Dans An AntidoteAgainst Atheism28 (et ensuite dans Ie traite sur l'immortalite de l'ame),29 il entendaitprouver I'existence de Dieu avec les instruments de la logique et avec la force del' 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 Apresavoir fonde les processus cognitifs de I'homme sur la raison humaine et sur lalumiere 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 comme il arrive dans la science nouvelle, maisqui seront des emblemes d'une demonstration etablie selon un modele cogn itif acaractere 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 queprovenant de comportements religieux opposes a l'atheisme, conduisent au memeresultat: l'irrationalite et la subversion du principe religieux dans l'atheisme, Cettecritique 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 enpartant du principe de l'affinite et de la relation etroites qui existent entre ce genred'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 dogmede la predestination absolue; cette affirmation, soutenue par les puritains les pluszeles , ne favorisait pas la paix et la moderation entre les differentes confessionsmais 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'editiondes oeuvres d'Episcopius ou, dans I'introduction, il exprimait des pensees prochesde la position du neo-platonicien. Avec Ie meme courrier, et toujours en cadeau, Iehollandais envoyait aRalph Cudworth et aPeter Gunning Ie recueil des oeuvres dutheologien arminien ainsi qu'une lettre d 'accompagnement. Si cela annonca Iedebut d'une etroite entente avec Cudworth et ensuite avec sa fille Damaris, il n'enfut pas de merne avec Gunning, fervent theologien, controversiste et representantconvaincu de l'orthodoxie calviniste, qui ne partageait pas les fondements de latheologie liberale de Limborch. Le hollandais Ie regretta et ecrivit aMore quelquetemps 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 veritatisinvestigationem non utilem, sed et quodammodo necessariam judico . Ubi Iibertas inquirendi veritatempremitur, ibi veritas opprimitur; ubi autem Iibera iIIam investigandi facultas conceditur, ibi exultat etfacili negotio Invenitur."

Au contraire, Ie penseur neo-platonicien avait exprime son approbation des ideesde clernence et de probite dans I' etude et Ie debat religieux, idees exprimees parLimborch et Poelenburg dans la preface des oeuvres d'Episcopius." De meme, ilavait anticipe les difficultes et les craintes de Gunning et probablement cellesd 'autres theologiens du milieu de Cambridge, comme Richard Kidder.w lies -meme si avec quelques hesitations - a I'orthodoxie calviniste, a I'encontre de latheologie liberale de la secte des Remontrants. Limborch consacrera entierernent salongue reponse de septembre 1688 a la defense des fondements de la theologie


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 etde dissimuler uniquement, derriere Ie desir de cueillir Ie fruit de l'arbre de lascience et en se servant de la libre interpretation des textes sacres - si fortementdefendue 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 aI'interet partage par Ie neo-platonicien, qui se montrera sensible au rapport entre lapolitique et la morale.

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

Au debut de la premiere lettre envoyee aCudworth, 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 Iedebar long et anime qui eut lieu sur Ie dogme de la predestination; quelques lignesapres, en revanche, Ie theologien fait I'eloge de I'Angleterre et de ses hommes deculture qui surent depasser tout sectarisme grace a leur aversion manifeste pourtoute forme de schisme. Pour finir, il souligne Ie soutien que la pensee politique etreligieuse des Remontrants recut au cours des annees , en Angleterre et surtoutaupres 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 theologienanglais , Limborch put constater Ie grand interet que lc milieu latitudinaire portait al'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 lesrepresentants 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 longscomptes 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 observancedes dogmes d'une part, et les promoteurs d'une theologie plus liberale, commeEpiscopius et Poelenburg .'" En outre, Pierce informe Ie theologien hollandais surles discussions relatives aune politique de comprehension et de tolerance al'egarddes non conformistes et des dissidents, vaste debar qui impliqua pendant ces anneesIe 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 dansl'oeuvre d'Episcopius et il souhaite que cette ceuvrepuisse constituer un instrumentutile afin de lutter contre I'erreur du zele religieux exagere. II continue sa lettre enaffirmant sa conviction que la force de la verite reussira as'imposer meme dans lesevenements anglais.

22 L. SIMONUTTI

Fiduciam mihi facit quod in Anglia nostra intra paucos hosce annos, tantum praevaluerit vis Veritatis utnon 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 refusprecoce de tout dogme ou prejudice, son principal interet pour les philosophes del'Antiquite (les peripateticiens et les platoniciens en particulier") et, pour finir,il insiste sur cet engagement ethique qui caracterise sa reflexion aussi bienphilosophique 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 luttentles unes contre les autres . II soulignait la centralite des lois de la verite et deI'amour dans la vie de l'homme et du monde.f fondements necessaires pour uneparfaite liberte interieure, II exhortait les Communes a s'occuper de la religion et adefendre Ie bien de l'Etat et surtout a contribuer a l'affirmation de la veritablescience : la science qui s'inreresse au perfectionnement de l'intelligence naturellede l'homme afin de lui permettre de connaitre, dans lUnivers, Dieu et sesattributs.

I speak not here against a free and ingenuous enquiry into all truth according to our several abilities andopportunities ; I plead not for the captivating and inthraIling of our judgments to the dictates of men ; I donot disparage the natural improvement of our understanding faculties by true knowledge, which is sonoble and gallant a perfection of the mind ; but the thing which I aim against is, the dispiriting of the lifeand 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 zealupon 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 artset 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 pourles Communes et leur role dans la societe. Le jeune neo-platonicien esquisse ainsiles taches culturelles et politico-religieuses de l'assemblee parlementaire a laquelleil s'adresse non sans une legere teinte ironique dans son refus des contentiousdispute 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 thatwere beyond the reach of his shallow understanding if he had but an honest and good heart , that wasready to comply with Christ' s commandments."

Dans sa lettre a Limborch, en revenant a ses reflexions sur les problemesethiques, Cudworth expose le sens de sa profonde certitude de l'immutabilite dubien 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 trouveson garant en l'Immutabilite de la nature de Dieu. De cette facon, it ne sera pluspossible d'assigner a Dieu Ie terrible decret qui, par Ie simple consentement divin,


damne inevitablernent et eternellement les hommes innocents a la tounnente et al'expiation illimitee des fautes." Cudworth rappeIle aussi que sa convictionremonte a une quinzaine d'annees, au moment de son Bachelor of Divinity,48 etqu'il exposa ses theses alors avec assurance malgre une forte oppos ition de la partde ses examinateurs calvinistes. Cependant, ces derniers admirent, mais seulementen 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 denombreux 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 dumal, du juste et de l'injuste, a tel point qu 'il avait envisage d'ecrire un systemeethique 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 nelui fit ni completer ni publier son systeme d'ethique, il en fit cependant une oeuvrecentrale pour Ie developpernent de sa pensee et y porta toujours interet, comme entemoignent 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 lanecessite, toutefois ces reflex ions faisaient partie de ce systerne ethique, enplusieurs livres, qui devait preceder True Intellectual System of the Universe et quien contenait les fondements philosophiques. Voila pourquoi Ie traducteur italien duresume 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 equindi 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 oeuvrepolemique. S'il se refere a l'enseignement platonicien du Theetete, de I'Eutiphronmais aussi a d 'autres oeuvres platoniciennes transmises par l'humanisme italienpour l'opposer a l'atomisme et au materialisme areligieux des Anciens, Cudworthengage une polemique surtout avec les Modernes, avec "that late Writer of Ethicksand Politicks", Hobbes. Son erreur est de construire une theorie ethico-politique enpartant d'une conception relativiste oil il n'y a pas de place pour une valeur qui serefere 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 deDe Cive et de Leviathans? Cudworth manifeste son opposition contre Hobbes endefendant la possibilite, non seulement d 'une morale, mais aussi d'une doctrinepolitique et d'une conception de la liberte a la base d'une theor ie de la societevouee a lajustice et au bien comrnun.P

24 L. SIMONUTTI

En outre, panni les penseurs qui attribuerent a travers leur doctrine un pouvoirarbitraire a Dieu, ce qui mine par consequent toute possibilite d'evaluation ethiqueet de construction scientifique, Cudworth cite Descartes et les philosophes oc-camistes qui ont leurs epigones chez plusieurs theologiens modernes.>' Si avec IeDescartes de la Reponse a la Sixieme Objection, la possibilite de creer quelquechose 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 fruitde la volonte de Dieu, alors

there can be no such thing as Science or Demonstration, nor the Truth of any Mathematical orMetaphysical 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 havesuch 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, comme les atomistes et les sceptiques del'Antiquite, ils ne reconnaissent pas d'autres interactions entre les corps que Iechangement et les mutations que l'on peut concevoir ou comprendre a travers Iemouvement local: "therefore, it is acknowledged by all, That Sense is Passion't.vPour Cudworth au contraire, il est fondamental de garantir, meme en s'appuyant

sur une theorie de la connaissance inneiste aforte influence platonicienne," la pos-sibilite d'une construction rationnelle qui se trouve non seulement a la base de sonethique et de sa philosophie sociale, mais qui devient aussi Ie garant de la veritablereligion. S'il a signale des ses premiers sermons et argue longtemps du danger dumaterialisme antique et moderne, dans les pages de Treatise concerning Eternaland Immutable Morality, Cudworth lance une attaque critique aux nouveaux oc-camistes, a savoir aux calvinistes de son epoque qui defendaient Ie libre arbitredivin 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'hommeIe serviteur d'un Dieu absolu et ils transforment la religion en superstition et en zeleenthousiaste.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 Treatiseconcerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, Cudworth rappelle que Ie devoir dulegislateur, humain ou divin, est de faire observer et de prescrire un comportementvertueux 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 lanature, 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 uponWill. being not things that are arbitrarily Made, but things that Are. To conclude therefore, even inPositive Laws and Commands it is not mere Will that Obligeth, but the Natures of Good and Evil, Justand Unjust, really existing in the World/"


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 orderamongst man; and therefore if God or Civil Powers command any thing to be done that is not unlawfulin 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 ownsakes, but for the sake of that which Natural Justice absolutely obligeth to.61

Selon Cudworth, l'adhesion de l'individu aux vertus civiles et a la foi religieusese base sur une ethique de type platonicien; cependant, l'importance qu'il prete auconcept de liberte vis-a-vis des hommes, se detache de l'interpretation de la penseegrecque.v- II conclut d'une facon significative Ie Treatise on Freewill avec cesparoles:

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

Pour Cudworth la liberte n'est qu'en partie l'exercice du libre-arbitre qui pourraitainsi effectuer un autre choix . Pour Ie philosophe, cette liberte qui est Ie propre del'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 pasobligation predeterminee) de l'homme a vivre la bonne vie.64

4 . TRUTH AND LOVE. A STATE OF PUREST LIBERTY

Si la theorie de la connaissance n'est pas Ie sujet principal de la correspondanceavec 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 rolecentral que Cudworth attribue a l'ethique. Meme pour Limborch l'engagementmoral 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 dumois de septembre 166865 adressee a Cudworth, les arguments fondamentaux de latheologie liberale des Remontrants et de la theorie de la tolerance basee sur la dis-tinction entre les dogmes principaux et secondaires, ouvertement professee par lesarrniniens. De plus, dans la lettre suivante, il soumet a son correspondant ce qu'ilavait precedemrnent ecrit a propos du probleme de la tolerance par rapport auxdissidents .w

26 L. SIMONUTTI

Cudworth adhere entierement a la defense passionnee que Limborch livre al'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 endanger 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 loquiliceat) Protestantium; Calviniani, Remonstrantes , et credo etiam Sociniani, una cohabitant; conspirantessine ulla aperta Discordia, in unam et eandem Externam Communionem.s"

Ces themes resteront au centre du debar dans les lettres suivantes - ce sont leslettres 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 uncadeau aCudworth qui avait lui envoye True Intellectual System of the Universe."alors que sera public ce Systema Theologico, la Theologia Christiana, qui, selonI'auteur, est entierement consacre a la defense de la libre quete de la verite et a lapromotion de la paix entre les chretiens?" - oeuvre soutenue avec vigueur par lesneo-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 sesprincipes ethico-religieux et politiques, empreints de cette liberalite qui caracterisaittoute son oeuvre.P D'ailleurs, de son cote, au debut des annees soixante.P Moreavait examine Ie point de vue des partisans du calvinisme rigoureux et il avaitanalyse la controverse apropos de la predestination qui avait oppose les calvinitesorthodoxes 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 dogmede l'election et de la condamnation absolues signifierait pour I'engagement moraldes hommes et pour Ie message evangelique. L'engagement a mener une vievertueuse, qui se base sur la possibilite de la Redemption et sur les valeurs deI'ethique chretienne, serait devalorise. Le rapport de I'homme avec Dieu et lesobligations qui Ie lient a lui sont les fondements sur lesquels More appuie sesreflexions ethico-religieuses, son anti-predestinationisme, sa critique envers Ie fa-natisme et I' atheisme, la defense de la liberte de conscience et ses reflexionspolitiques.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 Iecroyant est pret a toute punition afin de ne pas perdre Ie droit a la religion - et unacte d'injustice civile. En effet, il est convaincu que cela irait contre les interetspolitiques et economiques si ce principe naturel, qui appartient achaque nation et achaque 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


rapport a la liberte de conscience. Redoutant les risques d'une guerre civile et lesexces des sectes commes celles des Quakers, des Ranters, des catholiques, asavoir de tous ceux qui , selon lui, abusent de cette ratio qui est Ie garant de lacorrecte interpretation des Ecritures et de I'obeissance civile, More attribue aumagistrat une tache importante: Ie controle et la tutelle de la religion et de lasociete civile contre les exces de ces "illumines't.?" Cependant, il reste prudentface 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 liberteinterieure de I'individu. De plus, More exhorte les magistrats - une telle exhorta-tion fut tenue par Cudworth devant la Chambre des Communes - afin qu'i1screent des ecoles publiques pour prevenir et corriger les impostures religieusesgrace aI' etude

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

Pour Limborch comme pour More, chaque differend religieux peut etre traitedans la paix et la tolerance, sans aucun prejudice pour la religion et pour la societecivile. 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 desEcritures. Cela ne constitue pas un danger pour la religion parce que les dogmesfondamentaux , sur lesquels concordent les differentes sectes, ne craignent pasl'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 EnchiridionEthicum (1667) et de Enchiridion Metaphysicum (1671). La lecture critique deLimborch surtout de Enchiridion Metaphysicum modifia la confrontation d'ideesque les deux auteurs surent developper au cours de leur correspondance. Dans lapremiere moitie des annees soixante-dix, ils furent pris dans Ie vif de la discussioncritique non seulement sur la methodologie scientifique de Descartes - Limborchtout 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 mecanismecartesiens, Cette metaphysique, qui comportait pour la religion les memes risquesque Ie socinianisme, etait reproposee - selon More" - dans toute sa puissance des-tructrice par Spinoza.VBien qu 'etroiternent liees aux questions morales et politiques, les thernatiques

exposees par les deux auteurs dans leurs lettres importantes'" sont caracteriseespar des reflexions philosophiques et metaphysiques. II suffit de noter que cettegrande affinite d'interets et de positions entre More et Limborch dans Ie cadre desdiscussions ethico-religieuses et politiques diminua au cours de la confrontationphilosophique jusqu 'a prendre des positions differentes a propos de lametaphysique cartesienne et de la conception neo-platonicienne que More luiopposait.

28 L. SIMONUTTI

5 . THE CHRISTIAN TUTOR . UN EPILOGUE

Le debar autour du rapport entre la politique et la religion et entre les convictionsphilosophiques 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 unecorrespondance importante. De meme, Limborch fit que Ie debat resta vif egale-ment avec quelques personnages mineurs qui agirent etroitement avec More etCudworth et qui furent souvent les intermediaires dans leurs rapports avec l'auteurhollandais."Parmi ces derniers, Henry Jenkes" joue un role de premier ordre grace ason im-

portante correspondance avec Limborch et, en particulier, grace a The ChristianTutor, or a Free and Rational Discourse of the Sovereign Good and Happiness ofMan, and the Infallible Way of attaining it, especially in the Practise of ChristianReligion qu'il publia en 1683. Dans cette oeuvre breve, il desire indiquer les voies asuivre pour mener une vie vertueuse, selon l'idee d'Erasme. Cette "bonne vie" esten accord avec l'enseignement chretien, avec les lois que la raison et la Revelationnous ont fait connaitre et qui se trouvent dans les Saintes Ecritures, en particulierdans 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 dediriger nos pensees vers cette vie vertueuse." Ce qui est d'un interet majeur pournous 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 theUnderstanding: 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 ourBlessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is: and that you may easily learn from those good Books I haveformely re-commended to you.. ..88

Jenkes cite tous les livres qu'Il conseille au lecteur concernant, tout d'abord, laReligion Chretienne, et entre autres les oeuvres de Wilkins, Parker, I'oeuvre deGrotius sur la Verite de la religion Chretienne dans I'edition de Patrick, lesoeuvres de Hammond, Patrick, Tillotson , Chillingworth, mais aussi l'oeuvreexegetique de Castellion et les deux volumes de Explanation of the Grand MysteryofGodlinessi? 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 deOldenburg et les Histoires nationales de Milton et de Gilbert Burnet. Apres lestextes 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 etCharron, Grotius et Pufendorf et naturellement Enchiridion Ethicum et TrueIntellectual System of the Universet? avec les classiques de l' Antiquite, Platon,Aristote, Seneque. Ciceron et les poetes latins .


Apres avoir etudie ces auteurs, Jenkes est certain que son lecteur averti nemanquera pas de methode et d'ordre pour proceder, selon un Iibre choix et unebonne disposition de la volonte, aI'apprentissage et a l'obeissance des principesmoraux.De cette facon , et grace ace manuel de la morale chretienne, I'ouverture au

savoir historique et scientifique du probleme ethique est evidente. Cette ouvertureeut lieu au cours du XVlI o siecle (a Cambridge surtout au cours des vingt cinqdernieres 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" etla "nouvelle philosophie libre"; et, en meme temps , il rend evident Ie rapport entreIe cercle des neo-platoniciens et Ie milieu latitudinaire de Cambridge. The ChristianTutor fournit un apercu significatif de la pensee des neo-platoniciens et des latitudi-naires, de son evolution en une vingtaine dannees, de leurs conceptionsphilosophiques, ethiques et politiques qui seront proposees anouveau sous la formed'un resume, grace aI'oeuvre de Jenkes, aun plus large public de savants de la findu siecle.

Luisa Simonutti

NOTES

T. A. Birrell , dans I'introduction minutieuse de la nouvelle edition de Brief account of the new sectofLatitude-men. (The Augustan Reprint Society, Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark MemorialLibrary. 1963) dresse la liste des elements qui prouvent que Ie latitudinaire Simon Patrick est bienl'auteur de cette oeuvre breve . Cependant, certaines difficultes, recernment soulevees par John Spurr, de-meurent quant 11 cette paternite, ' '' Latitudinarianism' and the Restoration Church", The HistoricalJournal, 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 RichardKroll , 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 theSeventeenth-Century Church of England. annote par Richard H. Popkin, edite par Lila Freedman(Leiden, etc .: E. J. Brill, 1992), et W. M. Spellman, Latitudinarians and the Church of England1660-1700 (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: CambridgeUniversity Press , 1989) , voir la premiere partie ; et John Spurr, Restoration Church of England1646-1689 (Yale : Yale University Press, 1992).4 [Simon Patrick], A Brief account of the new sect of Latitude-men. Together with some reflectionsupon 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'impactqu'eurent au cours du XVIII siecle les theologiens et philosophes appeles latitudinaires. On se refere enparticulier 11 l'etude de John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the age of the Enlightenment. 01'. cit.: FrederickC. Beiser, The Sovereignty ofReason, (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 etP. 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 lesrecherches de Spurr deja citees , Une nouvelle lecture critique complete du latitudinarisme se trouve dansles 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 ofMoses Atticus: a noteon seventeenth-century Anglican apologetics", in: ibid., pp. 68-84; et Richard H. Popkin, The ThirdForce 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 Briefaccount ofthe new sect ofLatitude-men. op. cit., p. 22 .II Quelques essais recents ont reconsiderede facon plus critique certaines interpretations, pourtant fon-damentales, du role des latitudinaires dans Ie milieu scientifique. Parmi les nombreuses recherches sur Iepuritanisme et la nouvelle science (pour n'en citer que quelques unes : D. Stimson, "Puritanism and thenew 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 typiquesde cette Iigne interpretative sont presentees et devetoppeesdans Ie livre redige par Charles Webster, TheIntellectual Revolution of the Sev enteenth Century (London & Boston : Routledge andP. 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' ofthe 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 deses particularites par rapport a l'universite d'Oxford) ou agirent les latitudinaires, qui nous est foumiepar J. Gascoigne (Cambridge in the age of the Enlightenment. op. cit.) demontre et accentue 11 nouveauIe role que Ie groupe latitudinaire joua dan s Ie developpernent de s sc iences et de la reflexionphilosophique politique sous I' Angleterre de la seconde rnoitie du XVII et au cours du XVIII . Cf. dumerneauteur, "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 ofIdeas, 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 upin 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 thedecayed ruines of Lyceum, where she served an hard servitude, and contracted many distempers: whyshould she not at last be set at liberty, and suffered to breath in a free air? let her alone be Mistress, andchoose her Servants where she best like; let her old loving Nurse the Platonick Philosophy be admittedagain into her family; nor is there any cause to doubt but the Mechanick also will be faith full to her, noless against the open violence of Atheisme , than the secret treachery of Enthusiasm and Superstition, asthe 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 parA. Rupert et M. Boas Hall (Madison, etc .: 1961-86, 13 vol.), v.VI, p. 372.17 [Simon Patrick]. A Briefaccount of the new sect ofLatitude-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. 491-521. Cf. S. Patrick, Autobiography, (Oxford , 1839).


20 Cf. G. Burnet, History ofmy 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 pourdesigner 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 aMore et quatrereponses de ce demier, neuf de Limborch aCudworth et quatre reponses de ce demier. Toute la corre-spondance est conservee pres I'Universiteit Bibliotheek d' Amsterdam (que nous appellerons maintenantsous 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 maisegalement 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 Moresuivie quelques mois plus tard de la mort de Cudworth); elle cornmenca et fut souvent anirnee par lesquestions et les reflexions du theologien arminien . Cette correspondance nous permet d'approfondir lespositions philosophico-critiques de ces auteurs et surtout d'examiner certains aspects de leur reflexionpolitique par rapport ala theorie ethique.n Le sejour de Grotius en Angleterre en 1613 et I'attention pour les idees arminiennes qu'il suscitaaupres de la cour et du roi Jacques ler en personne, I'envoi de la delegation anglaise afin d'assister auxtravaux 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 totoleration. 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 aLondres en 1664 afin qu'il fasse accepter par I'Eglise d'Angleterre lareligion des Remontrants, Poelenburg n'oublie pas d'envoyer ses salutations aThomas Pierce d'Oxford,aPeter Gunning et aHenry More de Cambridge. Cf. Lettre de A. Poelenburg a I. Vossius, in UBA.2S Cf. A. W. Harrison, The Beginnings ofArminanism to the Synod ofDort (Londres : University Pressof London, 1926); du meme, Arminianism (London: Duckworth, 1937); C. Bangs, Arminius. A study inthe Dutch Reformation (New York, etc. : Abingdon Press, 1971); et surtout N. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists .The rise ofEnglish Arminianism (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1987).26 Limborch ecrit: " Insignern tuum paci ac caritati inter dissentientes ac longe a se [. ..J divulsosChristianorurn caetus resarciendae Zelum, qui torus ardere videris, non possumus non exosculari. Quisenim , quem aliqua mansueti Servatoris nostri Spiritus aura afflavit, non ingemiscat, quando serio apudanimum 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 odiisplusquam Vatinianis turgere, et conservos, imo fratres suos , caelo terraque proscribere? Ex caritatefrat(r)ema disci pulos suos aestimari vult Servator. Quare iIli mihi laudatissimo incumbere videnturstudio, qui ad tristes illas animorum dissensiones non tantum ingerniscunt , sed odia tollere, ac charitatemresuscitare 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 diviseeset en mutuel desaccord, Car quel est celui sur lequel a souffle l'Esprit de notre doux Sauveur, qui nes'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 cause de ces dissensions sur les dogmes , plus embrouilles que veritables , plus adaptes a desquerelles qu'a la piete, non seulement se divisent en factions, mais aussi s'adonnent a des haines plusacerbes que celles de Vatinius, et poursuivent au Ciel et sur terre leurs compagnons dans Ie service, quisont en verite leurs freres? Le Sauveur veut juger ses disciples selon leur charite fratemelle. Pour cela, ilme parait que se dedient a un tres louable effort ceux qui non seulement s'affligent de ces tristes dissen-sions des ames, mais qui s 'efforcent avec Ie plus grand zele de faire cesser les haines et de faire revivrela charite, Et c'est a cet egard que je considere notre communaute digne d'eloges, c'est-a-dire que, ou-vertement nous professons la tolerance des chretiens qui ont une opinion differente de la notre . Cettecommunaute ne pourrait tant faire pour la defense de la verite si celle-ci etait separee de la recherche dela 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 ofNature and the Light ofReason (Londres: J. Flesher, 1659).)() Dans les scholia rajoutes dans l'edition latine contenue dans Opera Omnia (Londres: J. Maycocketc ., 1675-79,3 vol .), v. 1II, il reprend la critique de I'atheisme modeme et Ie mecanisme cartesien.~ I Le sens de la conception des idees innees dans Ie champ philosophique et dans Ie cas du contrastepolitico-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 rapportBoyle-More et sur les differentes conceptions philosophiques et scientifiques, cf. John Henry, "HenryMore 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, "Mysticismand 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 avecimpatience la reponse du tres iIIustre Gunning. Je regrette que cet homme si cultive, que je reverehumblement, n'approuve pas mon enseignement sur la liberte d'Interpretation des Ecritures, liberteque je con sidere cependant non seulement utile a une honnete 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 exprime 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 dansla meme Admonitio, en exposant c1airement les fondements ration nels et libertaires sur lesquels sebase tout e sa production ulterieure d 'ecrits theologiques: (v. Theologia Christiana ad praxin pietatisac promotionem pacis Christianae unice directa, (Amsterdam: H. Wet stein, 1686) , polerniques etd'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 ipsam solam. Momenta rationurn, non approbatorum dignitas, ponderanda sunt . Nonenim 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 apes ex quavis,etiam venenata herba, mel suave ac maxi me salubre conficiunt, ita etiam ex quovis doctore veritasveritatisque 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 desdocteurs qui la designent, mais en ne fixant qu'elle. II faut considerer les elements du raisonnement et


non Ie rang de ceux qui I'affirment. II n'est pas necessaire que celui qui se trompe dans une certaineopinion soit heretique sur tous ses raisonnements, [.. .] Et c'est cette liberte moderee de prophetiserque 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 larneme facon que les abeilles produisent un miel doux et tres salutaire a partir de n'importe quelleplante meme veneneuse, ainsi peut-on conquerir la verite etles remparts de la verite grace a n'importequel doc teur. Non dans Ie but d 'ouvrir les fenetres aux secte s, accusees en un sens , mais dans Ie butde les eliminer",35 Cf. Lettre de More a Limborch, Pridie kal. Maii 1667 (30 avril 1667), dans UBA. La premiere partiede la lettre contient un vaste eloge de la figure et des oeuvres de Poelenburg, disparu depuis peu et queMore admirait vraiment. Pendant plusieurs mois , Ie neo-platonicien garda la lettre en attendant deI'envoyer a Limborch avec les reponses de Gunning et de Cudworth mais aussi parce qu 'il etait occupepar la publi cation de Enchi ridion Ethicum (Londres: J. Flesher, 1667). Au moment de I'envoyer, ilajouta un long postscriptum, date 16 kal. Martii 1668 (14 fevrier 1668) dans lequel , outre I'annonce deI'envo i de Enchiridion Ethicum en guise de cadeau, it mettait au courant Limborch sur les doutes emispar 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 ildevint fellow . Non confonniste dans un premier temps, iI deviendra un homme d'eglise par la suite enrant 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", HarvardTheological Review. 16, 1923, pp . 3-37; les deux volumes de A. W. Harrison (The Beginnings ofArm inanism to the Synod of Dort, op. ci t.; et Arminianism, op. cit. ), et Ie volume publie par DerekBaker, Reform and Reformation: England and the continent. c.1500-c.1750, (Oxford, 1979) qui contiententre autres les essais de C. Grayson, "James I and the religious crisis in the United Provincies1613-1619", 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 17mai 1686 et 3 juillet 1689. II existe de nombreuses recherches sur Ie debar religieux en terre anglaiseentre les annees 1660 et 1689, des recherches de A. A. Seaton , The theory of toleration under the laterStuarts (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 devonsajouter: 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 of1689", 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 Persecution 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'assuranceque dans un petit nombre dannees, la force de la verite aura tellement prevalu en notre Angleterrequ 'elle aura soumis un grand nombre de ses plus feroces ennemi s et qu 'ellc les aura amene s prisonniersdans 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 omniapraeiudiciorum repagula perrupit ";

trad.: "En ce qui me concerne personnellement, j'avoue que j 'ai ete, pour ainsi dire, nourri de fauxdogmes avec Ie lait maternel, et j 'ai ete profondement imbu de cela dans les toutes premieres annee s deI' 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, dansI'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-worldlyphilosophers and the real world: the Cambridge Platonists, theology and politics" , presente dans cevolume, 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 aLimborch, 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 Naturae esse prorsus Jmmutabiles,nee revera ab ipsius Dei arbitrio pendere, (cum hoc Discrimen Honestorum et Turpium potius abJmmutabili Natura Dei derivandum sit) non poteram Deo ascribere horrenda ista Decreta, qui bus exmero Beneplacito, homines insontes vel ad aeternos cruciatus, vel ad Culpas et Peccata aeternis cruciati-bus luenda, inevitabiliter darnnaret";

tr ad .: "Mais aussi , quand je considerai plus attentivement les questions dethique, et que jem'apercus c1airement que la nature du Bien moral et celie du Mal moral sont surtout immuables, etqu'elles ne dependent pas en verite de la volonte de Dieu meme (puisque cette distinction des chosesjustes 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 aun tourment etemel, solt al'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: "Ilprit Ie degre de Bachelier en Theologie, vraisemblablement en I'annee 1644 . On trouve qu 'i1 soutintalors, dans les Yesperies des Actes publics, qui se font pour prendre les Degres, les deux Theses suiv-antes: 'Qu'il y a des Raisons eternelles du Bien et du Mal. ' Et 'Qu' i1y a des Substances incorporelles,immortelles de leur nature' D'ou il paroit, que des-Iors Cudworth rouloit dans son esprit, et examinoitavec soin , les matieres et les questions importantes, qu'il a tant approfondies longtemps apres dan sson Systeme Intellectuel, et dans dautres Ouvrages qui sont encore en manuscrit" . Th . Birch, Anaccount of the life and Writings ofR. Cudworth. (1743), dans T.I.S.U. I, p. 10, repete la merne pensee.Les deux the ses furent publiees aCambridge Ie 30 Juin 1651 et par la suite, elle furent apposees enappendice au livre de Cudworth, A Treatise of Freewill , publie pour la prem iere fois par J. Allen aLondres en 1838.49 Cudworth ecri vait : "Quapropter, cum nuper integrum Systema Ethicum meditarer, animus mihi eratin eo copiose de Bono et Malo , Justo et Injusto fusei disputare; verum cum postea intelIigerem Amicummeum et Collegam Doctorem More eodem tempore editurum Tractatum Ethicum, ne simul in eandemarenam, quasi de Gloria certaturi , descendere videremur, ab Incoepto destiti ";

trad .: "Pour cela, quand recernment je reflechissais aun systeme ethique complet, j'avais I'intentiond'y traiter abondamrnent du Bien et du Mal, du Juste et de l'Injuste selon la nature ; mais quand plustard, j 'ai su que mon ami et collegue Ie docteur Henry More preparait en meme temps un traited'ethique, j'ai renonce al'entreprise, afin que nous ne parai ssions pas descendre ensemble dans la mernearene cornme pour nous disputer la gloire" . Lettre aLimborch, 10 fevrier V.S. 1668 (20 fevrier 1668),dans UBA . Cf. dans Th. Birch , An account of the Life and Writings ofR. 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 onFreewill, souligne une telle relation ; cependant, les biographes Birch, Chauffepie et surtout J . A.Passmore , dans son oeuvre encore tres utile : Ralph Cudworth. An Interpretation (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1951) - voir Appendix - ont mis en evidence la difficulte de determiner lacomposition et la chron ologie des manuscrits inedits du neo-platonicien. Cf. aussi Samuel I. Mintz , TheHunting ofLeviathan (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1969), voir p. 126 et suivantes. Toutefois, ilest probable que Treatise on Freewill ait ete une partie ou un resume de I'ouvrage plus vaste Discourse


ofLiberty 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 deIe placer avant Ie Systeme Intellectuel, parce qu'i1 pose les fondements des principes ideologiques del'auteur,' Sistema intellettuale dell'universo di Radolfo Cudwort compendiato e tradotto or per la primavolta 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 gnoseologieet 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 volume de Passmore deja cite, et Arrigo Pacchi , Cartesio inlnghilterra, (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 traversI'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 CambridgePlatoni 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 such things as Moral Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, that contendnotwithstanding that these are not by Nature but Institution and that there is nothing Naturally orImmutably 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 andEquity, and an antecedent Obl igation to Obedience in the Subjects; which things are not Made by Laws,but pre-supposed before all Laws to make them valid : And if it should be imagined, that anyone shouldmake a positive Law to require that others should be Obliged, or Bound to Obey him, every one wouldthink 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 positiveLaw , because they were not previously Bound to Obey a Person 's Commands: So that Obligation toObey all Positive Laws is Older than all Laws, and Previous or Antecedent to them . Neither is it a thingthat is arbitrarily Made by Will , or can be the Object of Command, but that which either Is or Is not byNature " . Ibid ., pp. 19-20.60 Ibid ., p. 20.61 Ibid ., pp. 22-23.62 Cf. J.-L. Vieillard-Baron, Platonisme et interpretation de Platon al'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 Cambridge, op. cit., p. 160 etsuivantes.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 deI'oeuvre de Limborch contre Sceperus: Korte Wederlegginge van ' t boexken onlangs uytgegeven byIacobus Sceperus genaemt Chrysopolerotus (Amsterdam: J. Rieuwertsz, 1661) . Cf. aussi TheologiaChristiana . op. cit., demiers chapitres.67 Limborch a Cudworth, 31 decernbre 1674 , dans UBA .: "Cette liberte de prophetiser et cettetolerance qu'enseignent les Remontrants dans tous leurs ecrits" . 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 notreEglise 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 sansaucune 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 aucours de sa relation epistolaire, tient ses correspondants au courant de ses reflexions sur I'ecriture deTheologia Christiana. op. cit. Cf. en outre, More 11 Limborch, 4 kal Jul, (28 juin 1669), dans UBA ; et lalettre de Limborch 11 Le Clerc, 23 janvier 1683,editee dans L. Simonutti, Arminianesimo e tolleranza nelSeicento olandese. Il carteggio Ph. van Limborch-J.Le Clerc, (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1984), p. 81 etsuivantes.71 Cf. la lettre de Cudworth, 10 juillet 1687, dans UBA, dans laquelle Ie neo-platonicien exprime sonapprobation pour cette oeuvre et sa curiosite pour De veritate Religionis Christianae, arnica collatio cumerudito 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 faciledijudicare potes, non me vagam quidvis convellendi licentiam introducere, sed ingenuam iIIam asserereIibertatem, quae veritatis indagationi maxime accommoda est. Rectam hie ac mediam tenere viam intertyrannidem dominantem ac Iicentiam effraenem, arduae esse operare fateor: Sed prudentia ed charitasChristiana modum hie facile invenient. Charitatis est, non movere ea, quae sine fructu sciuntur". IIajoute 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 argumentummaxime 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 pasles choses qui ne gagnent pas 11 etre connues". et "C'est pourquoi, afin de mettre un frein 11 l'jmpiete, jecrois 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'euxI'argumentation la plus convaincante et cette impietesera elirnineepar la concorde des ames".71 J . G. de Chauffepie, Nouveau Dictionnaire historique et critique. op. cit.. (x.v, More) rapporte sesdoutes sur Ie calvinisme rigoureux et les positions contre la predestination qu'il avait exprirnes desl'epoque de I'ecole d'Eton. Cf. H. More, M.G.; cite ici dans la traduction latine donnee dans H. MoriCantabrigiensis, 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 acnaturale jus omnium Nationum ae Personarum, hoc est, potestatem habent quatenus sunt homines acratione 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 itareligantur 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 deraison, qui eroient en I'existence de Dieu ct en la vie future , qui sincerernent menent leur vie selon eettemerne foi, ont Ie pouvoir d' examiner quelle est la voie la plus juste de servir Dieu pour leur plus grandprofit 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 DutchArminians, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1957, chap. III.76 H. More, Opera Omnia, op. cit., p. 430: "§5. Atque equidem dum immanitatem malosque effectushoc genus Enthusiasmi considero, non possum quin sentiam Christiani Magistratus vigilantiam ad hocetiam inter alia extendi oportere, nempe ad supprimendas subjugandasque Sectas omnes ac Religiones


quae a tam Fanatico capite derivantur, hoc est , quae contra fidem Christianam se credere profitentur abilluminatione 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 magistratchretien, pour supprimer et subjuguer, bien sur, toutes les sectes et religions qui sont devoyees par unprincipe si fanatique, c'est-a-dire ces sectes qui declarent contre la foi chretienne qu'i1s croient grace aune illumination provenant directement d'un Esprit tel quils n'ont aucun compte alui rendre .,; " .77 Ibid. p. 431 : ... .. de l'histoire, des langues et des sciences, et atravers l'usage diligent de la raison(ce merveilleux don fait par Dieu immortel au genre humain) qui vous rendra , un jour, juges honnetes etbien prepares ace sujet".7X "liberte de chercher la verite".79 Limborch aMore, 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. aussil'edition du Discours de la Methode, publieala moitiedu xvno siecle par Etienne de Courcelles.XI Cf. More aLimborch, 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 correspondantsanglais sont contenues dans Ie recueil de lettres intitule Epistolae ad Anglos.X5 Henry Jenkes (tI697), est admis en 1646 au College Emmanuel de Cambridge; iI ira ensuite aLondres et retournera a Cambridge. II fit partie de la Royal Society. II edita l'oeuvre d 'Etienne deCourcelles, Synopsys ethices qui parut aLondres 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 ofChristian 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 torecommend it further, but his Moral Universe." lbid., p. 34.

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CRITIQUE DE HOBBES ET FONDEMENT DE LA MORALECHEZ CUDWORTH

1. SYSTEME MATERIALISTE ET SUBVERSION DE LA MORALE

L'opposition des penseurs de Cambridge, en particulier Henry Morel et RalphCudworth.' a Hobbes est explicite et radicale. Elle affecte, en effet, non seulementles principes du systeme - l'ontologie , la gnoseologie, la theologie, l'ethique et lapolitique - mais se developpe egalement sur des points plus particuliers comme Iestatut des esprits, la conception de la sorcellerie, Ie sort de l'ame apres la mort, ladoctrine de la Trinite, etc. Une opposition aussi systematique a Hobbes n'est passans 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 plalonisme peut etre considere comme I'origine du mouvemenl [des pen seurs deCambridge] , 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. Iesecond a eu une influence negative.'

La pensee de Hobbes a joue un role significatif sur des auteurs qui ont pris soinde Ie lire avec beaucoup d' attention," de le critiquer dans un nombre considerablede 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 modernedu materialisme athee dont ils retracent ou, plus exactement, creent I'histoire. Laphilosophie de Hobbes est ainsi consideree comme la renaissance de I'anciennedoctrine atomiste de Dernocrite. En quoi la pensee de Hobbes forme-t-elle, a leursyeux, un systeme? En ce que Ie materialisme ontologique, Ie necessitarismephysique , 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'etendreIe regne de la necessite causale a tout ce qui existe, en particulier a la volontehumaine . II est egalement logique de concevoir que toute connaissance vient dessens et, par consequent, qu'il n'existe pas de bien et de mal, de juste et d'injuste parnature. II est enfin logique de ne concevoir I'homme que comme un etre rna parI'unique souci de son interet individuel. Autrement dit, Hobbes represente, en uncertain sens, l'auteur moderne Ie plus coherent et Ie plus consequent, celui chez quii1 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 laconsequence de cette systematicite des principes de Hobbes sur Ie plan ethiqueest, selon More et Cudworth, la subversion de toute morale. Voici un passageparticulierement significatif de Cudworth:

39

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Wherefore though a late Writer of Politicks do so exceedingly disparage Aristotle's Ethicks , yet weshall do him this right here to declare , that his Ethicks were truly such, and answered their Title ; butthat new Modle of Ethicks, which hath been obtruded upon the World with so much Fastuosity , and isindeed 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 amere Counterfeit and Changeling. The Design whereof could not be any other than to debauch theWorld .6

En quoi Hobbes accomplit-il une telle subversion qui detroit la vraie morale enlui substituant une contrefacon? L'un des caracteres particuliers de la lecture queCudworth - auquel nous nous attacherons plus particulierement dans cette etude -donne de Hobbes est, comme nous I'avons rappele, d'etre fondee sur une prise auserieux de ses theses. Par consequent, si Cudworth juge que Hobbes accomplit unetelle subversion de la morale, c'est parce qu'il percoit dans sa pensee une remise encause 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 etla norme. Ce qui est en jeu chez Hobbes, selon Cudworth, c'est une negation deI'action morale, celIe qui merite la louange et Ie blame, une decomposition du sujetmoral ou du soi dans une psychologie utilitariste, et une dissolution de toute normemorale dans un relativisme non seulement gnoseologique mais aussi theologique etpolitique.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 sensaux 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 lanecessite, c'est-a-dire Of Liberty and Necessity? et The Questions ConcerningLiberty, Necessity and Chances Le texte ou Cudworth rassemble de maniere la pluspercutante sa critique des positions de Hobbes est A Treatise ofFreewill. Mieux, cetraite de Cudworth a pour objet direct et essen tiel les arguments de Hobbesdeveloppes 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 Ieprincipe de la convertibilite de la cause suffisante et de la cause necessaire d'uneffet.!? Ce principe, qui etablit que tout effet a une serie de causes antecedentes quiIe 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'actionhumaine:

CUDWORTH ET HOBBES 41

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

Toute contingence est donc supprimee dans Ie domaine de I'action humainecomme 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 ingthat we perceive ; [.. .J. And thus you see that though there be three sorts of events, necessary,contingent, andfree, yet thay may be all necessary without destruct ion of the beauty or perfection of theuniverse.'?

