Real Space

Reid, Jasper

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-3988-8_4

Jasper Reid²

Part of the book series: International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées ((ARCH,volume 207))

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Abstract

Here we see the reason why the mature More could no longer explicate the nature of Hyle in spatial terms: because he now felt that space was much too real to fit the bill of an infinitely unreal first matter. I discuss More’s position in relation to that of other figures of his era, via a close analysis of his critique of Descartes’ theories of place and motion, and his apparent influence on figures like Newton and Locke.

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Notes

1.
Aristotle 1984, vol. 1, pp. 354–362 (Physics, bk. 4, chs. 1–5; 208a27–213a10). Also see Grant 1981, ch. 1; and the notes in Aristotle 1983, pp. 99–122.
2.
Sorabji 1988, chs. 1–3, especially ch. 2. Also Grant 1981, ch. 2, especially pp. 19–21.
3.
Grant 1981, ch. 8.
4.
In addition to Grant 1981, ch. 8, see Henry 1979.
5.
Gassendi 1972, pp. 383–390 (Syntagma, pt. 2, sect. 1, bk. 2, ch. 1). On Gassendi’s theory, see Grant 1981, pp. 206–215.
6.
Gassendi 1972, p. 389 (Syntagma, pt. 2, sect. 1, bk. 2, ch. 1).
7.
Gassendi 1972, pp. 384–385, here at p. 384 (Syntagma, pt. 2, sect. 1, bk. 2, ch. 1).
8.
See Grant 1981, pp. 215–221.
9.
Guericke 1994, p. 89 (bk. 2, ch. 4).
10.
Guericke 1994, pp. 85, 88, 89 (bk. 2, chs. 2, 3, 4).
11.
Guericke 1994, p. 99 (bk. 2, ch. 7); Grant 1981, p. 216.
12.
Hobbes 1839, vol. 1, p. 94 (Elements of Philosophy, pt. 2, ch. 7, §2).
13.
Hobbes 1839, vol. 1, p. 106 (Elements of Philosophy, pt. 2, ch. 8, §5).
14.
On Descartes’ position, see Garber 1992, especially chs. 5–6; and Des Chene 1996, especially chs. 8–9.
15.
Descartes 1991, p. 46/AT 8A:48/CSM 1:229 (pt. 2, §15).
16.
Ibid.
17.
CSMK 241–242/AT 4:164 (Descartes to Mesland, 9 February 1645).
18.
Descartes 1991, p. 44/AT 8A:45/CSM 1:227 (pt. 2, §10).
19.
Descartes 1991, p. 51/AT 8A:53/CSM 1:233 (pt. 2, §25). The translators have bracketed the word ‘some’, to indicate that this is an interpolation into the 1644 Latin text, drawn from the 1647 French version: AT 9B:76. The whole definition is also italicised in the original.
20.
Descartes 1991, p. 95/AT 8A:91/CSM 1:253 (pt. 3, §29). Again, the words ‘true and’ and ‘in relation to the Earth’ are bracketed in this edition, indicating that they are drawn from the 1647 French text: AT 9B:114–115
21.
Descartes 1991, pp. 52–53/AT 8A:55/CSM 1:234–235 (pt. 2, §28).
22.
Conway Letters, p. 488 (More to Conway, 5 May 1651).
23.
Divine Dialogues, pp. 52–53 (dial. 1, §26). See also Enchiridion metaphysicum vol. 1, p. 43 (ch. 6, §9).
24.
The argument was first presented in the Divine Dialogues, pp. 52–53, 57–61 (dial. 1, §§26, 28), and then at greater length in Enchiridion metaphysicum (presented in ch. 6, §§6–8, and defended against Cartesian objections throughout ch. 7). In the Enchiridion metaphysicum discussion, the diagonal line which generated the apparent cone becomes a line parallel to the axis of the cylinder, half way along its radius, which will generate the appearance of a smaller cylinder within the larger one. This and other related arguments are briefly examined in Koyré 1957, pp. 142–145.
25.
Descartes 1991, pp. 94–96/AT 8A:89–92/CSM 1:252–254 (pt. 3, §§26–30).
26.
Divine Dialogues, p. 59 (dial. 1, §28).
27.
Newton 2004, p. 16/Newton 1962, p. 126 (De gravitatione).
28.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 48 (ch. 7, §7).
29.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 41 (ch. 6, §6).
