Abstract
The spiritual perfectionism or illuminism outlined in More’s poem, “Psychozoia” involved a psychology, a metaphysic and an epistemology that consciously opposed both the apparent implications of the Calvinism of his upbringing and the scholastic philosophy he had first imbibed at Christ’s.1 This he delineated in the first canto of “Psychozoia” (1642), that might be described as the first philosophical production of Cambridge Platonism, a first ‘manifesto’ of considerable intellectual sophistication, for nothing else produced in the 1640s by the Cambridge group comes close to the breadth and scope of its arguments.2 I emphasise this here because the archaic language and elaborate and sometimes obscure Spenserian allegorical structure of the poem has rendered it difficult for the modem reader and effectively cloaked its intrinsic novelty, and this perhaps explains why it has been neglected by all but a handful of literary scholars.3 But its importance for us lies in its philosophical intent: in 61 verses it sums up a whole metaphysical and psychological way of thinking deliberately opposed to both contemporary Calvinist determinism and voluntarism and academic scholasticism. These initial arguments are then developed much further in the poems that follow, making More’s Psychodia Platonica a rather extraordinary book: a novel English ‘platonic theology’ in Spenserian verse, but with a Protestant illuminist devotional flavour, quite different to the Christian Platonism and hermeticism of its Renaissance predecessors.
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Notes
Ward: 10, cited above.
Of all the works by the Platonists, only Cudworth’s two early sermons, Union of Christ and the Church (1642) and Discourse concerning the True Notion of the Lord’s Supper (1642) appeared at this time, and although quite characteristic of the group’s theology, they are neither as comprehensive as More’s poem, nor as self-consciously Platonic, relying mainly on Patristic sources.
One of the best early discussions is C.C. Brown, “The Early Works of Henry More” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Reading, 1968). Geoffrey Bullough’s learned commentary in his 1931 edition, The Poems of Henry More (abbreviated here as Bullough) remains the most useful in print, while Marjorie Nicolson’s article, “More’s Psychozoia”’ Modern Language Notes 37 (1922): 141–8 and John Hoyle’s essay in his The Waning of the Renaissance (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1971), remain useful. Since then it has remained a relatively neglected source. See my essays, “Illuminism” in Rogers (1997), chapter 9, and “Henry More: a Biographical Essay”, in Hutton (1990): 1–18.
More used either the 1580 or 1615 edition of Plotinus: Plotini… operum philosophicorum omnium… cum Latina M. Ficini interpretatione (Basle - both editions have the same pagination). See Brown (thesis, 1968): 367.
Compare Cudworth, Sermon, in Patrides (1969): 112, and see Plotinus: IV ix 3; Plato, Timaeus: 32c; and Philo, in Winston, Philo (1981): 113–4.
See Plotinus: V 3 9 and Proclus, Elements of Theology: props 16, 17, and 25–39. On the principle of the attraction of like to like in this scheme, see Proclus: props. 28–31.
Plotinus: I i 4; V ix 6–7; and Plato, Timaeus: 28a ff. Compare Origen, First Principles: I I 6 and Iii 3 ff. More’s redaction follows that of Clement and Origen. See Clement, Stromata: II vi 1; V lxv 2; V lxxviii 3; and Origen, First Principles: I I 6 (on the Father); Clement, Stromata: V xvi 3; VII v 5; and Origen, First Principles: I ii 4; Contra Celsum: V 39. See also Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (1977): 127–30..
See the useful discussion of this distinguishing feature of Cambridge Platonism in Dockrill, “The Heritage of Patristic Platonism”, in Rogers et al, Cambridge Platonism (1997): 58–60.
Origen, Contra Celsum: I ii 64. See also P. Merlan, Monopsychism,Mysticism, Metaconsciousness (Dordrecht, 1963): 33 ff., and Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London, 1977): 128. On the theological background to this adoption of patristic Platonism, see D.W. Dockrill, “The Heritage of Patristic Platonism ”: 55–77.
Plotinus: V I 2; IV ix 3; IV ix 5. Clement, Stromata: VI cxxxviii 1 ff.; Origen, First Principles: I iii.