Toute la question est desormais de savoir si, en rendant compte de I'actionhumaine en termes d'effet produit par des causes antecedentes, Hobbes ne detruitpas, comme I'affirme Bramhall, Ie principe meme de l'action morale? La concep-tion hobbesienne de I'action a, en effet, selon Bramhall, pour consequence derendre les lois, la deliberation et les conseils, mais aussi la louange et Ie blame, lesrecompenses et les chatiments, la piete et Ie repentir sans objet. Cette position serareprise 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 lanecessite a l'action humaine pour montrer qu'il ne detruit en rien la possibilited'une action morale. Ce principe consiste en une theorie de la deliberation!'qui rend compte de la coexistence , non seulement entre volonte et necessite, maisegalernent 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 nottherefore follow , that there is nothing necessarily requisite as a means to bring it to pass; and thereforewhen it is determin ed, that one thing shall be chosen before another, it is determined also for what causeit 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 prixd'une definition negative de la liberte, comme absence d'obstacles exterieurs al'action.P En outre, Hobbes ne peut retablir les determinations propres de I'actionmorale, c'est-a-dire sa possibilite d'etre I'objet de louange ou de blame, ainsi quede recompense ou de chatiment, qu'en faisant dependre ces determinations d'autrechose 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 forthe state and commonwealth? And what is it to sayan action is good, but to say it is as I would wish ? oras 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 fromnecessity? Things may be therefore necessary, and yet praise-worthy, as also necessary, and yetdispraised. and neither of them both in vain, because praiseand dispraise, and likewise reward andpunishment, 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 nepeut etre retrouve qu'au prix d'une relativisation des valeurs. Le bien et Ie mal, Iejuste et I'injuste ne renvoient pas aune nature intrinseque et immuable, mais resi-dent seulement dans la conformite avec mon desir ou celui d'un autre, ou avec uneloi de I'Etat, c'est-a-dire varient en fonction des affections de chacun ou des loispositives.Cudworth connait cette argumentation de Hobbes . Sa critique vise, dans Ie pro-

longement des objections de Bramhall, aretablir Ie liberum arbitrium contre Ie ne-cessitarisme. La definition negative de la liberte et la relativisation des valeurs quiresultent du necessitarisme, loin de sauver l'idee d'une action morale, n'en donnentqu'une representation contrefaite. Notons, tout d'abord, que lorsque Cudworthexamine, dans la deuxieme section du Treatise of Freewill, les principes de ceuxqui, de tout temps, ont nie Ie libre-arbitre, ces principes correspondent tous adespositions que I'on retrouve presque litteralement developpees par Hobbes dans sestextes 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: IIrien ne peut se mouvoir de soi-meme; 2/1a meme chose ne peut etre ala fois agentet patient, done ne peut agir sur soi-meme ou se changer soi-meme : 31 toute voli-tion est necessaire; 41ce qui est indifferent en soi-meme ne peut s'auto-determineret restera etemellement sans mouvement ni volition (ibid.). Tout se passe done biencomme si Hobbes rassemblait en un systerne I'ensemble des propositions quidefinissent la position, d'une certaine maniere transhistorique, consistant anier Ielibre-arbitre. II s'agit done de savoir pourquoi, selon Cudworth, Hobbes ne parvientpas, comme il Ie pretend pourtant, a rendre compte de I'action et de la liberte dansson 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 deHobbes qui pose que rien ne peut se mouvoir de soi-meme mais par quelque chosed'exterieur. Dans un tel systeme toute cause est un effet d'une cause anterieure etainsi de suite, de sorte que toute action resulte non d'une chaine unique mais d'unnombre incalculable de chaines de causes (c'est-a-dire d'effets) qui embrassent lanature 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 peutrendre compte de I'existence d'un effet quelconque. Ainsi, la matiere est uneetendue divisible et impenetrable mais, en elle-rneme, passive et inactive, incapablede 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 penserl' action, il faut done concevoir au-dela de la matiere un etre qui comporte en


lui-meme un principe interne d'activite, c'est-a-dire une substance immaterielleauto-active. Par consequent, pour penser l'action en general, et l'action humaine enparticulier, i1 faut renverser Ie rapport etabli par Hobbes: l'effet suppose l'action etnon l'inverse. Du reste, Hobbes avait reconnu cette exigence puisqu'il rapportaitlui-meme Ie concours de toutes les chaines causales aun premier maillon, Ie Dieutout-puissant. II est ainsi amene pour donner une constance ason propre systeme aconcevoir, 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 deduitune theorie de la prescience, de la predetermination et de la predestinat ion qui apour fonction de tenir ensemble la liberte absolue de Dieu d'une part, et la necessiteabsolue des evenements intra-rnondains, d'autre part. Dieu devient ainsi Ie seulacteur de tous les effets qui se produisent dans l'univers. Mais en verite, loin desauver ainsi son systeme de la necessite, Hobbes acheve de detruire Ie fondementde la morale puisque I'ultime principe de la relativisation des valeurs se trouve de-sormais rapporte al'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 thannecessary natures , or can act further than they suffer, that thay can actively change themselves and deter-mine themselves contingently or fortuitously, when they are not necessarily determined by causesantecedent. 1&

Pour restituer un sens aI'action morale, i1 faut done mettre en oeuvreune doubleoperation susceptible de retablir ce que Ie necessitarisme avait subverti : 1/ penserl'action, non en fonction de I'effet, mais de I'auto-action; 2/ penser la liberte, nonnegativement comme absence d'obstacles exterieurs, mais positivement commeauto-determination (self-determination), c'est-a-dire comme liberum arbitrium. Eneffet , ce n'est que dans la mesure ou quelque chose est en notre propre pouvoir quenous 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 notrepouvoir que si nous sommes nous-memes la cause veritable de nos actions. Fautede 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 passans poser d'Importants problemes, dans la mesure ou i1 refuse de l'identifier a laliberte d'indifference. Mais tendue entre une capacite d'auto-determination et unecapacite 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 arestituer une consistance ala pos-sibilite d'un ordre moral au-dessus de l'ordre physique des corps.Si l'action morale suppose la liberte, celle-ci suppose ason tour I'idee d'un etre

qui se rapporte asoi-rnerne et qui se determine lui-meme aagir, bien ou mal, avec

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justice ou injustice. Or tel est precisement Ie deuxieme point que la doctrine deHobbes rend impensable: l'idee d'un etre qui se rapporte a lui-meme comme sujetde ses actions.

3. LE SUJET MORAL

L'ame humaine est une seule et merne chose subsistante qui a la fois entend, veut etagit de diverses manieres . L'ame rationnelle comporte done en elle de nombreusespuissances 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 del'expliquer dans les termes d'une psychologie de I'entendement et de la volonteconcues 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 estune source bouillonnante au centre de l'ame, ala fois premier et perpetuel moteur.II definit les etres 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 leparfum d'un summum bonum, d'un bien supreme, a partir duquel se deploient sesdifferentes puissances. Ces puissances ou facultes de I'ame constituent notre naturenecessaire, toujours identique et immuable en nous bien qu'elle puisse se porter surdifferents 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 quiconnait le vrai et Ie faux, Ie bon et Ie mauvais . Le trait commun de ces affections etperceptions 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 leuranalogie 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 etsans treve20 "for while we live, we have desires, and desire presupposeth a fartherend" (EL I, 7, 6, p. 30) . La difference la plus considerable entre Hobbes etCudworth tient a ce que celui-ci pose I'existence d'un summum bonum dont leshommes poursuivent le parfum, alors que celui-la fondait Ie caractere ininterrompudu desir sur la negation de ce summum bonum, ou fin derniere . Ce point est capitalparce qu'il constitue I'un des moments privilegies ou s'opposent la conceptionhobbesienne 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 metcette question du bien supreme entre parentheses, on s'apercoit que les objets du


desir qui enveloppent une odeur du bien chez Cudworth sont tres similaires auxobjets du desir chez Hobbes." Ainsi les biens apparents auxquels aspirent leshommes selon Ie penseur de Cambridge sont Ie plaisir, la joie, I'abondance, Iepouvoir, 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). Cependantalors que Cudworth etablit une hierarchic entre ces biens dont Ie terme est Ie biensupreme 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 commeetre de desir tend vers Ie bien, pour I'autre I'homme comme etre de desir tend versla 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 semet dans l'impossibilite de concevoir une identite specifique de I'homme commeidentite d 'un soi. Ainsi, chaque homme varie en fonction des variations de sondesir, comme I'indique Ie chapitre XV du Leviathan "the same man , in diverstimes, differs from himselfe't.P J'ai tache de montrer ailleurs-' qu'une conceptionde l' identite a soi de l'homme etait introuvable chez Hobbes , alors meme que cetteidentite etait presupposee par certains des actes humains comme Ie fait de promettreou de garder sa foi . Autrement dit, il manque a Hobbes une doctrine de l'identite dusoi seule susceptible de definir un etre moral. Or, c'est d'une certaine maniere laconsequence que tirait deja Cudworth: en supprimant Ie Iibre-arbitre, Ie systeme deHobbes supprime egalement l'idee d'un sujet de la liberte. L'identite du soi ne peutse trouver sur Ie plan du simple desir, elle suppose en outre, pour Cudworth, ladefinition d'un principe hegernonique dans l'ame, qui est Ie principe qui gouverneet commande en nous. C'est lui qui permet de caracteriser plus precisernent Iecontenu 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, sesaptitudes et ses capacites, "holding itself, as it were , in its own hand (se tenantpour ainsi dire, elle-rneme dans sa propre main) " (TP., X, p. 36). Le principehegemonique est ain si dit "self-reduplicated life", vie repliee sur elle-merne,"soul redoubled upon it self', arne redoublee sur elle-merne ayant une maitrise ouun pouvoir sur soi, sui potestas, self-power, et se commandant elle-rneme en unsens 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, cettemaitrise de soi par laquelle I'ame peut agir selon les principes de la raison ou del'honnetete en resistant aux plus bas appetits. L'ame repliee ou redoublee surelle-merne fait emerger un soi , self, qui a la fois fait notre identite et determinenotre nature vers Ie meilleur ou vers Ie pire. L'homme possede par la un pouvoird '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 isself-made into what he is" (ibid., p. 37). Cudworth fait ainsi ernerger I'idee d'unsoi moral.

46 Y.C.ZARKA

Cependant, l' arne se repliant ou se rassemblant sur elle-meme ne peut exercer saliberte qu'en fonction de la connaissance d'une norme du bien et du juste. Or c'estprecisement ce troisieme fondement de I'action morale que Hobbes avait detroit parson 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 andImmutable Morality . Hobbes est ici aussi I'auteur moderne sur lequel porte demaniere privilegiee quoique non exclusive cette critique, parce que sa pen seepresente 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 estdone inevitable que les consequences du relat ivisme gnoseologique traversent lesphilosophies qui , dans le prolongement plus ou moins direct de Protagoras, fontderiver la connaissance de I'impression des objets exterieurs sur les sens. Cesconsequences 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 commele bien, le juste et l'honnete, Remettant en cause sur le plan cognitif le principed'une essence du vrai et du bien, Ie relativisme gnoseologique renonce a toutenormativite, Quand I'homme devient la mesure de toutes choses, il n'y a plus demesure. II va de soi que Hobbes, selon Cudworth, se situe dans ce courant depensee 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 byparts, been begotten upon the organs of sense.) The rest are derived from thatoriginall" .24Pour 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 laconnaissance (cf. T.E.I.M., IV, I, 1, p. 126 sq). Si l' arne etait simplement passive etse contentait simplement de recevoir des impressions et des empreintes des chosesexter 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 depropre 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 nepourrait expliquer pourquoi un miroir ne connait pas les images qu'il recoit etreflechit , ni pourquoi les animaux qui ont des sens parfois plus affines que I'hommene disposent pas d'intellection et ne sont pas capables de s'elever ala connaissancede 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 quiconfere la capacite de reconnaitre, de comprendre et de juger ce qui est recu del 'exterieur par les sens. Ce pouvoir ne peut etre autre chose qu'une capacited'eveiller des idees intelligibles et des conceptions des choses par lesquelles l'ameaequiert la faculte de connaitre.


La seconde forme de relativisme est theologique. Elle consiste a affinner querien n'est absolument, intrinsequement et naturellement bon ou mauvais, juste ouinjuste, honnete ou malhonnete, hors de ce que la volonte divine a pose comme tel.Ce relativisme consiste done afaire de Dieu concu comme un etre tout-puissant, laregie et la mesure du bien, du juste et de l'honnete. L'une des premieres versions dece volontarisme theologique se trouve, selon Cudworth, chez Ockham lequelaffinnait 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 theologiquepuisque pour lui " . . . the power of God alone without other helps is sufficientjustification of any action he doth . [. ..JThat which he does is made just by hisdoing it; just, I say, in him though not always just in US."25 Descartes presenteegalement une version de ce volontarisme dans sa doctrine de la creation desverites 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 quesi I'on veut donner une signification quelconque au bien, au juste et al'honnete, iIfaut necessairement que ces notions renvoient ades principes essentiels, eternels etimmuables. Cette demonstration comporte deux moments.Le premier consiste amontrer 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 blancheou noire sans la presence de blancheur ou de noirceur, c'est-a-dire sans une certainenature, qu 'on conceive celle-ci comme une qualite interne de la chose hors de nous,aI'exemple des aristoteliciens, ou qu'on la conceive comme resultant de certainesdispositions des parties d'un corps (considerees dans leurs grandeurs, figures, mou -vements ou positions) qui provoquent en nous la sensation ou Ie phantasme de lablancheur 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 seraientpas egaux a deux droits ne serait pas un triangle, et un cercle dont les points de lacirconference ne seraient pas equidistants du centre ne serait pas un cercle. Demerne 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 nepeut y avoir d'essence de mode ou de relation arbitraire, c'est-a-dire produite par Ieseule volonte, fut-elle accompagnee de la toute-puissance, parce que cela impli-querait contradiction: par exemple, une essence arbitraire est un etre sans nature, cequi veut dire un non-etre. De sorte que, s'il depend entierement de la volonte divinede donner I'existence aune chose, iI ne depend en aucune maniere d'elle de faireque cette chose soit bonne, juste ou honnete, plutot que l'inverse. Dieu est la causeefficiente supreme, mais non la cause formelle des choses qui fait qu 'elles sontnecessairernent 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 amontrer l'Impossibilite pour laseule volonte divine de rendre obligatoire ou juste une chose qui ne I'est pas na-turellement. Ainsi Cudworth est conduit anier la validite de la distinction entre leschoses qui sont bonnes naturellement et celles qui Ie seraient positivement, en vertud'un acte de volonte. Si un cornmandement positif de Dieu peut rendre une actionobligatoire, ce n'est pas parce que Ie cornmandement est un acte de volonte maisparce qu'i1 etablit une relation qui n'existait pas anterieurement entre cette action etla justice naturelle ou equite. La justice naturelle confere en effet aDieu Ie droit oul'autorite de commander et aux creatures Ie devoir d'obeir. Par consequent, ce n'estque dans la mesure ou Ie droit ou I'autorite de celui qui commande est fonde sur lajustice naturelle que I'objet de son cornmandement devient obligatoire. Cettereference 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 sauraiten 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 etreobserves par les creatures n'etait pas bon et juste de par sa propre nature, jamais lavolonte de Dieu ne pourrait creer d'obligations nouvelles. Ce n'est donc pas lavolonte de Dieu, mais la nature etemelle ou immuable du bien et du mal, du justeet 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 naturelleet 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 produitpar 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 havethere 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 etdu juste. La critique du relativisme politique revient aune critique de la reductiondu droit au droit positif, c 'est-a-dire ala legalite de fait. La these principale consisteaaffirmer 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 aCudworth 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 obligeseulement sous la condition d'une action volontaire provenant de nons-memes oude 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 ala nature intellectuelle de celui qui y est


soumis. Par exemple, tenir notre parole, en executant les conventions que nousavons 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 obligeauparavant devient obligatoire pour nous, parce qu'elle tombe sous Ie principe na-turellement obligatoire de garder notre foi et dexecuter nos conventions. Orcomme notre nature intellectuelle et rationnelle nous oblige aobeir non seulement aDieu , mais aussi a l'autorite politique legitime, la volonte du pouvoir civil peutfaire qu'une action, auparavant indifferente , devienne obligatoire non simplementparce qu'il veut qu'il en soit ainsi, mais par accident en vertu du nouveau rapportqui s'etablit, par la mediation de sa volonte, entre cette action et Ie principe na-turellement obligatoire d'obeissance al'autorite politique legitime. Ainsi les chosesindifferentes en elles-rnemes ne deviennent obligatoires que sous la condition del'action volontaire d'une personne qui possede Ie droit de commander, parce queces 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 fondeI'obligation ou Ie devoir, mais la justice naturelle en vertu de laquelle il possede Iedroit 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 ouconditionnelle avec la justice naturelle, s'exprime, en dernier ressort, dans Ieprincipe selon lequel la volonte ne peut changer la nature d'une chose ou d'uneaction . Ainsi, lorsque Ie pouvoir politique commande une action auparavant indif-ferente, iI ne modifie nullement la nature de cette action qui reste materiellementce qu 'elle a toujours etc, c'est-a-dire indifferente , En revanche, elle devient justeet obligatoire formellement en vertu du principe naturellement juste selon lequelnous devons obeir au commandement d'une autorite legitime . Autrement dit, lavolonte ne cree pas une nouvelle entire morale, mais modifie Ie rapport entre uneaction et un principe naturel ou absolu de justice. L'idee meme d'une obligationpositive suppose comme son fondement l'Idee d'une norme naturelle, eternelle etimmuable de justice. Le relativisme politique de Hobbes se trouve par la-memedestitue.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 quise fait ou se construit lui-meme, Mais cette formule a chez chacun d'eux un senstres different. Ainsi al'homme prornetheen de Hobbes qui se construit lui-rneme etconstruit l'Etat en s'arrachant aune nature deserte, reduite ade la matiere en mou-vement, pour construire Ie monde de I'artifice, Cudworth oppose une figure deI'homme qui ne se fait lui-meme qu'en reconnaissant sa place dans l'echelle desetres 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 ofLeviathan, (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 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 . SurCudworth, on consultera egalernent avec profit I'importante these de Jean-Louis Breteau, RalphCudworth : Le penseur , soutenue al'Universite de Paris 111 en 1987, non encore publiee.4 Ce point est anoter dans Ie contexte des reactions ala pensee de Hobbes. Cette lecture attentive deHobbes 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' dansses Divine Dialogues (Londres, 1668, pp. 5-6), terme qu'il utilisait pour qualifier la pensee de Hobbesdont les consequences sont destructrices pour la morale, par opposition acelie d'un jeune cartesien quiest 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. Lestermes 'rnaterialiste' ou 'rnaterialisme' ne se trouvent pas chez Hobbes . II faudrait completer cetteanalyse de I'invention terminologique par une etude plus ample sur I'invention d'une histoire antique etmoderne 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'ethiqued' Aristote nous devons ici lui rendre justice en declarant que son ethique etait veritablernent telle etrepondait ason 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 uneethique 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. Sondessein 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 deHobbes, 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 satraduction 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 setrouve 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 uneetape posterieure de la controverse, suscitee par la publication du texte precedent dont l'ensemble deselements est du reste repris, fut publie en 1656. Le texte original se trouve dans Ie volume V desEnglish 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 etIe necessaire (I, XII, 2) et en opposant a I'action volontaire I'action involontaire entendue au sensd'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 desOpera Latina, vol. I, IX, 3 et 5. Pour I'examen de ce principe on pourra se referer aY. C. Zarka, La de-cision metaphysique de Hobbes - Conditions de la politique, (Paris: Vrin, 1987), pp. 193-222, et, dumeme auteur, "Leibniz lecteur de Hobbes: Toute puissance divine et perfection du monde", in Studia


Leibnitiana, Sonderheft 21, Leibniz: le meilleur des mondes, (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'unecause suffisante ne suscite pas l'effet, alors, il manque quelque chose d'indispensable a la production decelui-ci, et la cause n'etait donc pas suffisante: mais s'Il est impossible qu'une cause sufjisante ne pro-duise pas I'effet, alors, une cause suffisanteest une cause necessaire, puisque, par definition, produit uneffet necessairement ce qui ne peut que Ie produire. 11 est ainsi rnanifesteque tout ce qui est produ it, estproduit necessairement; car tout ce qui est produit a eu une cause sufjisante pour Ie produire, ou bienn'eut pas ete; et les actions volontaires, par consequent sont accornplies par necessite." Cf. aussi : "Thatwhich [. .. j necessitatetli and determinateth every action [... j is the sum of all things which being nowexistent, conduce and concur to tha production of that action hereafter, whereof if anyone thing nowwere 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 laprodu ction de cette action , et dont une seule , en venant ii manquer, empecherait que cet effet ne futproduit" (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 desagents volontaires, et rend necessaire 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 decause 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 etretous 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 ThomasHobbes, 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 soitproduit, il ne s'ensuit pas qu 'il ne soit rien qui soit necessairernent requis comme moyen de produire ceteffet et quand il est determine qu'une chose sera cho isie de preference a une autre , la cause est doneegalement determinee pour laquelle ce choix est fait; ct cette cause pour l'essentiel, c' est la deliberationou la consultation .. ." .15 Ibid. , p. 273/p. 108: " . . .1 conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner: Liberty is the absenceofall the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsecal quality ofthe agent . '':" II me parait qu 'on definit correctement la liberte de cette maniere: 'Ia liberte est l'absence de tous lesempechements 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: "Pour la louange et Ie blame , ils ne dependent pas du tout de la necessite deI'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-ceque dire qu 'une action est bonne , sinon qu'elle est confonne a ce que je souhaiterais, ou ace qu'un autresouhaiterait, ou encore qu'elle s 'accorde avec la volonte de I'Etat, c 'est-a-dire a la loi? Monseigneurl'Eveque pense-t-il qu'aucune action ne peut etre plaisante pour moi, pour lui ou pour la republique, quiprocede de la necessite? Les choses peuvent ainsi etre necessaires et pourtant dignes d'eloge, commeaussi nece ssaires et pourtant objets de Mime, et ni dans un cas ni dans I'autre ce n'est en vain, parce quelouange et blame, de meme que reconnaissance et chiitiment faconnent et confonnent la volonte au bienet au mal" .17 T.F.. pp. 6-7: I "Toute cause suffisante est une cause necessaire" et 2 " la necessite de toute proposi-tion disjonctive"IK T.F., IV, p. 15: "De cela seul il apparait que des etres rationnels, ou des ames humaines, peuvents 'etendre eux-rnemes au-dela des natures necessaires ou peuvent agir plus qu 'Ils ne subissent, qu 'ilpeuvent se changer eux-memes et se determiner de maniere contingente ou fortuite, quand ils ne sontpas 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" deCudworth (T.F., VIII, p. 28) se trouve dans Ie chapitre XI du Liviathan OilHobbes met atitre 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 parpartie, 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 aelle seule, sans aucune aide, suffit ajustifier touteaction qu 'i! accomplit [. . .J. Ce qu'i! fait est juste parce qu'ille fait; juste , je I'affirme, en lui, bien quenon pas toujours juste en nous".

PART TWO

D. W. DOCKRILL

THE HERITAGE OF PATRISTIC PLATONISM IN SEVENTEENTHCENTURY ENGLISH PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY

"Christian religion was never bred up in the Peripatetick school," a certain S. P. ofCambridge wrote in 1662, "but spent her best and healthfullest years in the moreReligious Academy, amongst the primitive Fathers: but the Schoolmen afterwardsravished her thence, and shut her up in the decayed ruines of Lyceum, where sheserved 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 oldloving 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 beignored nor can affinities between aspects of Christian dogma and certain Platonicdoctrines be overlooked . "Some of those who are united in fellowship with us inthe grace of Christ", Augustine writes, "are amazed when they hear or read thatPlato had a conception of God which they recognize as agreeing in many respectswith 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 whoheld to the distinctiveness and certainty of the revealed teachings of Scripture.Amongst the Fathers, some coped with the problem by teaching that Plato andother 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 ChristianPlatonists of the Italian Renaissance and their seventeenth century English descen-dants and others, revived and defended this view in its various forms. "As for citingthe Heathen Writers so frequently ;" Henry More writes, "you are to consider thatthey are the Wisest and the most Vertuous of them, and either such as the Fatherssay had their philosophy from Moses and the Prophets, as Pythagoras and Plato, orelse 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 likenessesbetween Christian doctrine and pagan Platonism. Philosophically, however, thecase 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 berated "above the rest of the philosophers" because they, "coming to a knowledge ofGod 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 Platonictradition had to cope with the competition and sometimes dominance of ChristianAristotelianism. But early in seventeenth century England, as part of theRenaissance revival, the Platonic rather than the Peripatetic tradition caught the at-tention of a number of promising and influential thinkers as the right philosophy inwhich to state a contemporary Christian understanding of man's place in nature and

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the history of his religious quest. The Platonists, according to Benjamin Whichcoteare "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 itseems to me that the peripatetic philosophy is now brought to a standstill and canhardly 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 ofthe way forward for Christian philosophy and theology in a new age of discovery ofthe human and physical worlds.'Yet if pagan Platonism could still be thought to provide fresh doctrinal and argu-

mentative resources for a Christian metaphysic, it was not, in every respect, equallyvaluable or trustworthy. S. P.'s "old loving Nurse" was a pagan member of thehousehold of Faith and not everything she said or encouraged could be accepted bythe family she served . The critical problem for the Fathers , as for later PlatonisingChristians, was to know how far and in which respects the Platonic tradition couldbe followed in divine and human affairs. In these contested matters, the heritage ofJewish and Patristic Platonism provides not only an impressive set of theoreticalmodels and pioneer thinkers, especially Philo, Origen and St Augustine, but a con-tinuing legacy of problems about the way in which the enterprise of ChristianPlatonism is to be carried forward . In the area of dogmatic theology, the problemsconcern the extent to which Platonism can be combined with scriptural data and theauthoritative creeds of the church ; in philosophical theology, which overlaps withdogmatic interests, the issues centre around the way in which a Christian view ofGod 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 besaid 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 withoutenvy 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 itgoverns, 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 knowledgeand truth ; and so, while you may think of it as an object of knowledge, you will dowell to regard it as something beyond truth and knowledge" and "even beyondbeing, 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 wemust, it may appropriately be called 'one', on the understanding, however, that it isnot a substance that possesses unity only as an attribute . So, the strictly nameless, itis difficult to know." (Enn. 6.9.5).5How 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 restrainedversion of it, and to develop a largely symbolist or instrumentalist view of religiousknowledge. 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 aboutthe divine . The function of the symbols and instruments of religious knowledge isprimarily to direct the mind towards God rather than to represent that which cannotbe represented. "The First Cause", Clement of Alexandria teaches, is "above bothspace, and time, and name, and conception;" "we speak of [God] not as supplyingHis name; but for want, we use good names, in order that the mind may have theseas 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 evencontradictions in our way of describing the divine and eternal order do not rob suchdescriptions of their usefulness in leading the mind to God. "Contradictions," hewrites, "may be simul & semel in the same Subject, same Instant, same Notion";"Apprehensio est in apprehendente : the thing is still the same, let my apprehensionbee what it will bee." ("0 rare and compendious Synopsis of all Scepticism!" ob-served Nathaniel Culverwell (1619-51), a sharp Cambridge critic of the allegedbenefits 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 properAppearance of God to the Spirit of Man are idols. God as the Supream Truth, uniteshimself to the Understanding; as the chief Good to the Will of Man. Thus he isknown, by being seen, felt and tasted in our Spirits." A more careful statement ofthis sort of view and the instrumentalist theory of religious knowledge which has toaccompany it is presented by Thomas Jackson (1579-1640), the Oxford Platonistand 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 anumerable part of being." Creaturely realities, Jackson claims, must be treated bythe 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 isbeyond resemblan ce or comparison than others can do. By variety of such resemblances, as his worksafford , may our admiration of his incomprehensibleness 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 tendsto erode the positive claims about God which are essential to theistic faith, it alsothreatens to sever or render opaque the link between the Creator and the goodnessand rationality of the created order. But here as elsewhere Christian Platonists varyin their assessment of the seriousness of the problems which arise and the ways tomeet them. Jackson, for example, belongs with those who think that the problemcan 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 oftranscendence is modified, as it has to be, in the interests of Christian theism, andthe sceptical character of an instrumentalist theory of religious knowledge bluntedby the provision of an objective analogical base in the participated being of thecreated order . It is a base, however, which more usefully serves the mind on its

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journey towards God than the demands of speculative reason: "for all [resem-blances]", Jackson writes, "will come short of the mystery which we seek toexpress 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 Godcan be successfully accommodated within a revised philosophy of the One whichnonetheless preserves the doctrine of the One's radical simplicity. This, however,was not the view of the Cambridge Platonists of mid-century, most notably HenryMore (1614-87) and Ralph Cudworth (1617-88). If, in antiquity, Origen appears tohave 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 transcendsmind and being, and is simple and invisible and incorporeal" (Contra Celsum, VII.38) - his Cambridge admirers were deeply opposed to this particular aspect of thePlatonic tradition. In a way which anticipates Cleanthes's criticism of Demea inHume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), they argue that a doctrineof the Fount of Divinity or God the Father understood in terms of the radicallysimple 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, "butthat Plato sometimes talks too Metaphysically and Clowdily about it [the Form ofthe Good]", and elsewhere he says, "this high-flown conceit of Plotinus (andperhaps 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 Onetranscends the realm of knowledge and intelligibility in every respect, then aPlatonic 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 opposedto the general tenor of Platonism which seeks to find the reason and end of createdorder in the divine source of all things.

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

The philosophical task of integrating the knowledge of nature , man and Godbecomes 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. toIn 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


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 trinityand part of the Plotinian task of Soul in informing the material world of time andbecoming given to a new, non-divine, non-reflecting principle of life and order inthe created universe, the Spirit of Nature (More) or Plastic Nature (Cudworth). Thereason for introducing this new spiritual presence in the created order alongside thespirits 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 problemthat had faced their pagan models, viz., how is the world of sense-experience linkedwith the divine world which gives it character and purpose. Plato's Demiurge andsoul of the world and Plotinus's Soul provide ways of explaining how the Source ofall 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 Heightand Elevation; as would render it altogether Uncapable, of having any Entercourseor Commerce with the lower world".11Whether 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 ofanima 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 ofthe Cambridge Platonists, claimed that the doctrine of the Spirit of Nature was notnecessary in order to explain how divine purpose was introduced into the world ofsense-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 divinepurpose was introduced into the created order if the secularizing power of the newCartesian 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 "AtornickPhysiology," Cudworth claims, are "Unquestionably True". The difficulty was thatDescartes ' s account of this new theory of nature dispensed with the concept ofdivine purpose in physical science as of no methodological use. "I consider theusual enquiries about final causes", Descartes had written in his Meditations, "to bewholly useless in physics." If this doctrine went unchalIenged, Cudworth claims, it"would Unquestionably , by degrees , Supplant and Undermine all Theism" for itbanishes "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 ofthe physical universe were to be rationalIy placed within the theistic and Platonicdoctrine of divine purpose in and through all things, the integration of purpose andnecessity in nature of which Plato had spoken in the Timaeus (47e-48b).I2Of alI the English Platonists, the Cambridge thinkers of mid-century most sought

to preserve the Plotinian hierarchy of being within the framework of Christiantheism. Other Platonising divines tended to be less theoretically ambitious in their

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appropriation of Platonism. All agree, however, on the general accord betweenPlato's dualistic theory of human nature and Christian teaching about soul andbody and the soul's survival of the body at death. The "Soul of every man", Morewrites, "is his individual Person"; "the Body is not sensible of anything" as istaught by the "best sort of Philosophers". The reasons given for this dualistictheory, often provided in opposition to Hobbes' philosophy, are similar to thosepresented 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 HumaneSouls and Persons, could not possibly have been Generated out of Matter" ; "thePowers of Sense and Understanding, or the Entities of Soul and Mind, could neverhave Resulted, from any Modifications of Senseless Matter whatsoever". But here,as with the doctrine of God, the precise bearings of Platonic teaching within theconfines of Christian doctrine brought problems as well as advantages. 13Amongst the advantages were a philosophical setting for distinctive Christian

claims about human life and its conditions. Man, Henry Hallywell writes, has "adouble life within him, Intellectual and Animal, which the Sacred Writings callFlesh and Spirit" . Plato 's teaching of the soul's affinity with the divine (Phaedo80), understood through the prism of Plotinus's doctrine of the soul's emanationfrom the One through Mind and Soul, seemed to express in philosophical termswhat Scripture teaches about the soul as imago dei (Gn. I :26) and reason as thecandle of the Lord (Prov . 20:27). "Thy Soul in her Top, and Supream Part," Sterrywrites, "which is her Truest self, and substance, lives ever Invisibly, andImmortally among the Angels. She in the mean time subsists here below amongthese Fleeting Shadows, only in her Lower Part, in which she is, but as a Shadow ofherself." The "Soul of Man", Henry More claims, "is as it were tx-yu}q..ux BEaU aCompendious Statue of the Deity . Her substance is a solid Effigies of God." StJohn '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 ofthe Platonists," John Smith teaches, "I should do it thus ... 'the Eternal Word is thelight of souls ' ". "Truth", Greville says, "is indeed of the seed Royall , of ProgenyDivine: yet so, as to be (for I may say of her, what the Spirit saith of Faith) neereus, 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 toexplain how it is possible for the rational soul to be raised through divine influenceto a more intimate or mystical involvement in the divine life . Plato 's talk of theGood 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 acertain Life, or Vital and Moral Dispos ition of Soul , which is much more Inwardly and thoroughlySatisfactory, 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 itwere, with the delicious sense of the divine life, that blessed Root and Originall ofall holy wisedome and vertue".!"


The difficulties, however, of using a Platonic anthropology to state a Christiantheory of human nature are as significant as the benefits provided by the tradition.One concerns the ontological status of the soul. Orthodox Christian teaching isthat the soul is a created entity; for Plato and Plotinus it belongs to the divineorder. "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 thePlatonic view of the soul by Christian philosophers is apt to turn Christian teach-ing into a Christianised Platonism rather than a Platonised Christianity. Somephilosophers, Stillingfleet writes, with an eye perhaps on Greville's book andMore and his circle,

have understood the worth of their Souls, and asserted it, if they have not us'd too high, i . e. Platon icalexpressions of it, making it a Particle not of Maller, but of the Divine Nature it self, a lillie Deity in aCOllage, 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 seriousconcern, but for those who thought that orthodoxy is to be remade in a Platonicimage, it was a trifling matter . In The Nature ofTruth, Greville simply denies that itis a problem : "Doe not tell me," he writes, "that I thus make the recipient and thingreceived all one ; that is not strange in emanation divine ." While Henry More in TheImmortality of the Soul (1659) faces the problem in a less straightforward way. Todescribe the soul as a ray of God , he teaches, is to speak metaphorically of itscreated 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."15A second difficulty concerns the significance of bodily and earthly concerns in

the life of the individual. On the one hand, Christian Platonists, like their Patristicpredecessors , 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 , inContra 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 originatingcause 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 ofPlato 's Phaedo and Phaedrus has to be corrected in favour of more positive viewsof 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 theTimaeu 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 betweenthe embodied soul as a fallen member of the divine order and the more positiveview 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 "necessityand 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 thesouls forget their father, God" (5.1.1), it is also true to say that a soul's separationinto individuality was "eternally necessary by the law of nature that it should do

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and experience these things" (4.8.5), the necessary process of emanations by whichreal beings are "generated from the One" (4.8.6).16The 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 havevehicles or some type of bodily instrument. In opposition to Plotinus, More statesthat "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 ofthe 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 unfittingplaces for such a created spirit, especially the terrestrial, the place of the thickestmatter. Yet despite the natural place of souls in the heavenly order, many of themfreely 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 Animallife, ranting it and revelling it there without any measure or bounds". Why did soulschoose this fallen way of life? The answer for More, as for Origen is that it was achoice open to free souls overcome with temptation, a reply which differs fromPlato's explanation in terms of the natural instability of souls (Phaedrus246-248e), 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"; "inthis present state she is inclogg'd and accloy'd with the foulness and darkness ofthis Terrestrial Body ... in this her Captivity and Imprisonment"; "so deeply andmuddily immersed into Matter, as to keep company with Beasts, by vitall unionwith 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 sexualunion 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 ofearthly 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 afterthat State". At death, life in the earthly purgatory comes to an end, and the soul isgiven an aerial vehicle and further opportunities for amendment of life. From thisplace in the air, on the day of resurrection, the sanctified soul, through the work ofChrist and the mercy of God, will ascend to the celestial and the recalcitrantreturned 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


requires a hermeneutic which allows for a large measure of reinterpretation. Thuswhile 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 andSymbolical" of the always embodied soul's journey after death. The details of StPaul's teaching in I Corinthians has to be taken in a general sense, not followedword for word: "That the purpose of the Apostle in this 15 to the Corinthians is toshew That there is a Life after the death of this Body, and a Blessed Immortality tobe expected." More's method of exegesis here trades on the principle that "manyWords in Scriptures have a lax and ambiguous sense and that therefore they are tobe understood according as Circusmstances and Likelyhood of Truth determine". Arelated but more striking hermeneutical doctrine is the theory of allegoricalmeaning. The early chapters of Genesis, to take the crucial case, do not appear tospeak of pre-existent souls and their fall as a descent from thinner to thickervehicles. Allegorically or cabbalistically interpreted, however, these and othermatters, 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 realNature, but according to their Appearances to US" .19Almost inevitably , such a hermeneutic requires the true interpreter of the sacred

text to possess more than rational gifts, viz., divine sagacity, "a Principle morenoble and inward then Reason it self'. Thus he writes of his treatment of Genesis,"though I call this Interpretation ofmine Cabbala, yet I must confesse I received itneither from Man nor Angel. Nor came it to me by Divine Inspiration, unlesse youwill be so wise as to call the seasonable suggestions of that Divine Life and Sensethat 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 anaccomplisher 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 religioustruth: 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'sChristian gnostic, and Origen ' s spiritual or perfect, is able to distinguish betweenthe letter of scripture, which has to serve the needs of ordinary believers, and thetrue 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 oravailability of divine assistance which complements his determined efforts of mindand heart to grasp "the Mysterie of God .. . hid and wrapped up in decent coveringsfrom the sight of Vulgar and Carnal men".20From 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

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illuminism which first appeared in his poetry in the 1640s. Others, differentlyplaced, 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 thatthey "seeme to me very much to savour of Enthusiasme". And such doctrines as thesoul's pre-existence, a pre-mundane fall, earthly life as purgatory, a relocation in anaerial vehicle at death, as taught by More and his Platonic colleagues, were viewedby more orthodox believers as an attempt to subvert Christianity: "I have heardthem represented", Edward Fowler wrote, "as a Generation of people that haverevived the abominable principles of the old Gnosticks'tPMore'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 AnExpos ition of the Creed (1659). Not all Platonically minded thinkers, however, hadbeen or were prepared to Platonise so far in remaking Christian doctrine . Plato'sview, Thomas Jackson writes, in connection with the origin of knowledge, "Thatour souls whiles they lived (as he supposed long time they did) a single celestiallife . . . 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 . . . asupposition, not only inevident either to Sense or Reason, but likewise needless andimpertinent. "22Outside 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 PlatonickPhilosophie and An Account of the Nature and Extent of the Divine Dominion andGoodness (1666) and Edward Warren's No Prae existence (1667). Earlier, theancient doctrinal influences which helped shape the development of the CambridgePlatonists had been subject to criticism by their University contemporary, NathanielCulverwell (1619-51). In his lectures Of the Light ofNature, 1645-6, given duringthe period when More was near completing the works which make up hisPhilosophical Poems (1647), Culverwell attacks both Origen and Plato. Of Origen'sdoctrine of the fall of souls, Culverwell says, "one would think by this, that Origenhad scarce read Genesis, he doth in this so contradict the Sacred History of theCreation"; and Plato 's view of the unworthiness of the body is said to have "sprungfrom his ignorance of the resurrection, for had he but known what a glory the bodywas capable of, he would have entertained more honourable thoughts of it." Butsuch "Platonical fictions", as Culverwell called them, appealed to More and to thoseclosest to his precise views on such matters - George Rust(d. 1670), Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680), Henry Hallywell (1650-1703) - becausethey seemed to them, as they had to earlier Platonists, the best way of reconciling thegoodness of divine providence with the enforced and unhappy moral predicament ofmany 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-builtFabrick of ordinary Theology". The doctrine of pre-existence, More claims, has"plausible Reasons for it, and nothing considerable to be alleged against it."23


In the absence of clear biblical support for the pre-existence of the soul andlimited Patristic precedents for the doctrine, it is not surprising that More and hiscircle failed to carryall their colleagues with them. Even Cudworth who sees, withMore, a significant agreement between Christianity and the "Pythagorick Cabbala",would not positively affirm that souls "Pre -Existed before this their TerreneNativity" , but says instead that "thus-much is certain, that Our Humane Souls wereat 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 , hishermeneutical way of reconciling it with Scripture. Plato's doctrine of pre-existence, Stillingfleet claims, is to be understood cabbalistically as affirming whatthe scriptures teach, "for I rather think the Opinion of Prae-existence is so to betaken, than the History of the Fall of Man", since, according to Stillingfleet, it islikely that Plato knew more of the biblical account of the fall "than he wouldopenly discover; and for that end disguis 'd it after his usual manner in thatHypothesis of Prae-Existence". For theologically orthodox contemporaries of ageneral Platonic persuasion , such as Theophilus Gale (1628-78), Stillingfleet con-vincingly showed the mistake of making the Platonic tradition "equal to, if notabove the Scripture", an error which, Gale says, "had too great influence on manyof those whom we count Christian Fathers, specially Origen ; and does continue tothis 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 frameworkof 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 theoryproved to be somewhat less troublesome for seventeenth century thinkers. But here,as elsewhere, different ways of accommodating Platonic doctrine within a Christianphilosophy appear. In the Phaedo, a necessary condition of the soul's coming toknow eternal truths in this life is its pre-exi stent disembodied experience of theForms . 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 aviable option. Yet, even amongst those Christian thinkers who accept pre-existence,Plato's theory of reminiscence found little favour in antiquity with Origen andnone, it seems, with his seventeenth century admirers. The reason is probably to befound in the fact that a developed Platonic theism is obliged to absorb the world ofForms into the deity as divine ideas which when treated abstractly become thedivine Logos, or, under the constraints of Christian theology, the second person ofthe trinity . Christian Platonists were obliged to find another way of preserving theepistemological core of Plato' s doctrine within the framework of their theology .Most but not all such seventeenth century thinkers, as well as Lord Herbert ofCherbury (1582-1648), found this alternative by means of the hypothesis of innateknowledge, a knowledge, that is, which is not acquired by the mind but belongs toits essential constitution as created by God. "Those ideal notions whereof thisphilosopher 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 ourCreator ." Or, as Smith presents the doctrine:

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

Theologically, this theory has a natural affinity with a Christian Platonic doctrineof 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 thisImage [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 IntellectualKnowledge". The alternative empiricist view, Cudworth writes, viz., that "theHumane Soul it self, to be but a meer Blank, or White Sheet of Paper, that hathnothing at all in it, but what was Scribled upon it, by the Objects of Sense" leads tothe materialist doctrine that the soul is "nothing but a Higher Modification ofMatter" .27Philosophically, 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 whichcannot be completely accounted for in terms of experience or reflection on the dataof the external and internal senses. Experience, however, is known to be essentialfor the growth of knowledge within the person. How is this fact to be integratedwith the soul's ability to know that which transcends earthly experience. "Methinks the working of a Platonists soul" , Culverwell remarks, "should not at alldepend 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 eternalworld 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 ofthe growth of knowledge by experience provided the right guidance for answeringthe same type of problem in their epistemology. The phantasy, Thomas Jacksonsays, "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 ofmatters 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 outwardObjects," More writes, "is stirred up into a more full and clear conception of whatwas 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 involvesbeing 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 befollowed. Instead a distinction had to be drawn between two different ways in


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

And when I say actual! Knowledge, I do not mean that there is a certain number of Ideas flaring andshining to the Animadversive Faculty , like so many Torches or Starres in the Firmament to our outwardSight . . . 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 largerconception."