30.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 49 (ch. 7, §7).
31.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 41 (ch. 6, §6).
32.
Descartes 1991, p. 53/AT 8A:55–56/CSM 1:235 (pt. 2, §29).
33.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 47 (ch. 7, §4).
34.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, pp. 47–48 (ch. 7, §5).
35.
Descartes 1991, p. 54/AT 8A:57/9B:79/CSM 1:236 (pt. 2, §30).
36.
Divine Dialogues, p. 50 (dial. 1, §25). See also Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 54 (ch. 8, §§1–2).
37.
Descartes 1991, pp. 50–51/AT 8A:53–54/CSM 1:233 (pt. 2, §§24–25). That suggested ‘action by which…’ definition in §24, just like the more philosophical definition that Descartes settled on in §25, is italicised in the original.
38.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 60 (ch. 8, §14).
39.
Newton 2004, p. 66/Newton 1999, p. 410 (Scholium to Definitions). Clarke followed Newton closely on this point: see Clarke and Leibniz 1956, p. 22 (Clarke’s second reply, §4); and Clarke 1998, p. 13 (Demonstration, §3); p. 152 (Second Defense).
40.
Newton 2004, p. 25/Newton 1962, p. 136 (De gravitatione). For discussion of this point, see Nerlich 2005.
41.
Divine Dialogues, pp. 53–54 (dial 1, §27).
42.
Divine Dialogues, p. 54 (dial. 1, §27); see also pp. 59, 61 (§28).
43.
See Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, pp. 122–123 (ch. 28, §8). Already in one of the options enumerated in that passage we were considering in the last chapter, from the Appendix to An Antidote Against Atheism, More had referred to ‘this infinite Amplitude and Mensurability, which we cannot disimagine in our Phancy, but will necessarily be’ (p. 199: Appendix, ch. 7, §1).
44.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 57 (ch. 8, §6).
45.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, pp. 50–51 (ch. 7, §11).
46.
Divine Dialogues, p. 60 (dial. 1, §28). See also Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, pp. 49–50 (ch. 7, §§8–10).
47.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 65 (ch. 8, §13, scholium).
48.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, pp. 57, 60 (ch. 8, §§8, 12).
49.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 57 (ch. 8, §8).
50.
Law 1734, p. 3 (ch. 1).
51.
Leibniz 1996, p. 149 (bk. 2, ch. 13, §17).
52.
Clarke and Leibniz 1956, p. 26 (Leibniz’s third paper, §5).
53.
Rüdiger 1716, pp. 346–348 (bk. 1, ch. 8, sect. 4, §§16–22).
54.
Edwards 1980, p. 202 (‘Of Being’).
55.
Edwards 1980, p. 203 (‘Of Being’).
56.
Edwards, however, did not linger with this conception of real space for very long, and he eventually shifted to the view that space could only be understood relativistically after all. See Reid 2003b on Edwards’s changing views on this issue.
57.
The fullest account of Raphson’s work on real space is in Koyré 1957, ch. 8. See also Copenhaver 1980, pp. 529–540; Grant 1981, pp. 230–232.
58.
Raphson 1697, p. 26 (ch. 1). Raphson later also cited both Gassendi and Guericke: op. cit., pp. 68–69 (ch. 4); 91 (ch. 6, §13).
59.
Raphson 1697, pp. 63–66 (ch. 4). The discussion spans four pages in the 1671 edition, at any rate: compare Enchiridion metaphysicum (1671 edition), pp. 46–50 (ch. 6, §§6–9: Opera omnia, vol. 2.1, pp. 159–160/Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, pp. 41–43).
60.
Koyré 1957 is the classic work in this area. Baker 1930; Burtt 1932; Jammer 1969; Leclerc 1972, pt. 3; Grant 1981, especially ch. 8; Funkenstein 1986, ch. 2; Hall 1990b, ch. 10; Hall 1992; and Janiak 2008, ch. 5, are also very useful, as are several of J.E. McGuire’s works. Also see Toulmin 1959.
