CHAPTER III

GOD AND THE SOUL

I. NATURE OF GOD

Platonism affected Christian theology as it appears in English poetry in

a twofold way. It provided a body of intellectual principles which were

identified with the persons of the Christian Trinity and it also trained

the minds of the poets in conceiving God rather as the object of the

mind’s speculative quest than as the dread judge of the sinful soul.

Platonism in this form is no longer the body of ethical principles

appearing in the Platonic dialogues; but is that metaphysical

after-growth of Platonism that has its source in the philosophy of

Plotinus. According to this form of speculative mysticism there were

three ultimate principles, or hypostases,—The Good, Intellect (υοῦς),

and Soul. Owing to the affinity of Platonism for Christian forms of

thought, these three hypostases were conceived as the philosophic basis

underlying the Christian teaching of the three Persons of the Trinity.

Such an interpretation is seen plainly in the work of Henry More and

William Drummond; and the speculative attitude of conceiving God and

Christ in the light of the hypostases of Plotinus is also discernible in

Spenser and Milton.

The boldest attempt to identify the three Plotinian principles with the

Christian Trinity is made in Henry More’s “Psychozoia,” the first poem

of his “Psychodia Platonica.” This poetical treatise reveals the aim of

More’s spiritual life as it was formulated on the basis of Platonic

philosophy blended with the teaching of the “Theologia Germanica.” The

strain of self-abnegation which More learned in “that _Golden little

Book_,”[23] as he names the German treatise, may be easily separated

from the Platonism, being confined to the last two books of his poem; it

may thus be dismissed. In the first book, however, the current of

thought is almost purely Platonic. There, under the figure of the

marriage rite, the first principle of Plotinus, the Good, is represented

as joining his two children—Intellect and Soul—in holy union; and under

the poetic device of a veil with several films or tissues, More

describes Soul in minute detail.

In keeping with the teachings of Platonism More defines each person of

the Trinity in the terms used by Plotinus. According to this philosopher

the highest reality is The One or The Good which is infinite and above

all comprehension, not because it is impossible to measure or count it

(since it has no magnitude and no multitude), but simply because it is

impossible to conceive its power. (“Enneads,” VI. ix. 6.) In the

beatific vision, in which The Good is known in the Soul, it is

invisible, hidden in its own rays of light. (“Enneads,” VI. vii. 35.)

More thus speaks of God, naming him Hattove:

“Th’ Ancient of dayes, sire of _Æternitie_,

Sprung of himself, or rather nowise sprong.

Father of lights, and everlasting glee

Who puts to silence every daring tongue

And flies mans sight, shrouding himself among

His glorious rayes, good _Hattove_, from whom came

All good that _Penia_ [_i.e._ want] spies in thickest throng

Of most desired things, all’s from that same.”

(I. 5.)

“But first of all

Was mighty _Hattove_, deeply covered o’re

With unseen light. No might Imaginall

May reach that vast profunditie.”

(I. 16.)

The Son is identified with the second hypostasis,—universal intellect.

In this all realities are present not as created things in time or

space, but embraced as essential forms with no spatial or temporal

relation. This character of universal intellect is thus named αἰών, or

eternity. (“Enneads,” III. vii. 4.) More thus writes of Christ—

“The youthfull _Æon_, whose fair face doth shine

While he his Fathers glory doth espy,

Which waters his fine flowring forms with light from high.

“Not that his forms increase, or that they die.

For _Æοn Land_, which men _Idea_ call,

Is nought but life in full serenitie,

Vigour of life is root, stock, branch, and all;

Nought here increaseth, nought here hath its fall;

For _Æons_ kingdomes alwaies perfect stand,

Birds, beasts, fields, springs, plants, men and minerall,

To perfectnesse nought added be there can.”

(I. 13. 14.)

Psyche, or Uranore, as she is named at times, is the third person of the

Trinity. She is the soul of the universe, present in every “atom ball,”

in the creatures of earth, sea, air, the divine stars in heaven.

(“Enneads,” V. i. 2.) In her true essence she is invisible; but More

pictures her as enveloped in a fourfold garment. The outer garment is

called Physis, in which all natural objects appear as spots which grow

each according to its idea. This robe is stirred with every impulse of

life from the central power of God.

“The first of these fair films, we _Physis_ name.

Nothing in nature did you ever spy

But there’s pourtraid:

· · · · ·

“And all besprinkeled with centrall spots,

Dark little spots, is this hid inward veil.

· · · · ·

“When they dispread themselves, then gins to swell

Dame _Psyches_ outward vest, as th’ inward wind

Softly gives forth, full softly doth it well

Forth from the centrall spot;

· · · · ·

according to the imprest Art

(That Arts impression’s from _Idea Land_)

So drives it forth before it every part

According to true symmetry.”

(I. 41–44.)

The second and third folds of Psyche’s vest are very closely identified.