While the innatists were able to offer some account of how bodily experienceenables the mind to enter into its cognitive birthright, the question remains whythe mind, created as an innately knowledgeable spirit, should be so painfully de-pendent upon sensory life in appropriating its native knowledge. For More theanswer is to be found with Plato and Origen in the pre-existent soul's fall into anearthly body because of sin: "[men's] Phansies are so clouded in this dark state ofincarceration in these earthly Bodies, that the Notion thereof [things Spiritual andIntellectual] seems unimaginable and contradictious". To the question, why theterrestrially embodied soul should lose and not regain its acquired knowledge ofits heavenly state and descent into the earthly realm, More replies that terrestriallife does not provide the embodied soul with the sort of experience which wouldenable it to recall its pre-existent state: "Wherefore without a miracle it is imposs-ible the Soule should remember any particular circumstance of her formercondition'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 moretheologically orthodox Platonists. But neither could they draw upon the doctrine ofthe pre-existent soul's fall into alien matter in order to explain the necessary roleplayed by the senses in the individual's growth in expressed knowledge. Yet theytoo 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 thedecision of each human soul. Adam's soul, Jackson claims , was created with thefull 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 theresult that it must now use the aid of the senses in reassembling the fragmented andunrecognized knowledge which it retains in its fallen state. "And so many of theseprints 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, onthis view, is not a discovery of knowledge but a recovery of the unrecognizedknowledge 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 ofreminiscence means when demythologized from a Christian standpoint: "Plato'sopinion , 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 truthfrom whose misapprehension haply it first sprung."30The 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 ofreminiscence and to transpose its occurrence into the life of the embodied soul as itcontemplates the eternal truths manifested by the divine Logos, "in whom are hidall the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3). Such a doctrine accords inpart with Plato 's teaching of the soul's illumination by the Form of the Good in theRepublic (508 d-509 b) and more particularly with Plotinus's doctrine of the innersoul' 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 allthe rest .. . have declared that God himself, the creator of all things, is the light ofthe mind, which makes possible every acquisition of knowledge." In seventeenthcentury England, Greville 's The Nature of Truth would seem to present a Plotinianversion of this position:

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

The most developed and important English statement of such a view, however, isprovided at the end of the century by John Norris (1657-1711), an Oxford Platonistwho came to support the Augustinian-type philosophy of Nicolas Malebrancheafter 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, thusexisting in the Divine Essence ... what we are taught in the Platonic School to callIdeas" are known by divine illumination, is not much stressed; rather Augustine isseen as one of a number who have maintained this doctrine. The theory that "wesee and know all things in God" is "a Notion very frequently touch'd upon byPlatonists; by Plotinus , by Proclus, by Marsitius Ficinus, by St Austin, by the lateFrench 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 theTheory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (1701, 1704), the fullest exposition ofNorris's doctrine, the teaching that the archetypal eternal world of truth whichexists in God and is made known to us by divine light, is represented as an arguedaccount of Augustine's doctrine: "the Hypothes is of This theory", Norris writes, "isin great measure St. Austin's, and that we have done little more ... than . .. reducewhat lies loosely and at large in the Sea of his Writings, into the order of a regularSystem." Acceptance of the doctrine, Norris points out, cannot be made to dependon the authority of Augustine or any other philosopher - it "is to stand or fall


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 earlywritings, Remarks Upon Some ofMr. Norris's Books , was published posthumously.In this, the reception of Norris' work resembles that received by his seventeenthcentury 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 alsocriticised 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 EdwardWarren, 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 ofChristianity (1695), proved to be the most important. The confidence of thePlatonic apologia against materialism, Hobbesian and otherwise, was challengednot 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 mightthink if God so willed (IV. iii. 6). "All the great Ends of Morality and Religion, arewell 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, assome over zealous for, or against the Immateriality of the Soul, have been forwardto 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 , Leibnizwrote, "is one of the finest and most admired works of the age"; it is a system ofphilosophy "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 thegrowth of knowledge. The metaphysical and theological priority of the Platonicand Idealist principle that, in Cudworth's words, "Mind and Understanding ... [is]the Oldest of all things" needed to be re-established in unpropitious times. Themost formidable English attempt to carry out this task was to be the achievement ofGeorge Berkeley (1685-1753).34In 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 wasuninfluenced by his predecessors. "I must acknowledge my self', he writes in hisPhilosophical Commentaries, "beholding to the Philosophers have gone beforeme." Those philosophers, however, did not include the Platonistically mindedFathers 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 particularviews. Thus, for example, in Alciphron (IV. 14), Berkeley has Alciphron say ofMalebranche's doctrine that we see or know all things in God that "neither I, noranyone else could make sense of [it]" and Crito, another character in the dialogue,agrees. Moreover while Berkeley occasionally refers to Augustine and draws uponsome of his writings, he never does so in connection with epistemological issues.Still the development of Berkeley's new Idealist principle esse is percipi orpercipere into a theistic metaphysic leads inevitably towards a new and strangeAugustinian-like doctrine that in some sense or other we see or know sensibleobjects 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 theyhave no real existence, but that seeing they depend not on my thought , and have an existence distinctfrom being perceived by me, there must be some other mind wherein they exist. As sure therefore as thesensible 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 andUnderstanding ... [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 hasmuch 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 understooddirectly, if generally, in terms of divine oversight and guidance. But whereas theCambridge 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 betwixtGod & Nature or second Causes", Berkeley writes in his PhilosophicalCommentaries, "in my Doctrine." Later, he notes, "Locke holds some dangerousopinions. such as the Infinity and eternity of space. The Possibility of Matter'sthinking.?"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. Indeedit is hard to see how, as a Christian philosopher and theologian, he could haveavoided 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," hewrites to Sir John James in 1741, "are a much better help to know Christ and hisReligion than the cold and dry writings of our modern Divines"; "most modernwritings smell of the age". But what is more striking is that he had come to believethat there is a substantial identity between the tradition of pagan Platonism whichhe had admired in his days at Trinity College, and his own distinctive philosophicalviews. "The Pythagoreans and Platonists", Berkeley writes in Siris (1744), his lastphilosophic work, "had a notion of the true system of the world", a notion which,


he believed, included the central tenet of his own system: "they saw that mind, soulor spirit truly and really exists: that bodies exist only in a secondary and dependentsense" . (#266). Cudworth's claim that some of Plato's and Plotinus's expressionsabout the Good and the One have an atheistic tendency is rejected as unjust in thecircumstances of their doctrines, in which Mind emanates from the One(#352 , 353). Such a view makes easier the agreement between Berkeley's ownphilosophical theism and what he takes to be the Platonic position, viz., "that amind infinite in power, unextended, invisible, immortal, governed, connected, andcontained a11 things" (#266). The teaching of Cudworth and others about thesignificant doctrinal continuity of the Platonic and Christian trinities is approved(#363) .37In 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 Renaissanceand more recent Platonists. Yet, when this work appeared, long after the greatcentury of English theological Platonism had come to its end, Berkeley feared thatthe prevailing climate of opinion could not be made amenable to this and otherancient ways of thought: "in these free-thinking times, many an empty head isshook at Aristotle and Plato, as well as at the Holy Scriptures"; "the depths of thatold learning are rarely fathomed" (#332). Such a state of affairs, however, could notlong persist. The philosophic strength and challenge of Plato's bequest, its ability togive voice to a persistent religious view of man's place in nature, and the influenceof 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 thepresent, Berkeley knew that the power of the Platonic tradition remained:

the greatest men had ever a high esteem for Plato; whose writings are the touchstone of a hasty and shallowmind ; 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 schools. (#332) .38

His assessment of Plato's heritage, like S. P.'s eighty years earlier, looks to theunity in complexity of the Platonic tradition. Historically, that complexity hadserved 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 onlyintensify problems about her precise identity but also provide new contexts for thequestion, is she the source of philosophic truth that her ancient and later Christianadmirers 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

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(London : Duckworth, 1972); H. Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition(New York : Oxford 1966) . H. More, Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 43, in A Collection of SeveralPhilosophical 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 tohis 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 ofseventeenth century English Platonists: see the new edition of Ueberweg, Grundriss Der Geschichte DerPhilosophie: 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 HenryMore", S. Hutton, ed ., Henry More (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990), pp. 219-46.4 On Patristic Platonism see: C. A. Biggs, The Christian Platonists ofAlexandria (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 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 ofthe 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, EarlyChristian Thought and the Classical Tradition, op. cit.. and "Christian Platonism in Origen and inAugustine" , 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 ofEarly Christian Doctrine Before the Council ofNicaea, 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 del'image de Dieu chez Origene, (Paris: Aubier), 1956), eng. trans., Origen, (San Francisco: Harper andRow, 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 XVlllthCenturies (Warsaw & Lodz: 1983), and my "The Authority of the Fathers in the Great TrinitarianDebates 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; TheRepublic, 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, ThePhilosophy of Clement of Alexandr ia (Cambridge : University Press, 1957), ch. 2; R. Mortley, FromWord 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, 'TheConcept of Mind and the Concept of God in the Christian Fathers" (1982), Substance and Illusion in theChristian Fathers (London: Variorum, 1985).7 Robert Greville, The Nature ofTruth (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, TheAppearance of God to Man in the Gospel, and the Gospel Change (London: 1710), p. 185; cf. V. DeSola Pinto, Peter Sterry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), ch. 3. Thomas Jackson , A


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 theDignity 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 Silence, 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 onReligion. 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 alsopp. 407. 583-6. For More, see The Immortality of the Soul (London: W. Morden. 1659), bk. I, ch. 4. Onthe importance of Origen for the Cambridge Platonists see my "The Fathers and the Theology of theCambridge 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 Immortalityof 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 UniversityPress, 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. Onthe question whether the Cambridge Platonists were successful in constructing a non-sceptical theory ofreligion. 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 Essence 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 Historyof Later Greek and Early Medie val Philosophy. ed ., A. H. Armstrong, op. cit .• p. 307; see alsoD. Gallop's edition of Plato, Phaedo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). pp. 137-8. Aquinas' s teaching ondivine simplicity, e.g., Summa Theologiae, la . 3, is strongly echoed in doctrines of God in the first halfof the century; see P. Miller. The New England Mind (Boston: Beacon, 1968). pp. 10ff, ch. 4. The Spiritof Nature: H. More, The Immortality of the Soul, op. cit.• bk. 3, chs, 12, 13 and An Explanation of theGrand Mystery of Godline ss (London: W. Morden, 1660), p. 458. on the Holy Spirit and the Spiritof Nature; Plast ic Natu re: R. Cudworth. T.I .S.U .. pp. 146-74.683-7,840-1,844-5. See alsoR. D. Bedford. The Defence of Truth (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979). pp. 105-10. andW. 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, OriginesSacrae (1662). (London: H. & G. Mortlock 1709). p. 300. See also J. Norris, The Theory of the Ideal orIntelligible 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 CartesianaTriumphata" in Problems ofCartesianism. eds.. T. M. Lennon. J. M. Nicholas. J. W. Davis, (Kingston &Montreal : McGill & Queens Universities. 1982); see also A. Gabbey, A. Rupert Hall, J. Henry, inS. 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 andP. 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, TheGreat 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, TheImmortality of the Soul (1659), op. cit.. which is available in A. Jacob's critical edition of the 1662version, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987); R. Cudworth, ibid.. pp . 845-72; J. Smith, "On theImmortality of the Soul" , ibid.i; E. Stillingfteet, Origines Sacrae, op. cit., bk, 3, ch. I. On opposition toHobbes, 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 andRoyalty of the Kingdom ofGod in the Soul ofMan (London : T. Cockerill, 1683), p. 131. H. More, AnAntidote 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. alsoG. Rust, A Discourse of the Use of Reason (London: W. Kettilby, 1683), pp. 34, 60-1 (Hallywell'scomment), & 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 SeventeenthCentury England", The Concept of Spirit, eds ., D. W. Dockrill and R. G. Tanner, PrudentiaSupplementary 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, seeC. F. Mullett's comments in, "A Letter by Joseph Glanvill on the Future State", The Huntington LibraryQuarterly, 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 . OnPlotinus 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 : HarvardUniversity 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 nothingelse, nakedly lodged in his arms" (ibid., p. 167); see also R. Cudworth, T./.S.U.. p. 784, J. Smith, SelectDiscourses.op. cit., pp. 164-5. H. More, The Immortality of the Soul, op. cit., p. 332 ; on the doctrine ofthe 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 earthlypleasures 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 MrsWorthington'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 ofSelf-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 Corinthians5:1-6 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


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 andEvent (London: SCM, 1959).20 H. More , "The Preface General " , p. vii; on p. viii he says divine sagacity is needful if one "mayfreely look about him everywhere" in the field of truth, an echo perhaps of Republic 516--c and Phaedrus248b-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 BriefDiscourse 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. Onthis 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 , SelectDiscourses, op. cit., p. 21. J. Locke, All Early Draft of Locke's Essay, eds ., R. I. Aaron and JoycelynGibb, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 125. [E. Fowler], The Principles and Practices of CertainModerate Divines ofthe Church ofEngland (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. LadyAnn Conway's letter to More and his response, Select Letters, 6 & 7, in R. Ward, The Life ofDr HenryMore (London: Joseph Downing, 1710). [G. Rust?] , A Letter ofResolution 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 alwayeslooked upon the Doctrine of Preexistence not only as very exact and concinnous in it selfe, but hugelyagreeable with the Phenomena of Providence in ye World ." (Ms 21, Christ's College Library,Cambridge); see also Hallywell's A Private Letter ofSatisfa ction to a Friend (n . p., 1667), pp. 2ff wherethe doctrine is to be inferred. Whether or not Rust is the author of A Letter ... Concerning Origen, hewould 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 LibraryQuarterly, 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, seeH. 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 expressedpp. 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 MosesAtticus", 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 AmmoniusSaccas 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 theNeoplatonic 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 centuryPlatonists on the will, the problem of evil, and soteriology. On the will , see my " Spiritual Knowledgeand 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 theSalvation 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 ChristianThought and the Classical Tradition, op , cit ., p. 115 , and "Christian Platonism in Origen andAugustine", 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 ofIdeas (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 ofNature , 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'speremptory rejection of innate knowledge and the inadequacy of his argument, see D. Bostock, Plato'sPhaedo, p. 61, and Plato , Phaedo , ed., D. Gallop, op. cit., p. 134. H. More, ibid. See also on innateknowledge: T. Jackson, The Original of Unbelief Works, op. cit., 4, chs . 12-15; E. Stillingfleet,Origines 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 hisCreation, because they suppose him created in the perfect age and stature of man." (Religio Medici,op. cit., p. 44) .31 Augustine, City ofGod, 8. 7, op. cit., p. 309; cf. E. Gilson, Introduction al'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 ofMan, 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 whollysubscribe 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 totreat reminiscence and acts of recollection as ways in which the acqui sition of knowledge appears to usfor "these are but a Phaenomenon" (Greville, ibid., p. 46). Norris and More: see the Norris-More lettersin 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 Norris of Bemerton(London: Philip, 1894), ch. 6. For Norris's opposition to innate knowledge, see his Cursory ReflectionsUpon a Book call'd "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding " , (London: S. Manship , 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 episte-mology . On Norris's use of St Augustine see F. J. Powicke, ibid., pp. 104ff; for Augustine's influence onthe French thinkers who influenced Norris , see H. Gouhier, Cartesianisme et Augustinisme au XVlleSiecle (Paris 1978) . On Norris, see C. J. McCracken, Malebranche and British Philosophy (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'sLetter (London: H. Mortlock, 1697), pp. 47ff, esp. pp. 54-5. Concerning the controversy whether mattermight 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 UniversityPress , 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 Malebranche (1934) (Oxford: Clarendon Press , 1967) ; C. J.McCracken, Malebranche and British Philosophy, op. cit; ch . 6.


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 toSir 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: WhatDescartes Saw and Berkeley Missed", Philosophical 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 thefamily resemblance between his idealism and that suggested by St Gregory Nyssa; see Sorabji, ibid., fortexts and discussion, and the comments by W. Moore, Select Writings and Letters ofGregory, Bishop ofNyssa , Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers , 5, [1892; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1971), pp. 18-19.On the differences between Berkeley and the Cambridge Platonists, see J. Wild, George Berkeley,(1936; New York: Russell and Russell, 1962), pp. 71-7 . For positive views of the relation between Sirisand 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 Historyof 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 unmodele de conscience professorale et de vertu toute simple. Ne de parents ages, ilentra en 1636 aEmmanuel College, fondation puritaine, OU it obtint Ie MA en1644. Transfere aQueens' College en 1645, il eut pour maitre et tuteur BenjaminWhichcote qui ne se contenta pas de diriger ses travaux mais l'aida financierement.Devenu ason tour enseignant, il y acquit la reputation d'un homme droit, au grandcceur, modeste, mais veritable "bibliotheque vivante ou ambulante".' II enseigna lesmathematiques, les langues semitiques- et la theologie: c'est a lui qu'on doit I'in-troduction de l'enseignement de la philosophie de Descartes aCambridge. Ses bio-graphes soulignent qu'Il n'y avait rien en lui "de reveche ni de storcien"." IIappartient a la premiere generation de ces theologiens philosophes connus desor-mais sous le terme generique de Platoniciens de Cambridge." Ses ecrits (unedizaine de sermons plutot que de traites) furent publies apres sa mort, aLondres, en1660 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 butpremier 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, atitre de propedeutique, toutes les ressources de la philosophie antique: "It wasthe first elaborate attempt to wed Christianity and philosophy made by anyProtestant school : and it may be said to have been the first true attempt of thekind since the days of the great Alexandrine teachers't.s Cet amour pour laphilosophie antique, essentiellement neoplatonicienne, etait encore renforce parune genealogie fantaisiste faisant de Platon, Plotin et Hermes Trismegiste lestrois saints patrons de la pia philosophic.' La volonte apologetique de soulignerl'accord entre cette prisca theologia qu'est censee etre la philosophie platonici-enne et neoplatonicienne et Ie christianisme, s' accompagne tres souvent, depuisClement 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 carles stoiciens n'ont jamais, a la difference de Platon, "Moise atticisant'", eteenroles dans la genealogie des successeurs de Moise. Toutefois le courant de laprisca theologia developpe un concordisme large dont le modele theorique a eteformule par Agostino Steuco.?La meme attitude syncretique large se retrouve dans les premieres dissertations

du Manuel de Philosophie Stotcienne (Manuductio Stoicorum) de Lipse quidressent une genealogie de la sagesse qui s'origine en Adam, de la passe aux poetes(Orphee, Musee) et aux mages d'Egypte, puis aMoise, aux presocratiques et enfina 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 .

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I'autosuffisance du sage et sa strategic: un anti-aristotelisme evident qui conduit aurejet de I'empirisme. Aristote est accuse d'avoir "defigure les monuments sacres deI'ancienne theologie metaphysique de ses mains profanes" dans sa doctrineambigiie de l'immortalite de l'ame.!' Enfin, le deplacement de la philosophie versun art de vivre bien ou honnetement explique aussi l'interet specifique porte austoicisme 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 plupartdes neoplatoniciens de Cambridge la presence massive d'un vocabulaire typique-ment storcien. comme I'hegemonique ou la notion commune; mais il fautsoigneusement distinguer entre la simple reprise d'un vocabulaire precis et de sensrecu et I'adoption de concepts ou de theses propres au Portique, c'est-a-direlogiquement enchaines avec d'autres concepts ou theses du systeme. La repetitionde formules telles que "that I may speak in the language of the Stoicks" ou "that Imay phrase in the language of the Stoick'"" montre a l'evidence qu'il s'agit, pourSmith, 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' accordgeneral des meilleurs philosophes du passe en un temps ou la theologie n'etait pointsi developpee, faute d'accomplissement de la revelat ion in Christo , et done desmeilleures teres philosophiques tout court; elle a aussi une fonction strategique demise a l'ecart de deux philosophies proscrites: l'epicurisme reduit a une apologiedes plai sirs corporels et l'aristotelisme scolastique considere comme une ecoled'arguties et de disputes verbales .!" Les Stoiciens sont finalement plus proches desplatoniciens, notamment parce qu'ils sont Ius dans la presentation lipsienne deSeneque et de Ciceron. Defendant d'autres theses que les platoniciens, ils te-moignent aussi de l'universalite de la pensee religieuse rationnelle preliminaire aI'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 laraison droite commun a toute I'Ecole.

Reason in man being Lumen de Lumine, a Light flowing from the Fountain and Father of Lights, andbeing 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 Legisaeternae in rationali creaturai it was toenable Man to work out of himself all those Notions of God which are the true Ground-work of Loveand 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 vocabulairestoiciens, celui des prenotions (1TpOx.€I/JEL<;),18 ou selon la traduction ciceronienne,des praecognita. La prenotion designe chez les stoiciens une notion formee apartirde 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 apartir 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 etfondement du savoir les font parfois qualifier d'innees.FC'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 aconnaitre que Ie corps) etstoiciens (Ies prenotions) en renvoyant aux "idees archetypes de justice, sagesse,bonte , verite, eremite, omnipotence et a toutes ces notions morales, physiques oumetaphysiques qu i sont les premiers principes de la science ou son complementultime et sa perfection finale".25 Mais iI ne fait la que reprendre une conception deLipse." 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 Iechemin philosophique au christianisme, on peut evoquer Ie De perenni philosophiade Steuco.'?Le recours aux notions communes anterieures aI'apprentissage scolaire, permet

aussi des developpements sur Ie rejet d 'une connaissance livresque au profit de laconnaissance 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 beingsomething rather to be understood by a spiritual sensation than by any verbal description as all things ofSense and Life are best known by Sentient and Vital faculties ... and therefore the Scripture is wont toset forth a Good Life as the prolepsis and Fundamental principle of divine Science ."

Ces notions communes sont parfois obscurcies, masquees par la teinture desdesirs immondes, endormies lorsque l'ame est trop pleine du COrpS,29 mais elles de-meurent actives: "Arianus [Epictete] hath well observed that the common notionsof God and Virtue imprest upon the Souls of men, are more clear and perspicuousthan 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 desverites metaphysiques telle s que I'existence de Dieu, l'immortalite de l'ame32 ouencore I'existence merne de la verite.33 Ces notions font I'objet d'un consentementuniversel (consensus gentium) : "This Consensus gentium Tully thinks enough toconclude a Law and Maxim of nature"." Mais on ne saurait lui accorder uneconfiance totale puisque, parfois, erreur et superstition peuvent invoquer cetargument."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 queI'hegemonique puisqu 'il n'y a rien sur la theorie stoicienne de l'ame (Ies huit

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parties dont l'hegemonique est Ie centre). Cela s'accompagne de la refutation de laconception 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 alorsque la demonstration mathematique a preuve que l'inverse est Ie vrai . Toutefois lacritique plotinienne de la theorie de la sensation comme empreinte dans l'ame38montre 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 spontanementconforme ala nature.l? est reactualise, sans la theorie naturaliste sous-jacente qui lajustifie, 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) , Ieretour etemel ou la restauration universelIe, reapparait en un sens inattendu pourevoquer non la restauration 11 l'identique mais la redemption: "Thus we see howtrue religion carries up the souls above the black regions of Hell and death. Thisindeed 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.vQuant 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'autreschamps que son champ d'origine: "it is to be feared that our nice speculations aboutTCJ. e<p 'ilJ.LLV in theology have tended more to exercise mens Wits than to reformtheir lives".43 Elle peut aussi designer la liberte du vouloir qui est Ie propre del'esprit."

2) Les Theses sur La religion

Toute l'Ecole de Cambridge assimile Ie rationnel et Ie religieux. La raison, loind'etre etrangere a la religion, en est la precondition. II existe en effet une notioncommune de l'existence d 'une divinite ou une tendance naturelle qui nous portevers 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; whichworks 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 ladivinite comme effrayante. Plus exactement, c'est la conjonction d'une consciencede 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 adonne naissance 11 tant de maux : tantum religio potuit suadere malorumttl IIsemble 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,


comme l'atheisme," et cette meme opinion fausse accompagnee d'une passion (1acrainte): la superstition est une opinion vive et forte qui trouble I'imagination etimprime dans l'ame une frayeur accablante. Elle croit qu'il existe des dieux maiselle 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 pourlui-meme et pour autrui, vivant perpetuellement dans ses songes et sans partager demonde 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 semettant 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 lasuperstition, celle-ci en revanche, fait le lit de l'atheisme et "il eut mieux valu pourles Gaulois et les Scythes de n'avoir jamais connu des dieux que de croire qu'ilsaimaient a se repaitre du sang des hommes et de regarder les victimes humainescomme Ie sacrifice Ie plus parfait qu'ils pussent leur offrir".5o Smith cite longue-ment ces passages avec approbation>' ainsi que les textes correspondants deCiceron 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 worldempty of God and Providence, is the sense of all those that know what a Deitymeans".52

LA RELIGION COMME ACCOMPLISSEMENT DE LA RAISON

Les trois fondements de la religion , I'existence de Dieu, l'Imrnortalite de l'ameet 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 appeleeReligion 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 dela religion naturelle pour produire I'amour de Dieu et l'obeissance ainsi que laconformite de I'homme interieur a la nature de Dieu/" D'ou cet eloge de laraison'" comme ce qui rend I'homme capable de religion et ce que la religionrenforce 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 ; andthey that live most in the exercise of religion shall find their reason most enlarged. I might adde thatreason in relation to the capaciting of Man for converse with God was thought by some to be the formaldifference 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 pasd'acces a l'ethique sans la prise de conscience que I'homme est un compose d'ameet de corps et sans volonte de vivre KaT<X AO'Yov.58 Suivre la raison, c'est suivre

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Dieu selon une fonnule pythagoricienne reprise par Seneque et Lipse.t? Le dangerdans lequel tombent les Stoiciens, c'est, toutefois, de ramener Dieu it la mesure dela 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 reflechitmieux 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 seulcoup et non discursivement par Ie raisonnement.w L'accent est done mis sur lapiete 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 carefulto stock and enrich the World with Opinions and Notions as with true Piety and a Godlike pattern ofpurity as the best way to thrive in all spiritual understanding. His main scope was to promote an Holylife, 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 dela 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 Dieuit partir de cette unique idee du Bien et non pas de celIe de toute puissance (commeles 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 del'Interpretation physicaliste propre it cette ecole antique. L'immortalite de l 'iimefait bien l'objet d'une notion commune mais elle s'exprime mieux selon les voiesplatoniciennes . 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 cetteindependance en la restaurant dans son integrite premiere.

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

La liberte comme OOrrOKI.V'll(TLC; (se mouvant soi-merne), designe la force et lapuissance d'exciter des pensees et des mouvements en l'ame. Si l'ame, et donesa 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 memeraison, les perturbations de l'ame sont d'origine interne.s" L 'affirmation de laProvidence sans laquelle il ne vaudrait pas la peine de vivre, passe d 'abord parIe rejet de la fatalite astrale, comme dans Ie neostoicisme ou chez Herbert deCherbury:


the Platoni sts and Stoicks thought the Soul of man to be absolutely freed from all the power of Astralnecessity 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 philosophy was wont rather to say that the world was inGod then that God was in the world.68

On pourrait donner de cette affirmation une explicitation stoicienne en termes detonos et de qualite hectique, d'omnipresence de la raison divine, mais precisementIe vocabulaire de Smith est ici plus proche de I'emanatisme plotinien que dumaterialisme 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 theStoicks would have us to believe concerning Providence OTL 1T<lVTOt \rno apmov v(){j' ')'l.VETOtL,that allthings are here done in this world by the appointment of the best Mind /?

UNE CONCEPTION QUASI IMMANENTISME DES RECOMPENSES ET DESCHA,TIMENTS

Smith n'est pas un fervent promoteur des peurs de l'enfer, bien au contraire; ilinsiste 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 auxmechants, c'est la separation eternelle du Souverain Bien." On peut done, sur cepoint, rapprocher ses hypotheses eschatologiques avec le theme stoicien de la vertuqui 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 duea 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 anEntercourse and Society as it were between God and Men, therefore there is alsosome Law between them which is the bond of all communion't.?"On doit songer iciit une reference au De legibus de Ciceron." Dieu n' est ni sans loi ni au-dessus de laloi; la loi de son gouvernement du monde n' est pas arbitraire;" elle est constitueedes 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 theircreatour and this is called the Law of Nature which indeed is nothing else but a paraphrase or commentupon 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 loiinscrite 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 prescriptionsrituelles des religions) doivent etre subordonnees ala loi naturelle universelle.

ATTITUDES

Les attitudes reprises au comportement ou a l'education morale des stoiciens, enparticulier al 'epoque imperiale, affleurent souvent, notamment l 'exercice spirituel:II y a une valeur ethique propre ala connaissance reflexive de soi, laquelle, inscritedans tout processus de connaissance, merite aussi d'etre cultivee pour elle-meme.On trouve merne chez Smith l'ebauche d'une phenomenologie de la conscienceintime de soi : e<TTL Kal. tJroxifc; a'L<Te1l<TLC; Tl.C; (i1 existe aussi une perception del'ame)." L'experience du moi , Ie retour en soi-meme, sont d'emblee decrits commeIe seul acces possible au transcendant, car l'experience authentique de soi est enmeme 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 sauraitocculter la demarcation nette entre la philosophie de reference de Smith, commedes autres membres de lecole de Cambridge, et un horizon philosophiqued'appoint. La demonstration que nous tentons ici rejoint d'ailleurs sur bien despoints I'analyse plus fouillee menee par J.-L. Breteau dans son travail surCudworth. Reste done maintenant apreciser sur quels points precis du systeme duPortique (themes et argumentations justificatives) se fait la demarcation decisive,celle qui pose la borne apartir de laquelle on passe d'un horizon theorique parta-geable et confirmateur a un reseau argumentatif inacceptable et percu commedangereux.Reprenant une methode de classification appliquee par Epictete et Simplicius au

rapport des hommes aDieu, Smith determine a son tour quatre categories79:a/ Ceux en qui Ie corps et l'ame sont arithmetiquement proportionnes'" vivent selonI'opinion et I'imagination; leur plus haute raison est o~o8o~oc; T'ij a 'L<Te1l<TE<TL (dememe 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 communesclaires et peuvent acceder aux vertus ethiques et politiques sans etre encore aptesaux 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 : "likethe supercilious stoick who, when he thought his Minde well arm'd and appointedwith wisdome and Vertue, cry'd out sapiens contendet cum ipso Jove defelicitater" dl L'cxvepw1Toc; eEWpllTLKOc;, I'homme veritablement contemplatif etmetaphysique, decentre de soi pour se centrer en Dieu , participe seul de la sagessedivine 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.


L'a&r<xpKELa et 1'(:iTapa~La83 sont les marques typiques de cet orgueil du stoicienqui 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-sufficiencyand 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 themand 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 unecause interne'" mais ils se sont trompes sur les conditions de maitrise de soi etd'acces a la tranquillite de I'ame, en croyant pouvoir ne compter que sur leurspropres forces. Ce faisant, ils se rendent coupables de la faute supreme qui est de sepretendre I' egal de Dieu, selon la formule de Seneque : "Sapiens cum Diis ex parivivit, Deorum socius non supplex'V" lIs en viennent ainsi, aforce de rabaisser Dieua leur mesure, a Ie concevoir sur Ie modele des vivants terrestres comme un grosanimal." alors que leur concept d'independance (ooYre~OtKTLov),de beatitude qu'onne 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 aftersome 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 deSeneque selon Ie meme decoupage. Lipse, pour sa part, determine la source de cetteerreur qui est la these de J'identite de la vertu en l'homme et en Dieu, pour yopposer la modestie des Pythagoriciens. Curieusement, cette consideration conduiten revanche Smith arapprocher Ie stoicisme du pharisaisme.?"Religion is no sullen Stoicisme no sour Pharisaisme; it does not consist in a few Melancholy passions, insome 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 cetteconfrontation restreinte avec Ie Portique, d'autre part, quel en est Ie sensphilosophique. II est toujours difficile de preciser les canaux de transmission d'unetradition philosophique des lors qu'elle appartient, pourrait-on dire, a l'air dutemps. D'autant qu'un bon connaisseur des langues anciennes, comme Smith, citedirectement ses auteurs de reference dans la langue d'origine sans preciser les edi-tions utilisees . Toutefois, les decoupages textuels ainsi que l'importance deI'edition lipsienne de Seneque (de 1604) peuvent nous laisser supposer uneinfluence de ce grand restaurateur du stoicisme. On remarquera d'ailleurs que Ierecours 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 penseureclectique'? mais sa philosophie est foncierement stoicienne, avec un recours assezfrequent a des notions ou au vocabulaire neoplatonicien.P Smith est assurementplatonicien, ou plus exactement neoplatonicien.?' ce qui ne l'empeche pas de re-courir a maintes reprises a des references stoiciennes. Le sens de ces referencescroisees est d'ailleurs comparable: Lipse se defendait de l'accusation de restaura-tion d'une philosophie paienne, fort eloignee des vertus chretiennes, en rappelantson importance chez les premiers Peres grecs (Clement, Origene) et en corrigeant al'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 EpicureAristote 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 priscatheologia, qui conduit a l' ecoute de la revelation chretienne par la voie de laphilosophie ancienne. Peut-etre serait-ce la l'occasion de reflechir a l'extension decette designation de prisca theologia : elle renvoie assurement d'abord a la theolo-gie pythagoricienne?? et platonicienne'", mais elle integre aussi des formulationsstoiciennes, propres au stoicisme imperial, notamment l'expression souvent citeed'Epictete: av 8e oyvwe; OTi TO\) ALoe; ,,'toe; El. (sachant que tu es fils de Dieu).99Le stoicisme offre done, avec un vocabulaire recu, une caution d 'universalite

beau coup plus qu'une thematique philosophique a proprement parler. II s'agit lad'un heritage a reprendre, a la maniere'P? de l'heritage juif, celui de l' AncienTestament comme celui de la tradition rabbinique ulterieure que Smith connait ad-mirablement. II la cite et commente abondammcnt dans Ie discours VI, Ofprophe-sie et VII, Of the righteousness legal & evangelical, OU il compare la droiture de laLoi et celie de l'Evangile. Dans ce dernier discours, la critique du legalisme juif etde 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 nesignifie pas pour autant une adhesion pleine et entiere aux theses du Portique. II enva ici de la prolepsis comme il en irait aujourd'hui de la notion d'alienation'?' parexemple: 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 plusun engagement philosophique resolu dans Ie camp marxiste; inversement, qui nedesire pas etre range du cote des eleves ou des disciples de J. Derrida s'interdirad'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, deprovidence, d'hegemonique, d'oPIJ.1l, d'<rlrrE~OU<TLoe; de Tn E<!>'lllJ.tV est du merneordre que I'emploi, aujourd'hui, de certains termes communs a la philosophiehermeneutique et au marxisme. Ces emplois ont une fonction a la fois demarcative


(ici l'anti-aristotelisme) et confirmative pour signifier I'accord de toute la sagesseantique 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 conceptionouverte du salut. II est acet egard frappant que ce soient des categories episte-mologiques ou metaphysiques qui soient ici convoquees beaucoup plus que lestheses morales qui donnerent lieu au siecle precedent a des syntheses un peumolles,

Jacqueline Lagree

NOTES

"Living library and walking study" comme disait dans Ie sermon prononce ases funerailles, SimonPatrick.2 II etait bon hebraiste. Voir la multiplicite et la precision des references a des commentaires rab-biniques ou aMai"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 andphilosophical thought in England, they were all closely united by personal and academic associations. Inthis respect they stand .. . distinctively by themselves . . . . They constitute a school of opinion in a . . .real and effective sense ".

Select Discourses, (1660, New-York: Garland, 1978). Toutes nos references seront donnees danscette edition .6 Tulloch,op. cit.. II, p. 14.

Cf. Cassirer, The Platonic Renaissance in England. (Londres: Nelson 1953), ch . I., ainsi queSchmitt, Walker et bien d'autres.H Selon Ie mot de Numeniusrcpris par Eusebe.

"En Philosophic, m'a toujours paru vraie la these qui veut que Sagese et Piete naissent des memessources, qu 'elles visent une fin unique, et que toutes les autres notions qui les constituent aient uneforme sembiable (Vera mihi semper in philosophia visa est sententia sapientiam atque pietatem excisdem 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 chezLipse ,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 Lipseet la restauration du stoicisme , (Paris : Vrin , 1994).15 Respectivement p. I & 295 .16 " •• •without descending into Niceties and Subtilties such as the school-men and others from themhave 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 somepraecognita 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 perenniphilosophia 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 sodubious in stating the bounds of Vertue and Vice as Epicurus was , though he could not but sometimestake notice of them". (ibid., p. 13).32 Objet d'une notitia communis ou d'une notion originelle (notiones ortae) produite egalernent en tousles hommes par la voix de la nature. "For we cannot easily conceive how any Prime notion that hath nodependency on any other antecedent to it, should be generally entertain' d, did not the common dictate ofnature or reason, acting alike in all men, move them to conspire together in the embracing of it, thoughthey knew not one anothers minds " . (p. 64) . Un peu plus haut (p. 60) Smith cite Ie ch . 38 du Manueld'Epictete.33 Autres references: ibid. p. 71, p. 106 qui montre que I'lmmortallte de l'fime peut etre envisagee soitcomme notion commune soit comme un "theoreme 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 properSelf'.37 Ibid., p. 79 . Voir aussi p. 117-118: "those impressions that are derived from our Bodies to our Soulswhich the Stoicks call aAo-yCl 1Ta9Tj not because they are repugnant to Reason or are aberrations from itbut because they derive not their original from Reason but from the Body which is aAo-yov -it".38 TU1TlOOtSEv1\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 apprehensionsof 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 etsouverainement 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 .


~I Notamment p. 27, 43, 45 . Citation de Plutarque, De la disparition des oracles , p. 32.~2 OfAtheism, p. 54 .~3 Ofthe Immortality ofSoul. p. 59 et Ofthe 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 thatman was nothing but lroflo1T>-OK1'\ IjroxTi~ KCli. <TWfloClTOS as professing to teach men how to live onlyKClT<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. LipseMan, II 16, citant SenequeDe 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; weknow all this is from want of Reason and Understanding and that a pure and simple Mind and intellect isfree 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 asby 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 doctrineof the state of the empirical philosophy, the Cambridge school again has developed no new and originalideas. 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 veriteseternelles.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 totheir own model, imagining the Deity to be nothing else but some greater kind of Animal and a wiseman to be almost one of his peers". op. cit., p. 390 .88 Ofthe 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 aDieu (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 dontprecede l'ame du monde) ou encore sur l'Interpretation du principe passif comme identique a la matiere(Phys. 1,4).96 "sullen",op. cit., p. 451.97 Voir !'importance accordee ala formule E.1TOU91]oVou sequideumqui 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 forCudworth, even among the Platonic philosophers he quotes. Cudworth's sourcesare famously, even infamously, eclectic: the majority of The True IntellectualSystem of the Universe (1678) consists of consensus gentium arguments drawnfrom a huge range of classical sources. Cudworth was after all one of the leadingclassical scholars of seventeenth-century England. In terms of the range and detailof 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 examinesthe texts he quotes (Virgil , Euripedes, Stobaeus, Lucretius, Cicero, Plutarch andothers) not with the eye of a philologist, but with the eye of a philosopher, pillagingthem for doctrines and arguments from which to construct the taxonomy of true andfalse philosophy which constitutes The True Intellectual System. Furthermore, thephilosophers with whom Cudworth enters into dialogue include not just the classicsof ancient philosophy, Aristotle no less than Plato, but also the new philosophers ofthe 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 andSpinoza. His receptivity to the mechanical philosophy, however, is striking, bothfor 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 TreatiseConcerning Eternal and Immutable Morality:

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

It must be said that Cudworth uses his auctoritates (authorities) not for theweight of their names, but for the content of particular passages. The sources hequotes 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 unityof 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 turnof mind enables him to draw from a range of philosophical sources which todaywould be regarded as mutually exclusive. The enormous range of Cudworth'ssources 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.© 1997Kluwer Academic Publishers .

94 S. HUTTON

group of seventeenth-century English philosophical theologians known now asthe Cambridge Platonists. The label seems even less appropriate, in view of thethoroughly 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-centurysource might not seem very propitious. However, in this paper, I want to useCudworth's quotation from Boethius in The True Intellectual System book I,chapter V, as a starting point for reclaiming the Platonist label for Cudworth . ForCudworth 's application of Boethian arguments highlights the fundamentalNeoplatonic framework of his thought. Indeed, as I shall argue, this Neoplatonismaffords him a basis from which to argue against the mechanical philosophy, hisacceptance 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 ofGod, 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 thefreedom of the human will against predestinarian Calvinism. And the De consola-tione is a locus classicus for arguments demonstrating the compatibility of divinefore-knowledge and the freedom of human action. It is therefore perhaps surprisingthat Cudworth does not invoke the De consolatione in discussions of fate and freewill, but in a discussion that is essentially epistemological. So, although Cudworthdoes not use Boethius in support of the fundamental tenets of his own theology,Boethius figures in an equally important aspect of his philosophy, namely hisepistemology. Furthermore, as I shall go on to show, Cudworth's epistemologicalargument is used to introduce an ontology which is thoroughly Platonist in itsframework .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 isfrom Boethius . In section iv of book I, chapter v; he quotes the whole of the fourthpoem 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 fourteentypes of argument in all. The eleventh and twelfth arguments in the catalogue, setout in section iv, are based on the nature of knowledge and understanding. It is inthe course of denying that knowledge derives from sense impressions, thatCudworth quotes the poem from De consolatione philosophiae book V, in whichBoethius puts forward the anti-Stoic view that knowledge is not acquired passivelyfrom 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 inanother work, his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality which wasnot published until 1731. In the second book of this treatise, Cudworth argues thatknowledge 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 oranticipatory knowledge is important here (Cudworth uses the term 'prolepsis' butdoes 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 thesoul'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 objectsof knowledge (the noemata) are contained within the mind itself. If thought andknowledge are derived from sense impressions, argues Cudworth, then there is noreason why a mirror should not understand what it reflects.' Cudworth distinguishesbetween noemata ('conceptions of the mind') on the one hand and phantasms andsensations 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 surethat the objects of sense perception really exist ('we cannot be sure that there is anyobject 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, TreatiseConcerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, scepticism is associated with Plato'ssophist interlocutor, Protagoras. Furthermore, the discussion of epistemology inTreatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, IV. 1. 1. is introduced by aquotation from De consolatione V, from exactly the same section from which hequotes in The True Intellectual System, I. v. iv. And later in the same discussion inthe Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, IV.2. 6., he quotes theidentical prose pa ss age from De consolatione V that he quotes The TrueIntellectual System, I. v. In both works the Boethius quotation serves to help makean 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 natureof knowledge and understanding . Through these arguments atheistic philosopherssupposedly 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 Cudworthclusters under this heading are the proposition that sensations and mental opera-tions are passive effects of external agencies, and that all knowledge is senseknowledge ." Also, there is the view of Epicurean and Anaximandrean atheists, thatknowledge contains no more perfection than matter itself. For if knowledge isderived 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 isderived 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 itselfbecomes 'the only Substantial, Self-Existent, Independent thing, and Consequentlythe 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 ofa non-materialist epistemology. The quotation of the whole of Metrum 4 from Deconsolatione V also serves as rhetorical embellishment. But there is more to theplacing of this quotation than that. Cudworth 's aim is not just to reassert a dualistposition against those who reduce mind and thinking to being by-products of matterin motion. That is certainly part of his intention. Strikingly, Boethius is brought tobear on the discussion at the point where Cudworth makes the transition from epis-temology to ontology. His charge against those atheists who have a mechanicalconcept of mental activity and regard thinking as a property of matter, is that theyinvert the order of nature, according to which 'the production of things' is 'by wayof Descent from Higher to Lower'. To make soul and mind secondary to materialthings means is to upset the hierarchy of being.