61.
Newton 2004, pp. 64–65/Newton 1999, pp. 408–410 (Scholium to Definitions).
62.
Newton 2004, pp. 12–39/Newton 1962, pp. 89–156; McGuire 1978b. On the dating of De gravitatione, it was generally accepted since its first publication in Newton 1962 that it was written in the 1660s, probably around 1668. More recently, however, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs has suggested a rather later date for it, of 1684 or the beginning of 1684/5 (Dobbs 1991, pp. 139–146). This date does now command more support from the scholarly community: I have no new evidence to offer in this regard, and am content to accept Dobbs’s date. As for ‘On Place, Time, and God’, that seems to have been written around 1692 or 1693.
63.
Newton 2004, p. 21/Newton 1962, p. 131 (De gravitatione).
64.
Newton 2004, pp. 21–22/Newton 1962, p. 132 (De gravitatione). The brackets are the translators’, supplying a word omitted in Newton’s Latin.
65.
The Immortality of the Soul, pp. 18–19 (bk. 1, ch. 6, §§2–4).
66.
Newton 2004, p. 26/Newton 1962, p. 137 (De gravitatione).
67.
Newton 2004, p. 24/Newton 1962, p. 135 (De gravitatione).
68.
Harrison 1978, p. 196.
69.
McGuire 1978a, especially pp. 470–471. Also see McGuire 1966, p. 227 n. 74: but note that this early paper of McGuire’s does include a couple of mistakes relating to More (which I shall come to over the course of the next few notes). McGuire’s later articles are much more consistently reliable than this one from 1966.
70.
See McGuire 1978a, pp. 463–464, 471–474. In the earlier paper just mentioned, McGuire himself linked More to Gassendi and Charleton in this notion that ‘neither space nor time can be comprehended under the traditional categories of substance and attribute’ (McGuire 1966, p. 233). Such an association is rightly to be corrected.
71.
Gassendi 1972, pp. 384–385 (Syntagma, pt. 2, sect. 1, bk. 2, ch. 1); Charleton 1654, pp. 66–67 (bk. 1, ch. 6, sect. 1, arts. 10–11).
72.
Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, p. 11 (ch. 2, §12).
73.
Cudworth 1743, p. 769/Cudworth 1845, vol. 3, pp. 231–232.
74.
Gassendi 1972, p. 384; see also pp. 387–388 (Syntagma, pt. 2, sect. 1, bk. 2, ch. 1). On Gassendi’s influence on De gravitatione, also see Westfall 1971, pp. 337–341, especially p. 339. A century later, Kant would also echo that point about the impossibility of dis-imagining space in his Transcendental Aesthetic: ‘We can never represent to ourselves the absence of space, though we can quite well think it as empty of objects’ (Kant 1965, p. 68: A24/B38). It should, however, be appreciated that this impossibility of dis-imagining space did lead Kant in a very different direction from that of More or any of these others. He regarded space not as a necessarily existing matrix to house external bodies, but rather as a pure a priori intuition that necessarily conditions our experience of sensible things. John Tull Baker has examined the similarities and the differences between More and Kant in this area, in Baker 1930, p. 10, and then more fully in Baker 1937.
75.
Newton 2004, pp. 27–29/Newton 1962, pp. 138–140; here p. 28/pp. 139–140 (De gravitatione). See McGuire 1982, and also Bennett and Remnant 1978.
76.
Newton 2004, p. 29/Newton 1962, p. 140 (De gravitatione).
77.