“Psychozoia”: I 7; and DD: 301–2. But there are parallels in Plotinus, V viii 13; and Ficino, (ed. R. Marcel), Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon (1956): 161–2. See also Rust’s Remains (1686): 1–20; and Smith (1660): 140–3.
`Psychozoia’, i,15; and Whichcote, Aphorisms (1753), Tt 1023. See also V. Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London, 1957), p.102 on the role of ‘Aeon’ in the Greek Fathers.
Parmenides, cited by Plotinus, V,ix,5; V,i,8; and III,viii,8.
PP, p.338–9; Plotinus, III,vii,4; V,ix,6–7; and Lossky, Mystical Theology (1957): 102 ff.
’Psychozoia’, i,15.
CC,The Philosophical Cabbala, i,3; and see also Plotinus: I,i,4; and Plato, Timaeus: 28a ff; and V. Lossky, Mystical Theology (1957): 102.
On the `aetherial vehicle’, and the soul’s `tricentricity’, see also “Psychathanasia”, III,i; and IS: III,xviii,3, and III,xix,4–7 and above.
“Psychozoia”, i,35–9; and see Pistorius, Plotinus and Neoplatonism (London, 1952): 58–66; and see also Dockrill, “The Heritage of Patristic Platonism”: 58–59.
“Psychozoia”: i.16; and see More, GMG: I,iv,2. More’s Trinitarianism, like Cudworth’s, is really a mild `subordinationism’. See the discussion below, Chapters 6 and 7, and the summary of the controversy surrounding Cudworth’s very similar position, in T. Wise, Confutation of the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism (2 vols, 1706): 1,.79–124.
“Psychozoia”: i,38.
Ibid: i,17 ff.
See above, and “Psychozoia”, ii,26–9; and “Psychathanasia”, 11,1,11; and compare this with Spenser, Faine Queene: IV,i,18–30.
See Proclus, Elements of Theology, prop.36 ff. See also Heninger, Touches of Sweet Harmony (1974): 78–85
See CC, The Philosophical Cabbala: 1,l; and The Defence of the Philosophical Cabbala (1712): 75–6.
The Philosophical Cabbala: i,1.
“Psychozoia”: i,17 and i,27; and see Bullough (1931): 178.
“Psychozoia”, ii,9; and see below.
Plato, Timaeus“:28–30; and see Armstrong, Architecture of the Intelligible Universe (1940): ff. See also Aristotle, Physics:194a.
Plotinus:IV,iii,9.
“Psychozoia”: 1,9
Plotinus: III,vi,7; I,viii,4 and 14–15. See also Lossky (1957): 128.
“Psychozoia”: ii,9; and see Discourses: 188.
“Psychozoia”: ii,10; and Plotinus: III,vi,7.
See J. Henry, “A Cambridge Platonist’s Materialism: Henry More and the Concept of Soul.” JWCI 49 (1986): 172–95. But see also A. Jacob (ed) Henry More’s Manual of Metaphysics (Hildescheim: G. Olms, 1995): xxi-xxiii, and the discussion below.
“Psychozoia”: i,41; and Plotinus: IV,iv,13.
“Psychozoia”: i,41–7; and see More, IS: Preface, sects. 11–13; and below.
“Psychozoia”: i,43; and DP: 12–16; and see below Chapter 5.
“Psychozoia”: i,45.
Ibid, and “Psychathanasia”: III,i,18–22; and see also Plotinus: I,vi,2–3, where the senses are described as channels through which the divine forms within external objects can be recognised by the perceiving soul, through its inherent sympathy with them. See below, chapter 5.
“Psychozoia”: i,56.
“Psychathanasia”: III,i,24.
“Psychozoia”: i,57–60. See Plotinus: V,ii,2; V,iv,2, and VI,vii,16; and also Proclus, Elements of Theology: props. 24–39.
IS: II,xi,4.
“Psychozoia”: i,57. See also “Psychathanasia”: I,iii, in which the distressed poet is revealed his philosophy of procession and return in the figure of a `moon-bow’ by an angel of wisdom, or Minerva.
See below, Chapter 4, and also A Tigerstedt, Plato’s Idea of Poetical Inspiration (Oslo, 1969): 63–4.