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

The absurdity of this position is obvious to the atheists themselves, writesCudworth , 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 ofEntity and Perfection, one above another, but that the whole Universe is One Flat and level, it beingindeed all , Nothing but the same Uniform Matter , under several Forms. Dresses , and Disguises; orVariegated by Diversity of Accidental Modifications. I I

The homogeneity of the universe is one of the 'Atheists Dark Mysteries' whichfollows from the axiom 'nihil est in intellectu quod non prius erat in sensu' . Bycontrast, Cudworth insists on the existence of a 'Scale or Ladder in Nature, asTheists and Metaphysicians, suppose' . 12 The theist-cum-metaphysician whomCudworth uses to introduce this idea in answer to the claim, 'That (as Cudworthputs it) there is Nothing in the Mind or Understanding which was, not First inCorporeal Sense and derived in way of Passion from Matter', is Boethius." For toargue, as Boethius does that knowledge entails activity of mind, and that cogitationprecedes knowledge of things is to prioritise the non-material over the material inthe order of things: there is 'a Mind before Sense and Sensible Things' .14 In this


way Cudworth introduces Boethius not simply to put a dualist case, but to linkdualism 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 aboveanother, as of Life , Sense and Cogitation, above Dead, Senseless and Unthinking Matter; of Reason andUnderstanding above Sense , &C. 15

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

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

Moreover, in this scheme of things, more abstract entities are endowed withmore 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 havegreater reality than material things:

Moreover, nothing can bemore Evident than this, that Mind and Understanding hath Higher Degree ofEntity or Perfe ction in it, and is a Greater Reality in Nature , than meer Sensele ss Matter or BulkieExtension. And Consequently the things which belong to Souls and Minds, to Rational and IntellectualBeings as such, must not have Less, but More Reality in them, than the things which belong to InanimateBodies . Wherefore the Differences of Just and Unjust , Honest and Dishonest. are greater Realities inNature, than the Differences 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 Systembook I chapter iv, in his discussion of the attributes of the Deity, and whether thesecan be conceived by the finite human mind, Cudworth invokes the argument fromthe 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 thismay be demonstrated through its opposite, imperfection, which is after all a lack ofperfection. Imperfection is judged against perfection as a crooked line is measuredagainst 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 thedirection of absolute perfection:

Moreover we perceive divers Degrees of Perfection, in the Essences of things, and consequently a Scaleor Ladder of Perfe ctions, in Nature. one above another, as of Living and Animate Things. aboveSenseless 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 ofthem 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 thereach 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 orderof perfection. In doing so he introduces the ontological explanation of imperfectionas a falling away from perfection, that less perfect things have a more perfectcause.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 adecorative 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 themechanical philosophy. Finally , it is elaborated in the epistemological discussion ofhis Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, where it so happens thatthe key discussion is introduced by a quotation from De consolatione. ThusBoethius figures as the representative of hierarchical Neoplatonism, as a keyNeoplatonic philosopher through whom Cudworth introduces the hierarchical on-tology that links him directly with the Neoplaton ic tradition of Plotinus and gives aframework 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 inclusivenessof The True Intellectual System sharply contrasts the impatience with past philoso-phy which characterises the new philosophies of the seventeenth century whichinvoke iconoclastic images to describe the novelty of their enterprise. Descartes, forexample, contrasts his approach with that of a builder who constructs a new houseusing 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.PCudworth, by contrast, is a recycler of all learning which he patiently sorts andclassifies into the theologically sound and the theologically suspect. His tendencyto see the new as exciting modern manifestations of the old is a feature of manyRenaissance philosophers. It is not itself quintessentially Platonic, but it is a habitof mind that, historically, is associated with Platonizing philosophers from Ficinoonwards. As far as Cudworth is concerned, the common pattern of all good philoso-phy is not simply one which accommodates modern developments, nor simply amatter of separating out the highest common factor in all philosophy. Cudworth'sconception of the perennial philosophy underlying all philosophies is fundamen-tally Neoplatonic in its framework. It is true that most of The True Intellectual


System is taken up with consensus gentium arguments to render acceptable atomicnatural philosophy by linking it with theism. The sheer bulk of the evidence ad-vanced in this cause obscures the fact that Cudworth's apparently mechanicalconcept of matter is fitted into a Neoplatonic hierarchy of being. And it is this thatBoethius serves to highlight. And this is underscored in Cudworth's discussion ofepistemology 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 overthings 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 academicabout it. But, for all the fixity of the basic philosophical doctrines contained in hisphilosophia 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 andmatter . The ontology is to be inferred only gradually. The 'system', such as it is, ispieced together by a process of philosophical and historical enquiry, not imposedfrom the outset. The method could be described as a kind of philosophico-historicalinduction . For all the indelible flavour of antiquarian learning of The TrueIntellectual System, and the antique sources of his Neoplatonism, what Cudworthoffers is Neoplatonism in modern dress: Neoplatonism directed against the undesir-able features of modern philosophy, but nonetheless supported by modern viewsand arguments; Neoplatonism recharged to meet the challenge of Hobbist andSpinozistic 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 ; JohnLaird, ' L' influence de Descartes sur la philosophie anglaise du dix-septierne sie cle;' Revuephilosophique de la France et de l 'etranger, 123 (1937), pp. 226-56, and A. Pacchi , Cartesio inInghilterra , da More a Boyle (Bari: Laterza, 1973). It was even suggested by Saveson that the term'Cambridge 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, Moreand the Mechanical Analogy ' , in R. Kroll, ed., Philosophy, Science and Religion in England, 1640-1700(Cambridge: 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 filosofia italiana, 46 (1967),pp. 528-541. On Cudworth 's classical sources, see G. Aspelin, 'Ralph Cudworth 's Interpretat ion ofGreek Philo sophy. A Study in the History of English Philos ophical Ideas' , Goteborgs Hiigskola sArsskrift, 49 (1943), pp. 1-47 .2 Cudworth does , however make a qualified concession to empiricism: 'Here in the first place wefreely grant . . . that our Humane Cogitations , are indeed commonly Occasioned, by the Incursions ofSensible 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 MechanicalCauses in the Brain. Notwithstanding which, that all our Cogitations, are Obtruded, and Imposed uponus 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', Philosophical Review, 35 (1926) , pp. 553-573, and J. A.Passmore, Ralph Cudworth , an Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951) chapters2 and 3. Also my Introduction to T.E.I.M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 1996), andMarialui sa Baldi'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 ofEnti ty and Perfection in Nature , one above another; the whole Universe from top to bottom, beingNothing 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 DeConsolatione Philosophiae , book V, metrum 4.14 lbid., p. 857. Cudworth 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 matterwhich 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 thehuman 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 alluniversal verities are always actually comprehended' .21 Discours , pt. 2. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoffand Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. I, p. 116.22 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Epistle to the Reader, ed . A. S. Pringle Patterson(Hassocks : 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 , apropos de Ralph Cudworth, la question de savoir aquel pla-tonisme il se rattache, la tradition exegetique, de J. L. Mosheim (son traducteur duXVIIIeme siecle) en passant par S. T. Coleridge jusqu'aE. Cassirer,I nous assure aI'envi qu'i1 s'agit du neoplatonisme, tout particulierernent du plotinisme. AinsiMosheim: "Cudworth utilisait volontiers les neo-platoniciens ... Et iI faut avouerqu'aucun philosophe de l' Antiquite n'est, plus que ces platoniciens, proche de sestheses't.? La proximite doctrinale de Cudworth au neoplatonisme parait patente aMosheim, et Ie nombre de references strategiques aux Enneades semble plaider ensa faveur. Pourtant, il serait pour le moins precipite de ratifier ce jugement sansautre examen: il ne s'agit certes pas de nier que Ie platonisme delection deCudworth 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 ala perennite desdifferends philosophiques autant qu 'a la cont inuite des positions philosophiques.C'est ce qui Ie conduit a n'admettre les doctrines anterieures dans son systemequ 'apres les avoir ordonnees a une echelle ontologique: ainsi Ie stoicisme n'est-ilintegrable dans la Digression concerning the Plastick Life of Nature' qu'en ce quiregarde les rapports de la nature et de la matiere. II n'y a, aproprement parler, d'in-tegration qu 'au prix d'une hierarchisation des doctrines, qui n'est pas sans analogieavec la hierarchic qu i se fait jour dans les Enneades : selon la formule deRavaisson," on va, en remontant l'ordre des hypostases, du Dieu des Stofciens auDieu d'Aristote, puis au Dieu de Platon. Mais Cudworth est-il veritablement enmesure 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-i1a Dieu une nature artiste aux traits fortement plotiniens? Parmi ses raisons , iI fautsans nul doute privilegier les raisons d'ordre theologique. L 'un des soucis majeursde Cudworth, dans la Digression, est de justifier I'action prov identielle de Dieu enl'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 pourCudworth de limiter la puissance divine, mais de rendre l'idee d'action providen-tielle conforme al'essence divine, ou plutot al'eminence divine. On ne saurait direque Dieu ne fasse rien - ce qui l'assimilerait a un Deus otiosus - ni qu'il fasse toutpar lui-meme: il est cause de tout , en derniere instance, sans etre l'auteur directde toutes choses, ce qui confere a la nature plastique sa place, qui est celle d'uneprovidence seconde.Le dessein cudworthien, en l'espece, consiste afaire piece tout a la fois au me-

canisme et au volontarisme theologique hyperbolique; la position du probleme parCudworth - que Mosheimjuge puerile.' parce qu'il ne faut pas preter a l'Etre infiniles embarras incombant aux etres finis - n'est pas sans rappeler celle de I'epicurienVelleius 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 dumonde a partir des atomes . Reinterpretee en termes cudworthiens, cette oppositiondoit s'entendre comme l'opposition d'une intervention nulle de Dieu dans lemonde, 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 DigressioniCudworth s'en prend ala fois a l'immanentisme naturaliste et a la negation d'unenature oeuvrant par soi-meme . Jouant la nature finalisee contre le mecanisme et Ievolontarisme il peut ainsi sembler restaurer a des fins pour partie polemiques uneforme de platonisme non-artificialiste, empreint d 'une conception stoicienne de lacPvcnc;, "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 obeirpour autant a ses propres fins, Cudworth entend refuter I'immanentisme naturalisteet 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 natureplastique et prete le flanc au soupcon d'atheisme mecaniste.!' Le vrai theisme auxyeux 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 lanature . Cette double admission entraine Cudworth adepasser en I'integrant le stoi-cisme a l'instar de Plotin et a recuser le cartesianisme, qui refuse d'accorder a lanature une action propre, s'exposant par la au grief cudworthien de priver Dieu detout soin de la nature .PLa nature selon Cudworth fait ce que Dieu ne veut pas faire par soi-meme, elle

est une cause inferieure, et, aquelque egard, ancillaire. La cause principale estl'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 participentnos esprits." Par rapport a cette cause premiere et principale, la nature est, pourainsi dire, une providence deleguee, qui agit en vue de fins qu' elle ne se proposepas . Cudworth a besoin d'une puissance qui soit au plus pres de la matiere sans s'yidentifier: 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 passagede Dieu fait tout aDieu ne fait rien, si I'on ne fait pas l'hypothese mediane de laplastick nature: "As, for the Latter Past of the Disjunction, That every thing inNature should be done immediately by God itself, ... , it would render DivineProvidence Operose, Sollicitous and Distractious, and thereby make the belief of itto be entertained with greater difficulty , and give advantage to Atheists". 15 II entendsauver la causalite divine en reduisant son exercice, sans sacrifier I'omnipotencedivine, qui n'est pas affectee a ses yeux par la mediation de la nature plastique; laraison veut que I'omnipotence n'entralne pas la panurgie, autrement toute actiondivine 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 basdegre de la contemplation devient pour Cudworth une forme inferieure d'actionprovidentielle, 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 inwardprinciple'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 dansla 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 elles'oppose au systeme democriteen, mais il parait plus malaise de la discerner d'unehypothese providentialiste qui ferait l'economie d'une nature douee d'une actionpropre. 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 ilveut en user, en realite, pour faire piece a I'hypervolontarisme theologique. IIs'agit pour lui de donner a la puissance de Dieu un ordre d'exercice qui soitadequat 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 queI'entend Cudworth, repugne tout autant a I' Idee d 'arbitraire qu'a celIe d'ordrefortuit : 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 plaideen effet pour une mediation!" permettant a Dieu de tout controler sans tout faire, ildemande que I'on disjoigne la toute puiss ance et I'action totale, en invoquant laconvenance;'? il n'est pas conforme a notre idee de la divinite qu'elle s'occupeelle-merne des oeuvres les moins nobles de la providence, de minimis non curatpraetor. 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'omnipotenceest sauve a condition que I'on n'en infere pas I'arbitraire dans I'action de Dieu quien laissant agir la nature a son rang, manifeste d'autant mieux sa sagesse. Onconceit 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 unpouvoir 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 anier Ie rolede 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 somuch from the will of the Deity, as the Necessity of its Nature". Et de fait, selonPlotin, c 'est la surabondance du Bien-! qui rend compte, si cela se peut, de sa diffu-sion, mais non aproprement parler son vouloir, du moins au sens que cela peutavoir 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 rplastique entre Dieu et la matiere. La tache theologique cudworthienne s'avere iciredoutable, puisqu'il doit preserver la volonte divine du meilleur en se revendiquantd'un diffusionnisme du Bien qui suppose l'amoindrissement progressif de cedern ier. Et l'on peut se demander legitimement si Cudworth ne souscrit pas a cemodele en dedoublant, comme il Ie fait , la Providence, pour epargner aDieu Iecontact avec la matiere tout en lui dormant une ancilla.Mais on est alors aux prisesavec une remarquable ambiguite. D'un cote , on a pu mettre en doute la pertinencede l'hypothese cudworthienne de la nature plastique . Ainsi Mosheim.F en arguantdu peu de difference entre elle et Ie volontarisme qu'elle pretend combattre. Eneffet, meme si l'action de Dieu est mediate quand illaisse agir pour son compte lanature, elle n'en est pas moins, en dern iere analyse, une intervention divine, nonmoins constante que dans l'hypothese combattue. Certes Cudworth affirme qu'i1veut , aI' 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 rectifierses oeuvres, ce qui s'ecarte notablement du neoplatonisme, ou la Nature, certes in-ferieure al'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 pourraitnommer le pur volontarisme et a cette fin il use avec constance de I'idee de ladderof entities, ou vient se ranger la nature plastique. Est-il un volontariste subtil ou unnecessitariste 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 Ieterme plotinien de Ao')'oc;) n'y est pas instituee, ce qui laisse a la nature sa pleinepossibilite d'agir. II y a done un point au-dela duquel l'Integration cudworthiennede la nature a la providence cesse de pouvoir se reclamer du neoplatonisme, dontelle n'omet pas, mais amoindrit, l'anti-artificialisme. On pourrait cependant penserque la notion de providence fonde la convergence recherchee par Cudworth, maisest-on bien certain que cette notion soit entendue au meme sens par Plotin etCudworth? Dans Ie neoplatonisme - au moins plotinien - la providence est , sous


les traits du Ao-yoc;, ce qui relie Ie voU<;, au monde sensible par l'intermediaire del'iime pure:24 "c'est comme un rayon lumineux issu a la fois de l'inteIligence et del'ame".25 Le Ao-yoc; plotinien, qui fait une apparition remarquee dans les deuxtraites Sur la Providence, est concu comme produisant et administrant Ie mondevisible, 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 dusuperieur et de l'inferieur.w manifestant ainsi selon son mode propre Ie retour de cequi precede a la source dont il precede, Qu'en est-il de la nature dans l'economiede cette providence? Offre-t-elle un precedent rigoureusement fonde a l'hypothesecudworthienne 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 nedemeure pas pres de I'Intelligence, I'Arne inferieure, si I'on veut." qui produit Iemonde 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 Ievoit, 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 sepose la question de son maintien dans l'existence. La nature dans ce cadre, n'a pasde lois qui lui seraient imposees par quelque volonte, elle est eternellement enordre, ordre qui "resulte eternellement de l'intelligence plutot qu 'il ne precede de lareflexion 'V? Cet ordre n'est autre, selon Plotin, qu'une raison incorporee - commel'atteste Ie traite De la Contemplation, III, 8 (30) -, qui est une forme immanente etagissante.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, commedit R. Passmore.l" dans l'occasionnalisme. On peut contester I'emploi de ce dernierterme pour des raisons historiques, car la vraisemblance d'une refutation deMalebranche par Cudworth est faible . Cependant, I'idee de Passmore n'est pas sansfondemcnt: Cudworth, en effct, anticipe en quelquc maniere sur l'occasionnalismeen recusant I'intervention divine sans mediation, et annonce la critique qu'en feraLeibniz. Car Cudworth conceit I'ordre de l'action divine de telle sorte qu 'il voiesattenuer en lui Ie risque d' arbitraire inherent a la manifestation de la volontedivine. Aussi, l'eternite du monde mise a part, Cudworth a-t-il bien pour proposd'etablir, dans Ie cadre d'un creationnisme, Ie type de continuite qui prevaut dans Ieneoplatonisme: la nature a laquelle il confere une action propre participe des ideesarchetypes contenues dans l'entendement divin, "it is Ectypal, a living Stamp orSignature of the Divine Wisdom;" elle est bien, comme dans Ie plotinisme, unhO-yOC; et une vie: "Nature is Reason Immerged and Plunged into Matter",32 "It is aLife".33 Pour Plotin deja, la nature est une raison" immanente, qui ne raisonne pasmais 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, unmediateur qui repond a un dessein superieur, ce qui est etranger a l'economie dela 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 laconception de la nature comme raison immanente et l'idee de raison ancillaire quis'attache ala nature plastique cudworthienne. Cudworth la voudrait ala 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 aI'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 pretantun peu trop le flanc aI' atheisme, il a tout I' air de dissimuler une ruse de la volontedivine, 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 aI'oeuvre dans le monde, merne si elle est depourvue de toute connaissance et detoute intelligence." Or, cette perplexite s'exprimant dans l'oscillation entre unnaturalisme qui sent son artifice et un theisme qui a du mal as'etablir tout a fait,semble avoir pour origine la tentative meme de Cudworth de transposer au rapportde Dieu et de la matiere creee par lui un 'A.o-yoc; plotinien qui resiste par sa naturememe ala transposition. Tandis que Ie 'A.o-yoc; de Plotin constitue ala fois un inter-mediaire dans la procession et un moyen de penser la transmission de la vie duPrincipe, Ie 'A.o-yoc; cudworthien est instrumental, comme une intention s'exercant aretardement. Dans la pensee plotinienne, ni naturalisme ni theisme n'auraient eucours: car jamais on ne croirait que la production de la nature risquat Ie moins dumonde de se substituer au Principe, qui lui ne sort pas de soi. Quant au theisme, siI'on entend par la la reconnaissance d'une volonte divine ayant l'ordre du mondepour visee, il n'a pas droit de cite dans le plotinisme. Dans l'emanatisme integraldont parle D. O'Brien apropos de Plotin.F la nature est le dernier terme d'un ordreprocessif pense comme affaiblissement de I'action du Principe. Ce n'est certes pasainsi 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 pourPlotin d'une necessite et d 'une loi naturelle <l>wewc; VOJ,LOC;, s'attache egalement aI'immanence de l'activite de la nature. En effet, tandis que pour Plotin le refus del' exteriorite se justifie par Ie caractere theoretique de la production naturelle,Cudworth, tout en citant Plotin acet egard," veut voir dans la nature un art imma-nent, principe, arne , ou loi internes: "Nature, that is a Concrete and EmbodiedArt".39 Plotin eut-il souscrit acette 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, aI'instar d 'Aristote, quela nature et I'art precedent de la meme facon, car, selon lui, "la nature part duprincipe", i.e. de l'unite de la forrne.t" ce que I'art ne saurait faire, lui qui precedepartes 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


oeuvre de l'interieur et vise Ie meilleur etat possible. Le modele du AO'Yoc; paraitrelever 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'uneTEXVT] interiorisee, ce qui oriente plutot vers une conception aristotelicienne. PourPlotin 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 queCudworth projette une nature aristotelicienne sur un logos plotinien, la premiereconception I'autorisant ajuger la nature dans ses oeuvres, la seconde amaintenir laparticipation de la nature aI'Intelligible, fut-ce dans I'entendement divino L'auteurjoue de la double presence, dans l'heritage antique sur la nature, du X-o'Yoc; et de laTEXVT], voyant dans sa nature plastique ala fois une image de I'art divin, une raisonimmanente et confuse, et un art cache. II tend ainsi a limiter I'importance de lacomposante 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 reussitesrespectives.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 queraison, elle est ce qui, au plus pres de la matiere, permet que subsiste I'efficace duprincipe du meilleur; en tant qu'art, mais art immanent, elle exprime une loi internequ'elle suit aveuglement, elle ne sait ni ne veut ce qu'elle fait. Mais ce qu'il peutsubsister d'art dans cette nature permet que Ie lien au plan intelligible qui regitI'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 etArt ofNature, 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 pourPlotin les Idees sont des Pensees de Dieu, il ne s'agit pas du premier Dieu, mais duDieu qui precede du Premier, comme Kronos est issu d'Ouranos." Cudworth faitde l'Intelligence Ie Principe, il s'arrete au Dieu d'Aristote tout en lui pretant unefonction qui n'cst pas Ia sienne selon le Stagirite: Ia fonction de providencesuperieure, Ainsi, Ie fait de parler d'art ectypal apropos de la nature n'est-il pasadequat au plotinisme, amoins que I'on ne reduise I'art divin ala sagesse divine etcelui de la nature a sa contemplation affaiblie. Mais ce serait alors la veine aris-totelicienne qui, dans la reconstruction cudworthienne des origines de la PlastickNature, entrerait en conftit avec Ie plotinisme: en effet la nature selon Ie Stagiriteest comme un art, c'est I'art qui COIncide avec ce qu'il produit en etant renduimmanent, mais iI n'est I'image d'aucun art divin, et n'est Ie correlat d'aucunecontemplation.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 auStagirite, malgre ses critiques expresses, une Arne du Monde, Ie second erigeant endivinite supreme un intellect. En realite, on dirait volontiers que Cudworth nechoisit 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 al'idee de Dieu toute sa purete , sans ecarter Ie providentialisme, i1cherche aetablir, entre Dieu et la nature plastique, un lien qui soit un lien de participationentre deux causes mentales ou "raisons". Et c'est la probablement I'aspect de satheorie 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 demonde intelligible. Quant au >"0)'0<; 1TOL'T]TLKO<;, qui n'est autre, on l'a vu, quela 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 touterealite est pensee.P Dans la mesure meme ou i1 cherche aechapper aux impassesd'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 pleinelumiere dans Ie traite Sur la Providence (III, 2 et III, 3). II est significatif qu'entraduisant 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 aun ordre concerte? Cudworthretrouve en fait ici une forme subtile d'artificialisme, lointainement heritee duTimee, 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 memeparadoxe 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 raisondivine 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'undedoublement de la providence, ninstitue-t-il pas une nature introuvable? J . L.Mosheim dans ses adnotationes asa traduction du True Intellectual System,43 n'apeut-etre pas tout afait tort de considerer que les leges naturae cartesiennes ne sontpas aussi eloignees que Cudworth Ie croit de sa propre plastick nature. On doitneanmoins, en toute justice, verser au credit de Cudworth son entreprise de preciserIe sens de la law ofnature, qui n'est ni verbale ni externe, mais plutot lex insita /" IIest caracteristique acet 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 intenterun 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 traversde 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 plastiqueest une mediation, al'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 dela procession, tandis que Ie mediateur cudworthien obeit ason createur, en partici-


pant confusement de son plan . Le platonisme cudworthien n'est pas faux, i1 eststrategique: c'est un instrument precieux, qui permet de redonner a la nature uneaction propre, au risque d'equivoques que I'on a pu rencontrer. Cudworth est-ilPlotinus 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 quisoulignons).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. Cudworth , T.I.S.V., § XXXVII.

10 Stoicorum 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. Mosheim, 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 AL'EMPIRISME

Trop souvent les c1assements historiques empechent de comprendre, du fait mernequ'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 sieclebritannique. Certes des differences fondamentales demeurent et on s'est plusieursfois arrete sur I'opposition, par exemple manifestee par la critique lockienne desidees innees; or les analyses de John Yolton et de Sarah Hutton) font justice dessimplifications exagerees, et des convergences ont merne ete manifestees parG. A. J. Rogers." C'est dans la ligne de ces analyses, et de I'insistance sur I'ouvrageepistemologique posthume de Cudworth, A Treatise Concerning Eternal andImmutable Morality par J. L. Breteau! que s'inscrit l'etude qui suit. II ne s'agiracependant pas de degager des influences ni de comparer la lettre des textes, maisplutot de mettre en rapport la coherence de I'une et de I'autre pensee. Cettemethode est d'ailleurs ici la seule possible: I'ouvrage de Cudworth est paru apres lamort 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 fontdefaut. II s 'agira done pour I'essentiel d'etayer une these simple: I'activite deI'esprit est un element structurel commun aux platoniciens de Cambridge et aI' 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 , commeplusieurs autres textes de I'ouvrage, donne I'impression d'etre un extrait d'un debarentame avec Locke:

... I have endeavoured to demonstrate in the foregoing Discourse. that knowledge and Intellectioncannot possibly spring from Sense. nor the Radiation or Impresses of Matter and Body upon that whichknows. but from an active power of the Mind. and independant upon it. whereby it is enabled fromwithin it self to exert Ideas of all Things."

Pourtant il faut dans ce texte etre attentif a un point: comme toutes les thesescontradictoires, 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'inverserIe signe d'un element que Cudworth a, Ie premier a ma connaissance, place aucentre de son propos. Plus precisement, en faisant de la relation le lieu privilegied'inscription du platonisme en philosophie de la connaissance, Cudworth a permisI'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 tenterd'illustrer: Cudworth traduit le platonisme en termes de relations entre atomes-logiques; et, pour I'essentiel, I'empirisme se distingue uniquement de ce platonismepar une definition autre de la meme relation.

III


112 J. M. VIENNE

L'originalitet de Cudworth consisterait done en l'inscription du platonismedans une relation entre atomes logiques. Mais la place accordee a la relationrepose sur la prise en compte d'atomes logiques a relier; notre hypothese detravail implique done une seconde affirmation: Ie platonisme de Cudworth seraitlie aune 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 enversles 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 parminos platoniciens, Richard Burthogge, en portera temoignage: tenant certains proposque 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 que1'0n peut comme Locke laisser a la relation le statut cartesien et cudworthien demode de la substance-esprit, sans lui retirer totalement, comme le font Descartes etCudworth, 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 connaissanceempiriste.

*I) SUBSTANCE IGNOREE ET RELATION CONSTITUEE

Selon l'opinion commune, l'empirisme se caracterise par la passivite de I'espritenvers Ie donne des sens qui s'impose a lui sous deux modes differents: commequalite atomique source d'impression, de phantasme ou d'idee d'une part, commerelation entre les idees d'autre part. II suffit a I'esprit d'enonccr ce qui est donnedans 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 relat ion. Cette presentationrepose 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 defidelite 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 larelation entre idees au sens modeme du terme, relation qui s' exerce entre atomeslogiques. Certes, Epicure s'inquietait du rapport des proprietes au corps (la chaleuret Ie feu par exemple)", mais il ne posait evidernrnent pas la question en termes derepresentation. Certes, il etait question chez Aristote de l'Inherence du predicat alasubstance, mais d'une part cette question etait une question theorique, seconde al'unite premiere de la chose pour Ie sens commun; et d'autre part cette relationn'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 entreaccidents 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'atomismeantique traitait comme des elements physiques deviennent pour lui des elementsfondes sur la connaissance humaine; on ne connait les qualites qu'en tant qu'ellesnous 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 uneidee; et apartir de cet atome logique doit etre recomposee la chose; la question dela connaissance se pose alors en des termes analogues aceux de la physique atom-istique. La relation entre les atomes logiques doit etre etablie, comme devait etreetabli 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 plusphysique mais logique, introduit dans Ie champ episternologique la question de larelation .Le scepticisme moderne met ainsi en doute notre capacite de saisir par les sens

non seulement l'ordre naturel entre les choses, mais aussi Ie substrat qui fait lachose . A cette difficulte neuve de l'epistemologie moderne, ni I'abstraction aris-totelicienne, ni la prolepse epicurienne n'apportent de solution immediate. On peutcertes suivre Aristote dans une autre partie de sa logique; dans les SecondsAnalytiques.' Aristote affirmait en effet que pour obtenir la connaissance d'unechose, il fallait lier la qualite ala substance, comme on lie les preuves de toute de-monstration, par I'invention du moyen tcrme et Ie moyen terme pour Aristote, c'estla 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 , toutcscience de la causalite interne aux choses est mise en doute. En temoignentGlanvill '? et Hobbes; Hobbes surtout, qui conserve I'exigence aristotelicienne deconnaissance par les causes, et resout I'aporie ouverte par I'ignorance des sub-stances en faisant de la science une connaissance des consecutions causales entreIes denominations seules , quitte afaire de la science un savoir hypothetique.!' Maisceux qui, comme Cudworth ou Locke desapprouvent Ie caractere hypothetique dela 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 importede 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'unitede 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 reclamaitAristote. Berkeley iIIustre ce choix de la rnaniere la plus radicalc : c'est I'esprit actifqui selon lui est la seule substance unifiant les qualites. Pour ceux qui ne vont pasjusqu'a cette solution extreme, I'esprit demeure la source de l'unite de I'objet: larelation 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 auprincipe de toute necessite, sont les ersatz cognitifs de I'unite ontologique qu'opereIe substrat. Cette these n'est d'ailleurs pas totalement originale : il etait courant deconferer au sens commun, voire al'esprit meme, l'unification des sensations sinonla 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 sensationou de reflexion) et de la forme (relation) une solution evitant ala fois le scepticismeabsolu et l'hypothetique." Mais le texte de Locke est moins simple qu'il ne parait:merne s'il revendique pour l'esprit le droit aconsentir par lui-meme atoute mise enrelation (sinon le droit aelaborer toute relation) , meme si sa critique de I'inne asurtout pour objet de denoncer les tentatives de reduction de ce droit, Locke ne dis-tingue pas clairement la part qu'il attribue ala spontaneite de l'esprit et celle qu'ilattribue ason asservissement al'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 luipar la Nature (ou par la nature humaine)? Or cette part de l'entendement dans laconstitution des relations, qui constitue la seule assurance de l'empirisme contre Iescepticisme, peut se comprendre apartir de la facon dont Cudworth presente leplatonisme.

2) LA RELATION (lTXElTL<;) SELON CUDWORTH

Repoussant a la fois Ie scepticisme et le relativisme de Protagoras, l'atheisrned'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 luipermet de "recuperer" en chacun de ces systemes des elements pouvant servir al'eleboration d'une pensee syncretique. II lui suffit par exemple de pousser a sonterme le scepticisme envers les sens, pour confier, selon une demarche classique,toute certitude a I'entendement. Des lors, un mecaniste consequent doit distinguersensation et conception et faire prevaloir un atomisme contre l'autre, Democritecontre Epicure, celui qui donne place a l'intelligence contre celui qui affirme laverite des phenomenes.Car Cudworth demeure convaincu de la validite de la physique corpusculaire ou

atomiste ; il rend hommage aDescartes d'avoir renoue avec cette conception queMOIse aurait inspiree aux pythagoriciens, qui l'avaient eux-mernes transmis al'ecole parmenidienne et de la aDemocrite. Mais cette conception, a l'origine etpar nature foncierernent theiste, etait devenue athee entre les mains d'Epicure. IIs'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 ason compte les elements de la physique corpuscu-

laire: la lumiere est un mouvement et une pression de particules emises par uncorps opaque. Ces particules heurtent ce qui leur resiste, et la resistance de lalentille est identique acelle de I'reil physiologique , identique egalement acelle de

LA RELATION, DU PLATONISME A L 'EMPIRISME 115

l'esprit. S'il existe done une difference entre lentille, ceil et esprit, elle ne vientguere (comme Ie supposait Hobbes sans doute vise ici) de la reaction ou de laresistance, mais d'une activite differentielle de chaque recepteur. Outre la force ducorps, qui se manifeste dans le phantasme sensible aussi bien que dans la reflexiond'un miroir, il faut une force de l'esprit pour expliquer ce qui est specifique dans laconnaissance.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 ofthe 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 asIncorporeal 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 thelike.!"

Ces notions sont suscitees par I'esprit a I'occasion des sensations, mais ne sontpas 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 rouagessans en saisir Ie sens; ce qui distingue la sensation physiologique de la perceptionintelligente, c'est que la perception compare les differentes parties, decouvre lacause du mouvement, la chaine qui transmet Ie mouvement, les rapports spatiauxdivisant Ie cadran, et

.. .all these in their several Relations to one another and the Whole. Whereupon the Intellect, besidesFigure. 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 andAsymmetry, Aptitude and Inaptitude, Sign and Thing signified, Whole and Part, in a manner all thelogical 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-movingMachine, and that the Understanding was abused and deceived in those Apprehensions; since all thatwas 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'evangilede Jean "Ce que l'reil n'a pas vu, ... c'est ce que nous annoncons" et au textefameux des Confessions d' Augustin ou se repete I'interrogation a l'ame sur cequ'elle peut saisir d'elle-meme; repetition qui manifeste a la fois \'importance dupropos 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 saisiespar les sens, chaque sens saisissant de maniere differente (toucher, vision), doneproduisant 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 chaquesens 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 al'atomisme epicurien, ence que l'esprit est convoque pour reduire la part du hasard et de la materialite. Encet aspect dernocriteen se retrouvent Hobbes et Cudworth: faire une science, c' estselon l'expression de Hobbes etablir des consecutions, et pour atteindre ce niveau ilest necessaire de quitter Ie domaine du sensible et de la prudence pour acceder aundomaine distinct, seul apte aetablir des relations. Hobbes et Cudworth s'accordentsur 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 ofReason over Sense, is nothing else but this, that Sense alone is not the Criterion or Judge of what doesReally and Absolutely exist without us, but that there is a Higher and Superior intellectual Faculty in usthat Judges of our Senses, which discovers what is Fallacious and Fantastical in them, and pronounceswhat absolutely is and is not. And Democritus, who did more thoroughly and perfectl y understand thisAtomical Philo sophy than Protagoras, makes this to be the proper Result and Consequence of it, theInvalidating the Judgment of Sense concerning Bodies themselves, and the asserting a higher Faculty ofReason 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 ceniveau 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. Etsur 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'undes points importants de la difference des systemes de Dernocrite et d'Epicure tienten effet ace que Democrite affirme qu' "aucune des [choses qui apparaissent auxsens] 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 laverite, 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 neparait pas seulement visible, mais il est tel qu'il parait. . . . Done toutes les imagesqui se produisent sont vraies"." Et de son cote, Cudworth affirme parallelement:

. . . external Sense... , is not capable of Falsehood, because as such, it does not comprehend the absoluteTruth of any Thing; being only a Phantasm, or Appearance, and all Appearances are such are alikeTrue .. . . Every Phancy is true. [note: micra <!>aVTacrl.a Ecr-rt &hTJe1]~l that is every Phancy is a Phancyor 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 deHobbes. Cudworth voit dans le sensible la verite, meme si toute la verite n'apparaitpas dans cette apprehension limitee; l'erreur consisterait aaffirmer un jugement surla totalite de la chose apartir 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


exemple, mais non pas de discerner que I'objet est autre ici et la".23 L'empirismeexploitera cette theorie de la "double verite" , verite de la sensation et verite dujugement, pour les Iier par un rapport de causalite, apparente aux theses aristoteli-ciennes de I'induction et aux theses epicuriennes de la prolepse, theses transposeesdu champ des substances au champ des qualites ou idees: c'est la force merne de laverite 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 pardes complexites residuelles, se revele chez Berkeley et surtout chez Hume danstoute sa clarte. Mais cette these implique I'accord sur un point fondamental degagepar Cudworth apres Hobbes: la relation est Ie fait de I'esprit merne si Ie rapport decet esprit a la sensation n'est identique ni a la convention hobbesienne ni ala natu-ralite transcendante de Cudworth. La theorie atomique, chez Cudworth commechez 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 sesuffit 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 nese soucie pas de la genese mentale de I'objet: illui suffit d'affirmer que la sensationne se preoccupe pas de la substance stable derriere la variabilite des accidents sanssmquieter de la facon dont sont recomposes les objets. La theorie atomistemoderne depasse la theorie atomiste antique car elle prend au serieux les aporiessceptiques 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 qualitessecondes . Et cet atomisme mental exige une relation externe aux choses liees. Deuxsolutions 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 , commedans la prudence hobbesienne; soit la relation est artificielle, comme dans la sciencehobbesienne. Cudworth emprunte cette deuxieme voie, mais pour eviter de tomberdans I'hypothetique, qui greve la science hobbesienne, iI s' inscrit dans la traditiondu Tim ee et de son interpretation neo-stoicienne: la relation est l'reuvre d'uneraison apparentee au monde intelligible. Ainsi, I'atomisme, these centrale de l'epi-curisme, reinterprete en termes epistemologiques, ouvre-t-il Ie champ a une trans-position du vOv<; de la physique du Timee dans Ie champ de Ia logique. Au vov<; dela physique correspond la relation de la logique. Dans toute l'ecole pythagori-cienne, on conceit Ie rapport entre choses, entre elements , Ie rapport constitutifde 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 renverserIe rapport du physique et du mental : ce lien entre les atomes physiques sert demodele au lien entre les sensations ou qualites premieres. Et si Hobbes pense lascience comme connaissance des consecutions entre noms, il faudra, me semble-t-il, la reaction de Cudworth a ce conventionalisme pour que cette science devienneconsecution entre des sensations existantes.

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C' est bien cette exteriorite de la relation qui parait faire l' originalite du propos deCudworth - ou au moins je propose ici de la lui attribuer, dans la mesure ou je neme souviens pas I'avoir vu presentee en ces tennes ailleurs. Precisons que l'origi-nalite attribuee jusqu'a plus ample informe aCudworth est la suivante. II ne s'agitpas d'avoir fait de la relation entre atomes Ie lieu de la pensee (la these est presentedes Ie Timee24) , mais d'avoir transpose cette these dans l'ordre de la connaissancepure et d 'avoir situe, au moins dans l'ordre de la decouverte, cette relation mentalecomme anterieure a la relation physique: puisqu'i1 existe des atomes mentaux, Ielien 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 theseepistemologique, 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" quitraduisit en atomisme logique cet atomisme physique.

*Cette transposition epistemologique d'une these c1assique pennet aCudworth de

dire que les relations de cause et d'effet, de tout et de partie, etc., sont en nous desimples notions de l'esprit, et des "modes de concevoir"; elles signifient seulementce que les choses sont relativement a l'entendement; comme les essences et lesverites eternelles, les relations n'existent que pour des esprits." On songe evidem-ment aKant - mais trop vite sans doute, car il ne faudrait pas prendre ce caracterespirituel 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 deuxaspects? Le premier eclaircissemenr est d'ordre epistemologique: tout ce qu'affinneI'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 aleurobjectivite, a leur eremite et a leur rationalite 26 mais au contraire I'assure puisqueI'intellect (pas plus que la pensee fregeenne) n'est pas a confondre avec larepresentation ou la sensation. Deuxieme eclaircissemenr, toujours d'ordre episte-mologique: les relations sont universelles et done leur perception correcte parchaque 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 inall created Understandings".27 La question qui reste la plus importante est laderniere: sommes-nous dans un univers berkeleyen ou n'existe de relation que dansla mesure ou tout est esprit? La reponse reside en un troisieme eclaircissement,d'ordre ontologique: au niveau du macrocosme (sans art ou sagesse, Ie monden'aurait guere d'efficacite), et au niveau du microcosme, la relation fait Ie corps, carelle est cause ou conatus interne; ainsi la force et la sante des animaux viennent deI'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 lapensee de Cudworth, iI faudrait done poursuivre: si la relation est reelle, si elle rendseule raison de l'efficace des corps et s'il n'y a de raison que dans des esprits, iI


faut effectivement se resoudre It supposer que I'esprit est present dans la matiereconstituant les relations internes et externes de cette matiere, comme iI est presentdans les intelligences humaines qui saisissent ces relations . Leibnizianisme qui n' arien d'etonnant si I'on se refere It la cosmologie de Cudworth, developpee dansTrue 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 etencore moins par un interventionnisme divin miraculeux, iI renvoie It un principeinterne d'organisation, premiere forme de la relation qui nous interesse . Mais, pouraffirmer sa position, Cudworth oppose ce principe interne aux conceptions stotci-enne et stratonienne." Ie principe doit avoir une immaterialite et une transcendancede type platonicienne qui font defaut aux principes stoiciens. Dans True IntellectualSystem, c'est la plastic nature qui joue ce role. Le terme n' apparait pas dans IeTreatise concerning Immutable Morality, mais iI y est remplace par cette relationmentale 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 designerl'etat d'un corps, son statut, en merne temps que la relation; la nature d'un corps estdeterrninee par la relation interne qui la constitue. D'ou la reference Ia plussignificative pour Cudworth: I'utilisation du terme par Plotin," dans sa critique dela conception stoicienne des categories; apres avoir critique, grace au stoicisme , laconception democriteenne et epicurienne qui fait du concours des atomes la causede l'unite du corps et de celie de l'ame, Plotin se retourne contre les stoiciens, quifont du feu ou du souffle un principe indetermine de l'etre et de son unite : "[Lesstoiciens] 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 etqu'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, differentedes corps?" Pour etre coherents, estime Plotin, ils devraient faire du "principed'etre" d'une chose, qu 'i1s appellent <TXE<TL<;, "autre chose que Ie substrat et Iematiere [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 lafois <TXE<TL<; et >'0)'0<; comme principe et raison, comme maniere d'etre et commerapport, comme relation et comme intelligence; Ie tout non point materiel , commei1s 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'ilssont materialistes, mais elle reprend ce qui demeure valide aux yeux de Cudworthdans les systemes crit iques: 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. Demerne que la critique du mecanisme materialiste de True Intellectual Systemexigeait 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 relationpurement 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 naturephysique d'une fin intellectuelle par le biais d'une nature plastique; dans la theoriede la connaissance qu'il developpe dans Eternal and Immutable Morality, la natureplastique qui demeurait relativement externe est remplacee par le principe constitu-tif du corps, la relation ou CTXECTLC;, qui fait "conspirer au tout": "Relations, andhabitudes to one another , (founded in some actions of them as they are cogitativebeings) and by Order all conspiring into one thing". Parce qu'effet de l'ame dans lachose, la relation ne peut etre percue par le sens corporel .P II y a de l' esprit dans lachose, 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; plusest pousse le morcellement des idees et des choses, plus la relation est necessaire enelles 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 queles couleurs de l' arc-en-cielr' - ce qui laisserait penser que la theorie lockienne desqualites secondes n'a pas pour unique source Robert Boyle. Mais de meme quedans 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'intentionde 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 tobeautify and adorn the visible and material World, to add Lustre and Imbellishment to it, that it mighthave Charms, Relishes and Allurements in it, to gratify our Appetites; Whereas otherwise really in itself, the whole corporeal World in its naked Hue, is nothing else but a Heap of Dust or Atoms, of severalFigure s and Magnitudes, variously agitated up and down, which we look upon as such real Thingswithout us, are not properly the Modifications of Bodies themselves, but several Modifications, Passionsand 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 atomesphysiques, relations entre atomes logiques et enfin relations dans l'esprit humainentre atomes physiques et atomes logiques; mais le phenomenisme qui resulte dudernier type de relation rend inutile la realite physique de la relation: pourquoimaintenir la beaute intrinseque de l'univers, pourquoi ne suffirait-il pas que toutebeaute soit phenomenale? On comprend mieux la coherence de Berkeley quievacue 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; larelation intellectuelle est doublee d'une relation physique, et Ie langage de la naturea un statut different du langage berkeleyen; il s'agit d'un code physique dont Iesens est intellectue1: a I'occasion des mouvements locaux dans les nerfs, I'espritforme les notions universelles qui subsumeront les signes formes de facon sin-guliere.F Autre consequence, d'importance pour notre theme principal derecherche: la relation n'est pas Ie seul element constitutif de I'objet; il existe enoutre une notion, une Idee au sens platonicien du terme, de la chose.P lei encore lasolution est redondante: une des deux solutions pourrait suffire; soit la sensation estvraie en elle-rneme, et pour constituer un objet I'esprit utilise une relation dont lagarantie 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'onentre dans toutes les difficultes du malebranchisme) . Le cumul des deux solutionsest redondant, mais la redondance est significative: Ie platonisme Ie plus c1assiqueest juxtapose aune interpretation "moderne" selon laquelle les idees sont produitespar 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 proprefonds la relation qu'elle n'est pas reelle: la creation intellectuelle dit I'ordre reel deschoses que ne saisit pas Ie sens. La relation est fondamentale: elle constitue lachose comme chose, I'efficace de la chose sur les autres et ainsi Ie monde commemonde . Mais il y a "perte" de contenu quand ce monde exterieur parvient aI'espritpar 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 asa nature divine. IIexiste neanrnoins des idees universelles des choses qui doublent cette composition.Cette theorie de la relation permet aCudworth d'affirmer ala fois: 1) une theorie

de la relation constitutive des choses, 2) une theorie de la connaissance constituantles 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 Ieplan divino

*3) BURTHOGGE

Cet equilibre instable sera ebranle par divers systemes de l'epoque, notamment parI'empirisme de Locke. Mais plusieurs elements de la pensee de Cudworth serontconserves, et notamment a facon de poser les questions. Je ne prendrai qu'unexemple, chez Burthogge, parfois considere comme "platonicien de Cambridge",alors qu'il est plus lie aOxford qu'a Cambridge, et plus aristotelicien que platoni-cien: iI se reconnaitra d'ailleurs une parente avec Locke lors de la publication deI'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 Vetuset Novum (1678); nous nous tiendrons au premier des deux ouvrages, afin de mieuxprouver les relations entre platonisme et empirisme, prenant a temoin une texteredige avant que Burthogge n'ait pu subir une eventuelle influence de Locke . Si lathese se verifie apropos de Buthogge, el1e sera d'autant plus vraie de Locke qui alonguement 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 conceptionsde Cudworth et de More.i" mais ses ouvrages philosophiques affirment dans laligne platonicienne la superiorite de l'esprit sur la matiere, esprit present dans lemonde et assurant son unite; cette harmonie est a la fois la verite et la raison dumonde, ce que dit Burthogge en un texte syncretique, surdeterminant la relation parde multiples references antiques :

For Harmony, it is the Reasonof the World; the World was made by it, cannot be known but by it. TheRule of Proportion is the King-Key, unlocking all the Mysteries of Nature. The Great Creator framed allthings in the Universe in Number, Weight, and Measure: Extremes in it are united by participatingMiddles; 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 ofmost exact Proportions."

C'est cette harmonie que saisit l'esprit, car la verite est source d'harmonie dansl'esprit, harmonie qui est de meme ordre que l'harmonie des choses mais saisiedans notre "analogie" (expression classique que l'on peut trouver dans les textes deCherbury aussi bien que ceux de Cudworth pour designer l'ame), Cette harmonieest a cons iderer sous deux aspects. Comme signification d'abord, comme veriteensuite. La signification , appelee sence (Ie c est systematique) ou meaning, est cetteconception ou notion formee dans l'esprit sur proposition d'un objet, d'un mot oud'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 pasobjet 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, Burthoggeaffirme que l'harmonie, ainsi que "Faculties and Powers, Good, Evil, Virtue, Vice ,Verity, Falsity, Relations, Order, Similitude, Whole, Part, Cause, Effect, etc., areNotions" qui , loin detre aussi exterieures a l'entendement qu 'on ne Ie croitcouramment, lui sont au contraire aussi interieures que la couleur l'est al'ceil: "Wegeneral1y conceive Faculties, . . . (under which the Minde apprehends things) to beRealities and to have an Existence of their own without the Minde" (§ 12), alorsque "all the immediate Objects of Humane Cogitatio .. . are Entia Cogitation is [desetres de pensee] . Al1 Appearences; which are not properly and (may I use a School-term) formally in the things themselves conceived under them." (§ 10). Pourtantel1es sont reelles,

not that on their own nature they are in Realities themselves, but that they have their Grounds in thosethat 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


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

Le Sence qui est pour I'essentiel une saisie des relations est I'objet propre deI'entendement, et sur ce point Burthogge retrouve les analyses de Cudworth. Maisil introduit une note aristotelicienne, qu'autorise son vocabulaire scolastique: cesrelations ont dans la realite des premices, elles ne sont pas pures creations deI'esprit. On reconnait Ie glissement par rapport aCudworth: 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 lafaussete de ce sence (§ 7). Ce jugement est reconnaissance de I'harmonie du sencecomme 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 withother, in the Frame and Scheme [=<TXE<TLc;) of them in our Mindes."