In the same early paper that I have already criticised (above, p. 126 nn. 69 and 70), McGuire suggested that, even it cannot be proven that Newton read More’s Divine Dialogues, ‘the leading doctrines expressed [therein] are closer in character to those of De Gravitatione than in any of More’s earlier treatises’. In particular, McGuire alluded to Cuphophron’s suggestion that extension is the capacity of matter, i.e. (as clarified by Bathynous) matter in potentia (Divine Dialogues, p. 56: dial. 1, §27). McGuire wrote: ‘The idea is not pursued; but in the context of the discussion, where it is repeatedly affirmed that matter is a dependent existent moved by God’s will, we surely have the germ of Newton’s hypothesis, namely, that space is the potentiality of matter made actual when determinate parts of space are made to manifest sensible appearances’; and he suggested that these speculations might therefore owe more to More’s Divine Dialogues than to anything from Gassendi. (McGuire 1966, p. 227 n. 74). But this suggestion of Cuphophron’s was pursued in the Divine Dialogues; and it was rejected. Not only that, but it was an opinion that More himself had formerly endorsed, and indeed endorsed in passages to be found in some of those of his works which—unlike the Divine Dialogues itself—we do know that Newton read, or at least owned. Although McGuire 1966 does still remain a useful study, McGuire 1982 is in many respects a better treatment of these issues (although it does not address this specific point directly).
78.
Newton 1983, p. 341.
79.
See the editors’ introduction to Newton 1983, p. 59 and n. 76.
80.
Hall 1990b, pp. 203, 209–214.
81.
Osmond 1944, p. 117 and the note thereto.
82.
Baker 1930, p. 21.
83.
Burtt 1932, p. 149.
84.
For Barrow’s version of the argument, see Barrow 1734, p. 171. For More’s versions, see Conway Letters, pp. 487–488 (More to Conway, 5 May 1651); An Antidote Against Atheism, pp. 200–201 (Appendix, ch. 7, §§4–5); and Enchiridion metaphysicum, vol. 1, pp. 38, 51–52 (ch. 6, §2; ch. 7, §13). And compare Grant 1981, pp. 124–125, on Henry of Ghent’s use of a similar argument.
85.
Newton 1959–1977, vol. 1, p. 305 (Oldenburg to Newton, 14 September 1673).
86.
Grant 1981, p. 236.
87.
See Barrow 1735, title-page and pp. iv–v. But note that, although this preface, with its reference to Newton’s involvement, is here appended to the Geometrical Lectures, it instead preceded the Optical Lectures in the combined Latin edition of 1672, with a distinct, separate preface there preceding the Geometrical ones. It seems that it was only Barrow’s Optical Lectures, not his Geometrical ones, that Newton actually had a hand in revising. There were certainly contributions that Newton could have made to the latter, related as it was to his own work on the calculus: but, recalling one such contribution (a new method of drawing tangents), Newton observed that ‘some divertisment or other hindered me from describing it to him’. Newton to John Collins, 10 December 1672 (Newton 1959–1977, vol. 1, p. 248).
88.
On Barrow’s theory, see Baker 1930, pp. 14–20; Burtt 1932, pp. 144–154; Grant 1981, pp. 236–238; Hall 1990b, pp. 209–214.
89.
Barrow 1734, p. 172.
90.
Barrow 1734, pp. 140–141. See also pp. 177, 179–180.
91.
Barrow 1735, p. 6.
92.
Barrow 1734, pp. 175–176.
93.
Barrow 1734, pp. 164–165.
94.
Barrow 1734, p. 178.
95.
Barrow 1734, p. 182.
96.
Barrow 1734, pp. 181–182. See also pp. 189–190, 221–222.
97.
Newton 2004, p. 29/Newton 1962, pp. 140–141 (De gravitatione). The brackets are the editor’s.
98.
Newton 2004, pp. 22–23/Newton 1962, p. 133 (De gravitatione). See McGuire 1982, especially pp. 147–161.
99.
Barrow 1734, pp. 76–77.
100.
Hall 1990b, p. 210; Hall 1996, p. 79.
101.
Barrow 1734, p. 177.
102.
See McGuire 1982, especially pp. 172–180.
103.
For example, in Rohault and Clarke 1729, vol. 1, pp. 44–46 n. 1, at pp. 45b–46a (pt. 1, ch. 10, §11, note 1, corol. 3).
104.