“Psychozoia”: i,57. See also the discussion below, next chapter.
See Plato, Republic: 616d ff. (on the 8 whorls of the spindle of the Fates). See also the Hermetica, Poemader: i,26. The attraction for the number 8 for More is `Pythagorean’ - it is the number of the diaspason, the harmony of the cosmos. See S.K. Heninger, Touches of Sweet Harmony (New Haven: Yale, 1974): 91 ff. and below.
It is not often noticed that this ladder of being was retained by More in his later works: see the description of the process of sensation via `degrees’ of reason, imagination, sense and the seminal principle in IS: II,x,3–5, and Il,xi,2–4.
“Psychozoia” (both editions, 1642 and 1647): iî,14; and see also CC, Defence of the Philosophical Cabbala (1712): 81.
Ibid: ii,15; and see Heninger, Touches of Sweet Harmony (1974): 128–32.
PP: 409–10, and see “Antipsychopannychia”: ii,5–9. This doctrine was perceived as a real threat by More. See Huntington Library MS, “Psychopannichite”, and B.W. Young, “’The Soul-Sleeping System’: Politics and Heresy in 18th century England”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45 (1994): 6481, for the theory’s continuity into the l8°i century.
PP: 411.
See the argument in More, DD: 52–3.
See More, IS: III,xii,1 ff., and the scholia on Ibid (1712): I,viii,8, which explicitly identifies the Spirit of Nature with the `Nature’ of Proclus and Plotinus.
“Antipsychopannychia”: ii,5–9, in PP, p.230–1. Compare Smith (1660): 385–7.
“Antipsychopannychia”: ii,8.
Ibid: ii,15.
Compare Smith (1660): 385 ff. and Whichcote, Aphorisms (1753): #294.
See Discourses: 106–7. See also Smith (1660): 386: “Wicked men bury their Souls in their Bodies”; and Cudworth, TIS (1678): 135.
More, AA: Preface; and EE: I,xiii,5–6.
“Psychozoia” (1647): ii 98.
See Castellio, Defence to his Adversary, in Obedience (1679): 129 ff., and Conference (1679): 27–9 and 59 ff.
PP: `Preface’, sig.B4. See also the typical admission in AA: Iii 5 (subtitle) “That the Atheist has no advantage from the Authors free confession, That his Arguments are not so convictive, but that they leave a possibility of the thing being otherwise.” See also EE: II iv 3.
See Alan Gabbey, “Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata” (hereafter Gabbey): 188.
See Staudenbaur, (thesis, 1968): 152–3.
The quotation is from DP “To the Reader”, also in PP. See Gabbey and also A. Pacchi, Cartesio in Inghliterra (Ban: Laterza, 1973) on the chronology of More’ s early discovery of Descartes. On More’ s criticisms of Descartes, see below, Chapter 5.
“Psychathanasia”, lII,iii,11.
/bid, III,iii, 14–15
See the discussion below.
This was first published in Op Om (vol 3, 1679): 751–53. It is difficult to date this poem accurately, but Bullough believes that More wrote it between 1651 and 1653; see Bullough (1931): 169–72. See the translation by Shugg, W., Sherwin, W., and Freyman, J., “Henry More’s Circulatio Sanguinis: an unexamined poem in praise of Harvey.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 46 (1972): 180–89, especially 186–7
“Psychathanasia”: I,i,16–18.
“Preface to the Reader”, before “Psychathanasia” (1642 and 1647).
See More’s letter to Petty in C. Webster, “Henry More and Descartes: some new sources”, BJHS (1969): 369–71, and below.
See for example, J.H. Tulloch’s study in his magisterial Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in seventeenth century England (2 vols, Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1872). Surprisingly, this bafflement at the apparent contradiction between More’s interest in the `new science’ and spirits, ghosts, witches etc, continues throughout much of the 20th century. See for example, R.A. Greene’s “Henry More and Robert Boyle on the Spirit of Nature” JHI 23 (1962). and more recently, A.R. Hall’s Henry More (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993).
See below, Chapter 5.
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Crocker, R. (2003). Metaphysics, Psychology and Natural Philosophy in the Psychodia Platonica . In: Henry More, 1614–1687. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 185. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_3
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