Ainsi la verite est la correspondance de deux harmon ies, ou la reconnaissancepar I'esprit d'un sence , d'une relation interieure aI'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 accordeCudworth. Ce qui a ete dit jusqu'ici porte en effet sur les seconds et troisieme actesde 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 al'experience: la realite produit Ie sentiment, etIe sentiment la notion; du sensible aI'imagination, de I'imagination aI'esprit et deI'entendement ala 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 aremoter 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 deplatonisme.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 Burthoggeaide asaisir par quels amenagements superficiels Ie platon isme peut se convertir enempirisme ; mais il faut, pour saisir cette parente, admettre que l'empirisme n'estpas 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 sonpropre fonds. A cote de ce point central, il existe de nombreux autres pointscommuns qui meriteraient une analyse plus precise, analogue acelie que I'on a

124 J. M. VIENNE

mene ici pour la relation: theorie de I'atomisme corpusculaire et de I'atomismemental, 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-ilpurement et simplement a I'ordre impose par les idees ou recree-t-il un ordre apartir de la succession ressentie et de sa propre rationalite? C'est dans les differentschoix 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 theHistory 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 peuventsurgir 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 oilreside la coherence de son propos, quitte a ce que plus informe que moi dise que cette organisation destheses 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 fautsans 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 ofDogmatizing, 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 faisaitplus 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 deMetaphysique 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 laraison Pure (Paris: P.U.F.) p. 100.15 Cette association interessante de deux sortes didees se retrouvera chez Locke, a la nuancesignificative pres que Ies idees de sensation et les idees de reflexion d'une part seront associees dansl'ernpirique: les idees morales et les idees de relation seront, elles, regroupees dans les modes, fruits pursde 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 auxchoses corporelle s qu' incorporeIles, qui precedent entierernent de I'activite de I'esprit comparant unechose avec une autre. C'est Ie cas de la cause de l'effet, des moyens et des fins, de I'ordre, de la proper-


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. Eta partir de la, au-dela de la figure, de la couleur de la taille et des mouvements, l'intellect fait surgir eteveille en lui les idees intelligibles de cause , d 'effet, de moyens, de fins, (etc.)... , en un mot toutes lesnotions logiques et relatives qui existent [que ne percoit pas Ie sens] .. . Et si l'ceil sentant pouvait discuteravec 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 atomiste, qui est Ie triomphede 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 existereellement et absolument a l'exterieur de nous, mais il y a une faculte intellectuelle superieure et pluselevee 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 philosophieatomique que Protagora s en tire la consequence suivante : Ie jugement des sens est invalide quand ilporte sur les corps eux-rnerne s, et il affirme qu'if existe une faculte de raison plus elevee en nous, pourdeterminer 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: IeSyntagma 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 ifn 'cnglobe pas la ve rite absolue de qu oi que ce soil. II n' est qu'un phantasme une apparition(appearan ce) et toute apparition est vraie."; cf. aussi Glanvill, Vanity ofDogmatizing, ch. X, pp. 91 ss .:"The apparitions or our frighted Phancies are real sensibles : But if we translate them without thecompass of our Brains, and apprehe nd them as real objects ; it's the unwary rashness or ourUnderstanding deludes us?" . Voir Ie texte presque parallele de Locke: .... . in the more ordinaryAcceptation of those Words : . .. the Ideas in our Minds, being only so many Percept ions, or Appearancesthere , none of them are fa lse." Essay, 2.23.3 . Cudworth avait deja note l'utilisation par Protagoras decette affirmation et rejete son relativ isme en montrant qu 'il faut distinguer entre verite absolue et veriterelative: 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-sequence etonnante: que l'erreur soit impossible quant a la sensation prouve sa limite ; Ie fait que la con-naissance intellectuelle soit soumi se a I'erreur manifeste qu'elle n'est pas relative, mais absolue. Larelativite change ici de statuI: ellc devient pejorative, marque la limite du senti relatif au sentant , alorsque l'intellectuel devient absolu en ce qu 'il est libere de toute relation . Deux conceptions de la relationque 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 semble etre 37b-c qui associe l'ilme du monde et laconnaissance .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 theorienon-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 significatifs : 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 fontde 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. 7-1338 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 abovesense and elevating it self from individuals to the comprehension of the universal notions and Ideas ofthings within itself' (Ibidem § 12et 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 ideecartesienne, 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 ofR. 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 nepeut etre connu que par elle. La regie de la proportion est la cle royale qui ouvre tous les rnysteres de lanature. Le grand Createur a construit toutes choses en nornbre, poids et mesure. Les extremes son! unispar Ie moyen terme participant et, dans tout Ie systerne, il existe une unite de forme si admirable qu'elleravit tous ceux qui la voient. Tout est 11 sa place, et lie 11 ce qui est 11 cote. Tout fait ensemble en unestructure tres ordonnee, seton les proportions les plus exactes . " : Galien est significativement cite 11I'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 objetsimmediats de la pensee humaine .. . sont des etres de pensee. Ce sont tous des apparaitres qui ne sontpas, au sens propre et (pour utiliser un terme scolastique) formellement dans les choses memes concuesgrace aux facultes , " .. ... Non pas que de leur propre nature, elles soient daus les realites-memes, maiselles ont leur fondement dans ce qui est: elles sont reelles (comme Ie diraient les scolastiques) non pasformellement, 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 leschoses 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 , ouharmonie, congruence, unite, fidelite, consistance, proportion et coherence des choses les unes envers lesautres, 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 etdistinete la sensation qu 'i1s produisent. Et de meme que l'on voit plus c1airement et distinctement unobjet proche que lointain , de meme plus I'esprit et I'entendement sont proches des sentiments, plus sesperceptions sont claires distinctes et evidentes , Je veux dire, plus les notions sont sensibles et prochesde leur fondement, plus elles sont authentiques, fortes (impressive), et par consequent c1aires etdistinctes .' .

PART THREE

R.CROCKER

THE ROLE OF ILLUMINISM IN THE THOUGHT

OF HENRY MORE

Who seeks for pleasure in this mortalllifeBy diving deep into the body baseShall lose true pleasure: But who gainly striveTheir sinking soul above this bulk to placeEnlarg'd delight they certainly shall find,Unbounded joyes to fill their boundlesse mind.

When I my self from mine own self do quitAnd each thing else; then an all-spreaden loveTo the vast Universe my soul doth fit,Makes me half equall to All-seeing Jove.My mightie wings high stretch'd then clapping lightI brush the starres and make them shine more bright.

Then all the works of God with close embraceI dearly hug in my enlarged arms,All the hid paths of heavenly Love I traceAnd 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 angelsappeared, blowing trumpets through a mist, which gradually cleared before his eyesas the trumpets grew louder.2 As the sound from the trumptets increased, theypained his ears to such an extent that he awoke. On waking from his dream, he tellshis readers, he remained for several days in an "unexpressable" state , "which if itwere 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 extremeimaginative sensitivity.' More's early biographer, Richard Ward, remarks perceptivelyon his passionate love of music, and tendency to be 'enravished' by the contemplationof 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 CambridgePlatonists in Philosophical Context, 129-144.© 1997KluwerAcademic 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 heanimadvert (in a sort) on the things that he did.

Although scholars interested in Cambridge Platonism have rarely shown morethan a passing interest in these glimpses into More's inner life, they are of somesignificance,"This is because a central belief, even assumption, running through thepublished thought of More and his fellow Platonists, is that the ultimate goal ofboth 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 thisilluminism, or mystical aspiration, inspired or influenced their intellectualdevelopment."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 inthe 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, thePsychodia Platonica, or a Platonical Song of the Soul of 1642.10The 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, Morerecounts how whilst still a schoolboy at Eton he began to have serious doubts aboutCalvin's 'hard doctrine of Fate' (absolute predestination) in view of his instinctivebelief in God's goodness. II He describes how he ventured to speak of these doubtsto his elder brother and learned uncle, Gabriel More, the patron of his studies, butwas severely reprimanded for his "forwardness in philosophizing concerning suchmatters". 12 Although More does not mention it, these early doubts had probablyripened under the influence of some of his teachers at Eton, which in this periodwas dominated by the well-travelled and intellectually liberal Provost, Sir HenryWotton and the 'ever-memorable' and also theologically liberal Fellow, JohnHales. 13The didactic purpose of this little scene of precocious theological defiance in the

Preface was to establish the grounds for a rejection of Calvinist determinism andvoluntarism, and for an instinctive but 'rational' acceptance of the preeminence ofgoodness amongst the divine attributes - in this way giving a personal dimension tothe 'necessitarian' basis of the works of philosophy and theology which follow thispreface in the Opera Omnia. 14 The God of Calvinism, he wished to emphasize here,appeared to him even as a schoolboy unnatural and cruel.PIn 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 byhis 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 haddefined the soul in terms of what appeared to be non-essential, even quasi-materialattributes.!? 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 histhumb is".18Antagonism to the determinism and voluntarism of Calvinism and to the materi-

alism and monism suggested by scholastic accounts of the soul are two recurrentpolemical themes in More 's poems and later philosophical works .'? Although Moreis 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 thisearly anxiety was not so clearly polemical, but rather the not uncommon fear of thepossible annihilation of the individual's consciousness at death.PWhatever 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 whomthere was frequent mention of the Purification of the Soul and of the Purgative Course that is previous tothe Illuminative; as if the Person that expect ed to have his Mind illuminated of God was to endeavourafter the Highest Purity.

He was also particularly impressed, he adds, by the late medieval devotionalmanual, the Theologia German ica, with its practical emphasis on extinguishing theignorant 'human will' in order to live only in and through the 'divine will ' alreadynative in the soul.FThis 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 "HolyDiscipline and Conflict" during which time, he says, the "Divine Principle" withinhim gradually triumphed over the self-will and "animal nature".23 This eventuallyfreed him, he declares, from the "insatiable Desire and Thirst.. .after theKnowledge 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 suchplainly 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 thispoem was then supplemented by other explanatory poems on the immortality andindividual conscious life of the soul after death, and how together these poems werepublished as the Psychodia Platonica, or a platonicall song of the soul in 1642.26We 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 tookup the fellowship at Christ's vacated by his tutor, Robert Gell, and began takingstudents ."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 regardedby orthodox Calvinists with suspicion for a similar illuminism or 'perfectionism' .29When in 1641 Gell left Cambridge for London to become rector of St MaryAldermary, he became renown for encouraging the study of Jacob Boehme's mysti-cal works , and for promoting the ' pe rfec tionism ' of Sebastian Castellio(Chastellion), the French humanist reformer." Castellio had taught , in opposition toCalvin 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 atsome 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 in1640. The second and third cantos of this poem form an elaborate spenserian allegoryin which More describes the process through which the purification and illuminationof the soul takes place. They are therefore of some value in establishing the role ofthis 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 goalof this inner journey, that of illumination or 'deification', Theoprepia ('Iikenesseunto 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 of1647, More added 68 stanzas to this section of the allegory, to help clarify his ownview of authority in religion -against the heterodox implicat ions of his illuminism ."These stanzas contain a debate between characters representing contemporary pres-byterianism (for whom scripture is the supreme authority), laudianism (who sup-ports the claims of tradition) and a rat ional pragmatism (for whom reason issupreme). His own illuminism, with its appeals to a personal 'inward sense' and theoverriding authority of the Holy Spirit , is mistaken by each of these characters inturn as similar to the radical illuminism of the sectarians .F But all these positionsopposing his own , including the radical illuminism of the sects, which he criticizesat some length, he makes clear, are similarly 'birdlike' and spiritually nescient, theproducts of an unpurified 'self-sensedness' .38


The soul eventually abandons this realm dominated by the 'animal nature', andenters the second, more psychological realm ofDizoie." Into and through this secondrealm 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 reachillumination the soul must overcome two preeminent temptations. The first is that offalse intellectual or religious opinion, and the second is the pursuit of knowledge forits own sake, that hunger for the 'knowledge of things' he described in his GeneralPreface. 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', 'allfrom the devil')." The inhabitants of this castle are composed of a formidable list ofthe 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 ofthe castle's impregnable defensive double wall, he writes.'?

The first Inevitable DestinyOfGods Decree ; the other they do callInvincible 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 goalof 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 beautifulguardians, named appropriately Pythagorissa, Platonissa and Stoicissa, whosecharms momentarily mislead the pilgrim soul into believing he is already inTheoprepia, 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 tothe soul ' s quest for illumination or deification.PMore'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 owessomething to the similar three 'laws of life' of St Paul's Epistle to the Romans. 44But 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 spiritualand moral choice confronts the embodied soul, a choice of identification with itsspiritual or material nature. The nature of this choice, and its related psychologicaland metaphysical circumstances, is the central didactic message of the poems, andalso one that underlies many of More's susbsequent writings. One immediate meta-physical consequence of this choice is a dualistic emphasis which contrasts theever-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 justoutlined. In this canto More describes a 'Christian-Platonicall' trinity of One(Ahad), Mind (Aeon) and Soul (Psyche),47 on whose 'veil' four further figures canbe discerned: 'nature imaginative' (Semele), ' nature sensative' (Haphe) , 'naturespermatical' (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, afterPlotinus, through the creative collision of the 'light' of divine intelligence and the'darkness' of Hyle.49But More's Protestant concern with salvation leads to a muchgreater emphasis on the 'magic' delusory powers of matter , and matter, as it ismanifested in body and individuated self, and in the corresponding saving power ofdivine love to lead the soul back to its original spiritual home.vThe fundamental collision of spirit (light) and matter (dark) informing the spiri-

tual and material creation, envisaged by More, is expressed at greater length and inmore explicitly psychological terms in the longer explanatory poems accompanyingand following Psychozoia in the Psychodia Platonica. In these poems More againplaces the 'return' of the soul to God, the journey towards illumination, within thecontext of a hierarchy of metaphysical principles. But to achieve his aim, Moremust convince his readers that the present embodied state of the fallen soul is oneof temporary exile from its true spiritual horne." The soul's inherent tendency toidentify 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, unconsciousness, and thusof evi1.52 In fact it is this identification which has led the immortal, spiritual soul onits prior 'outward' journey from God - through progressive embodiment in increas-ingly 'gross' vehicles." Firstly, in this descent the soul loses the complete freedomand pure intellectual capacity of the aetherial vehicle, and witnesses the creation ofan aerial, and then a terrestrial 'vehicle' or body, which becomes its 'prison' in thisworld.P' Conversely, the 'sacred method ' More urges on his readers, of deliberateself-denial, and thus a denial of the 'natural' or 'animal' sympathy with the self andthe body (and by implication, through them, with hyle or matter), results for thesoul in a progressive purification and illumination, and an eventual 'recovery' of itsoriginal status in the spiritual world."

there is a holy Art of Living, or certain sacred Method of attaining unto great and ExperimentalPraegustations of the Highest Happiness that our Nature is capable of : And that the degrees ofHappiness and Perfection in the Soul arise. or ascend, according to the degree of Purity and Perfection inthat Body or Matter she is united with: So that we are to endeavour a Regress from the Baser Affectionsof the Earthy Body; to make our Blood and Spirits of a more refined Consistency; and to replenish ourInward 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


with its 'eternal ideas', while the second is the universal 'mundane' spirit" Morealso describes this choice in terms of the image of an inverse cone, representingboth universal and personal aspects of the spiritual universe . The open, up-turnedbase 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 penHerself, as more or lesse she erst did sideWith sense and vice, while here she did abide.

3.

As this implies , the soul's quest for illumination, and the prerequisite for a cleardistinction between material and spiritual spheres, not only gives shape to More 'searly intellectual stance but also defines by negation its polemical targets . Thus inMore's poems the Calvinist is attacked for his negative vision of God's mercy andcorresponding denial of the possibility of the soul's perfection and union withGod.58 Similarly, the scholastic 'naturalist' is attacked for failing to rise above thedeluding influence or 'prejudice' of knowledge derived from the senses.t? In conse-quence More greets Galileo and Copernicus as fellow-travellers, eminent thinkerswho had freed themselves from the prejudices of sense-based knowledge. TheCopernican system in this way becomes the subject of a whole canto in More'sPsychathanasia, a demonstration of the superiority of knowledge derived from the'divine' intellect to that derived, like the Ptolemaic system, from the evidence ofthe senses alone.s" Scholastic accounts of natural phenomena appear to More toconfuse 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 twotracts by the alchemist and hermeticist, Thomas Vaughan the twin brother of thepoet, Henry Vaughan.f Beneath the self-conscious levity of More's chastisement ofVaughan, his 'brother Platonist', a real concern for the monistic and materialisticimplications of his opponent's alchemical natural philosophy can be discerned.P Inthe guise of a 'fellow traveller', Vaughan had bestowed a primitive 'spirit of life' onmatter 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 hisown alchemical manipulation of nature as a divinely-sanctioned activity, leading to adirect 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 purposeof 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.wThe 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 subsequentworks.v? Although More continues in his later works to speak of the need forpurification and illumination, of the spiritual realms, of the preexistence and life ofthe soul, he is noticeably more guarded, and even 'hypothetical', in presentingideas which might seem heterodox to his contemporaries/" What can be seen in theAntidote 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 thedangers of being depicted as an 'enthusiast' for unguarded expressions of hismystical 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) toa sympathetic interest in the thought of the ancient atomists, and in that ofDescartes, whom he regarded at first as their most impressive modern Christianrepresentative." Like Descartes , More felt the need to express the conceptual sepa-ration of spirit and matter in clearly definite terms, although he differed with himover the defining characteristics Descartes had attributed to spirit and matter."More's difficulties with Descartes' metaphysics , and especially his queries on thelocus of spirit, expressed at first in their correspondence (1649-50) and subse-quently in More's later philosophical works, most notably the Immortality of theSoul (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 philosopherlay in Descartes' demonstration that the ancient atomists' 'atheistic' treatment ofmatter 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 treatbodies as the temporal and spatial compounds of certain minute particles, but thatthese could still be moved and ordered by neoplatonic spiritual forces.f Descartes''democritan' particles in this way came to be adapted and hypothetically insertedbetween the hyle (matter) and tasis (extension) of More's metaphysical schema inthe aptly-named poem, Democritus Platonissans (1646),75One 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 amechanical, even mathematical, account of natural phenomena within a broadly vi-talist Platonic metaphysic ." Arguments drawn from the growing literature of thenew experimental mechanical philosophy could be taken up as supporting, sub-sidary arguments in a new kind of systematic 'rational' natural theology." In thisway mechanistic accounts of the behaviour of the air or water from Boyle andothers , medical accounts of the behaviour of the body and the relation of the wholebody to its parts, and even 'verified' accounts of poltergeist and other paranormalphenomena could be assembled as subsidary , supporting arguments from 'sense-experience' and nature to add weight to, and verify arguments from 'ideas' orreason."


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, someof its determining features can be outlined here. As we have seen, More's pursuit ofillumination 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 andtheir respect ive 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 becauseto blur or to confuse these opposing classes of substances would be to compromiseor undermine the first stage in the process of purification itself, which More hadoutlined first in his poems: the intellectual recognition of the soul's essentially dis-tinct, immortal , intelligent and active nature .PMore'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 interiorjourney towards illumination. However, as noted above, the method of argument andpresentation 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 'Enthusiasm' from this perspective became summary terms forheterodox implications perceived in those philosophical or theological positions insome way incompatible with his psychology of purification and illumination and itssupporting metaphysical dualism." Indeed, the true perception of and recognition ofevil itself - the product of intellectual and moral discrimination - was in itself a partof More 's illumination. Once the vision of unity was achieved, then82

. . . clearly view I where true light doth riseAnd 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 toPlatonism, I would like to end by considering another dream from More's DivineDialogues (1668), which attempts to summarize in an emblematic manner the mainfeatures of his subsequent philosophical enterprise.fIn this dream the main representative of More's own position in the Dialogues,

Bathynous, describes to his companions a 'providential' dream he had after havingfallen asleep in a forest. In this dream, he awakes in the same forest and is presentedwith the ' two keys of Providence' - 'keys' to the understanding of the material andspiritual universes respectively - by a 'divine Sage' or messenger from God.84 Thefirst, silver key contains a scroll representing the Copernican and Cartesian "trueSysteme of the World". This is revealed only after the dreamer had placed thejumbled letters on the outside of the key into their correct order. This spells out theilluminist 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, evenknowledge of the external world, is dependent on ideas already present within themind, 'awakened', as it were, by a divine sympathy with them. Copernicanism wastherefore greeted in More's poems for its conformity to intellectual truth, not for itsconformity to physical reality. The 'awakening' of true intellectual knowledge there-fore always depends upon a prior withdrawl from the senses.vIn a similar manner, by placing the jumbled letters inscribed upon the second ,

golden key into their correct order, the dreamer reveals the complementary spiritualor theological motto, "Amor Dei lux Animae" ( 'The love of God is the light of thesoul'j." This reveals the necessitarian basis of More's illuminist theology : God'slove is effect ively irresistable once the individual soul has made the effort to con-sciously abandon its habitual identification with self and body.88The scrolI attachedto this golden key, the key of spiritual or theological knowledge, is unfurled toreveal 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 spreadout the other. 3. Darkness and the Abyss were before the light, and the Suns or Stars before anyOpakeness or Shadow . 4. All Intellectual Spirits that ever were, are or ever shall be, sprung up with theLight, and rejoiced together before God in the Morning of the Creation. 5. In the infinite Myriads of freeAgents which were the Framers of their own Fortunes, it had been a wonder if they had all of them takenthe same Path; and therefore Sin at the long run shook hands with Opacity . 6. As much as the lightexceeds the Shadows, so much do the regions of Happiness those of Sin and Misery.

Although the remaining aphorisms (except one) on the golden key's scroll areconcealed from the dreamer, taken together the visible aphorisms summarize themain features of More 's understanding of the preeminence of goodness amongstthe divine attributes, and the consequently ' necessary' beneficence - both personaland general - of divine providence They also emphasize the soul's free will, andthe resulting fall or 'procession' away from God of some souls in love with theirown '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 goalmight be achieved. However, before the dreamer can clearly read the remainingaphorisms, he is rudely awakened by the braying of two asses close by him in theforest. These most likely represent those two inveterate opponents of truth inMore 's thought: 'opinion' or prejudice, and the beguiling and delusory influence ofthe 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 scrollamounts to "a kind of Divine Testimony to the truth of all Des Cartes'sPrinciples."?' For amongst the remaining aphorisms on the golden key's scroll inhis dream he had caught sight of one more, written in "greater Letters", whichstated "That the PrimordiaIs of the World are not Mechanical, but Spermatical orVital; which is diametrically and fundamentally opposite to Des Cartes'sPhilosophy.t''? Thus platonic theology must qualify the 'democritan' physics of


Cartesianism . As the dreamer, Bathynous, concludes, the philosophy of the 'DivineSage' in the forest seemed to him "Pythagorical or Platon ical" rather thanCartesian."Writing many years after More's death, the admiring Philadelphian, Richard

Roach, suggested that amongst the missing aphorisms on the golden key's scrollwas the heterodox doctrine of Origen, universal salvation.?" Although this isperhaps the extreme logical implication of More's necessitarianism or theologicaloptimism and defence of preexistence, it is probably wrong." It is more likely thatthe remaining aphorisms on the golden key's scroll describe the ' return ' of thefallen souls to their original divine 'home' , and the 'sacred method' of purificationfirst outlined in More's poems. Why More should omit them is suggested by theircontext in the dialogue, and by the urbane, moderately sceptical, 'philosophical' au-dience of Bathynous's dream. Like the readers of his philosophical works, theserather comical citizens of More' s Christian Athens, in his judgment, were not yetspiritually prepared to accept the complete truth: "Too large a Dos is of Knowledgemay so elate the Spirits, that it may hazard the Brain... and chase away Sobrietyand Humility out of the Soul."96 As in the philosophical works of the 1650s, Morehere 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, apreparatory discipline or 'handmaiden' to illuminist theology."? His strategy there-fore is aporetic, to undermine resistance to the truths he values, rather than to revealthem 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! Poems (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 thoseworks with no section numbers, where references are to page numbers only. For recent works relating toMore'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 Letter to a Friend . in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (London : J. Flesher,1656), p. 312ff., Mast ix 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 ofScripture(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 theMyst 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 . Seethe discussion below.H See More. Discourses, op. cit .• pp. 52-3 and 101-3; R. Cudworth. A Sermon (1647). in Patrides, TheCambridge 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 hisPsychodia Platonica (1642), the Philosophical Poems of 1647. upholds Patrides' contention that theCambridge Platonists 'inverted' the more usual hierarchy of authority of their day. replacing Jeromewith 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. Onthe 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 structureof More's poem closely follows that of Ficino's Theologia Platonica. This is rightly denied and severelyqualified by Alexander Jacob, "Henry More's Psychodia Platonica and its relationship to MarsilioFicino's Theologia Platonica.", J.H.I.. 46 (1985). pp. 503-22. Allison Coudert, "Henry More . theKaballah 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 whichadhered 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 inHenry 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 booksowned 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 ofReason (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 aLearned Psychopyrist, in Joseph G1anvil (ed More) Saducismus Triumphatus (London , 1682), and thediscussion in J. C. Henry, "Medicine and Pneumatology: Henry More. Richard Baxter and FrancisGlisson'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 ofAverroes. I cannot accept C. A. Staudenbaur's contention. "Galilee, Ficino and Henry More'sPsychathanasio", JH1. 29 (1968), p. 575, that More included an attack on monopsychism in PsychodiaPlatonica, op. cit. only because Ficino had done so in his Theologia Platonica . The parallel between thestructure of More's poems and Ficino's work are striking . as Staudenbaur observes . but there is noevidence of any direct intellectual dependence. See More, ' Preface' 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 andUseful Treatises (London : for J . Collins and S. Loundes, 1682), p. 208 ff .; and FundamentaPhilosophiae, in Opera Omnia. op. cit. (vol. 2. 1679). pp. 523-8. See also A. Coudert, "A CambridgePlatonist's Kabbalist Nightmare". JHI. 36 (1975), pp. 633-652; and her "Henry More. the Kaballah, andthe Quakers". art. cit. pp. 31-67.


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'stutor, 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 ' familism' 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.), ReliquaeBaxterianae (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, whichperhaps accounts for More' s exception al knowledge of astrology and astronomy. See his refutation ofastrology in his Mystery of Godliness (1660), VII, XVII-XX, and his later response to John Butler 'sattack 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 heenvisaged 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. MacKenna), 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 Psychozoia, op . cit., ii, 42 ff.; compare Smith, Select 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 Psychozoia , only in Philosophicall Poems, op. ci t., 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, SelectDiscourses, 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. deSelincourt (eds) , The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser (Oxford : OUP , 1970); Smith, SelectDiscourses, 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 ; TheologiaGerman 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 uponthis 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", ComparePlotinus, 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 neopythagoreansfrom 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 theQuakers", art . cit., pp. 50-I, who interprets this and related passages from More 's writings again stVaughan 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 notcompatible' . This 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 theearly 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 andAnima Magica Abscondita (London , J. Flesher, 1650). For a fuller discussion of this dispute , see my"Mysticism and Enthusiasm in Henry More", art. cit., pp. 145-8; and also A. Rudrum (ed), The WorksofThomas Vaughan (Oxford, 1984), pp. 7-12.63 See (More) , The Second Lash ofAlazonomastix Philalethes (originally London : J. Flesher, 1651), inMore, 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 Atheism(London: J. Flesher, 1653), 'To the Reader', and Mastix his Letter, in Enthusiasmus Triumphatus,op. cit., pp. 296-8.


68 More, Antidote, ibid., 'To the Reader', and I,ii,5; and the earlier statement, preferring a sincere doubtto a false certainty, Philosophicall Poems. op. cit., 'Preface to the Reader upon this Second Edition', sigB4.69 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; andDemocritus Platonissans, op. cit., 'To the Reader'; and see Alan Gabbey , "Philosophia CartesianaTriumphata: Henry More, 1646-71", in T. M. Lennon, J. M. Nicholas, J. W. Davis (eds), Problems inCartesianism (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 Ivols, 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 thePhilosophick Cabbala, i, 8, in Collection ofPhilosophical 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 ExperimentsPhysico-Mechanical (London , 1660), and More, I. S., III, xii, 4-5, using Helmont on sympathetic curesand Harvey on the generation of the foetus. Judging by a letter to Hartlib (c.1561) (Sheffield UniversityLibrary, Hartlib Papers, 18/1/42a-43b), More had begun his collection of 'verified' tales of witchcraftand other paranormal phenomenon about this time as experimental proofs for the existence and life ofspirits . This was used in a number of More's works, culminating in the Collection he attached to JosephGlanvil 's Saduc ismus Triumphatus (1681) .79 Antidote,op. cit." I, iv, and Appendix to idem, iv, in second edition (London, 1655), Immortality of theSoul. 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 associatedwith 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 ChristianKnorr von Rosenroth . See D. P. Walker , The Decline ofHell (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 ofNarrow 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 alsoMore 's early letter to Anne Conway (c. 1652), where he warns his friend against the doctrine of universalsalvation, despite its apparent harmony with his own emphasis on the power of Christ to save all men,

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printed in Ward, Life, op. cit., pp. 303 ff. However, Coudert, "Henry More, the Kabbalah, and theQuakers", p. 45, suggests (perhaps after Roach's statement) that More really 'leaned' towards thedoctrine.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 pluscontroversees et, pour beaucoup d'historiens de la philosophie, les plus caduquesde 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 pourpreuve, entre autres, les deux excellents articles publies a I'occasion du troisiemecentenaire de More, et sous I'egide de Sarah Hutton, par Alan Gabbey et JohnHenry.1 Ces auteurs soulignent tous deux Ie durcissement dogmatique qui sembles'operer dans la reflexion de More a la fin des annees soixante. A partir de cettedate, en effet, I'auteur de l'Enchiridion Metaphysicum (1671) affirme I'universellevalid ite du principe hylarchique ou Esprit de la Nature pour expliquer lesphenomenes naturels alors que precedemrnent, dans I'Antidote Against Atheism(1653) ou dans The Immortality of the Soul (1659), iI n'y avait recours que pourrendre compte de certains d'entre eux. Selon John Henry, ce raidissement est parti-culierement visible dans l'elucidation respective des problemes d'hydrostatique parMore 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 devue philosophiques et theologiques radicalement divergents: I'intellectualisme chezMore, 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 fruitd'une prise de position philosophiquc ct theologique fondamentale, mais qu'elleconstitue aussi, en amont, une pierre indispensable apportee a l'edification d'uneanthropologie chretienne qui me parait, notamment telle qu'elle est elaboree chezCudworth, I'une des contributions les plus interessantes des platoniciens deCambridge 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 certainsqualifieraient volontiers de simpliste. Le mecanisme cartesien pour lequel ils ont untemps eprouve une veritable fascination (encore que Gabbey rappelle a juste titre enexaminant les lettres de 1647-48 que les points de rupture entre More et Descartessont deja perceptibles) echoue, de leur point de vue, a rendre compte d'un grandnombre de phenomenes. Le dualisme de I'auteur des Meditations les a seduits .

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146 1. L. BRETEAU

Mais, reprise dans leur langage qui fait volontiers l' economie du detour, pourtantcapital pour Descartes , du doute hyperbolique.i l'argumentation qui aboutit a poserI'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. Lesprincipes 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 raisonde 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'existeun type d'action totalement different du "mouvement local"; selon Cudworth ils'agit d'une sorte de "mouvement mental":

All the local Motion that is in the World , was First caused by some Cogitative or Thinking Being . whichnot Acted upon by any thing without it, nor at all Locally Moved, but only Mentally ; is the ImmoveableMover of the Heaven, or Vortices . So that Cogitation is in Order ofNature. before Local Mot ion, andIncorporeal before Corporeal Substance, the Former having a Natural Imperium over the Latter.'

Seuls des athees, entierement sous I'emprise de leur enthousiasme, tell'auteur duDe Corpore, peuvent epouser la position materialiste la plus extreme et rendrecompte de tous les phenomenes par le pur mecanisme.Or , precisement, pour sauver les phenomenes, comme se plait a le repeter

Cudworth dans ses manuscrits non publies concernant le libre-arbitre, il faut nonseulement affirmer le dualisme, mais egalement percevoir les difficultes que ren-contre la philosophie cartesienne lorsqu'il s'agit de decrire la relation entre les deuxsubstances ainsi que, de maniere plus restrictive , celIe de l'ame et du corps et pourfinir 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, IIn'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 'untriangle 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 pretendusdisciples de Descartes ne saurait leur convenir. L' hylozoisme de type spinoziste estencore moins approprie en ce que, renouant avec l'une formes antiques del'atheisme inauguree par Straton de Lampsaque, il attribue a la matiere elle-rnemeune auto-activitesII 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 dumoins chez l' Aristote des neo-platoniciens via Plotin et aussi peut-etre chez lesstoiciens. Mais s'agit-il pour autant d'un pur retour au discours paracelsien deI'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 aVan Helmont, Ie paracelsienpatente de l'epoque, ainsi que la recurrence de ce type de terminologie dans lestextes? pourraient Ie laisser croire . Un examen plus attentif de ceux-ci peut nean-moins modifier sensiblement cette premiere impression et justifie peut-etre I'interetporte au vitalisme des hommes de Cambridge dans les deux siecles suivants par desauteurs aussi differents que Le Clerc, Leibniz, les redacteurs de La GrandeEncyclopedic ou Paul Janet. Surtout il peut nous montrer que la doctrine dite desnatures plastiques constitue un element essentiel de la reponse que More et surtoutCudworth entendent donner ala grande question des conditions de possibilite de laliberte humaine .

***

" NATURE PLASTIQUE" ET "ESPRIT 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 etdans la celebre digression d'une trentaine de pages qui clot Ie troisieme chapitre duTrue Intellectual System. "

The Spirit of Nature therefore, according to that notion I have of it is, A Substance incorporeal. butwithout Sense and Animadversion. pervading the whole Matter of the Universe . and exercising aPlastical power therein according to the sundry predispositions and occasions in the parts ofthe Matterit works upon. raising such Phaenomena in the World. by directing the parts of the Matter and theirMotion. 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 ; itmay well be concluded, that there is a Plastick Nature under him, which as an Inferior and SubordinateInstrument doth Drudgingly Execute that Part of his Providence, which consists in the Regular andOrderly 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: forasmuchas this Plastick: Nature cannot act Electively nor with DiscretionV'

Bien que More qualifie sa propre definition de grossiere, ilIa juge neanmoinssuffisante pour donner une idee "assez determinee de la nature de la chose", IIc'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 soncote, d'imaginer que Dieu intervienne en permanence "immediatement et mira-culeusement" au sein de sa creation pour y instaurer cet ordre et cette harmonieque tout observateur cense peut y reconnaitre. II est, juge encore Cudworth,presque indecent de supposer, par exemple, que, comme certains bigotsI'affirment, Ie Createur "forme pour ainsi dire de ses propres mains Ie corps dumoindre moucheron."12 Cette diatribe vise-t-elle Malebranche, comme on I'asouvent estime (Par exemple Passmore'")? Rien n'est moins sur. Les simplesreperes chronologiques ne plaident guere en faveur d'une connaissance appro-fondie par Cudworth des theses de I'oratorien francais: en effet, la premiere

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edition de La Recherche de la verite parut en 1674, quatre ans apres que Ie TrueIntellectual System a recu Yimprimatur, et les Entretiens furent publics en 1688,l'annee meme ou mourut Cudworth." De plus, Malebranche parait bien envisagerune intervention permanente de la volonte divine, puisque, dans son systerne,"nulle causalite naturelle n'est intelligible"; mais il n'en reste pas moins que lanotion de lois generales qu'il utilise attenue quelque peu I'apparent simplisme deson occasionnalisme.P En fustigeant la bigoterie de certains penseurs, Cudworths'en prend done plus vraisemblablement a quelque theologien fondamentaliste amoins qu 'il n'imagine cette posit ion pour les besoins de la cause afin de la mettreen balance avec Ie purmecanisme.Conformernent a son habitude, souvent lassante pour son lecteur, l'auteur du

True Intellectual System parcourt, comme on Ie suggerait plus haut, toute l'histoirede la philosophie pour montrer Ie caractere universel de cette doctrine: Heraclite etEmpedocle 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 apparaitselon 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 desanimaux. Naturellement, seuls les athees de I'Antiquite et leurs modernes epigonesI' ont rejetee. Par un juste retour des choses, I'auteur des Principes devient alors unAnaxagore du 17eme siecle plus coupable encore de preter Ie flanc a l'accusationd'atheisme, puisque l'alternative alaquelle aboutit son mecanisme est ou bien d'ac-cepter l 'hypothese occasionnaliste ou de faire equivaloir lois du mouvement etnature plastiqueP

" LA 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 accepteepar l'ensemble des philosophes les plus soucieux de defendre l'Interet de la religionau cours des ages, la doctrine des natures plastiques presente encore d'autres avan-tages non negligeables.D'abord elle repond, selon Cudworth, aun besoin esthetique: Ie spectacle du

monde propose par ceux qui rejettent les causes finales aurait, s'il etait conforme ala verite, quelque chose de navrant: l'univers ressemblerait dans cette hypothese aune sorte de cadavre , aune statue sculptee, depourvue de toute vie: "They make akind of Dead and Wooden World, as it were a Carved Statue, that hath nothingneither Vital nor Magical at all in iC}9Or 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 havethe first General Conception of the Plastick Nature, That it is Art it self, acting im-mediately on the Matter, as an Inward Principle''F:


Ce faisant , il n'annule pas pour autant la realite du couple antithetiquephusis/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'estpour lui imitation de la nature que parce que, en definitive, la nature est, comme Iesoutenait 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 ala 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'imposeala matiere de I'exterieur avec bruit et violence, alors que la nature, ignorant ecart etmediation, agit de l'Interieur avec douceur et dans Ie silence. Mais si la secondes'avere ainsi clairement superieure au premier, iI n'en va aucunement de meme en cequi concerne la connaissance que chacun a de ses propres operations. De ce point devue, la nature manifeste simultanement sa superiorite, dans la mesure ou eIIe n'hesitejamais alors que I'art humain recherche et delibere, et son imperfection, puisqu'eIIene connait pas la raison de ce qu'eIIe fait; c'est ce qu'attestait la longue definitiondonnee precedernrnent.P De plus, tout en contenant une "partie de la providencedivine", la nature plastique est tres inferieure, comme Ie suggerait la meme citation, acette providence "plus haute et plus divine" qui gouverne I'ensemble du monde.PA 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 revientconstamment 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 cessede deliberer pour manier son archet, ou du danseur dont Ie corps est, ainsi que Ienotait Plotin, "rnfl par I'art lui-merne", d'autre part , celui des instincts naturelspropres aux animaux. Ces derniers , contrairement a ce qu'affirmait Descartes , sontpour Cudworth conscients de ce qu'iIs font, quoiqu 'ils demeurent incapables dedeliberer et ne soient pas maitres de cette sagesse qui les fait agir. La nature plas-tique qui les produit ne peut meme pas, quant aeUe, pretendre ala conscience.PL'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 multiplesphenomenes 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 withDescartes in the assignation of the immediate corporeal cause, to wit, the Aethereal Matter, which is soplentifully in the Air over it is in grosser Bodies; but withall do vehemently surmise, that there must besome Immaterial cause, such as we call The Spirit of Nature or Inferiour Soul of the World, that mustdirect the motions of the Aethereal particles to act upon these grosser Bodies to drive them towards theEarth .P

"Puissance vicaire de ce grand automate qu'est Ie monde",26 iI rend compteencore non seulement de I' etrange fonctionnement de la "pompe a air", mais de

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faits aussi etonnants que Ie magnetisme, Ie tonnerre et I'eclair, la nature descouleurs, 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'efforcememe 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 aun enfant quelque peu monstrueux.PCudworth, pour sa part, ne fait guere de references ala science moderne dans sa

digression, si ce n' est par deux fois a l' Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis etsanguinis 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 lacroyance en la preexistence des ames. Mais , plus encore , amon sens, Ie fait te-moigne d'une difference dans les priorites que les deux hommes de Cambridges'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 ThelmmortalityP pour repondre aux arguments deterministes avances par Hobbes dansson OfLiberty and Necessity (qui vient opportunement d'etre traduit en francais") ;dans deux chapitres de I'Enchiridion Ethicum (oil il avoue lui-meme ne Ie traiterqu'avec brievetei et enfin, quelque temps avant sa mort, dans un echange de lettresavec John Norris.VMais, meme s'iI s 'avoue achaque fois interesse par Ie sujet, ilest loin d'accorder ace theme la centralite qu'il revet dans les derniers travaux deCudworth, restes pour I'essentiel, sauf Ie court Treatise of Freewill, a l'etat demanuscrits. 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'ouvragepublie 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 "ungrand espace pour la liberte",33 qui permette dechapper tant au determinismematerialiste 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 scolastiquetardive.P Tout en insistant fortement, a I'encontre de cette derniere, sur l'unite deI' arne, iI distingue pourtant en elle deux etages ou "regions" ( .....we are to consideras 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 desavoir ce qui est en elle principe du mouvementt'" la reponse, estime-t-il, se trouvedans \' "auto-activite simple?" du sujet dont i1attribue I'origine aun bouillonnementinterieurs? Le Treatise of Freewill a aussi recours ades metaphores apparentees :"But there is a thread of life always spinning out, and a living spring or fountain of


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'iIsjaillissent 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, comeupon us unawares, invade us, and surprise us with their sudden force, and we haveno absolute, despotic, easy, undisputed power over them..."41C'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 lesdeterministes, mais, ajoute Cudworth, ils se produisent pourtant en nous de faconnecessaire: 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, quece phenomene dont "aucun philosophe n'a jusqu'a present donne ou meme pretendudonner une explication satisfaisante" se caracterise par un double relachement detension 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 muchunbent as the Body) and that which is properly we ourselves being silent, (sympathetically) charmedinto a Slumber.".. . when we are awake, by Internal Sense we plainly feel ourselves to be all ourselves, whereas in Sleepwe feel ourselves to be half ourselves, Simple Nature."

Ce que Cudworth appelle encore l'instinct naturel se trouve donc toujours deja aI'oeuvre avant meme qu'interviennent la raison ou l'action unificatrice du Moi etfait d'abord de l'homme un etre de desir, Ce dernier regit la vie de son arne toutentiere 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 andDesires 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 deCudworth 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, lespassions, les desirs, qui, eux, s'imposent a la conscience, paraissent bien procederegalernent de cette "nature plastique inferieure dans l'ame."49 De maniere sur-prenante, I'auteur du Treatise ofFreewill va meme affirmer que Ie desir ou presagedu bien, cet instinct divin qui transcende la raison humaine participe aussi de lanature 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

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

Une fois mis en evidence Ie role de la nature necessaire dont Ie dernier exempleconstitue 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 quietait absent dans Ie reve a savoir Ie pouvoir hegemonique de l'ame, la "vie replieesur elle-meme.v-' qu'il baptise (et Ie terme se retrouve egalement parfois chezMore) du qualificatif grec d' a1JTE~a(J(J'tOlJ.54Ces considerations que nous resumons tres brievernent permettront ensuite a

Cudworth de comparer liberte humaine et liberte divine; il essaiera de montrer quela 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 grandeperfection 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 arbitrarycontrivance, or appointment of Deity merely by will annexed to rational creatures, but a thing which ofnecessity 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 improveitself 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 DivineGoodnesse (which is the Intellectual and Divine Life) to fix themselves in Good self-actively, or iflapsed 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 volontea sa sagesse et a sa bonte peut etre analogiquement representee par l' exercice dulibre arbitre humain. Mais celui-ci n'agit qu'va l'ombre de Dieu (In Umbra Dei)" .5711 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 puimaginer queIque sympathie a son egard. Deja Glanvill, Ie fidele ami et disciple deMore, tout en se declarant dispose a reconnaitre queIque dpXf) 11 l' oeuvre dans la


nature, ne se privait pas de railler dans la meme page ceux qui cherchent adefinirde 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, notby a return in to the Womb; neither will the Platonick Principles unriddle the doubt: For though the Soulbe 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 deCudworth, a envoye Ie True Intellectual System en esperant qu'il y reconnaissequelque affinite avec sa pensee estime que sa propre doctrine preformationnisteevite 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 queles 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 plastiquede Cudworth, adisculper I'auteur du True Intellectual System de la "ridicule hy-pothese qui etait restee attachee ason nom".63 Janet s'insurge, en effet, contre unedeformation qu'aurait subie la doctrine de Cudworth sous la plume de certains cri-tiques francais comme Larorniguiere. La nature plastique etait, en effet, presenteepar eux comme une sorte d"'agent intermediaire. . . entre I'ame et Ie corps" et parconsequent n'etait, selon Janet, bonne a rien puisque "pour vouloir reunir en uneseule nature deux natures opposees", elle s'aneantissait elle-meme.v' Pourtant iI nesurestime guere I'homme de Cambridge qui, a son avis, n'est pas un philosophemoderne, mais un "neo-platonicien, plus sage et plus regle que ceux du seiziemesiecle, mais sans beaucoup d'originalite, et dont la doctrine n'est autre chose que latheorie antique et surannee de I'ame du monde" .65 Janet ne cache pas sespreferences 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 dereiterer une doctrine ancienne, a surtout su traduire cette "con fiance ... dans la spon-taneite de la vie, cette reticence.. . afaire sortir la vie d'une nature decornposee enmecanismes'"? que partageaient beaucoup de ses contemporains et notamment desmedecins 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 Moreet Cudworth entendaient rendre compte.

Jean-Louis Breteau

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NOTES

Alan Gabbey, "Henry More and the limits of mechanism,"; John Henry, "Henry More versus RobertBoyle: the spirit of nature and the nature of providence," in Henry More (1614-1687) : TercentenaryStudies, 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 laConscience Moderne, ed, R. Ellrodt (Paris: P.U.F, 1983), pp. 105-115; specialement 106-07. Moreparle d'un "concept sauvage," voir Antidote in Patrides, The Cambridge Platonists (Londres: EdwardArnold, 1990) p. 214.3 Ralph Cudworth, T.I.S.U.. successivement pp. 47 & 668.

Ralph Cudworth, T.l.S.U., p. 844Ralph 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 itsStamps and Signatures every where throughout the World ... .. ou ibid.. p. 681: .... . to think that theFrame and System of this whole World, was contrived by a Perfect Understanding Being or Mind (nowalso presiding over the same) which hath every where Printed the Signatures of its own Wisdom uponthe Matter ."A la difference de More, Cudworth mentionne parfois Paracelse (par exemple, T.I.S.U., p. 153), maisjamais Boehme ou Van Helmont.8 Ralph Cudworth, T.J.S .U., pp.146-81 (reproduit presque integralement dans Patrides, TheCambridge Platonists , op. cit ., pp. 288-325); la question est reprise de rnaniere plus decousue dansquelques 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 toanyone 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 werewith his own Hands, Form the Body of every Gnat and Fly, Insect and Mite, as of other Animals inGenerations ..." 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 wereMiracle."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 etde l 'usage qu 'il sait en faire pour eviter l' erreur dans les sciences (Paris, 1674-75); Entretiens sur lametaphysique 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 deses volontez, en consequence des loix generales qu'jJ s'est prescrit , pour faire porter a sa conduite Iecaractere de ses attributs, et repandre dans son ouvrage l'uniformite daction necessaire, pour en lierensemble toutes les parties qui Ie composent, et pour Ie tirer de la confusion et de l'Irregularite d'uneespece de chaos, oil les esprits ne pourraient jamais 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 philosophes illustres, trad., intr. R. Genaille (Paris:Gamier-Flammarion, 1965) 2, p. 100 (2, 32).