I would just note in passing that Clarke did use the distinctively Morean term, ‘indiscerpible’, where others might have used ‘indivisible’—though, of course, so did Newton. The term crops up frequently in Clarke’s four Defenses of an Argument made use of in a Letter to Mr Dodwell (written against Anthony Collins, 1707–1708), especially in the first of these. See, for instance, the extracts in Vailati 1997, p. 59 (quoting from that first Defense); or in Clarke 1998, pp. 151–152 (from the Second Defense). And Clarke also uses the term in his exchange with Leibniz: Clarke and Leibniz 1956, p. 48 (Clarke’s fourth reply, on §§11 and 12). Unfortunately, regarding that last instance (which was specifically concerned with the inseparability of the parts of space), modern editors of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence have consistently insisted on ‘correcting’ this word in his text, to make it read ‘indiscernible’. But that Clarke really did mean to write what he actually wrote is abundantly clear from the fact that he offered the French inseparable in the translation he provided of his own letters in the first edition of the correspondence. The mistake is present in both Alexander and Robinet’s editions of the correspondence, and it has been preserved in Ariew’s more recent edition too, despite the fact that it was pointed out in the interim in Koyré and Cohen 1962, pp. 123–126.
105.
A thorough survey of this debate may be found in Baker 1930, pp. 58–67, 85.
106.
Most of this evidence is external: on which, see Bennett and Remnant 1978. But, even within the Essay itself, Locke did at least observe that ‘the Extension of any Body is so much of that infinite Space, as the bulk of that Body takes up’ (Locke 1975, p. 200 (bk. 2, ch. 15, §8)). Such a remark does not positively prove any commitment to the position presented in De gravitatione, but it would at least be consistent with it.
107.
Harrison and Laslett 1965, p. 192. Locke also owned copies of More’s Philosophicall Poems (1647), An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness (1660), A Modest Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity (1664), his annotated edition of Glanvill and Rust’s Two Choice and Useful Treatises (1682), and his Answer to Several Remarks upon Dr Henry More his Expositions of the Apocalypse and Daniel (1684). He also had Boyle’s Hydrostatical Discourse occasion’d by some Objections of Dr. More (1672). Op. cit., pp. 92, 192, 223.
108.
I certainly do not pretend that More was the only influence on this shift in Locke’s early thought. Gassendi, for one, probably also made a contribution: see Lennon 1993, pp. 149–163 and (especially) 276–288.
109.
Locke 1936, p. 77 (26 March 1676). See also Baker 1930, pp. 37–41, on Locke’s discussions in these journals.
110.
Locke 1936, p. 77 (20 June 1676). The editors have signalled that the reading of the word ‘their’ is uncertain. See pp. 77–80 for the ensuing discussion.
111.
Locke 1936, p. 94 (16 September 1677).
112.
An Antidote Against Atheism, p. 200 (Appendix, ch. 7, §3).
113.
Locke 1936, pp. 94–95; see also 96 (16 September 1677).
114.
Locke 1936, p. 95 (16 September 1677); cf. the entry for 20 January 1676, at pp. 77–80.
115.
An Antidote Against Atheism, p. 200 (Appendix, ch. 7, §§4–5).
116.
Locke 1936, p. 96 (16 September 1677).
117.
An Antidote Against Atheism, p. 201 (Appendix, ch. 7, §6).

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Reid, J. (2012). Real Space. In: The Metaphysics of Henry More. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 207. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3988-8_4

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