17 Plotin, Enneades, ed., trad . E. Brehier, 7 vols (Paris : Belles Lettres, 1962--69) 3, pp. 18-21 : "Dansune raison seminale, toutes les parties d'un animal sont ensemble en un rnerne point , sans qu 'ellesentrent 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 aAnaxagore d'avoir trop accorde ala "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. desPlaces, 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; 198b-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, yetsince it is a thing that cannot act Electively nor with Discretion , it must needs be granted that there is aHigher and Diviner Providence than this, which also presides over the Corporeal World it self.. . So thatit is not Ratio mersa et confusa, a Reason drowned in Matter. and confounded with it, which is theSupreme 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, (callit the Spirit ofNature 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 citeparfoi 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 liberteet 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 intoEnglish, trad . E. Southwell (Londres, 1690), pp. 172-90 (3, ch. I & 2; Ie chapitre I est reproduit dansCragg, The Cambridge Platonists [New-York : Oxford UP, 1968) pp. 300-05) ; John Norris, The Theoryand Regulation of Love, A Moral Essay in Two Parts. to which are added Letters Philosophical andMoral 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 deRalph Cudworth," Archives de Philosophie, 1995,58,3, numero special consacre aux platoniciens deCambridge.J4 Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscript (British Museum) n" 4980, p. 2.3~ Voir Anthony Levi, "La psychologie des facultes dans les discussions theologiques du dix-septiemesiecle,' 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-rosKLVOUV, what is that first moveth the soul and setteth all the other wheels on work?" Aristote consacretout 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 recherchece qui dans l'ame est Ie "principe du mouvernent" et conclut, ibid., pp. 90-91 (433a-b), que ce "principemoteur premier" est Ie desir ou "faculte orectique ."

156 1. L . BRETEAU

38 "i .. a single Self-Activity of the Soule." Ralph Cudworth, Additional Manuscripts (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 needs arisefrom an inward active and bubbling Fountain of Animal Life in us." A Treatise Concerning Eternal AndImmutable Morality, ed. E. Chandler, Bishop of Durham (Londres, 1731) p. 119: .... . for there may bestraggling 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 ofFreewill , 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 thoughtto 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 Manuscript (BM) nO 4980, op. cit., p. I : ", the Phenomenon of Sleepand Dream which no Philosopher has yet, so far as we know it, even pretended to give a satisfactoryAccount of." et ibid, p. 3, note : "When the Tone of the Mind is intended, the Bodily Tone must needs beintended also, but when the Tone of the Body is relaxated, the Tone of the Mind must needs be relaxatedlikewise".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, plantalland plastick ones (Congruities) belong not to its Cognizance" .49 Ralph Cudworth, T.F., p. 30.50 lbid., pp. 29-30.5\ Ralph Cudworth, Additional 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 thatwhich is properly we ourselves, (we rather having those other things of nece ssary nature than beingthem), is the soul as comprehending itself, all its concerns and interests, its abilities and capacities, andholding itself, as it were , in its own hand , as it were redoubled upon itself, having a power of intendingor exerting itself more or less, in consideration and deliberation, in resisting the lower appetites thatoppose 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 dansAdditional Manuscript (BM) n04981 (summary) 3: "This is the evroexoo-ros that which is called I mySelf in every man" ou dans Add. Man. 4979, p. 6: "This is the CxUTOEKU<TTO<; in every one , that which isproperly called we .. ... (A cet endroit, Cudworth ajoute sign ificativement en note: 'T he true personalityis 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 toact 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 Clerc 11 propos des idees de Cudworth et de More, voir RosalieL. Colie, Light and Enlightenment: A Study of the Cambridge Platonists and the Dutch Arminians(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1957) pp. 117-44 ("The Vitalist Controversy") .


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'Auteurdu 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) setrouve dans Philosophi schen Schriften 3, pp. 331-376.62 Georges Canguilhem, La connaissance 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 theearly 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 preconceivedopinion, there is one concept that never receives systematic scrutiny - that ofcausality Descartes gives us new causal principles - both detailed formulae like therules of impact, and overarching axioms like the law of conservation - but he neverprovides 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-establishedharmony 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 employingthis label was the Neoplatonists, who invoked the idea of spiritual force asoverflowing from higher realms of being and infusing the material world. Not thatthe Neoplatonic school was the only possible target for Leibnizian strictures; asEileen 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 transmis-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 estuarysalty? Because there is a literal influx (inflow) of sea water during high tide. Whydoes the sun cause the sea to sparkle? Well , photons are emitted, or transmittedfrom the sun, through space to the earth, where they strike the ridged surface of thesea. Why do we catch a cold? Because droplets of moisture are inhaled, and withinthose droplets are viruses , which once inside the body break into cells and transmitinstructions to them in the form of bits of DNA . Influx, of the corpuscularianvariety at least, is alive and well today, and actually gives the right answer to manycausal questions. Not, of course, all: magnetism and gravity still defy transmissionor influx explanations - and it is here that talk of "influence" becomes eithermetaphorical or occult. And this gives rise to a legitimate philosophical demand: ifmetaphorical, how is the metaphor to be cashed out; if occult, how can such talk

159


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retain a place in the post-Cartesian scientific world with its demands for clarity andtransparency? 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 oftenseems quite unexceptionable. And this notwithstanding later Malebranchian andHumean strictures. When a bacterium infects an animal, we can actually see (underthe microscope) the noxious matter being transferred into the body cells . Nothingcould be more transparent than this, except perhaps a transmission observable at themacro level of ordinary medium sized hardware. When a horse pulls a cart (causesthe cart to move), the motion is transmitted from horse to cart via the harness. Theactual physical tackle attaching horse to cart gives us about as transparent a case ofcausal transmission as we can get. Of course the link between horse and cart is notwhat Malebranche calls a liaison necessairei' there is no logically necessary con-nection between the horse's moving and the cart's moving (we could presumablyimagine the horse pulling away and nothing happening - perhaps if the coefficientof friction or the elasticity of the rope were suddenly altered) ." If you (followingMalebranche) want a cause such that it is contradictory for it to occur without theeffect ensuing, then only the definitionally efficacious will of an omnipotent beingwill be able to qualify. But none of this shows that the mechanism in the horse andcart case is not wholly transparent to observation: there is a liaison which is, if notnecessaire, then at least pretty darn strong, and arguably has more explanatorypower than the most sophisticated theory could provide: the cart moves because thehorse 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 theCambridge Platonists. The model to which they subscribed stems from Plotinus'doctrine of emanation: the phenomenal world owes its being to an outflowing fromthe higher intelligible realm. But what exactly is it that "flows forth"? As developedby 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 beingrelated as original to likeness or replica. Thus the soul is "a Ray of Him" [God] inthe sense of "likeness and similitude, she being the image of God as the Rays oflight 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 thenotion that particulars are likenesses or replicas of the Forms. Yet the main problemwith 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 Formsa causal as well as a logical role. To say that something derives its being or essencefrom 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 thistells us something about what it is for x to be an instance of F; as soon as we switchto the question of how (from a causal point of view) x gets to become F, then talkof emanation or outflow from the perfect Form appears deeply unsatisfying. Itseems to provide no information which could help an investigator of efficientcauses (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 mustobtain 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 (whichwas, of course, powerfully influenced via Augustine'? by Platonic and Plotinanideas). The influence of the Platonic/Plotinan hierarchy of being is for example tobe found in the principle to which Descartes subscribed that the cause is more noblethan 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 infiniteregress here : eventually one must reach a primary idea, the cause of which will belike an archetype (Latin archetypum; the French version says 'model/pattern ororiginal', un patron ou un original) which contains in itself formally all the realitywhich 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 morereal 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). 13Again, in the Conversation with Burman, Descartesis reported to have said in defence of the principle that effects must resemble theircauses: "here we are talking about the total cause, the cause of being itself, andanything produced by this cause must necessarily be like it . .. hence even stonesand 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 numberof attributes, and so his image is in me to a greater extent"." God is the cause ofcreated 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 thesense that he is the cause of their very being .ISIt is striking, however, that despite his allegiance to emanation models in meta -

physics, in his physics Descartes largely avoids them. There is of course recourse toGod as the ultimate source of all being (including motion - I shall return to thislater), but when offering specific causal explanations, Descartes for the most partgives us robustly common-sense mechanical models of ebb and flow, push andpull , impact and rebound, lever and wedge. We have swirling whirlpools, ballspoured into a tub, the properties of the lodestone explained by the particles of ironbeing grooved like the thread of a screw, and so on.!"There may be objections tothese 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 againstinflux and transmission theorists. Cartesian models of physical explanation are, forthe 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 approachesto causality are largely unreflective, sometimes (as in his metaphysics) presuppos-ing complex Neoplatonic apparatus, but elsewhere (in most of his physics) offeringaltogether more robust common-sense models . But how about the (seemingly) moststraightforward case of all - what we intuitively nowadays think of as the paradigmcase of causation, namely a two-body impact ? Given that this is perhaps the mostbasic type of event for the corpuscularian programme of explanation, one mighthave expected Descartes to have devoted considerable attention to it. But althoughhe offers a detailed mathematical analysis of the rules for calculating speed aftersuch 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 creditfor raising the searching quest ions about the causality of impact in the Cartesiansystem which its author himself failed to ask.In his exchanges with Descartes, More begins by extolling the celebrated

Cartesiana lux,18but later on succeeds in picking out an obscurity in the seeminglytransparent 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 translatioreciprocal'? - but soon broadens to encompass more fundamental issues. Ifmotionis a mode, asks More, and thus logically incapable of existing without a subject toinhere 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 naturethat it would immediately perish were it not supported by a subject. nonetheless could have the power toconstrain 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 ofmode, attribute and substance which Descartes employed in the Principles to makehis 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 existenceof the subject in which it inheres, how can it make sense to speak of its passingfrom one subject to another?" But at another, deeper, level, the question is aboutthe very nature of the causal transaction involved in Cartesian accounts of impactand 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 thenew physics: what causal powers, if any, can legitimately be attributed to materialbodies in a universe supposedly characterized purely mathematically, in terms ofsize, 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 Godalone . On this proto-occasionalist reading, "God is the only cause of motion in theinanimate 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 theprimary cause of motion in the universe : "in the beginning he created matter alongwith its motion and rest, and now by his regular concurrence he preserves the sameamount of motion as he put there in the beginning" (Principles of Philosophy, PartII, 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 theCartesian system seems to me essentially connected not so much with causalagency (in the way it is for Malebranche), as with the new mathematical conceptionof physics. In scholastic science, explanation is essentially qualitative: an accountof 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. Butin Descartes' essentially homogenous universe, there are no natural kinds; there issimply dimensionality - indefinitely modifiable extension . And it follows that ex-planatory answers can only be sought by reference to the question quantum? - ofwhat 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 aqualitatively specified universe. That is, once you have classified something asfalling 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 whenyou maintain that matter is simply that which has quantity, nothing at all followsfrom its essential nature about how it will behave, let alone about how any specificphenomenon will unfold . In such a universe, everything is left blank, until valuesfor the variables are filled in. And this, it seems to me, explains the primary role ofGod in Descartes' scientific system. A universe characterised merely as "that whichis quantifiable" remains entirely indeterminate until the constants are fixed: it isprecisely by setting the constants - by creating and conserving a fixed amount ofmatter with a fixed amount of momentum, that God fills in the blanks and brings anactual universe into being. The role of God in short, is that of conserver of themathematical 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 inthe Cartesian system is just such a "genuine causal agent'?3 has recently proposedtwo types of divine causation of motion which he suggests Descartes vacillatedbetween - "cinema style" re-creation, and "divine shove". As to the first, it is truethat 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 adeterminate amount of motion in the universe as a whole. But I know of no passagewhere Descartes specifically invokes God's conserving power from moment tomoment 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 anythingelse, 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 thatmatter when "left to itself' would naturally be at rest," I cannot find any evidencethat 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, Bmoving faster than C, half of the excess speed is transferred from B to C".27 LaterCartesians 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 powerspossessed 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 byDescartes as acting as a hidden shover.PNone 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 havecausal powers in virtue of their size and speed, then some kind of philosophicalanalysis of the underlying causal story seems called for - especially in view of theCartesian insistence that physics should invoke only wholly transparent notions.Descartes may have been clear about the mathematical equations, conserved by theimmutable power of God but when talking about impact, impulse and transfer ofmotion between bodies, he seems not to have given any serious attention to theprecise meaning of the concepts he used."

3 . MORE'S OWN ACCOUNT OF MOTION

If Descartes' contribution to what was later to become the intense philosophicaldebate over the nature of causality was a slight one, it is natural to ask in turnwhether 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 theprecise meaning of "transfer of motion" was in itself a philosophical contribution ofsome importance. But what account can More himself supply? The followinganswer is provided in the same letter (of 23 July 1649) where Descartes iscriticised:

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

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

Descartes never liked to be criticized, and his reply to More 's suggestion wastypically 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 oneof those imaginative "fabrications" (commentum) which "bar the road to thetruth".32One reason this retort seems harsh and unfair is that, in general terms atleast, 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 Meditationclearly 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 stronglysubscribed to the standard theological conception of God as the source of all Being,one might have expected him to be broadly sympathetic to the ChristianizedPlatonism of More, just as More (initially at least) saw Descartes as an ally againstthe 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 rousedto thought on this or that occasion" (anima in cogitationem [expergiscatur] ex hacvel 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 theComments on a Certain Broadsheet [1648], Descartes insists that when the mind isacted on by external objects so as to perceive colours and sounds, this cannot be agenuine case of something's being received into the mind from outside (since allthat is actually going on outside is a series of corporeal motions); rather, such ideasmust arise within the mind itself on the occasion of (occasione) the corporealmotions." 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 aninnate faculty being activated. In the case of body-body causation in More, and ofbody-mind causation in Descartes, so called "effects" are in reality the unfolding ofinner 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' languageto prefigure the later Occasionalist (with a capital "0") doctrine that God alone "isthe true cause of sensations on the occasion of certain motions in bodies"." But thefact that Descartes in the passage under discussion is arguing for an active innatefaculty of the mind makes it highly unlikely that he is hinting at a proto-Malebranchian thesis of divine monocausality . The point rather is that thecontribution 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,

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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 owninner powers. Understood this way, Descartes is making about body-mind causa-tion exactly the same point that More is making about body-body causation: themodel of the awakening of internal powers provides a more plausible account ofwhat is going on than the idea of a supposed "transfer" from cause to effect. 38What 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 temulentevivum). Clearly such language suggested for Descartes the kind of primitiveanimism which his mathematical and mechanical physics aimed to bury . His dis-missive comments, indeed, come close to implying that he had mentally placedMore in the same category as the scholastics, whose talk of substantial forms hehad derided as anthropomorphic and useless from an explanatory point of view.'?More evidently thought hard about this implied attack, and in the Responsio adfragmentum Cartesii, written a few years after Descartes' death," he provides thefollowing 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 thatthe 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 assert that body is really a shadow, but that it depends on God as a shadowdepends on a body." And just as a shadow bears some sort of image of a body, albeit of a very obscureand 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 mailershould not be wholly destitute of any trace of life. As for "fabricating some semblance of life" , it isDescartes himself who does this : when two bodies meet, on his account they somehow manage 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 thatthere is some external power, whether from God or from some incorporeal substance created by God,42whereby matter is aroused into motion I approve: this is undoubtedly quite true. But if he means that thisdivine 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 whenwe throw stones, or when cannon balls are expelled from guns . If, however, the [divine] force excitessome particles of matter into motion and not others , the parts which are set in motion by divine powerwill be able to excite motion in others by their own impulse. Nevertheless, since no motion passes acros sfrom one body to another, it is manifest that one body as it were arouses another from sleep, and theawakened bodies thus move themselves from place to place by their own force It is this property ofbodies 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 onceagain 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 cleanabout what kind of causal powers are involved. There now follows a devastatingdilemma. 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. Morehere elegantly anticipates a what was to become a standard criticism of laterOccasionalist views: if God is the sole agent, objects will - counterintuitively - berobbed of any causal efficacy. Indeed, the contribution of A to the movement of Bwill be entirely vain, or idle (jrustra). The other horn of the dilemma is a tu quoqueof 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. Thetalk 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 anotherpiece of matter, in such a way as to generate a "single mutually agreed adjustmentof motion". The effect of More's argument is to present the Cartesians with twoequally unattractive options: either they will be forced to move towards a counter-intuitive Occasionalism, or else they will have to consider some modification of thedefinition of matter as mere extension - thus in effect abandoning the centralconcept 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 naturaldescription of what is going on is that one thing acts on another - unum corpusalterum impel/ere. Second, such phenomena can properly be explained only bypositing active causal powers which are inherent in created things. The passage isremarkable for its rich anticipation of later philosophical developments. The insis-tence on the observational warrant for a belief in causal powers prefigures some ofthe arguments advanced in our own day by writers like Harre and Madden againstcharacterizations of phenomena in terms of mere regular successions of events.vMoving back closer to More's own era, there is a strongly Leibnizian flavour in thetalk of a vestige of life in all created things; apart from this general resonance, thenotion of the unfolding of inherent active powers calls to mind Leibniz's theory ofpre-established harmony . Such anticipations are perhaps not all that surprising,since (as suggested above) the reduction of causation to the awakening of innerpowers is already prefigured the innatism of Plato to whose thought both More andLeibniz 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 apurely mathematical physics to provide a convincing account of our intuitivenotions of impulse , energy and force That result is hardly strikingly new to themodern 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 forMore'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 abovethe truth of certain mathematical equations, remains opaque. What More providesis not so much a philosophical explication of the notion of matter as active, but

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rather a theological backing for it: matter dimly reflects the active power of itscreator. Beyond that, as More himself seems to admit." the characterization ofmatter 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 adead end. There is the general assertion that the apparent dynamism of the universereflects the power of its divine author, but nothing that can count as a serious rivalto the new physics . Perhaps the only satisfying response to the problem raised byMore would have been for the Cartesians to admit that the new science providedmathematical description s of phenomena, plus the general hope that these couldalways be coupled with transparent micro-mechanical models; but that where thetransparency broke down, as in the crucial case of two bodies impact, nothingfurther could be said, beyond the assertion of the mathematically describable regu-larities (whether "natural" or divinely ordained) that in fact obtained. To have gonethat far would have taken things forward to the post-Humean problematic - and it ishardly surprising that is a step which neither Descartes nor his acute Neoplatonistcritic had the vision to make.f?

John Cottingham

NOTES

G. W. Leibniz, "Primae Veritates" [c. 1684]. in L. E. Loemker (ed.), Lelbniz; Philosophical Papersand 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.: Pennsylvania State UniversityPress, 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 Appeals to the presumed logical possibility of such alternative scenarios are in fact rather moreproblematic than this - an issue which I will ignore for present purpose s. See J. Cottingham, "TheCartesian Legacy", Proceedings ofthe Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. LXVI (1992) .; Cf . G. E. Moore , "A Defense of Common Sense" and "Proof of an External World" (PhilosophicalPapers, London, 1959). Just as Moore argued that there were paradeigmatically straightforward proposi-tions so obviously true that no philosophical theory could shake them, so it seems that there are certainlyparadigmatically straightforward cases of causal interaction where the mechanisms of interaction areso obvious to the ordinary observer that no scientific theory , however sophisticated, could surpass theirexplanatory power.6 Eileen O'Neill distinguishes four components of such Neoplatonic influx models: (i) what flows outis some kind of likeness or replica ; (ii) the flowing is from more to less perfect; (iii) the effect broughtabout is coexistent with the activity of the agent (like the illumination caused by sunlight); and (iv) theoutflow cannot exhaust or even diminish the essential power of the agent . ("Influxus Physicus", inNadler, 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 paperare : the letters to Descartes of II December 1648,5 March, 23 July and 21 October 1649, and theResponsio ad Fragmentum Cartesii of July/August 1655 (all reprinted in AT V). All translations ofMore are my own . In this paper, "AT' refers to the standard Franco-Latin edition of Descartes byC. 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. Murdoch, The

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Philosophical Writings ofDescartes, vols. I and II (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1985), and"CSMK" to Vol. III , The Correspondence, by the same translators plus A. Kenny (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991).K Compare Leibniz : "The ... Platonists ... are right in seeking the source of things in final and formalcauses, but wrong in neglecting efficient and material causes and in inferring, as did Henry More inEngland 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", seeJ. 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 proofof 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 ofPhilosophy [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 MetaphysicalPhysics, p. 116. It should be noted however, that Garber, for reasons I cannot discuss here, prefers not tolabel Descartes an occasionalist.2J Indeed (for Garber) in the physical world, God is the only such genuine causal agent: "Descartes andOccasionalism", in Nadler, op. cit., p. 12. Garber 's main thesis is that in explaining motion Descartes re-jected the "tiny souls" of the schoolmen, "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 formswere never intended by their proponents to function as ghostly quasi-efficient thrusters, and it is hard tobelieve 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' positionrather 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 tranferof motion, says "vis autem movens potest esse ipsius Dei conservantis tantumdem translationis inmateria 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 thematter that was in place A, and putting it in place B. (Traite de l 'esprit de l'homme [1665], in Oeuvresphilosophiques ed . P. Clair (Paris: PUF, 1974), 240 ; cited in Steven Nadler, 'T he Occasionalism ofLouis 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. 482K Cf. the view of Martial Gueroult, who regards the forces of motion, in contradistinction to the divinewill 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. ("TheMetaphysics and Physics of Force in Descartes", in S. Gaukroger (ed.), Descartes: Philosophy,Mathematics and Physics (Sussex: Harvester, 1980), p. 198; quoted Garber, Descartes' MetaphysicalPhysics, p. 295 .)29 On Garber's view, Descartes was so clear about the "underlying causal story" (that God causes allmotion in the world, either by "divine shove" or else cinema-style), that he never worried too muchabout the language used to describe force in bodies . He was happy to describe bodies as if they had aforce to continue their motion, content in the knowledge that, from an ontological point of view, thisadded 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 meanby 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 AlanGabbey unaccountably mistranslates this crucial phrase, rendering it "does not take as much motion as itneeds for movement"; "Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata", in T. M. Lennon et al., Problems ofCartesianism (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1982), p. 211.31 AT V 383 .32 AT V 40533 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 nostrapossit , 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 acapital "0" is a point well made by Stephen Nadler in his paper "The Occasionalism of Louis de laForge"; as Nadler notes , "occasional" as applied to a cause in seventeenth century writers can oftensimply mean "remote" "accidental" or "inferior" (in Nadler (ed.), Causation in Early ModernPhilosophy, p. 65) .38 More's own account is developed in his Antidote against Atheism [1653] , p. 17: "[T]he Mind of Manbeing jogg'd and awakened by the impulses of outward objects is stirred up into a more full and clearconception 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 thescholastic 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 carriesbodies towards the centre of the earth as if it had some knowledge of the centre within itself' (AT VII442 : 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 ofas much transfer in matter as he put there in the first moment of creation), or to created substance like ourmind or some other thing to which he gave the power to move a body (letter of 30 August 1649, AT V403-4, 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 ATV 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, sedtralatitiis" (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 placeslimits on the possibility that the rationale for such laws could be grasped by human beings, in thisrespect at least partially anticipating the Humean position on the limits of reason. For a development ofthis theme, see Cottingham, "The Cartesian legacy", op. cit. For futher study of the relationship betweenMore's philosophy and the new science, see A. Gabbey, "More and Mechanism", R. H. Popkin, ''Thespiritualist ic cosomologies of Henry More and Anne Conway" and R. Hall, "Henry More and theScientific Revolution" , all in S. Hutton (ed .), Henry More (1614-1687), Tercentenary 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 TrueIntellectual System - A Confutation ofAtheism, 1 I'analyse de la preuve cartesiennede 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. Cetteverite est rendue manifeste par Ie desaveu de l'atheisme: la reponse a la premiereobjection? des incredules souligne Ie caractere contradictoire de la position de ceuxqui nient qu 'il existe un etre intelligent self-subsistent, eternel et infini; car ceux-cisont neanmoins obliges d'en admettre l'idee dans leur esprit pour ne pas tomberdans l'absurde de nier l'existence de rien." La validite et l'efficacite de la thesesoutenue 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 sontdes theistes incoherents, des croyants manques, qui se nient a eux-memes lesverites incontestables de la religion . Par cette facon assez courante de procederdans Ie syncretisme de True Intellectual System, l'erreur devient une confirmationde la verite, un moyen par lequel cette derniere affirme sa superiorite dansl'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 limitesde l'esprit. De la pensee a la realite, Ie passage est oblige, merne pour Cudworthqui, s'appuyant sur la validite du consensus gentium, fait de I'idee de Dieu, en tantqu'etre necessairement existant, Ie pivot de l'anti-materialisme. "The GeneralPerswasion of the Existence of a God, in the Minds of men, and their Propensity toReligion, in all ages and places of the world" serait inexplicable "if there be reallyno such thing in Nature't.> La demonstration de l'existence de Dieu, qui n'est pasimmediaternent intelligible a la "generality of mankind"," est un passage essentieldu 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 culturephilosophique et religieuse . Dans ce contexte, la version cartesienne de la preuveontologique, 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 consequentvise 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- I83.© 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 pard'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'uneevoque Arnauld, I' autre Gassendi - et toutes les deux convergent pour denoncer Iecaractere circulaire de l'argumentation des Meditations. Surtout, Ie cercle vicieuxconsiste a demontrer l'existence de Dieu "from our Faculties of Reason andUnderstanding", pour prouver ensuite "the Truth of those Faculties, from theExistence 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 al'exis-tence que si elle I' a admise implicitement des Ie debut. Descartes part de lapremisse d'une necessite seulement hypothetique et en infere erronement une ne-cessite absolue; mais Ie True Intellectual System affirme que, de lidee del'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. Lapreuve qui ramene I' existence de Dieu aune cause qui lui serait antecedente repro-duit Ie schema explicatif du determinisme que Cudworth refute dans A Treatise ofFreewill. Elle apprehende la divinite comme un maillon de la "chain of causes frometernity to eternity, every link whereof is necessarily connected both with thatwhich went before, and that which follows after".J2 Dans cette formulation, lapolemique vise en premier lieu la theorie hobbesienne de la Iiberte : la these selonlaquelle "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 etchez Dieu qui est le commencement originel des choses, mais se trouve ainsi reduitaun 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 lerend encore plus heteronome, asservi aune necessite extrinseque asa nature: l' arbi-traire divin soutenu par Ie philosophe francais est un determinisme deguise. LeDieu cartesien ne represente pas la realisation, mais la negation de la liberte qui estun attribut de la perfection et de la sagesse infinies. Cudworth reprend une imageneo-platonicienne et cabalistique bien connue: la bonte est Ie centre interieur ducercle infini de Dieu, dont les rayons sont la sagesse qui englobe tout et dont la cir-conference illimitee est la volonte atravers laquelle toute chose differente de Dieutire son existence ." Dans cette perspective, la volonte n' est pas l' essence et 1a regiede 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 , Iesoupcon 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 agarantir le car-actere absolu du vrai : celui-ci est soumis alternativement a la volonte du sujethumain 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 estaux yeux de Cudworth un hybride contradictoire: Ie pretendu caractere incondition-nel du Dieu cartesien est en realite l'expression supreme du conditionnement pardes causes exterieures non rationnelles , conditionnement qui ceuvre a l'interieur dela 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 consequencessceptiques qui en derivent. Descartes ne parvient pas a expliquer la self-subsistencede Dieu et entraine toute la science et toute la connaissance dans les conclusionsdesastreuses 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 desMeditations est motivee precisement par l'excessive propension de Descartes as'approprier les observations critiques de Gassendi - "where it is probable hewould set down the genuine Sense of his own Mind more undisguisedly , beforehe was assalted by these Objectors, and thereby forced to turn himself intoseveral Shapes" ." Dans les Cinquiemes Reponses, l'assimilation des verites eter-nelles aux decrets eternels de Jupiter - immuables dans Ie temps car voulus ainsipar lui - indiquerait la mesure de la dependance de Descartes envers lespremisses 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 etde 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 avecIe relativisme et Ie nominalisme. Au-dela de la polernique contre l'arbitraire, larepon se aux Meditations se developpe en suivant ces deux lignes directrices et vaau coeur de la theorie cartesienne de la connaissance, a laquelle Cudworth opposela 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, andtheir Unchangeable Relations to one another'V! La coincidence de idee, verite etetre 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'atomismeathee de Protagoras, mais elle contient aussi une allusion transparente au sensua-lisme de Hobbes qui est correlatif de son determinisme; ce determinisme nie laliberte et les concepts ethiques et metaphysiques fondamentaux . Ainsi Ie Treatisepeut s'arreter sur les Troisiemes Objections et montrer Ie manque de fondement dela critique nominaliste hobbesienne, qui reduit Ie raisonnement aune simple "copu-latio et concatenatio nominum sive appellationum per verbum hoc est".23 AvecDescartes, Cudworth revendique la portee objective des concepts "purs" de I'intel -lect contre Ie relativisme des conventions linguistiques. Mais l'accord avec Iephilosophe francais est plus etendu; puisque la verite n'est pas extrinseque aI' 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 ClearlyConceived, is an Entity and a Truth".24Pourtant 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, desmanifestations psychologiques du vrai dans la psyche." La conception neo-platoni-cienne qui comprend les esprits humains comme des images reflechies de celIe deDieu26 - "Signatures of that one Archetypal Seal" - marque Ie decalage entre lesidees du cogito, d'une part, et la verite et la realite, de I'autre. Du point de vue deI'intellect fini, la realite ideale elle-rneme, bien qu'elle ne lui soit pas etrangere,depasse les actes qui Ie constituent en tant que sujet connaissant, et ne trouve pasdans ces actes son fondement.i?Tout comme Ie rapport entre I'intellect humain et I'intellect divin, celui qui

existe entre les idees dans I'esprit fini et la realite objective manifeste une margedIndetermination et n'est pas explicable en termes de parfaite identite. LeTreatis e soutient que I'idee ne precede pas dans Ie temps la chose existante endehors de I'esprit; celle-ci n'est pas un "new outside Garment", de telle maniereque Dieu pourrait "Sartoris instar Rerum Essentias Vestire Existentia'Y" ce quireviendrait a affirmer que I"'essence of Things could Exist apart separately fromthe Things themselves'V? Les choses ne sont pas de simples copies, des imagesevanescentes sans consistance reel Ie; la these selon laquelle " the Con stitutiveEssences of all Individual Created Things were Eternal and Uncreated'<? n'estpas 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 etparfaites. La distinction entre Wisdom et Will dans la nature divine - I'une est lacause formelIe, l' autre est la cause efficiente des choses - explique aussi Ierapport essence - existence. 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 decausalite efficiente, mais en termes de causalite formelle et exemplaire - of Skilland Art, pour employer une expression du Treatise - selon la conception de laverite et de l'etre ernpruntee a la tradition neo-platonicienne. La difference del'Idealisme cartesien intervient precisement au niveau de la participation de laraison humaine a la raison divine, ainsi que du rapport entre Wisdom et Will enDieu. Selon l'mterpretation de Cudworth, I'Idealisme cartesien - nous I'avons vuci-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 evilmere 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 itself the Steady and Immutable Rationes of all Things and their Verities 'F' - cesRationes etant "antecedent to the will of God".34Chez 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 "aDerivative Participation" ala verite, "their Understanding being Obscure, and theirErring in many things, and being Ignorant of more" .35 D'autant plus que les idees


dans I'esprit humain ne peuvent etre connues comme un patrimoine inne de "rulesor Propositions, arbitrarily printed upon the Soul as upon a Book".36 Elles sont aucontraire des fonctions de la pensee, anticipations de I'esprit "Native andDomestick", une expression de son activite relationnelle et systematisante, quirepose sur la participation a I'esprit divinoCette participation n'exclut pas queI'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 nothingelse 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 laconnaissance de la realite materielle. La confrontation avec Descartes dans unegrande partie du Treatise se joue sur cette question; s'appuyant sur l'exemplarite del'Idee, I'argumentation de Cudworth aboutit - nous Ie verrons tout de suite - adesresultats 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 "Beautyand Pulchritude [. .. JStrength and Ability".39 A l'interieur de la realite materielle >

soit I'Automaton ou Self Mover, soit I'organisme - oeuvre "a Vital and ActivePrinciple [. . . J, which is affected with Concord and Harrnony'"? et qui ne peutdependre "from any Mechanical Cause". Cudworth fait siens les motifs vitalistes dela tradition neo-platonicienne et affirme la theorie de la nature plastique, qui est Iesoutien de la conception de I'univers en tant que Vital Machine," Principed'organisation immanente, Yidee ne determine cependant pas la constitution de lachose au dehors de I'esprit. Le Treatise ne se propose pas non plus de fournir unejustification de I'existence des realites materielles artificielles ou naturelles "com-posees", dont I'element significatif est I'ordre qui les structure. Le rapport entreessence et existence s'impose dans la connaissance des "simple Corporeal Thingsthemselves, which by the Sense we have a Passive Perception of, in IndividualBodies without US".42Dans 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 endehors de l'esprit Ie triangle n'est connu que par I'intellect grace a ses "InwardNotions and Active Anticipations't.v' A un premier niveau d'abstraction, encoreconditionne par l'imagination, I'intellect resout Ie caractere entierement fantasma-tique en ses elements simples, que l'on peut ramener ades substances ou adesmodifications de substances: c 'est ainsi qu 'il trouve Ie blanc, Ie triangulaire et lasubstance corporelle comme sujet commun de ces affections . A un niveau pluseleve, ces memes elements sont consideres "Universally and abstractly fromIndividuating Circumstances and Matter"," c'est-a-dire que I'on peut les rameneraux essences ou aux idees universelles de I'esprit pour qui ils sont native et dome-stick: Ie triangle est une chose etendue impenetrable determinee quantitativementselon les trois dimensions de longueur, largeur et profondeur; tandis que les

178 M. BALDI

attributs qualitatifs s'averent depourvus de realite objective et sont expliquescomme des affections du sujet causees par le mouvement local des atomes dansI'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 theMind it self':46 elle est la "Rule, Pattern and Exemplar" par laquelle on peut jugerles idees sensibles "outwardly impressed from those Material Objects from withoutupon 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 conceptcartesien de substance etendue, par l'attribut de l'impenetrabilite que More jugeaitfondamental pour la comprehension de la realite materielle; en second lieu, il ne selimite pas a affirmer ce qu'est Ie corps et a en subordonner la connaissance a cellede l' arne; il se prononce egalement sur son existence - resultat auquel Descartesparvient seulement dans la Meditat ion VI, apres les preuves de l'existence de Dieuet 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 etparvient a l'existence necessaire donnee par la pensee - "not here Consideredmeerly as a Notion or Objective Cogitation, but as Thing actually existing withoutthe Mind".48L'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 laMeditation VI. Cudworth n'explique pas Ie passage de I'existence empirique al'idee qui lui correspond dans la raison et rend, avant tout, moins consequente ladefinition du corps. Selon More, Ie corps est extension impenetrable: Cudworthaccepte cette conception, sans faire siennes les premisses methodologiques quil'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 inspireeson ami More . Tous les deux jugent que la theorie cartesienne de la res extensaaboutit a l'affirmation de la necessite de la matiere: en niant qu'on puisse connaitrel'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 corpsest 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 notsuch an Adequate and Comprehensive Knowledge of the Essence of anySubstantial 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 unereprise presque a la lettre de certains lieux cartesiens, meme si Cudworth, commed'habitude, ne devoile pas ses sources. Le Treatise repete un passage de laDeuxieme Meditation qui assimile la sensation a une vision exterieure incapable decueillir la substance des choses, celle-ci etant l'objet de la faculte de juger.i' Afinde soutenir cette conclusion negative, Cudworth rappelle l'explication mecaniste de


la sensation qu'on Iisait dans la Dioptrique : "as the Atomical Philosophy instructsus, there is nothing Communicated in Sensation from the Material Objects without,but only Certain Local Motions, that are propagated from them by the Nerves intothe Brain">' Les mouvements locaux expliquent egalement la lumiere et la visiondes corps opaques, determinee par la pression des particules etherees globuleuses.En regle generale, comme l'affirme Le Monde, les sens sont comparables aulangage; ils sont des signes qui renvoient aquelque chose d'autre, aqui ils ne sontlies par rien de necessaire - "Nature as it were talking to us in the Sensible ObjectsWithout, 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 lesphenomenes d'apres le modele mecaniste. Vu dans cette perspective hypothetique,I'atomisme cartesien s'avere compatible avec l'anti-rnaterialisme de Cudworth: lascience qui se rapporte a la matiere et au mouvement ne definit pas la realite deschoses, 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 ensembleque Ie Treatise presente comme un hypothese au sens platonicien, c'est adirecomme 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 sesitue au niveau Ie plus bas: il peut expliquer la sensation en tant que mouvementlocal, mais non pas les "Perceptive Cogitations in the Soul", qu'elles soient lesPhantasms ou les Conceptions of the Mind. Les uns "Belong to the Inferior Part ofthe Soul, whereby it sympathizes with the Body" - c'est la "Vital and MagicalUnion" 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 AbstractNotions, from which, as it were looking downward it comprehends IndividualThings"." De ce point de vue, Ie mecanisme est compris dans une perspectivetheorique qui Ie depasse: c'est au platonisme de rejoindre la verite des choses, unplatonisme auquella philosophie de Cudworth aboutit en puisant ses arguments alatradition vitaliste.L'auteur du Treatise reagit de cette facon aun cartesianisme qui s'approche de

plus en plus, ases yeux , du determinisme hobbesien; il n'empeche que Ie mecan-isme represente pour lui I'antidote Ie plus puissant contre Ie rnaterialisme.F puisqueIe dualisme de la res extensa et de la res cogitans garantit l'Independance deI'esprit et sa superiorite par rapport au corps. C'est pourquoi Cudworth adopteenvers 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 affirmel'irreductibilite de l'experience par rapport ala raison et de l'existence par rapport aI'essence, il se detache aussi du rationalisme - d'ou les remarques sceptiques surles limites de la connaissance humaine'" et la tonalite empiriste des critiquessou levees contre la version cartesienne de la preuve ontologique. D'autre part,

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Cudworth n'est pas non plus reellement interesse par l'experience: elle n'est queI'occasion de la connaissance.t? tandis que I'image sensible et fantasmatique estl'enveloppe, "the Crasser Indument"60de 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 aetre confinee ala 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'enquetehistorique et comparative du System, ou la validite de l'idee est mesuree sur lescroyances communes. Dans cette oeuvre, le critere du vrai repose sur l'universaliteet 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";61mais il vise a affirmersurtout l'objectivite du vrai: "the Entity of all Theoretical Truth" n'est que ClearConception - celle-ci etant "the Criterion of true Knowledge [... ] not to be lookedfor any-where Abroad without our own Minds".62 Cependant, dans la theorie de laconnaissance meme, la philosophie decouvre des territoires impenetrables a la de-duction rationnelle, que Descartes exemplifiait. D'ailleurs, la polemique envers lematerialisme entraine Cudworth asouligner les limites de la raison humaine, qui estincapable de tout expliquer acause de son inferiorite par rapport ala pensee divine ,dont elle participe quand meme :

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

Le decalage entre concevoir et comprendre constitue Ie lieu ou les convictionsles plus solides du sens commun , celles que la critique philosophique ne saurait pasentamer, peuvent s'epanouir. Mais Cudworth nous revele aussi une autre perspec-tive: au dela du monde des essences eternelles et immuables comcidant avec laraison divine , histoire et experience peuvent s'affirmer selon l'imperfection proprea l'etre cree . Ces deux dimensions, explorees I'une dans Ie System, I'autre dans leTreatise , representent pour Ie platonicien Cudworth le probleme incontournable dela philosophie.

Marialuisa Baldi

NOTES

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


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 inNature, 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 ofGod 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 daDescartes 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). PourI'analyse de la preuve en general cf. D. Henrich, Der ontologische 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. , Objectiones 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 ala demonstration deDieu que Descartes avait exposee dans la Meditation Ill; a propos de cette argumentation Descartesavait 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 nes'arrete pas sur la discussion cartesienne concernant Ie rapport entre I'idee et sa cause, on peut mieuxcomprendre 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 deCudworth est objectif parce qu' il est "tutto teso a rilevare l' esistenza di una verita che trascende anche lavolonta 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 CreatedMinds 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 because they have aConstant 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 autdistinctum" (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 secondedecade du XVIIe siecle en Grande-Bretagne. Voir auss i R. L. Armstrong, "Cambridge Platonists andLocke on Innate Ideas", Journal of the History of Ideas. XXX (1969) , pp. 187-202; R. McRae, "Idea asa 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, RalphCudworth. An Interpretation. op. cit .• pp . 37-39 et L. Gysi, Plat onism and Cartesian ism in thePhilosophy ofRalph 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 our Simmetry and Harmony in the Relations. Proportions, Aptitudes andCorrespondencies of Things to one another in the Great Mundane System, or Vital Machine of theUniverse, which is al1Musical1y 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, inH. More, Opera Omnia. op. cit.. Ad Responsum circa primam Difficultatem, Instantia I, II, 2, p. 243 :"cum 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. queDescartes 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 exfenetra 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 theStreets, is said to see Men walking in the Streets, when indeed he perceives nothing but Hats and Cloaths,


under which , for ought he knows, there may be Daedalean Statues moving up and down" . Les emprunts aDescartes 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 DescartestDioptrique. Discours Premier, (Euvres, op. cit. , VI, pp. 83-86): "in the same manner as we feel thingsat a Distance in the Dark, by the Resistency which they make upon the further end of the Staff that wehold 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 can never sufficiently applaud that ancient atomical Philosophy, so succesfullyrevived 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 andRest ; 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'atomismeen 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 ofVossiu s, Cudworth and Newton " , dans 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; maintenantdan s The Third Force in Seveenteenth Century Thought, (Brill : Leiden, 1992) , pp. 334-350. SelonPopkin , Cudworth "used a semi-scepticism and a commonsense Platonism to rebut the overall attack ofHobbe s and Spinoza, thereby 'j ustifying ' the appeal to universal religion based on an innate conceptionof 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 CUDWORTHPAR G. W. LEIBNIZ

II me semble assure que la "reception" la plus accomplie qu'aient jamais eue "lesPlatoniciens de Cambridge" se rencontre dans Ie concept de "monde leibnizien", etnotamment dans I'investissement accompli par Leibniz autour du terme et duconcept de "monade". L'abondance des impacts dans l'ceuvre de Leibniz serait tellequ'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 aappliquer aMore, 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 aorganisees autour d'une multitude d'autres oeuvres. Mais iI y a, avec l'Ecole deCambridge, une triple complicite: sur la mise en valeur du platonisme dans un con-texte ou les scolastiques aristoteliciennes ou modemes sont devenues pesantes surles termes memes de "monas-monade" qui connaissent un traitement exceptionneldans 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 DescartesHobbes, Spinoza et Locke.

D 'un mot a Remond (22 juin 1715, GP, III, 646), Leibniz condense lasignification de sa reception du System: "J' ai oublie de vous dire qu'autrefois LadyMasham, fille de M. Cudworth, grande patronne de M. Locke, m'envoya Ie Systemelntelle ctuel de feu Monsieur son Pere, ou je trouvais bcaucoup de savoir, mais pasassez de meditation". Cette fete de l'erudition cudworthienne, Leibniz la partagegoulOment; quant a la meditation, elle rebondit sur plusieurs themes centraux. Deses deux sejours en Angleterre des annees 1673 et 1676, Leibniz garda Ie souvenirconstant 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 ducelebre M. Cudworth, grand philosophe et theologien anglais, auteur du SystemeIntellectuel, 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 estessentiellement question des Nouveaux Essais, en pleine genese, et du SystemeIntellectuel qui, selon Leibniz ne peut etre qu'oppose a Locke. Y aura-t-il a ce proposun impact de Leibniz sur Locke via Lady Masham et Cudworth qui aurait conduit auxrevisions du livre IV de l'Essay, bien plus favorable que les premieres editions alatheorie de l'inneite des idees?2 Ce serait Ill. un autre sujet. Mais cette correspondance

187

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188 A. ROBINET

pennet de determiner avec precision que l'envoi de I'exemplaire Marg. 137, fait suiteala lettre de Lady Masham de decembre 1703 et a la reception qu'en assure LeibnizIe 30 juin 1704: "Je viens de recevoir votre beau present, Madame, et je commencedeja a en jouir, ce qui renouvelle rna reconnaissance" (GP, ill, 357).3En effet, nous disposons de deux series de feuillets, paleographiquement dif-

ferencies, historiquement situables, qui accumulent les donnees convergentesemanant du "savoir" de Cudworth et qui amorcent des remarques sur le defaut deses "meditations". Nous disposons ainsi de quatre cles d'entree leibnizienne dans leSysteme lntellectuel: les marginalia, les deux dossiers de lecture, les lettres a LadyMasham. 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 papierromain 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 ltalicumtcomment les riches rencontres avec Auzout que Leibniz connaissait depuis sonsejour parisien, aboutissaient a cette remarque tiree de la lettre a Lady Masham dedecembre 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 fuscharme de voir les plus belles pensees des sages sur l'antiquite mises dans leur jouret accompagnees de solides reflexions; en un mot, beaucoup d'erudition, et autant delumieres, jointes ensemble" (GP ill, 336). Au sens strict ces notes de lecture ne sontpas encore publiees: mais elles figurent dans la Vorausedition de la Leibniz-Stelle deMUnster, N. 406, pp. 1882-1892. C'est dire l'ampleur du document. Mais ce n'estpas lu apartir de l'exemplaire Marg. 137 comme I'indique clairement la referenceau pret que lui fit Auzout de son exemplaire apporte de Paris. Leibniz parcourt dansl'ordre ce gros volume et ses releves suivent la pagination de Cudworth du debut a lafin. 11 n'en ira pas de meme en 1704: la consultation est alors plus de recherche dethemes porteurs que d'information documentaire. Mais ces premieres notes neseront pas recuperees en 1704, ce qui donnera lieu a des doublons.20 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 aussibien 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 IntrinsickConstitution of this Atomick Physiology also is such, as thatwhosoever admits it, and rightly understands it, must needs ac-knowledge Incorporeal Substance which is the AbsoluteOverthrow ofAtheism. [N.d.l.r.: trait vertical en marge].

and on the contrary, Those Forms and Qualities which heEpoused, 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 theImpossible 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 ofall, make a Discovery ofa certain Form ofAtheism 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 nothave been Better Made and Ordered then it is . [N.d .I.r. : traitvertical en marge].

Notwithstanding which, it was far from our Intention, thereforeto Conclude, That Nothing neither in Nature nor Providencecould be Otherwise then it is; or, That there is Nothing left to theFree Will and Choice of the Deity. And though we do in theThird Section, insist largely, upon that Ancient PythagorickCabbala, that Souls are always United to some Body or other; asalso, That all Rationall and Intellectuall Creatures, consists ofSoul and Body and suggests several things , from Reason andChristian Antiquity, in favour of then both. [N.d.I.r. : trait verticalen marge].

p.18:

p.22:

p.63:

p.107:

Wherefore the same Plato telI us, that there had been always , aswelI as there then was, a perpetual War and Controversie in theWorld, and as he calI it, a Kind of Gigantomachy betwixt the twoParties or Sects of men. The one that held there was no otherSubstance in the World besides Body. The Other that assertedIncorporeal Substance. [N.d.l.r.: trait vertical en marge].

[.. .] Opinion before Plato's time, which had been delivered downby some of the Pythagoricks. Wherefore, I conceive, this mustneeds be one of those Pythagorick Monstrosities, which Xenophoncovertly taxes Plato for entertaining [... ]. [N.d.I.r.: trait vertical enmarge] .

This seems to be intimated by a Modern Writer in these words;The Attributes of God signifie not True nor False, nor anyOpinion of our Brain, but the Reverence and Devotion of ourHearts, and therefore they are not sufficient Premises to inferrTruth or convince Falshood. [N.d.l.r.: en marge "Hobb"].

[... ] concerning an Eunuch striking a Bat; [N.d .I.r.: "Bat"souligne] .

190

p.175:

p.206:

p.207:

p.873:

A. ROBINET

But shortly after this Cartesian Restitution of the PrimitiveAtomology that acknowledgeth Incorporeal Substance, we havehad Q.lf! Leucippus and Democritus too, who also revived andbrought again upon the Stage, that other Atheistick Atomology,[. . .]. [N.d.l.r.: "our" souligne, avec en marge "Hobb].

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

From the Idea ofGod forasmuch as there cannot possibly be morethan One Supreme, more than One Omnipotent or InfinitelyPowerful Being, and more than One Cause of all things besides itself. [N.d.l.r.: souligne de "more" a "things"].

So that the Controversie betwixt the Atheists, and these Theists,seems to be no other than this ; Whether Sensless MatterFortuitously moved, or a Fortuitous Will Omnipotent, such as isaltogether undetermined, by Goodness Justice and Wisdom, to bethe Sovereign Numen, and Original of all things. [N.d.l.r.: traitvertical 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, ouclle occupe Ies folios 49 a 53, soit l' ampleur de cinq pages in-folio bien rempliessur 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 lepapier 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 pourles 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, laplupart du temps, Leibniz note les references aux auteurs cites par Cudworth sansmentionner la reference a son ouvrage. Si bien que l'identification des passagestranscrits 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 deCudworth meme. Remarquons enfin que deux des passages transcrits I' avaient etedeja 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 denotes 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.


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 lesparentheses, signaletiques des remarques propres de Leibniz sur ses transcriptions,tombe au terme d'une diatribe de Cudworth contre I'opinion depravee des atheistesqui, selon Ciceron font de la charite et de la bienveiIIance une sottise, et de l'amitieun marchandage relatif a l'utilite, Leibniz ne pouvait que reconnaitre la un de sespremiers themes en jurisprudence consistant aopposer ala these de Carneade sur lastupidite du juste, les theses platoniciennes et Ie droit nature\. Des 1663, Leibniz adenonce I'insuffisance des fondements de la jurisprudence humaine par Hobbes etI'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 delectariactionibus rectis-)."Plato Hobbesianam doctrinam eleganter exhibat de rep. lib. 2. p. 358. 359. quidam statuunt injuriaminferre bonum esse, sed pati malum, sed quia plus mali est in patiendo quam boni in inferendo, hinctandem in pacta tum ut a nullo inferrentur aut ferrentur, sed aequalibus servaretur ita qui talis potensesset aut latere posset, non posset facere quae liberet. Haec iIIe id Hobbesii mentem, sed non apparet curaliquis pactis obligetur, si nulla vis justit iae est, si natura non jubet pacta servari. Sed si haec jubet curnon 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 etLeibniz se retranche derriere la tradition Platon-Cudworth pour adherer a la thesed'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 justicepropre aLeibniz: Hobbes n'a pas compris que I'homme de bien trouvait sa felicitedans 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, lesdeux occurrences de Hobbes qui apparaissent dans les Marginalia 137 visent autantque la doctrine du juste, la doctrine du vrai Pour la p. 63, Leibniz tire un trait enmarge pour accompagner Ie texte de Cudworth relatif a la critique des ecrivainsmodernes pour qui les attributs divins ne signifient rien qui soit vrai ou faux, ni rienqui soit du ressort de I'opinion de notre jugement: mais ce sont des marques dereverence et de devotion qui viennent du coeur et non du cerveau, dont lespremisses ne sont absolument pas valides pour qu'on en puisse inferer quelqueverite ou convaincre de quelque erreur. Alors que Cudworth n'a nomme personne,Leibniz inscrit en marge: "Hobbes". Dans nombre d'autres occasions, Leibnizajouterait 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 lesOpera 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 etDernocrite; que nous ayons "notre Leucippe et Democrite"; conduit Leibniz asouligner 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" atomistede Hobbes et qui sont convergentes avec l'ecrit de Cudworth qui se recommanded' autre chose. Sur cette meme page 175, les notes de 1689 avaient deja retenu unpassage 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 : "toutne 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 foisfascinant 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 invoquantle platonisme de l'unicite de la valeur. On ne peut pas ne pas etre frappe dans cesquelques notes ou Marginalia, par la reference spontanee aux lignes et paragraphesde Cudworth qui proclament la triplicite des attributs divins, amorcant une "causaDei" 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. SiCudworth ne donne pas a son propos une dimension combinatoire des attributsdivins entre eux comme cle de la distribution dans Ie fini des perfections intra-mondaines , il oriente ccpendant son propos vers une affirmation expresse deI'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, aubenefice 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 deCudworth alors que, a propos dEcphantus , la question tourne sur lesPythagoriciens 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 nommaientsouvent leurs atomes des Monades . II faudra que Platon intervienne pour que lasubstance incorporelle voie ses droits reconnus. Ce passage de la p. 13 du Systemest 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 etAtomos Epicuri dictas Monades."


-------lJociTT]V E1TtKovpoveciO'ovnoii oro KEVOV ~T]orE'tV Kat ortVE<; at MovcillE<;.9

Or les notes de 1704 d'arretent de nouveau a ce passage du System, encoreinedites Cf. 53v):

Atomi veteribus Monades forte cap. Pythagorae, Ecphantus Pythagoricus dixit Pythagorae Monadesfuisse atomos corporeas. Nam de eo Stobacus ora<; 'lTlJ6(XOyOpLKa<; lJoovcilla<; oUro<; 1TpworO<; Q1TE<lriivaoroO'WlJoanKa<;. Et ipse Aristoteles de Pythagoricis: ora<; lJoovcilla<; U1TOAalJo~civO\JO'LV €XELV IJoE"(E90v. Etalibi OOOEV llLacl>EpEL lJoovcilla<; AE"(ELV -Ii O'wlJociorLa O'IJoLKpa. Et quidam Graecus Epigrammatista, deAtomis Epicuri .

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 OUje composais l'Architectonique disjonctive, I0 j'aurais pu ajouter au titre des "auto-mates systerniques" cette double remarque, confortant cette argumentation. II estmanifeste, comme je I' ai etabli , que Ie lexique de la "monade est bien connu des lespremieres etudes de Leibniz, ne serait-ce que par I' enseignement de JakobThomasius. Comme tout Ie lexique non moderne, l'emploi en est tombe pendantune longue diachronie architectonique. 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 besoinsde son architectonique archaique. De meme, pour "entelechie premiere" qui nereverra Ie jour qu'en ete 1691. Enfin on sait que "monade" ne sera employe dans Iediscours leibnizien qu'en septembre 1696. A tel point que "forme substantielle" estbannie de l'autorite architectonique et decretee couvrir un concept fallacieux tantque dure la reference de Leibniz a la modernite cartesienne, dont il se debarrassedefinitivement en janvier 1678, avec la critique de la loi de conservation de lameme quantite de mouvement, fondatrice du concept de corps etendu . On observequ'en 1684 dans l'article sur la connaissance, l'entelechie est encore prise commeexemple de concept confus. Quant a la monade nous avons deja montre commentelle 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 passagedoublement recopie l' est a deux moments architectoniquement fort differents, En1689, si les "formes substantielles sont de nouveau operationnelles, l'entelechie neI'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 nel' est plus pour Leibniz. Car en 1696, la monade a ete "rappelee" a son tour commeplus expressive de la force singuliere de la substance, de sa perpetuite, parce que lanotion de "simple" ne recoit plus pour modele Ie cliche atomistique, mais devientune congruence et une serie d'equipollences qui permettent au multiple de con-verger dans I' entr' expression intermonadique. Mais il fallait, pour que la monadepuisse etre accompagnee de I' investissement lexicographique de "substancesimple", que Ie resserrement conceptuel permit une sirnplicite qui supportait lavariete dans la multitude.

194 A. ROBINET

Evidemment, ce n' est pas Cudworth qui pouvait conduire Leibniz ases propresinvestigations architectoniques. Mais it recoit de Cudworth comme de More et desPlatoniciens de Cambridge, Ie label qui l'autorise areinvestir "monade", dans uncontexte conceptuel entierement decharge des pesanteurs simplistes de l' atome, etoriente vers un concept du "simple" qui pouvait beneficier a la fois de toutes lesspecieuses mathematiques nouvelles dans Ie champ de ses representations relativesaux forces derivees et de cette simplicite qui alliait Ie mecanistique a la finalite dansIe domaine de la pensee representante, greffee sur les considerations non modernesd'un esprit independant du corps. Si toutefois, pour Leibniz , it subsiste des corpsqui soient autre chose que des concepts mentaux bien regles par les lois de la naturefinalisee . On voit a cela comment Leibniz capte la documentation de Cudworthpour I'amener a de nouvelles conclusions meditatives , qui font passer Ie savoir etles connaissances de More et de Cudworth du monadographique documentaire aumonadologique 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 primaanima multae animae . Nempe tria prima constituunt TO ~v, voUv, Ijroxilv . Respondent Patri, Logo, etSpiritu i sed rectius explicantur per potentiam, cognitionem et voluntatem seu amorem. Add. Simplic . inEpict. Enchirid. pag. 9. (+Sed revera et mentes. et animae sunt Monades. Vera limitas non ex substantiiscompon 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 en1689, faute du reinvestissernent du terme "monade", faute d'une distinction dupassif et de l'actif qui s'applique au primitif et au derive, faute d'une conceptionpossible de la "monade complexe" a partir de la "monade-atorne", faute du conceptde "simple" instruit dans Ie sens d'une presence du passif des corps dans l'activitede la substance primitive. Nous sornmes ici aI'intersection des deux membres de ladisjonction architectonique: ou bien les corps sont des substances ou bien ils nesont 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'avisglobal : "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, quel'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 uneforce act ive interne. Mais pour ce qui est de la nature plastique "je I'admets engeneral", mais "cette force plastique est mecanique d'elle-meme, et consiste dansune preformation et dans des organes deja existants, qui ont ete seuls capables deformer d'autres organes". "Pour ce qui est des Atomes, je les admets si on les tientpour 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 iqueou organique partout.. . " , Sa conclusion, temperee pour Lady Masham, est qu 'il"explique seulement ce que M, Cudworth Iaissait sans explication", La commencesans doute Ie XVIIIeme sieclel

Andre Robinet

NOTES

La bibliographie leibnizienne concernant ces auteurs comporte un certain nombre d'etudes, Nous endetachons celie qu'Anne Becco avait accomplie en mettant en evidence les impacts de "monade" dansI'oeuvre de More, consultee largement par Leibniz. II n'y a pas de Marginalia des publications de Moreau sens strict, mais de nombreuses notes de lecture en partie publiees dans les editions de Leibniz. Voirla Leibniz-Bibliographie de A. Heinekamp et les Index des Studia leibnitiana qui publient chaque anneeun releve complet des publications leibniziennes .2 Nous avons precise a plusieurs reprises que I'onginalite de la quatrierne edition de I'Essay consistaitdans les nouveaux apports du Livre IV, ou Ie statut de l'idee retrouve "un assentiment a la lumiere irre-sist ible d'une evidence immedi ate" ; cf. notre ouvrage sur Le langage a /'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 Republiquedes 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-sist ible , 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'hommejuste se plait aux actions droites+)" .7 "Platon presente adroitement la pensee de Hobbes dans la Republique, livre II, 358-359: 'Certainsaffirment que commettre I'injustice est un bien, mais que la subir est un mal. Et parce qu 'il ya plus demal a la subir que de bien ala commettre, ils en sont venus aun pacte, afin que personne ne la commetteni la subisse, mais qu 'elle soit observee par des hommes egaux : ainsi, celui qui serait assez puissant ouassez secret ne pourrait faire ce qui lui plait .' Tel est bien I'esprit de Hobbes. Mais on ne voit paspourquoi on est oblige 11 un contrat si la justice n'a aucune force, si la nature n'ordonne pas d 'obeir auxcontrats. 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 justice 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, carStobee parle ainsi de lui : 'C'est lui qui Ie premier a rnontre que les monades de Pythagore paraissaientcorporelles' . Et Aristote disa it d'elles: ' lis ont estirne que les monades ont une grandeur' . Et Gassendi areleve chez l'epigrammatiste grec que les atomes d'Epicure sont appeles aussi monades".9 " II est arrive que les anciens ont pris les atomes pour les monade s de Pythagore, et Ecphante Iepythagoricien a dit que les monades des Pythagoriciens avaient ete des atomes corpore Is. Car Stobee ditde lui : 'C'est lui qui Ie premier a montre que les monades de Pythagore paraissaient corporelles' . EtAristote 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 ditldes 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 ; wehave the Authority of Ecphantus a famous Pythagorean for this, that Pythagoras his Monads, so muchtalked 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 ofAtoms) first declared that the Pythagoricck Monads were Corporeral , i.e. Atoms . And this is furtherconfirmed from what Aristotle himself writes of these Pythagoreans 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 ijO"WlLcXTLa O"ILLKpa. Its all one to say Monades or small Corpuscula . And Gassendus hath observed outof the Greek Epigrammatist, that Epicurus his Atoms were sometimes called Monades too;

--------ILCXTT\VE1TtKOUPOV l1cXO"ovnoii TO KEVOV t1JTEi.V Kat TtVE~ oL MovcXl)E~."

10 A. Robinet, Architectonique disjonctive, automates systemiques et idealite transcendantale dansl 'oeuvre de G. W. Leibniz , Paris, Vrin, 1986; voir Ie sens precis de "monade" en 2.3. L 'automatesystemique (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; dupremier Esprit, plusieurs Esprits; de la premiere Arne, plusieurs ames . L'Un, l'Esprit, I' Arne, sontprincipes . lis correspondent au Pere, au Logos, 11 l'Esprit, mais s'expliquent mieux par la puissance , laconnaissance, la volonte ou amour (Add. Simplicius , sur I'Enchiridion d'Epictete, page 9) (+ Mais enfait, 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] destrois [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'affect ion du Bien, le Bien et l'Un anciens se conjuguent. Ce n'est pasmal, mais cela ne concerne que les monades complexes-e)" .II La bibliographie leibnizienne concernant ces auteurs comporte un certain nombre d'etudes. Nous endetachons celie qu 'Anne Becco avait accomplie en mettant en evidence les impacts de "monade" dansl'oeuvre de More, consultee largement par Leibniz . II n'y a pas de Marginalia des publications de Moreau sens strict, mais de nombreuses notes de lecture en partie publiees dans les editions de Leibniz. Voirla Leibniz-Bibliographie de A. Heinekamp et les Index des Studia leibnitiana qui publient chaque anneeun releve complet des publications leibniziennes.

S . BROWN

PLATONIC IDEALISM IN MODERN PHILOSOPHYFROM MALEBRANCHE TO BERKELEY'

The revival of Platonism associated with Cambridge philosophers such as HenryMore and Ralph Cudworth was in part a reaction against Calvinism with its stresson 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 viewof nature in which they came to be regarded as actually conducive to piety. Thisnew perspective came to be quite widely shared thanks to the popularity of the writ-ings of Malebranche in whose thought Cartesianism was harmonised with anAugustinian 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 ofphilosophers were decisively influenced by Malebranche and developed his thoughtin a Platonic direction. In this paper, I consider two younger contemporariesof More and Cudworth - Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and John Norris(1657-1711). I also consider the striking convergence between the idealisms ofGeorge Berkeley (1685-1753) and one of Norris's followers, Arthur Collier(1680-1732). I seek to show how the Platonic tendencies of these philosopherswere stimulated by reflection on Malebranche. But I also connect those tendencieswith a continuing Platonic tradition and with religious concerns about the implica-tions of certain philosophical positions. Collier and Berkeley, I bring out, eacharrived at a Platonic idealism quite independently of one another. The existence ofsuch similarities as can be found between the thought of Leibniz, Collier andBerkeley is evidence of the extent of the Platonic revival in the early eighteenthcentury .

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 butstill be trained in the Scholastic tradition. In Leibniz's student days the Scholastictradition at German universities predominated across all areas of philosophy. Bythe 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 atOxford and elsewhere. The English semi-professionals who took to Malebranche -Norris Collier and Thomas Taylor - were Oxford-trained Anglican clergymen whowere influenced not only by Aquinas but by the Scholastic revival associated withthe 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 intheir 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 bepressed further by developing better arguments rather than as merely concernedwith 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 than20 years after the first publication of Locke's Essay. Collier appears to havethought that a significant number of his readers continued to entertain"Renaissance" expectations about how truth in philosophy should fit in with thewisdom 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 andalmost nothing than by "Modem" arguments.' They were intended to conclude thathe had "a vast authority" on his side and that his views were neither strange nornovel.The existence of such sympathy for Platonism amongst lay readers may have

been one of the factors which led Modems to make more of Platonic elements intheir philosophies. But there were reasons why Anglican clergymen such as Collierand Berkeley were unlikely to be out-and-out Modems and were bound to paysome lipservice to the authority of the ancients . The Bible from which theypreached and taught their flocks was a book taken to be full of ancient wisdom andbelieved to be true, however difficult to interpret. There was, of course, no need tolink the wisdom of Moses with that of Plato. But it was a natural enough extensionand one which, in Renaissance Neoplatonism, had been common place. It is notsurprising, then, that both Collier and Berkeley were willing to link the authority ofthe Bible with the authority of ancient philosophers.Berkeley, who in his Principles ofHuman Knowledge had adopted a thoroughly

Modem style of argumentation, himself reflected in later life that there was a riskthat extreme Modems would treat the Bible as an old book no more worthy ofstudy than the texts of the ancient philosophers.' That may be one reason why heincreasingly 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 havingspoken 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 andprovides a Biblical license for a Stoic or Platonic philosophy. Malebranche hadalready appealed to it in defending his doctrine that we see all things in God .? Itbecame a favourite Biblical quotation for both Berkeley and Collier. 8 As withMalebranche their philosophies were motivated partly by a concern to produce atheological outcome. In the case of all three it seemed to have been to defend theomnipresence 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 hesought to authorise his idealism from an account of the first verse of the firstchapter 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 particularsin it; as, taking the words heaven and earth to stand for all things except God. we may learn from thistext that God only is without beginning. or that everything else in nature began to be or exist. Hence wemust infer. that if time, and space, and matter, are not God, they are neither of them eternal or withoutbeginning.'?

For Collier the denial of absolute space, time and matter is a correlate of theproper 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 init is already contained in God from all eternity.II All things "terminate and exist inone, viz . the Son of God who is apxTi 1"11<; K1"L<TEW<;,12 or substance of the wholecreation". 13Collier 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 pluralityof created substances, is distinct from pantheism. But where no autonomy is or canbe allowed to the created world panentheism, may in practice tend to monism andso collapse into pantheism This is a tendency that reappears in the history ofPlatonism (in John Scotus Erigina and even in seventeenth-century figures likeFludd) and which was compounded by Malebranche's philosophy, because of hisdenial that there are any other true causes than GOd.15Collier, as we will see, is a Modern whose philosophy is a development of

Platonic tendencies already latent in Malebranche. The revival of Platonismamongst such avant-garde professional and semi-professional Modern philosophershad 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 Platonictendencies of Modern philosophy after Malebranche.

200 S. BROWN

II

Malebranche in his Recherche de La Verite , considered various accounts of how it isthat we see the world around us. He rejected as unintelligible those accounts ac-cording to which bodies send forth representatives of themselves which somehowimpinge 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 inGod. 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 quipuisse etre. La cela etant ainsi, non seulement nous ne scaurious rien voir, que Dieune veiiiIIe bien que nous Ie voyons, mais nous ne scaurions rien voir, que Dieumeme ne nous Ie fasse voir"." The doctrine of seeing all things in God is closelyconnected 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 ofDescartes which purported to demonstrate the existence of material bodies. But hethought it highly probable that there were and indeed he believed a Christian shouldaccept that there are bodies as a matter of faith. This suggestion was taken up byBayle as a concession to scepticism.!?Bayle seems genuinely to have believed thatcomplete scepticism was conducive to faith. But most philosophers have supposedthat 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 tosuppose 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 todeny the need for bodies:

.. .since God does all things by the most compendiou s ways. what need is there that God should make asun that we might see its idea in him when he pleased to exhibit it. when this might as well be donewithout any real sun at all? JS

Malebranche was not tempted either seriously to doubt or to deny the existenceof 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. Ifthere are no bodies then God did not really assume the body of a man and thoseheretics were right who denied that he did. Again, in the Eucharist, there cannot bea question whether the bread and the wine do become the very body and blood ofChrist unless there are material substances in the first place. A metaphysics withoutmaterial bodies is subversive of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation - a con-sideration which both Collier and Berkeley thought an advantage'? but which wouldsurely 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 translationsin 1694. When Joseph Addison went to Paris in 1700 he visited Malebranchewhom he reported to the Bishop of Lichfield as having "a particular Esteem for theEnglish Nation, where I believe he has more admirers than in his own".20 Addison


himself was one of those admirers and had written, when a student in 1693, adefence of the new philosophy. Amongst his contemporaries at Magdalen Collegewho also produced such defences was Thomas Taylor who shortly became one ofMalebranche's translators." Addison would certainly have known also of JohnNorris who was still at All Souls in the early 1690s and who was perhaps the bestknown English Malebranchean of the time. Malebranche seems to have taken agloomy view of his own standing in France at the beginning of the eighteenthcentury . So, of course, Addison may not have wished to imply that Malebrancheenjoyed a substantial following in England. Nonetheless there is evidence of afollowing 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 maturephilosophy. This has been well-documented by M. Robinet and others have taken itUp.23 Less well documented is the increasing Platonism of Leibniz's philosophy inhis later years. Leibniz had already re-discovered Plato during his stay in Paris inthe early l670s, when he essayed translations into Latin of the Phaedo and theTheaetetus. Right into the 1690s he conducted himself in relation to Descartes as arival, and it was something of a home truth for him to be accused of attempting tobuild his reputation upon the ruins of Descartes 's. Leibniz, of course , denied this24but thereafter abandoned the spirit of censurae and animadversiones . Freed fromfocusing on what was wrong with Descartes he now concentrated on what hethought 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 ofPlato and the Academic Sceptics . Already in 1694 this new perspective was hintedat:

It is undeniable that Descartes has made some outstanding contributions. In particular he was right torestore the study of Plato by leading the mind away from the senses, thus usefully adding the doubts ofthe 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 ownSysteme nouveau (1695) was to be seen as a development from the Cartesianphilosophy and the pre-established harmony as a solution to problems withMalebranche's occasionalism. In the Nouveaux Essais (c. 1704) he associatedhimself with Descartes, Malebranche and Plato as against Gassendi and Locke.PLeibniz 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 ofcertain others - especially Malebranche and the Platonists. This is evident in his

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

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

I have been suggesting that, in his later writings, Leibniz distinguished his viewsfrom 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 Malebranchein 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. Tothis charge Leibniz replied:

Ce langage mystique du Pere n'etoit done point necessaire, mais je trouve qu'i1 est utile, car il nous faitmieux 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 lapartie du systeme du Pere de Mallebranche que je serois bien aise qu' on conservat avec les phrases etformules qui en dependent, comme je suis bien aise qu'on conserve la partie la plus solide de laTheologie des Mystiques. Et bien loin de dire avec I'auteur de la Refutation (T. 2, p. 304) que Ie systemede 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 Platonismfrom the obscurities and the distortions of the so-called "Platonists". There is muchrhetoric in those passages where he does this - often a Renaissance rhetoric aboutthe decline of philosophy since the ancients but also a Modem rhetoric about theneed for philosophy to be reformed, These are combined in his paper "De primaephilosophiae emendatio. . ... of 1694 where he complains that the progress made byPlato and Aristotle had not been subsequently built upon : "the later Platonistslapsed into enouncing omens: the Aristotelians, especially the scholastics, tookmore care about raising questions than settling them".3oLeibniz 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 havethought, a tendency to go to extremes and to lapse into mysticism, enthusiasm andfanaticism. Thus he wrote against the debased, extravagant and mystical develop-ments of Plato into which Ficino and Patrizzi were led instead of pursuing the exactdefinitions 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 notedin Leibniz's philosophy a tendency to much more extreme and implausible viewsthan those he was willing to acknowledge as his conclusions.P


Simon Foucher for instance, expressed his surprise at the way in which Leibnizhad encumbered himself with the problems of the Cartesians by presenting hissystem as a development from Descartes and Malebranche The criticism ofMalebranche'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.PLeibniz's reply , that God chose to create more rather than fewer substances,

alludes to his principle of plenitude.f Certainly the principle of plenitude providesa Platonic defence to the charge of solipsism. A perfect God would not be contentto 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 resultfrom the true substances or, as he later called them, monads. On that view materialbodies do not strictly add to the number of substances . The principle of plenitudedoes thus not straightforwardly protect Leibniz's philosophy from its tendency toidealism. Leibniz himself spoke of Plato as the greatest of the "idealists't.P Hehimself sought a middle way between materialism and idealism in which he wouldbe 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 philosophytowards idealism.

IV

Norris was a Platonist before he came to the study of Malebranche. At one level theinfluence 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 allthings" 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 Galileoof the intellectual world . He has given us the point of view, and what farther detect ions are made, it mustbe through his telescope. . .36

Norris claimed that Malebranche had only gone halfway , leaving "the finishingof it" to less able people such as himself. But he developed Malebranche's thoughtin 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 hisreaders. He was doing it in order to avoid prejudice against what he had to say onthe ground of "novelty".J7 At the same time he, like Leibniz , was led by Descartesand Malebranche to recognise the insight of the ancient Platonists that the existenceof an intelligible world is more certainly known than that of the natural or sensibleworld." Like them he was led to the brink of idealism, but held back from doubtingthe 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

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some appeal to the notion of "natural judgement".40 He also invokes the support ofSuarez But his position did not seem plausible to Collier who took Norris's viewone 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 anycollusion or influence of one upon the other . But, on closer examination, that doesseem 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 anoutline in three chapters on the question whether the visible world is without us ornot. This manuscript is dated January 1708, two years before the appearance ofBerkeley' s Principles." It might be thought that he could have benefited in thedetails of his arguments from reading Berkeley . But the details of their argumentsare in too many respects different, as is their language.f Collier seems to haveexisted 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 ThreeDialogues, a work published slightly after his own Clavis.43All the reading referredto in Clavis relates to texts available in his student days, more than a decade beforehe 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 "illustriousneighbour".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 putdown 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 Collierand 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 samelevel as God. Both were drawn to the Platon ic view that God is a spirit and is thecreator of all things. They interpreted this view to imply that nothing exists outsidethe 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 expresseshimself by denying the existence of matter entirely . Collier, by contrast, denies theexistence of an external world, by which he means a world that is "absolute, self-existent, independent etc."." Berkeley was consciously developing a theory ofideas from Locke whereas Collier was developing his philosophy partly from theScholastic background and partly in the context of the Modern philosophy ofDescartes, Malebranche and Norris. For these reasons there are broad similaritiesbut the differences of detail are too great to give substance to the charge ofplagiarism.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 settingof matter up on a level with God. He was led to a life-long preoccupation with theBiblical account of creation and, in particular, with the first verse of the Book ofGenesis. In one (undated) comment on the value of this text Collier wrote that fromit "we must infer, that if time, and space, and matter, are not God, they are neither


of them eternal or without beginning"." It does not follow that there is no matter atall. But by 1709 he had come to the view that God is the efficient, formal, materialand final cause of everything that exists. This led him to hold that "particulars. . . assuch, 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 toall particulars"." This is inconsistent with belief in an "independent", "absolute"matter. So far from matter supplanting God, as is partly threatened in theAristotelian view, God supplants (absolute) matter. Collier, like other ChristianPlatonic philosophers, gave an idealistic interpretation to the Biblical saying that inGod 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 havebeen 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 isperhaps significant that he waited till after the death of his "late ingenious neigh-bour" (Norris) before venturing into print. He expressed a reluctance to "voluntarilyoppose 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 matterand extension being elevated to the status of a deity. Berkeley's concerns arereflected 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 acknowledgedinfinite immutable eternal etc. which will be to make either God extended (which I think dangerous) oran eternal, immutable, infinite, being beside God.52

Berkeley noted the difficulty of conceiving matter as produced out of nothingand remarked that this was the reason why "the most celebrated among the ancientphilosophers, even of those who maintained the being of a God, have thoughtMatter to be uncreated and co-eternal Him" .53 This seems to be the reason for hisremark: "matter once allowed. I defy any man to prove that God is not matter. .. ".54Berkeley's concerns are more addressed to Locke and Hobbes than to Aristotle.Like Collier, however, he opposes the acceptance of such absolute uncreated beingsother than God by affirming a spiritualistic panentheism This he expresses early inthe Principles in the statement that "...all the choir of heaven and the furniture ofthe earth .. .subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit.. .". Of course Berkeley doesnot 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 thecontrary, it is thought of as one of the pivot-points of Berkeley's philosophy hisaffinity with Collier can be seen as consisting largely in a common ChristianPlatonic proto-philosophy.

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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 hiscentral thought (esse est percipi) was seen by him as a bulwark against both." LikeCollier, Berkeley was familiar with Malebranche's thought. But he was much morecritical, denying, for instance, that the doctrine of seeing all things in God evenmade sense. 56 Berkeley's philosophical agenda is much more extensive and he sawproblems 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, ofwhich Collier shows no awareness, that bodies are redundant in Malebranche'ssystem .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 tosimplicity of hypotheses. Collier makes more of theological and Scriptural issuesthan 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".59Given 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 anattempt to evolve his Christian Platonist philosophy from Genesis I: 1. While this iscentral to Collier it plays almost no part in Berkeley's deliberations.w Berkeley wascontent that his account should be consistent with the Bible and so consideredGenesis only when challenged by his correspondent Percival to reconcile hisaccount 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. Theyexisted from all eternity in the Divine Intellect. and then became perceptible (i.e. were created) in thesame manner and order as is described in Genesis."

Berkeley can hardly have been unaware of the Platonic language he was using inthis letter. Yet he seems to have been at this stage rather ambivalent in his attitudeto the Platonists, with whom he disagreed on a number of points of importance andfrom whose obscurantism he dissociated himself. Nonetheless he seems increas-ingly to have acknowledged and eventually even to have exaggerated the affinitybetween 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, andall 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 ofBodies 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


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 andtheirs agreed :

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

These remarks show how Platonic a Platonic Modern could be.64Siris 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 thefeatures of his earlier philosophy, including his immaterialism and his occasional-ism At all events it is evidence that the Platonic revival lasted well into theeighteenth century.

v

I have sought to show how the philosophies of Berkeley and Collier converged on aPlatonic idealism Both wished to deny the absolute existence of space, time andmatter outside the mind of God. Both affirmed, on the contrary, the dependenceupon God of all created things and expressed this by asserting that all things werein some sense contained in God. This tendency to idealism was certainly not newwith these Modern philosophers and a tendency to it was already present in thePlatonic tradition .I have suggested that a common Christian Platonist proto-philosophy, together

with the stimulus of Malebranche and a common aversion to materialism were themain factors making the philosophies of Collier and Berkeley converge. The samefactors appear to have been at work in promoting a degree of convergence betweenthe philosophy of Berkeley and Leibniz. Berkeley was unaware of this convergenceand seems to have known Leibniz largely from contributions to the Acta erudito-rum which are rather unrepresentative of Leibniz's philosophy and in particulargive little hint of his liking for Malebranche and Plato. Leibniz, on his side, wasaware that there was a degree of convergence between their philosophies. He wroteon 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 likea rainbow. Nor need we say that it is a substance ; rather that it is a result of substances; nor need we saythat 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 monads, all things thatare perceived. But the author should have gone much further , certainly as far as infinitely many monadsout of which, by means of pre-established harmony , everything is cornposed .v

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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 andindeed the reality of space and time. In fact it is not so easy to distinguishBerkeley's position from Leibniz's since both deny the existence of absolute spaceand time and Leibniz, like Berkeley, holds that there is nothing physical in isolationfrom 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 werecrucial for their Platonism. That may be one reason why the revival of Platonismmanifested 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 secondPlatonic 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, inthe influence of Malebranche. In focusing on the tendency to idealism I have soughtto fasten on one feature that distinguishes those associated with this revival fromthe 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 theywere published in the late I670s. There is, however, little evidence of significantinfluence in either case.66 Both Norris and Leibniz distanced themselves from thevitalism characteristic of More and the Cambridge Platonists. Both found ways toaccept the mechanical philosophy and reconcile it with their religious beliefs. Atthe same time, Leibniz always referred to More with respect, as indeed he did alsoto 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 worldImmediately " (Preface to T.I.S.U.) . Leibniz would have agreed. Where Leibnizdiffered from Cudworth was in wanting to allow the completeness of physical ex-planations that introduced no final causes. Cudworth's "plastic natures" were themeans whereby "the Wisdom of God" can

display itself abroad, and print its Stamps and Signatures every where throughout the World ; so that God, asPlato (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 thedivine intelligence to be reflected by dimly intelligent active causes throughoutnature . 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 theProduction of every Effect.69


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

Car les animaux [accord ing to Leibniz's system, at any rate] n'estant jamais formes naturellement d'unemasse 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 essentialModern principle that natural phenomena were to be explained mechanically andstill 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 tendency in each to avoid fideism and to oppose its corre-sponding stress on the arbitrary and inscrutable will of God. For the CambridgePlatonists 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 andrevelation 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 thatthere is a reason for things being the way they are other than the arbitrary will ofGod . 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 Powerof God only, which condemns't.P Similarly Cudworth argued that morality iseternal and immutable and insisted that "everything is what it is by Nature, and notby Will" ,73Cudworth 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 commonstarting-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 despotand 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, noryet 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 revealedto 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

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Malebranche, on the Bible, and so on faith The new Platonists, like the CambridgePlatonists, were unwilling to take such a poor view of human reason. Humanreason, like human nature, was for them not as base and incapable of perfection asfideism 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 divinenature. 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 theWorld". Leibniz also held this view, expressing it in terms of his own system bysaying that "every substance is at it were an entire world and a mirror of God, orrather the whole universe, expressing it in its own way... ".78 Berkeley suggestedthat "the steady consistent methods of nature may not unfittly bestiled the languageof its Author, whereby He discovers His attributes to our view ..." .79 Berkeleyusually 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 andit may be that he was positively influenced by it as well as finding in it points withwhich to disagree . In his Siris he acknowledges Plotinus as a forerunner of his ownview 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 discussinghave at least as much to do with their common roots as with the influence of oneupon the other.

Stuart Brown

NOTES

lowe a general debt to the work of Andre Robinet for a sense of the importance of Malebranche forLeibniz '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 toflourish in early eighteenth century England more than historians of the philosophy of that period haverecognised. 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 RoselyneDegremont.2 Ciavis Universalis, or. a New Inquiry After Truth being a Demonstration of the Non-Existence. orImpossibility 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 strictlyspeaking, nothing") (ibid, p. 97).4 See Siris 332. The unfashionable Renaissance Platonist sentiment is partially reflected also in theremark that "though , perhaps, it may not be relished by some modem readers, yet the treating in physicalbooks 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 theApostles may be presumed to have intended the phrase to be taken in a Stoic way. But Berkeley clearlyinterpreted 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.


The Berkeley citations include Philosophical Commentaries, 827, Principles ofHuman Knowledg e,66 and 149 and the title page of the Theory of Vision Vindicated. For citations in the Three Dialoguessee 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 probablylost, 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 interpretedthe "Platonic" passages of the Bible in the light of one another and took the early verses of John I tomean 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 existed not only by and through but in the Son ofGod .

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 truenatural 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 RenaissanceNeoplatonists who linked Moses with Plato through various legends of which the most famous was thatPlato learned his philosophy from the Hebrews . Collier, writing nearly a century later, did not pretend toextract the true science from the Book of Genesis but only the true metaphysics .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 thatpanentheists do not think of this relationship 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 Godbeing the "first cause". Thus he wrote that". . . before these created minds, there is, or was, an uncreatedmind, in which a whole heaven and earth existed, and does exist.. ." (Memoirs, p. 51). Berkeley, for hispart, held that everything is contained 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 Philosophy: in a Discourse on Genesis, the First Chapter andthe First Verse, (Sarum: Horton 1730), reprinted in Samuel Parr (ed.) Metaphysical Tracts by EnglishPhilosoph 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 certaincontrol over our thoughts. Leibniz included both Fludd and the occasionalists as among "those who denya true and proper act ivity to created things", (01'. cit., Vol. IV, p. 509) . (Leibniz, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, DiePhilo sophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz, (Berlin, 7 vols, 1875-90), reprinted Hildesheim andNew 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 del'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 ouvrageimprime. Cela doit apprendre 11 mes lecteurs qu 'il ne faut pas qu 'il s trouvent etrange que je fasse voirquelquefois que sur les rnatieres les plus mysterieuses de I'Evangile, la raison nous met 11 bout ; etqu 'alors nous devons nous contenter pleinement des lumieres de la foi." Dictionnaire historique et cri-tique , (ed. 1820-24 Paris) , Vol. XV, p. 52. (Reprinted Geneva: Slatkine , 1969).1& Locke , John , An Examination ofPere 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 "doctrineof transubstantiation". (Clavis, p. 126) Berkeley makes a more oblique reference in Principles, section124, where he claims that it would be impossible for the abstract idea of an infinitely invisible extensionto gain the assent of any reasonablecreature if "he was not brought to it by gentle and slow degrees, as apagan 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 theCharterhouse, Thomas Burnet, in whose honour he wrote a Platonic poem. His letter on Malebranchewas addressed to John Hough, formerly President of Magdalen and perhaps himself a supporter of thenew 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 readMalebranche in the original . She defended his views about the love of God against the Lockean RichardGwinnett . See Pylades and Corinna or. Memoirs of the lives amours. and writings of RichardGwinett.. ..and Elizabeth Thomas, (London, 1731), Volume 2, pp. 31-2.23 Andre Robinet, Malebranche et Leibniz; (Paris: Vrin, 1955). See my Leibniz, (Brighton : HarvesterPress, 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 anUnbridgeable Gap?" in Stuart Brown, (ed .) Nicolas Malebranche: His Philosophical Critics andSuccessors, (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 revocasseabducendi 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, (Darmstadtand 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, moveremagis 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 lespensees hyperboliques, et ont abandonne ce qui estoit plus simple et en meme temps plus solide , Ficinusne parle partout que d'idees, d' Ames du monde, de Nombres Mystiques et choses semblables, au lieu depoursuivre les exactes definitions, que Platon tache de donner des notions. Je souhaitterois quequelqu'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 toSpinoza 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 lesunes agissent sur les autres, quoique cela ne soit pas? En verite, it me semble que ce systerne n'estgueres plus avantageux que celui des Cartesiens; et si on a raison de rejetter Ie leur, parce qu'it supposeinutilement que Dieu considerent les mouvements qu'il produit lui-meme dans Ie corps, produit aussidans l'ame des pensees qui correspondent aces movemens ; comme s'il n'etoit pas plus digne que luide produire tout d'un coup les pensees et les modifications de l'ame, sans qu'il y ait des corps qui luiservent comme de regle, et pour ainsi dire, lui aprennent ce qu'il doit faire; n'aura-t-on pas sujet devous demander pourquoi Dieu ne se contente point de produire toutes les pensees et modifications del'ame, soit qu 'it Ie fasse imrnediaternent ou par artifice, comme vous voudriez, sans qu'it y ait descorps inutiles que I"esprit ne scauroit ni remuer ni connoistre?" (Leibniz, Philosophische Schriften,Vol. IV), p. 489 .


.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 July14, 1709 in which Collier affirms that God is the efficient, formal, material and final cause of alI things .He goes on to explain : "As material cause, etc., I mean the will that created is the very substantial matterof their being ; in other words , that particulars, as such, have no distinct substances of their own, but onlydifferent forms of similitudes to the one true substance, which one substance is the common substratumto 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 notionof matter.42 Partly for reasons of space I shall not attempt to bring this out in detail here. Nor can I hope toreview the not inconsiderable 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 fromreading Berkeley's Principles . It is sufficient to show, as I attempt to do, how their philosophies couldhave converged to the extent that they did .43 Collier's claim, in his Specimen of True Philosophy , that Berkeley "s Dialogues was the only otherwork 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 progress philosophy iClavis, p. 123) and not to have beenconcerned 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 havemade 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 , 62555 Collier's purpose is not to attack scepticism, but he is anxiou s to defend himself against the chargeof scepticism which it could be Norris made against him personally and which is represented as if itwere an objection coming from Norris (Clavis, pp. 1IOff.).56 Collier, by contrast, regards it as a variat ion on a familiar (Augustinian) doctrine: "Everyone, Isuppose, has heard of the doctrine of seeing the divine ideas, or (as Mr Malebranche expres ses it), seeingalI 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 denies this, "Ido not think, that either what philosophers calI matter, or the existence of objects without the mind isany 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. hisaccount 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 PreussischenAkademie 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 ofJohn Norris of Bemerton (1657-1712), (Hildesheim: Olms, 1979). On Leibniz's reception of More'sthought , 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 Press1989).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 CambridgePlatonists , (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 deMetaph ysique , Sect. 2.15 I have enlarged on this topic in "The Regularization of Providence in post-Cartesian Philosophy", inRobert Crocker , (ed .), Religion , Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe , (Dordrecht: KluwerAcademic, 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

PRESENTATION

Les manuscrits de Cudworth concernant le Iibre arbitre, logiquement intitulesFreewill, constituent un ensemble de volumineux folios detenus depuis la fin dudix-huitieme siecle, a la suite d'une histoire mouvementee, I par Ie ManuscriptDepartment de la British Library ou ils sont repertories comme suit: AdditionalManuscripts n04978 , 4979, 4980, 4981 et 4982 (respectivement 120p., 263p. ,316p., IISp. et 131p.). On peut egalement considerer qu'en font partie, acertainsegards, les folios 4983, intitule A Collection ofConfused Thoughts, MemorandumsRelating to the Eternity of Torments, Collected out ofmy Little Book, et 4984-4985qui portent pour titre Moral Commonplace Book (respectivement 108p., 138p. et109p.).De cette masse imposante de manuscrits, seulle premier (4978) a ete jusqu'a ce

jour integralement public en 1838 par John Allen.? Le fait ne surprendra guere siI'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 etqui 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 etrigoureuse Ie coeur de leur meditation concernant ce problerne majeur de lareflex 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 etdont on trouve un echo dans la deuxieme partie de notre article '''La nature est unart. ' Le vitalisme de Cudworth et de More". Soulignant d'abord, comme en maintesoccasions;' la difficulte du sujet aborde, Cudworth prend ensuite immediatementses distances par rapport a I'argumentation hobbesienne qui constitue a ses yeux ,comme aceux de More, Ie defi deterministe Ie plus dangereux pour une philosophieauthentiquement "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 aHobbes qu 'appetits et passions n'ont en eux aucun "pouvoir autonome" et que laseule liberte dont disposent les animaux, qui leur sont entierement soumis, consisteafaire ce vers quoi ils sont pousses sans que vienne s'interposer aucun obstacle ex-terieur . Mais , ace compte, ces creatures ne meritent ni louange, ni blame et n'ontdone aucune vie "morale". Et surtout, il n'en faudrait pas conclure, ce dont Hobbesne se prive pas , que la sensation et a fortiori la perception, I'imagination et dans un

217


218 R. CUDWORTH

sens general toute cogitation se reduisent au simple "mouvement local", seul typede 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 devie 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 aisementque 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 faitsd'experience quotidienne, et l'entendement rationnel ne peut s'inciter lui-meme as'exercer; de plus, la volonte ne peut se contenter de suivre la "derniere injonctionde I'entendement" car elle n'agirait pas alors librement. Mais si, a l'inverse, elle sedetermine "a l'aveuglette", sans se soucier de la lumiere de l'entendement, elle estaussi 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 doncproposer une "nouvelle hypothese psychologique". II convient de reconnaitre pre-mierement qu'il existe dans la vie de l'ame plusieurs "etages" ou "regions", parexemple: les appetits et passions, la raison inferieure "de notre propre utilite" et laraison superieure ou "instinct de l'honnetete"; et il faut deuxiemement admettrequ 'il existe dans l'ame un "foyer ou toutes ces lignes se rencontrent, ou elles sontreconciliees 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'interieurd'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" enchaque homme, source veritable de la vie morale. Et Cudworth de preciser ici ennote (notes 2 et 3) d'une part que le "relachement" de ce pouvoir rend compte desphenomenes oniriques (plus abondamment etudies dans d'autres textes-voir notrearticle) 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 parextension tout autre jugement, depend de ce pouvoir; il n'appartient pas plus aI'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 ades choses c1aire-ment fausses ou mauvaises. Mais il existe d'innombrables cas ou Ie caractere deI'objet est douteux ou incertain. Nous "nous etendons alors nons-memes plus loinque 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 nepourrions 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 lafoi 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 quideterminera son assentiment dans un sens ou un autre . Une fois l'acte accompli,elle prend la forme de la "conscience" approuvant ou desapprouvant sa propreconduite.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 "plaisiranimal" comme I'affirme Ie "theoreme" hedoniste ou epicurien, mais Ie "bien del'honnetete ou vie divine". Bien sur, I'homme ne peut desirer consciemment Ie malabsolu, 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 grandespace"? de choix possibles entre Ie mal absolu depourvu de toute trace de bien etIe bien absolu depourvu de toute trace de mal, il doit livrer un combat moral etspirituel 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 dese 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", monstrueuxcomme la sirene d'Horace9 et tout a fait etranger a Dieu que la hierarchic de sesattributs 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 tocomprise and summarily to represent in one word what we have to say concerningthe 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 fromCogitation as Anger and Feare and the like, have no Liberty or Self-Power in them,which seems to be sufficiently Evident by every mans owne inward Sense andExperience. And of those hormetick Inclinations that of the Author of the BookeDe 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 abipsis rebus cupitis vel exosis generata est. sequiturque Necessario praeconceptum jucunditatis molesti-aeque ab ipsis object is ad futura quid enim an esurimus caeteraque naturae necessaria. (Appetimus quiavolumus 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 hormetickInclinations, though they might be said to have a Liberty to doe what they have anAppetite unto, when there is no externall impediment to hinder them, yet they couldnot 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, itbeing Nature that acts in them rather than themselves!" and obtrude themselvesupon 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 acceleratethemselves, no internal Self-flexibility, but are meer swinges and Impetuocitys ofNature 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 butcorporeall 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 outwardobjects upon us as he (will take for granted who) affirms that every conception andtherefore intellection as well as Sense and Imagination are the Actions of the thingsconceived and not of the conceiver. For besides the Locall Motions impressed uponby Sense to which the Sentient is meerly passive, there is Phancy Appearance andPerception 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 foolishlyconceives Cogitation to be, but a Motion of a different Species such as does notbelong to Body but to an incorporeall Substance. Phancy and Perception in allSensations is a thing really distinct from the locall (p. 2) Motion antecedent, and afar greater Reality than that , being a Motion of a different Species from it, anAutocinecy 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 IncorporeallSubstance whose Nature is to be Self-active to exert Motion, Activity and Energyfrom it Self; Hunger, Thirst, Lust are Sensations of something that is troublesomein the Body with an Appetite or Desire consequent thereupon to be eased or freedfrom the Same. But there are certain other Appetites in Animals which none thatwell considers them can deny, but that they are the Activitys of the Animal or Soulit Self, such as are Ambition, Emulation, Pride, Desire of praecellency, Honour andApplause 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 mustneeds arise from that Active and Bubbling fountaine of Animall life within .Wherefore these things are not meer Passions Mechanically caused in us, but thereis 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 cannotDetermine, Regulate and Govern themselves, therefore we are not thought to be somuch 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 thenature of Lubency, yet in one of them there is no Self-Determining power, in the


other there is, that one hath a Single Self-Activity in it only, so that it acts indeedfrom it Self but necessarily, it is not above its owne Action nor Master of it, norcommands it as the other which is Will doth ; which Will is a thing we are plainlySensible 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 and0PIJ.-T1 result from Phancy and Imagination. But this definition is Iyable to somevery great Exceptions. For first if Will be a Rationall Appetite, then it could neveract irrationally and so there could not be sin in the world. All sin is by will and tosay that that Will which determines all sinfull that Actions and is the Cause of themis a Rationall Appetite is it Self irrationall, Reason being the only Natural Rule ofVertuous and Morally good Actions.Againe if Will be the Result of Rationall Understanding, then it always follows

after the Natural Understanding, whereas it is commonly conceived and likewiseconfirmed by inward Experience that the Natural Understanding is determined bothto its Exercise and its Object by a Free Principle in us or by Will ; Lastly if Will bethe Result of the Rationall Understanding, then it must necessarily follow the lastdictate and Resolution of it ; for indeed it would be nothing else but theUnderstanding it Self (p. 3) extended outward towards action, And so there wouldbe 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 Soulebecause the understanding acts necessarily and the Will necessarily follows thatNecessary Understanding. And this will again destroy the Nature of Sinne. Now ifthis Will doth not necessarily follow the Dictate of the Understanding but being ablind Faculty and devoid of all Understanding, determines it Self any way it mustneeds be as irrationall as Brutish 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 thismanner. 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 largercomprehension of our owne Utility and Superior Reason or the instinct of Honesty,besides the Speculative Understanding and other Powers, there must of necess ity bein the Soul one common focus or Center in which all these Lines may meet, someone thing in which all is reconciled and knit together, something that is consciousof all congruitys both higher and lower, of all the Cogitative Powers and Facultiesin the Soul (for the Seminall and Plantall ones - if she has any such - belong not toits cognisance), which also can wield, steer and guide the whole Soul and exercise aPower and Dominion over the Several Faculties of it. Now this is the whole Souleredoubled 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 wayand that way.This in all freewilled Self-powerfull Beings is the Head and Summity or Top of

them, the 1'0 -f)'YEIJ.-0VLKOV the Ruling Principle in them and not the Notional orSpeculative 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 understandingas that blind will which others would have to be the Mistress and Governess of theSoul, it summing up and comprehending all that is in the whole Soul.!' This is theAlJTOEKCW'TOC;, that which is properly called I my Self in every man and accordingto the disposition of it as it turns and fabricates it Self (as it converts it Self, as itframes and), as it exerts its owne Activity towards the Higher Principle in the Soulmore or lesse so is everyone morally denominated good or bad.P This is thatwhich is commonly called Will, when that word is taken properly, not for anyLubency in generall but as distinct from animall Appetite: the Soul as redoubledand reflected upon it Self, recollected and knit up together into it Self, hanging titeand loose, hovering in suspence, acting upon it Selfe and determining it Self andbeing 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 strivesagainst them, the issue of which contest is that either that which strives, or thatwhich is striven against, conquers and prevails , accordingly whereunto the Soul ofman 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 reboundingupon it Self, acting upon it Self, and determining it Self to one or other of them forwhen it seems conquered by the inferior, it is not meerly passive, but doth activelydetermine it Self to a sluggish Succumbence to the Same.PAgaine 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 itSelf the cause of the changes of its actions; now for a thing to change it Self is to workor act upon it Self which implys a certaine duplicity, for when the same thing is bothAgent and Patient, it is both one and the same thing and yet it is double (within it Selfeand superior to it Selfe). Moreover this redoubled and reflexive ray of the Soul canagain reflect upon it Self, in which it is like a Secondary Echo, or an Echo repeated orreverberated upon it Self. It can more or lesse attend to it Self, and tum it Self inwardclosely, recollect it Self, excite, quicken and awaken it Self, gird up and set it Self toaction, 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 Soulethat command that it hath over it Self and argue a reflexiveduplicity 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 thatdetermines the action for that which determines would not know what is deter-mined. Wherefore that Judicium Practicum that is so often mentioned byScholastick writers and attributed by them to the understanding as a distinct facultyfrom the will doth plainly belong to this redoubled Self-active life of the Soule andindeed it is really one and the same thing with the will; the last Practicall Judgmentof 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 alwaysfollow the last practicall judgment is very absurd (for it is as if they should dispute


whether the will follows it Self), and yet that determination is still more absurdwhich resolves that the will doth not always follow the last practicall judgment, thatis in theire sense that it doth dissent from it, for this is to make it dissent from itSelf. But it is very true that the will and last Practicall Judgment which are all onedoe often dissent both from the dictate of honesty which is Superior Reason andfrom the understanding as nature in us. The not distinguishing of which twoRegions 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 Philosophyto make all Judgment to belong to the naturall and necessary understanding that isthe 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 notdone 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 freewillis often called by the name of Arbitr ium 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 whichwe call the Soul redoubled and Self-active. For whatsoever passes through thewhole Soul must needs have a Stroke here . Perception is indeed an Act of thenatural understanding which is something in us, but it is not we ourselves, but theJudgment is the act of the man, or the whole Soul, and nothing passes through thewhole 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 betrue as the natural understanding clearly perceives, but this is no argument thattherefore this Judging and Assenting doth properly belong to the Understanding asnature , or the perceptive power in us. For we doe also in like manner necessarilywill in some cases as shall be showed afterwards (neither are we free to evill assuch); 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 thingand the essence of both to consist in indifferency to everything till it be determinedby it Self which some call Activa Indifferentia. for there is not, nor cannot be anynatural power or faculty that is indifferent to all things and hath no propension toone thing, no more than there can be any being without some determinate form innature. Where there is evill without any appearance of good imaginable , there theaversation is necessary . In like manner we cannot assent to things clearly false ordissent from things evidently true. But in Doubtful or Uncertaine cases when thereare some probabilitys both wayes, but the natural understanding doth not clearlyperceive 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 theoriginall of all error, that the will (as they call it, but we the Soul redoubled upon itSelfe and Self-active) doth often extend it Self further in judging and assenting thanour natural perceptions goe. But yet it is necessary that in such beings as we arewhose knowledge is so imperfect, there should be a power of extending our assentand Judgment beyond the c1earnesse of naturall perceptions. All our practicallJudgments 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 couldjudge nothing to be good or evill in life but what we clearly perceived to be suchwithout any doubt or ambiguity, the actions of humane life would be very often at astand. And as for other Speculative opinions, Religion supposes that assent andJudgment beyond knowledge and perception is not only possible, but also oftennecessary 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 certainedemonstration of either of them. And it is necessary that they should have a powerin these cases of extending their assents farther than certaine knowledge. Hence itcomes to passe that there is culpability in errors of Judgment concerningSpeculative 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 wherebyits assent is determined this way and that way, it doth resolve to account this forTrue and that for False and to let it passe for such so far as concernes it Selfe andits own actings . (p. 6) Which is that which is commonly called Judging, whichJudging is in Man what the cognitio causarum or Forensick Judgment is in aCommonwealth, which is not always infallibly Right according to the Lawe, butwhere Interest and Affection have often a great Stroke. Though sometimes throughwant 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 asredoubled 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, reflectingupon it Self afterwards doth either approve or disapprove of what it hath done andaccordingly accuse and condemn it Self. These are various denominations for oneand the same thing differently displaying it Self; that is the redoubled Self-active lifeof the Soule is Judgment, Will, and Conscience, it being both the common sense ofthe 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, andtherefore that Voluntas and Liberum Arbitrium are not terms of equal extent butthat the Will acteth in some things as nature and in other things as free and having apower over its actions. It is impossible that any natural power should be indifferentto all things, as it is commonly said that all motion must be upon something that isimmoveable ; so self-power and freewill must needs be founded in something that isnaturall and necessary. Wherefore this redoubled Self-active life of the Soule whichis really the same thing with that which is called Will must needs have some naturaland necessary inclination upon it. For we do not will merely because we will but itis always for the sake of some good, Nemo eligit ut eligat. nemo vult ut velit. nemofacit ut faciat. the end of all motion and action is something that is not moved butstanding .


Now it is vulgarly said that the Will is not free ad Summum Bonum but that it isalways naturally and necessarily determined towards it. But since it is confessedthat the chief good of man is the Bonum Honestatis or the Divine Life which is notessentiall to humane Souls, it follows from thence that the will or Soule is free tothis, though this freedome be partly a perfection and partly an imperfection. For itis the imperfection of its nature, that it is not essentially just and righteous, but mayfall 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) concludethat 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 whichis desirable, and so for its own sake and honesty or right morality only for the sakeof it, that Delectatio quae ex virtute et honesti rectique studio existit posterior estpostponenda naturae ordine delectationi quae ex voluptatum carnalium commercioest, 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 thatman 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 asjucundity or delectation or rather as congruity . It cannot possibly pursue after anyevill as such, that is as it is incongruous to it, but only as taking notice of somethingof good in it. Wherefore if we suppose extremity of bodily tortures and Death to beexposed as that no manner of good can emerge from it, neither the good of honestynor the good of Fame, nor the good of Relations to be left behind, the will, that isthe Soule redoubled upon it Selfe, would have a necessary aversation from it, asnecessary as the descent of a stone downward. There are likewise many cases thathappen in human life in which the good of Utility of pleasure, honour and honestydoe so conspire as that the Will doth in a manner naturally and necessarily, withoutany wavering or hesitation, embrace the same. Moreover , besides this immutablenature of the will, or redoubled Self-active life, there is also a factitious naturewhich is Iyable to habituall dispositions, Self-contractable,!' which doe stronglyincline 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 hathsome naturall congruity or other with the Soule, and to avoid the contrary evill andin 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 inwhich extremity of evill in some kind appears without the least mixture of good inany other kind. Yet notwithstanding there is a greate latitude and compasse betwixtboth 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 thegreatest evill , for the evill of dishonesty hath often in it the good of pleasure , easeand 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 agreate compasse for the Will or redoubled Self-active life to exercise contingentliberty in and actively to determine it Selfe to this or that particular good that iseither to the good of honesty or to the good of utility and Jucundity , to the Divineor 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 theSoule as between particular lusts and AnimalI Appetites, betwixt particular ap-petites and inferior reason, but that which is greatest of alI betwixt the wholeAnimalllife 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 onewaye or another. 15Thus also in alI other doubtful opinions where the naturall understanding discov-

ers probabilitys both wayes and doth not clearly perceive the truth or falsehood ofeither , it being very often necessary or highly convenient that some resolution orother should be made, the Soule as redoubled and Self-active doth here interposeand venture to determine its assent either to this or that, Adding something of itsown to the moments of Reason that appear on one side or other to cast the Scalethus endeavouring to supply its own defect of knowledge and understanding by thisSelf-actively judging power which is often too pragmaticall and very much abusedby such who, though they know scarcely anything, yet will judge and determine allthings in the whole Universe . But in matters of life, there is a necessity of makingpracticalI judgments of good and evill that by long suspense the opportunitys ofaction 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 deliberatingmore or lesse , and accordingly may temerariously act one way or other or usemature consultation, which must needs produce divers effects for when it doth notdeliberate sufficiently it may determine otherwise than it would have done if it hadused mature consultation and both these are in the power of the Soul as calIed by thename of Will. The Soul may more or lesse introvert it Selfe or turne the way of itscogitation inward upon it Selfe, attend to its owne actions and expand the differentSentiments of its own mind and weigh them within it Self. It may be more or lessewatchfull, carefulI and circumspect, excite or quicken it Selfe more or lesse to theuse 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 betwixtthe higher and lower principles, the Animall instinct, and the instinct of honesty andmorality, the Soul as redoubled and Self-active hath plainly in it a power or strengthto promote it Selfe towards the higher good which is it Self determinable and maybe more or less exerted by it. It may either put forth a vigorous force or Conatus toresist 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.


The Soul may plainly either relaxate its own powers and Vigours or put forth itSelf into a tonick exertion of those Sinewes and Nerves," those powers andstrengths which it is conscious to it Selfe of. Accordingly as it is either in such anexerted or non exerted condition, will it be apt to have different Judgments ofthings and consequently to act differently; when it is recollected into it Self andstands upon its watch, it will immediately repell those assaults and temptationswhich 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 inpracticalls but also in theoreticalls. Accordingly as it doth Stir up it Selfe to ahigher pitch or let it Self fall to a lower pegg, hence are those exhortations in theHoly Oracles to have our Loynes girt and Lamps burning and (p, 9) to gird-up theLoynes of the mind. Now according to those differences mentioned which the Soulhath a contingently Self-determining power over, will arise great differences ofoutward 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 someone consideration than to another and thereby add more or lesse to the weight ofsome Reasons and considerations and so resolve otherwise than it should do if ithad 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 ofFreewilled Beings these Actions were always perfectly contingent, and there wasno more certainty aforehand of theire doing one thing than another. For a Beingconstantly so indifferent to all things would be a meer monstrosity in Nature. Butso much may be granted that in all Freewilled Beings which are neither Good norBad essentially, there may be a contingent possibility in Length of time of theirchanging from Vertue to Vice and again from Vice to Vertue, of their ascending tothe Divine Life and of theire descending againe from it, which are those CircuitusAnimarum. those Circuits of Souls which some Philosophers have supposed. I sayaccording to Reason and Philosophy unless a Divine Fate interposing fix them any-where, this may be granted for freewilled Beings which are not essentiallyRighteous 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 Animallsneed continuall refection and reparation to preserve them in the same state of healthand strength and if this be wanting would of themselves insensibly, by little andlittle, 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 notessentially Good and Wise, this ranke of selfpowerful freewilled Beings being acertaine middle rank of natures that transcend the state of brutish Animality, but fallshort of that Being which is absolutely perfect or of those created vase;, if there beany 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 amphibiousthing, and therefore, according to the different use of it deserves Commendacionor Blame; it is a self-determinable power or weaknesse . Whenever it exerts itsstrength and vigour towards (p, 10) a higher principle, it is a power indeed , andits actings deserve praise and commendacion, but when it doth determine it Selfto 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 andpassive sluggish complyance with Brutish Appetite, it abuseth it Selfe and makesit Self become unnaturall. There is nothing in the whole world that can be anactive cause of its own Unnaturality and degeneracy, besides this, wherefore it isa 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 inbeings not essentially and immutably perfect to grasp after their own perfect ionby a Self-exerted Conatus of their own, a power actively to promote themselves,further and further by degrees to surmount and transcend themselves; as thebodys of animalls move by a successive advancing and setting of one leg beforeanother 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 intheir own hand and dispose, Self-determinable and therefore they may fail in theuse 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 apass ive compliance with the worse Principle, as well as to a vigorous exertiontowards 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 SelfTo conclude therefore, Liberum Arbitrium is not Indifferency but Self-power, a

Power which the Soul as redoubled and Self-active hath of exerting a VigorousConatus towards the Higher Principle of Honesty and Reason, or of not exertingthe same, of Determining it Selfe towards the better or the worse, of exerting itSelfe more or lesse together with full Command over the Famulative Powers, theUnderstanding 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 powerover 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 andadvancing 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


or seipso pejor. prevail over the imperfection which its nature is Iyable to andmaster 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. IS It iscapable of Selfe-satisfaction or Self-dissatisfaction, of inward regret, remorse andrepentance and sometimes of a Desire of Self-revenge. This is the only being thathath a Self-condemning and Self-acquitting Conscience; Conscience a reflexiveJugdment upon its owne actions and Volitions as being either laudable orculpably defective onely belongs to this. Lastly, it is a peculiar millo') of thisbeing 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 orbelow 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 isa Being infinitely perfect and with whom there is no Variableness nor Shadow ofchange, 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 beingto seek what to doe, who doth not keep up or repair his flitting being by any newexerted Conatus contention or tugging within him Selfe, but comprehends and is allhis 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 perfectlya&rE~OU(no'), Sui Dominus. Lorde and master of him Self and most truly free notin a compounded manner as if there were such a duplicity in him as in Freewilledbeings 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 andperfection .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 orexercise Dominion over the world in so much as that those Authors who doe notassert God to be free to everything (p, 12) but to be necessarily determined by somedifferences of good and evill as to a few things, so that he cannot doe something adextra, yet as to the most of his actions, they contend that he must have a LiberumArbitrium and determine them only by a contingent Arbitrary Will, we will firstconsider 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 indoing only what one listeth, willeth, or pleaseth, meerly because one so willeth, thatit can free it Self from all necessary determinations of reason and wisdome, andthat it can act as well against reason as with it. And this seems to be the truemeaning of that vulgar definition of Freewill or Liberty that it is Positis omnibus adagendum requisitis posse agere vel non agere: that it consisteth in indifferency ofacting 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 essenceand 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, thatreason which dictates what is most agreeable to his owne private utility ; now theground reason of this assertion seems to be this because such an indifferency hathan appearance of Dominion and power absolute and uncontroulable. So that happi-nesse in their apprehension consisteth in nothing else than such a free indifferentundetermined liberty of doing what one lists, because one listeth together with irre-sistible power of executing or accomplishing the same. And many conceive that theglory of the deity consisteth only in such a liberty of will assisted with infinitepower to execute the same,'? but others who think that God's will is determined insome few things by the natures of Justice and Injustice , yet they imagine that hecould not be God unlesse in all other things, that is in the most of things, he hadsuch 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 reasonof his will but his will it Selfe. For they apprehend that otherwise God would haveno dominion over his creatures if he were desisted of such an arbitrary freewill. Butthis is a spurious and adulterate notion of Freewill, it is not the description of thepower 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 isnothing else but lust and animall appetite or animal freewill, freewill respectingonly 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'avoirrendue possible . La pagination en cours de texte est celie du manuscrit. Les notes ou ajouts appelees pardes 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 ofFreewill par John Allen (voir ci-dessous).2 Ralph Cudworth, A Treatise ofFreewill , ed. J. Allen (Londres, 1838); traduction francaise: Traite demorale et Traite du libre arbitre , int, trad., notes par J. L. Breteau, (Paris: P.U.F., 1995).3 Par exernple, Add. Man. n04982, p. I : "If what I shall say concerning Freewill seems unsatisfactoryto any , I shall think it no Marvel at all, for I never was myself fully satisfied in any Discourse which Iread of it." & Add. Man. n04979, p. 16: "The nature of Freewill [.. .] hath been indeed more perplexedthan elucidated by those voluminous Discourses that have been written concerning it".4 Thomas Hobbes, De Homine, xi, 2, trad . ang. Ch, T. Wood, T . S. K. Scott-Craig and Bernard Gert inMan and Citizen (New-York : Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1972), pp. 45-46:

From this it can be understood that neither our appetite nor our aversion causeth us to desire or shunthis or that ; that is we do not desire because we will . For will itself is an appet ite ; and we do not shunsomething because we will not to do it, but because now appetite, then aversion, is generated by thosethings desired or shunned, and a preconception of future pleasure and displeasure necessarily followsfrom those same objects. What then : Do we desire food and the other necessities of nature because wewill? Are hunger, thirst and desires voluntary? When desiring, one can, in truth , be free to act; onecannot however, be free 10desire.; Notons qu'il va ici jusqu'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 ofFreewill de "pouvoir stochastique" .

Voir notre article '''Un grand espace pour la liberte ' : Le dilemme du Iibre arbitre dans la pensee deRalph Cudworth", Archives 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 andArs Poetica , ed. trad. ang. H. Rushton Fairclough [London: Heinemann et Cambridge Mass.: HarvardUP, 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 actcoherently and consistently and therefore when this is Relaxated or in a Languor, as in Sleepe, all theother Strings of the Soul played upon make no Music or Harmony. Thoughts being absurdly incoherentwith one another . This is the arbitrator of all Differences, the umpire of all controversies in the Soul, itbeing neither the same thing with Passion and Appetite, nor with Reason and Honesty, (but they and itbeing 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 thisWe 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 isconcocted 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 Masterand 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 aCircle, 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. Thereis a Talk of Hating Good as Good, and Loving Evill as such. But it is rather to be thought impossiblethat 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, asthat 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 relaxatethem and let it fall down.17 It hath a higher and lower principle in it, it is capable of many gradations upward and downward sothat there is a vast distance betwixt the extremitys of it, and most probably all self-willed beings arecapable of morality or honesty which is a higher principle of life and action, than Selfish Animality andAppetite .IX Commendacion and blame belong to this being in a particular manner from all other beings, for thisis blamed or commended as being the active cause of its owne good or hurt, and there is no Culpa in theproper Sense anywhere else. This is the only being that hath a self-exerted Conatus of its own, that canset 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 ofits own counsell.19 And therefore that Gods will was free, that is indifferent ad omnem rationem Veri et Boni to makeanything to be true or false, good or evill, this being the greatest argument of his power and Sovereignty .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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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): TercentenaryStudies, (Dordrecht, Boston & London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), pp. 218-234.

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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 suanatura immortales, (Cambridge, 165\).The True 1ntellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein. all the Reason andPhilosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and its 1mpossiblity demonstrated, (London : RichardRoyston, 1678; Facsim. Stuttgart: Fromamm, 1964). Reprint with notes and Dissertations ofDr. J. L. Mosheim, with an Introduction by G.AJ. Rogers, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995,3Vols (vol. 3 contains also T.E.l.M.) (abbreviated as T.l.S.U.). Lat. Trans.: Mosheim: Systemaintellectuale huius universi, (lena, 1733). Trad. ital.: Sistema intellettuale dell'universo diRadolfo 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 : GarlandPublishing Inc., 1976); new ed. by S. Hutton, (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1996). (abbreviated asT.E.1.M.) .A Treatise ofFreewill, (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.): MoralCommonplace Book.; n? 4983: A Collection of Confused Thoughts, Memorandums Relatingto 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).Democritus Platonissans, (Cambridge : Roger Daniel, 1646; reprinted: Augustan ReprintSociety, 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 AnthroposophiaTheomagica and Anima Magica Abscondita, (London: J. Flesher, 1650).

233

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234 BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Second Lash of Alazonomastix Philalethes, (originally London: J. Flesher, 1651), inMore, 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 ofNatureand the Light ofReason (London : J. Flesher , 1659, in C.S.P.W.. 1.2) (ed. A. Jacob , Dordrecht :Nijhoff. 1987)An Explanation of the Grand Mystery ofGodliness. Or A true and Faithful Representation ofthe Everlasting Gospel Ofour Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. the Onely Begotten Son ofGodand 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 etMorus , 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. orDr 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) (abbreviatedas D.D.)Enchiridion Metaphysicum : sive de Rebus Incorporeis succincta et lucculenta Dissertatio ,(London , 167lin Opera Omnia. 1.11,1) (abbreviated as E.M.).Discourses on Several Texts ofScripture, (London : for B. Aylmer, 1692).A Collection of Several Philosoph ical Writings, (London, 1662; reprinted: New-York etLondon: 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).

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(Edinburgh: Nelson 1948-57),9 vol.Browne, Thomas, The Works , ed.: G. Keynes, (London : Faber and Faber, 1964)

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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

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Norris, John, A Theory and Regulation of Love, A Moral Essay in Two Parts, to which are added LettersPhilosophical 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 Intell igible World, (London : S. Manship & W. Hawes,1701-(4).Cursory Reflections Upon a Book call'd "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" ,(London : S. Manship, 1713).

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INDEX

Accident, 112, 113, 117Action, 40, 41, 42, 43, 229Activity, 221ADDISON, 200Alchemy, 135Analogy, 122Anglicanism, 17Animism, 166, 167Anticipations!ProlepsislPrenotions, 81, 113,

117,177Antidote against Atheism, 136Apparition, 125Appetite, 221, 227 , 229AQUINAS, 57, 68ARISTOTLE, 4, 17, 18, 28, 50, 56, 80, 88,

106,107,112,113,120,146,148,150,174,202,205

Arminianism, 25, 27ARMINIUS, 26ARNAULD, 174Art, 148, 149Atheism, ix , 18,20,83, 102, 137, 146, 148,

173,189Atom, Ill, 113, 114, 117,118, 120,178, 195Atomism, 116, 117, 119, 136, 179, 193AUGUSTINE (St) , 55, 56, 68, 70, 115, 161,

198,202,203Automaton, 177AUZOUT,188

BACON, 3,17,28BAYLE, 106, 152,200BERKELEY, 69,113,114,117,120,197,198,

200,203-208,210Bible, 198Body, 39,62,64,67,81 ,86, 119, 132, 134,

136,146,165,177-179,189,206,221BOYLE, 9, 120, 136, 145, 152BRAHE (Ticho), 17BRAMHALL, 40, 41, 42BROWNE,56Burnet, 9, 10,28BURTHOGGE, 112, 121, 123

Calvinism, x, 12,25,26,58,130,131,135,197

CANGUILHEM, 153CARNEADE, 192CASSlRER,3, 101CASTELLION, 28, 132Cause,40,42,43,47,51,84, 102, 108, 113,

115, 118, 124, 125, 159, 160, 161, 164,165,174,175,177,200,221

CHARRON,28CHERBURY, Herbert of, 65, 84,122CHILLINGWORTH, 28CHRIST,8CICERON, 28, 80, 83, 85, 192CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, 57, 66 , 79Cogito, 176COLLIER, 197, 198, 199,200,204,205,206Common notion, 80Conatus,44, 118,227,229,230Conscience, consciousness, awareness, 6,

13,66,149,151,222,225,230Contingency, 51Conversion, 130CONWAY, 11, 187COPERNICUS, 135, 137CROMWELL,9CUDWORTH, 3-6, 8-11, 18-26, 39-42, 45,

46,48,49,58,65,69-71,79,101-123,145-153,161 ,173-179,187,188,191-195,208-210

CULVERWELL,57,64,66,69

Deliberation , 41Democracy, 12, 138DEMOCRITUS, ix, 39,114, 116, 125, 191,

193Democritus Platonissans, 136DESCARTES,ix,x,4,5, 17,24,27,47,59,79,

114, 136, 138, 145, 149, 152, 153, 159,161-166,168,173-180,187,197,198,200,201,203,208,209

Desire, 44 , 151,221Destiny, 148Determinism, 130, 179Divine Dialogues, 137DOlLEY, 19Dream, 137, 138, 139, 151,152DU TERTRE, 202

245

246 INDEX

EcPHANTE, 193, 194Emanation, 160, 161EMPEDOCLE, 148Empiricism, 111,112,113,114, 123, 179Encyclopedie, 147Energy, 167Entelecheia, 194Enthusiasm, ix, 5, 6, 18,20,24,60,63,137,

146EPICrETE, 86, 119EPICURE, 88, 112, 114, 116, 117episcopacy, 12Esiscomus , 20, 21Epistemology, 65ERASMUS, 28ERIGINA, 199Essence, 47, 118, 176-180Eternal and Immutable Morality, 120Experience, 59, 66, 81, 179, 180,219Extension, 167, 205

Faith,70, 175, 197,200,210,225Fall , 67FICINUS, 4, 131, 202FLUDD, 188, 199Force, 166, 167, 195Form; substantial form, 113, 161, 188, 194FOUCHER,203FOWLER,6,7,II,64Freedom, see LibertyFree will, 23, 146, 150, 189,228,230

GABBEY,7, 12, 145, 150GALE,65GALILEO, 5,17,135,203GASSENDI,5, 17,28,174,175,179,193,

194,201GELL,131Gigantomachias, 193GILBERT, 17, 18,28GLANVILL, 6, 64, 113, 152God, 5-8, 11-13, 19,22,24,26,43,47,48,

55-58,68,80-85,101-108,115,120,130-132, 134, 137, 138, 147, 152,160-167,173-178,190-192,195,198-210,230,231

Good,22,44-46,56,84, 104, 138, 152,160,174,191,192,209,223,226,227,228

Gravity, 159, 160GREVILLE, 57, 60, 61, 68GROTIUS, 28GUNNING,20

HALES, 130HALLYWELL, 64HAMMOND, 21, 28Harmony, 123, 126, 146HARRE, 167HARTLIB,I2HARVEY, 17, 150Hegemonikon , 45, 80, 81Hell,85HELMONT (Van), 147HENRY, 145HERACLITE, 148HOBBES,5,9,11 ,23,39,40,42,45,46,47,

49,60,69,85,113-117,150,174,175,187,190-193,205

HOLDSWORTH, 7, 8HOOKER,28HOWARD,3HUME, 58, 114, 117, 159HUTTON,145Hydrostatics, 145

Idea, 107,112, 113,1l5,I17,121, 124, 161,175-180

Idealism, 175, 197, 199,205,207,208Identity, 45Illumination, ix, 64, 68, 130-137Imagination, 177,221Immaterialism, 71, 205immortality, 84, 131Immortality ofthe Soul, 136Impact, 162, 164Impenetrability, 178Impulse, 167Independence, 87Indifferent things , 49Influx, 159, 160Information, 167INGE,3Inherence, 112Innate, 24, 66,67,69,114,165,177Instinct, 152Intellect, 108, 145, 177,221Intelligible, 107, 117, 125Inward sense, 132

JACKSON,57,59,64-69JANET, 147, 153JENKES, 19,28JEWELL,28JOHN (St) , 60Judgrnent, 224,225,230Justice, 11,39,42,46,48, 192

INDEX 247

KIDDER,20knowledge, 10,25,46,67,69, 113, 115,

120,124,135,139,175,177,179,180

LABRCE (Diogenes), 148LAROMIGUIBRE,153Latitudinarianism, 6, 17LAUD,28, 132LE CLERC, 147LEIBNIZ, ix, x, 69, 105, 147, 153, 159, 162,

167,187,191,194,195,197,201-210LEUCIPPUS, 191, 193Liberty, Freedom, Liberum Arbitriurn, v; 13,

20-27,41-43,46,84.87,134,147,152,174,217,219,222,224,226,229,230

LIMBORCH (von), 19,20,23,25,27LIPSIUS, 79, 81, 84, 87, 88LLOYD,18LOCKE, x, 6, 9, 64, 69,111-115,117,121,

187, 198,200,201 ,204,205loi naturelle,Logoi spermatikoi, 148

MADDEN,167Magistrate, 26Magnetism, 159MALEBRANCHE,68,70, 105, 147, 159, 160,

163,197-200,203,207,209Malin genie, 174MASHAM (Lady), 153, 187, 188, 191, 195Materialism, ix, 5, 9, 39, 69, 179, 180,206Matter, 42, 101-108, 119, 122, 124,

134-136, 147, 149, 163-168, 179, 199,204,205,207

Meaning, 122Mechanicism, 102, 105, 108, 136, 146, 179MELANCHTON, 17Middle term, 113, 126MILTON,28Mind, 60, 165Monads, 187, 193, 194, 195,203,207Monarchy, 12Monism, 199Morals, 40 , 43MORE, Henry, 3-7,11-13,18,19,26,27,

39,55,58,60-68,79,122,129,130,132, 134, 137-139, 145, 147, 149, 150,152, 153, 160-167, 178, 187, 194,208

Moses, x, 55, 79,114,198MOSHEIM, 101, 104, 106, 108Motion, 5, 146,162, 163, 164, 166, 178,

179,194,221

Natural law, 6, 49,85,106,195Natural right, 192Nature , 4. 24, 25, 82, 101-109, 149,210Necessitarism, 39Necessity, 9, 41, 45,51,108,119,150-152,

160NEWTON,X,9,208Nominalism, 175Nonconformists, 7Norm, 46NORRIS, 62, 68, 150, 187, 197, 198, 201,

203,204,208,209

Obligation, 48Occasionalisrn, 165,200,207,221Occultism, 162OCKHAM,47OLDENBURG, 28Opinion, 86, 224ORIGEN, xi, 56, 58, 61-67, 81, 88, 139OWEN,6

Pantheism, 199,205PARKER,28,64,69Passions, 44, 86, 219PASSMORE, 105, 147PATRICK, Simon, 17, 18,28PATRIZZI,202PAUL (St), 62, 63,133,198Perception, 221, 224Phancy, 221Phantasm, 112, 125Phantasy, 66Phenomena, 195PHILO,56PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA, 57PIERCE,21Plastic natures, 102-108, 119, 147-149,

151,153,195,208PLATO,ix,x,4,23,28,55-67, 70, 79,85,

104,148,160,161,167,189,192,201,202,203,206,208

PLOTINUS,4,56,58-61,68,79,84,85 ,101-109,119,131,134,146,148,149,160,203,210

PLUTARQUE,83POELENBURG,19,20,21Politics, 4, 10, 12,26-28,48Power, 12, 101, 167,222,227,228Predestination, 20-26, 43Predetermination, 43Pre-existence, 64Preformation, 153

248 INDEX

Prejudice, 138Presbyterianism, 12, 132PRocLUs,206PROTAGORAS,46, 114, 125, 175Providence, 84, 85, 102-107, 138, 147, 189Psychathanasia, 135Psychozoia, 132, 134PUFENDORF, 28Puritanism, 17, 18, 20PYTHAGORAS, X, 87, 139

Qualities, 113-117, 120, 188

Reason, x, 5, 6, 18,25,43,60,80,83,86,106,118,119,125,126,174,175,179,180,222,227,230,231

Relation, iv, 47 ,111-123Relativism, x, 39,46Religion, 5, 12, 83REMOND, 187, 202Remontrants, 19,21Representation, 200Res cogitans, 179Res extensa, 178, 179Revelation, 24, 28ROACH, 139ROBINET,201ROUSSEAU, 88RUST, 64

Scepticism, 113, 114,200,201,206Scholastic, 7,17,135,150,163,166,197,

204,223Sel~45, 134,223,224,227,228,229SENECA, 28, 80,84, 87Sensation, 10, 82, 178, 179Sense, 112, 114, 115, 120-126, 135, 138,

180,221SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, 112Shape, 163Signatures, 176, 208Sign, 179SIMPLICIUS, 86Sin, 67 , 222Size, 163, 164SMITH, 4, II, 18,60,66,79,80,83,88Socinianism,21SOCRATES, 56, 60, 62, 166Soul, 10,44-46,60-62,67,80,81,84,86,

87,105,119,131-139,146,150,152,153,178,179,189,195,206,221-229

Soul of the world, 59 ,107,146,153Space, 199,204,207

Speed, 164SPINOZA, 27,114,146,187,192Spirit, 113, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122,

125, 134, 136, 177, 178Spirit of Nature, 160SPRAT, 6State, 13,22STERRY, 57, 60STEUCO, 79, 81STlLLlNGFLEET,6, 18,59,61,65,66,67,187STOBEE, 193Stoicks, 79, 80, 85, 86, 88, 101, 102, 118,

119,146,148,180STRATON DE LAMPSAQUE, 146SUAREZ, 198,204Substance, 112, 113, 117, 137, 146, 162,

195,203,205Superstition, 20, 24, 83Symbols, 57

TAYLOR, 198,201ThNISON,18The Candle of the Lord, 5The Immortality ofthe Soul, 147, 149THOMASIUS, 194THURLOE,9TILLOTSON, 18,28Time, 163, 199,204,207Timeus,118Toleration, ix, 4, 6, 12, 21,25, 26, 27Treatise concerning Immutable Morality,

119TRISMEGISTUS (Hermes Trimegistus), 4, 79,

131TROTTER-COCKBURN, 187True Intellectual System of the Universe,

119,120Truth (eternal), 22, 24, 28, 116, 122, 123,

174-176,180,190,192TUCKNEY,69TULLOCH, 39TwISSE,69

Understanding, 22, 28, 44, 57,123,176,178,180,223,224,229,230

Unworldliness , 3-5Utilitarism, 39,226

VANINI,19VAUGHAN, 135Vertue, 28, 85Vitalism, x, 136, 145, 152, 153Voluntarism, x, 47, 102, 104, 145

INDEX 249

WALLIS, 69WARREN, 64, 69WHICHCOTE,4,5,8, 18,56,79,209WIDDRINGTON, 9WILKINS, 28Will, 9, 22, 24, 41, 44, 48, 49,62,104,174,

176,221-227

World 187, 193WORTHINGTON, 8, 80WOTTON, 130

XENOPHON, 189

ZENON, 119

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72. J.W. Carven: Napoleon and the Lazarists (1804-1809).1974 ISBN 90-247-1667-573. G. Symcox: The Crisis of French Sea Power (1688-1697). From the Guerre

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89. K. Hardesty: The'Supplement' to the 'Encyclopedie' , [Diderot et d'Alernbert] . 1977ISBN 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 ConstitutionalDevelopment in Whig Historiography and in the Anti-Whig Reaction between 1890and 1930. 1978 ISBN 9O-247-2063-X

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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

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106. S. Tweyman: Scepticism and Belief in Hume's 'Dialogues Concerning NaturalReligion'. 1986 ISBN 90-247-3090-2

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108. Spinoza's Algebraic Calculation of the Rainbow & Calculation of Changes. Editedand Translated from Dutch, with an Introduction, Explanatory Notes and an Appendixby MJ. Petry. 1985 ISBN 90-247-3149-6

109. R.G. McRae:Philosophy and the Absolute. The Modes of Hegel's Speculation. 1985ISBN 90-247-3151-8

110. J.D. North and JJ. Roche (eds.): The Light of Nature. Essays in the History andPhilosophy 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 ofNatural 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'sPhilosophy ofRight. 1987 ISBNHb 90-247-3337-5; Pb ISBN 90-247-3338-3

1l4. S. Pines and Y. Yovel (eds.): Maimonides [1135-1204] and Philosophy. PapersPresented at the 6th Jerusalem PhilosophicalEncounter (May 1985). 1986

ISBN 90-247-3439-8115. TJ . Saxby: The Quest for the New Jerusalem, Jean de Labadie [1610-1674] and the

Labadists (1610-1744). 1987 ISBN 90-247-3485-1116. C.E. Harline: Pamphlets, Printing, and Political Culture in the Early Dutch Republic.

1987 ISBN 9O-247-351l-4117. 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-X118. R.T. Bienvenu and M. Feingold (eds.): In the Presence ofthe Past. Essays in Honor of

Frank Manuel. 1991 ISBNQ-7923-1008-X1l9. 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-X120. N. Waszek: The Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel's Account of 'Civil Society'. 1988

ISBN 90-247-3596-3121. J. Walker (ed.): Thought and Faith in the Philosophy ofHegel. 1991

ISBN 0-7923-1234-1122. Henry More [1614-1687]: The Immortality of the Soul. Edited with Introduction and

Notes by A. Jacob. 1987 ISBN 90-247-3512-2123. P.B. Scheurer and G. Debrock (eds.): Newton's Scientific and Philosophical Legacy.

1988 ISBN 90-247-3723-0124. D.R. Kelley and R.H. Popkin (eds.): The Shapes ofKnowledge from the Renaissance

to the Enlightenment. 1991 ISBNQ-7923-1259-7


125. R.M. Golden (ed.): The Huguenot Connection. The Edict of Nantes, Its Revocation,and Early FrenchMigration 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'UpsalaJacob 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 90-247-3579-3127. S. Hutton (ed.): Henry More (1614-1687). Tercentenary Studies. With a Biography

and Bibliographyby R. Crocker. 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0095-5128. Y. Yovel (ed.): Kant's Practical Philosophy Reconsidered. Papers Presented at the 7th

JerusalemPhilosophicalEncounter (December 1986). 1989 ISBN 0-7923-0405-5129. J.E. Force and R.H. Popkin: Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac

Newton's Theology. 1990 ISBN 0-7923-0583-3130. N. Capaldi and D.W. Livingston (eds.): Liberty in Hume's 'History ofEngland'. 1990

ISBN 0-7923-0650-3131 . VI.Brand:Hume's Theory ofMoral Judgment. A Study in the Unity of A Treatise of

Human Nature. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1415-8132. C.E. Harline (ed.): The Rhyme and Reason of Politics in Early Modern Europe.

CollectedEssays of Herbert H. Rowen. 1992 ISBN 0-7923-1527-8133. N. Malebranche: Treatise on Ethics (1684). Translated and edited by C. Walton. 1993

ISBN 0-7923-1763-7134. B.C. Southgate: 'Covetous of Truth'. The Life and Work of Thomas White

(1593-1676).1993 ISBN 0-7923-1926-5135. 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 0-7923-2202-9137. Otto von Guericke: The New (so-called Magdeburg) Experiments [ExperimentaNova,

Amsterdam 1672]. Translated and edited by M.G.FoleyAmes. 1994ISBN 0-7923-2399-8

138. R.H. Popkin and G.M. Weiner (eds.): Jewish Christians and Cristian Jews. From theRenaissance to the Enlightenment. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2452-8

139. J.E. Force and R.H. Popkin (eds.): The Books ofNature and Scripture. Recent Essayson Natural Philosophy, Theology, and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands ofSpinoza'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 17thCenturies. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-2573-7

141. S. Jayne: Plato in Renaissance England. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3060-9142. A.P. Coudert:Leibniz and the Kabbalah. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3114-1143. M.H. Hoffheimer: Eduard Gans and the Hegelian Philosophy ofLaw. 1995

ISBN 0-7923-3114-1144. J.R.M. Neto: The Christianization of Pyrrhonism. Scepticism and Faith in Pascal,

Kierkegaard,and Shestov. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3381-0145. R.H. Popkin (ed.): Scepticism in the History of Philosophy. A Pan-American

Dialogue. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3769-7


146. M. de Baar, M. Lowensteyn, M. Monteiro and A.A. Sneller (eds.): Choosing theBetter 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 Perceptionof Forms. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3934-7

148. S. Berti, F. Charles-Daubert and R.H. Popkin (eds.): Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and FreeThought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe. Studies on the Traite des troisimposteurs.1996 ISBN 0-7923-4192-9

149. G.K. Browning (ed.): Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reappraisal. 1997ISBN 0-7923-4480-4

150. G.A.J. Rogers, J.M. Vienne and Y.C. Zarka (eds.): The Cambridge Platonists inPhilosophical Context. Politics, Metaphysics and Religion. 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4530-4

151. R.L. Williams: The Letters ofDominique Chaix, Botanist-Cure. 1997ISBN 0-7923-4615-7

152. R.H. Popkin (ed.): Scepticism in the Enlightenment. 1997 ISBN 0-7923-4643-2

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The Cambridge Platonists in Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion

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