They are called Arachnea and Haphe, by which the life of sensation is

meant. Haphe, or touch, sits in the finely spun web of Arachnea, and is

aware of every manifestation of life resulting from the soul’s contact

with the outward world. In this life of sensation Psyche sees as in a

mirror all the stirring life within the universe. (I. 48, 49, 50.)

The fourth fold of Psyche’s garment is called Semele, by which

imagination is meant. This is the loosest of the four veils, having the

fullest play in its movements. It is universal imagination, and from it

arises the inspiration of the poet and the prophet. (I. 57.) The

individual powers of imagination are conceived as daughters of the one

great Semele.

“She is the mother of each _Semele_:

The daughters be divided one from one;

But she grasps all. How can she then but see

Each _Semels_ shadows by this union?

She sees and swayes imagination

As she thinks good: and it that she think good

She lets it play by ’t self, yet looketh on,

While she keeps in that large strong-beating flood

That gars the Poet write, and rave as he were wood.”

(I. 59.)

These three persons—Ahad, another name given by More to God (I. 34),

Æon, and Psyche—form, says More, “the famous Platonicall Triad; which

though they that slight the Christian Trinity do take for a figment; yet

I think it is no contemptible argument, that the Platonists, the best

and divinest of Philosophers, and the Christians, the best of all that

do professe religion, do both concur that there is a Trinity. In what

they differ, I leave to be found out, according to the safe direction of

that infallible Rule of Faith, the holy Word.”[24] To signify the union

of these persons More represents Ahad joining Æon, his son, in marriage

to Psyche, and by holding their hands in his, maintaining a perpetual

unity.

“My first born Sonne, and thou my daughter dear,

Look on your aged Sire, the deep abysse,

In which and out of which you first appear;

I _Ahad_ hight, and _Ahad_ onenesse is:

Therefore be one; (his words do never misse)

They one became.

“They straight accord: then he put on the ring,

The ring of lasting gold on _Uranure_;

Then gan the youthful Lads aloud to sing,

Hymen! O Hymen! O the Virgin pure!

O holy Bride! long may this joy indure.

· · · · ·

(I. 34, 35.)

And all this time he held their hands in one;

Then they with chearfull look one thing desired,

That he nould break this happy union.

I happy union break? quoth he anon:

I _Ahad_? Father of Community?

Then they: That you nould let your hand be gone

Off from our hands. He grants with smiling glee.”

(I. 38.)

In this way More has expressed his conception of the Christian Trinity.

Inasmuch as his purpose in the “Psychozoia” is to relate the experiences

of the human soul from the time of its departure from God to its return

thither, he has laid especial emphasis upon the third hypostasis of

Plotinus,—Soul.

In William Drummond’s “An Hymn of the Fairest Fair” attention is centred

upon the first person of the Trinity. Drummond is more of a poet and

less of a philosopher than More; but the philosophic conceptions which

are woven into his poetical description of the nature, attributes, and

works of God are drawn from the same system of metaphysics. In

Drummond’s “Hymn” there is a mingling of two conceptions of God. He is

described, according to the Hebraic idea, as a mighty king, the creator

of the universe, dwelling in heaven, and possessing such attributes of

personality as justice, mercy, might. Running in and out of this

description is a strain of Platonic speculation, in which the conception

of God as an essence is very prominent. Thus by means of a poetic device

picturing youth standing before God and pouring immortal nectar into His

cup, Drummond expresses the Platonic idea of absolute oneness. And this

idea is the attribute of God first set forth.

“If so we may well say (and what we say,

Here wrapt in flesh, led by dim reason’s ray,

To show by earthly beauties which we see,

That spiritual excellence that shines in thee,

Good Lord, forgive), not far from thy right side,

With curled locks Youth ever doth abide;

Rose-cheeked Youth, who, garlanded with flowers

Still blooming, ceaselessly unto thee pours

Immortal nectar in a cup of gold,

That by no darts of ages thou grow old,

And, as ends and beginnings thee not claim,

Successionless that thou be still the same.”

(ll. 31–42.)

After a description of God’s might, Drummond passes on to consider His

truth, conceived as the Platonists conceived intellect, embracing all

reality as essential form. This attribute is pictured as a mirror in

which God beholds all things.

“With locks in waves of gold that ebb and flow

On ivory neck, in robes more white than snow,

Truth steadfastly before thee holds a glass,

Indent with gems, where shineth all that was,

That is, or shall be. Here, ere aught was wrought,

Thou knew all that thy pow’r with time forth brought,

And more, things numberless which thou couldst make,

That actually shall never being take:

Here, thou behold’st thyself, and, strange, dost prove

At once the beauty, lover, and the love.”

(ll. 56–66.)

Platonic metaphysics are also present in Drummond’s account of the

essential unity persisting throughout the triplicity of Persons.

Plotinus had held that The One caused the mind or intellect, and that in

turn caused universal soul. The order, however, is not one of time

sequence, but merely a logical order of causation. In this series of

causation there is no idea of a production as an act going out of itself

and forming another; each producing cause remains in its own centre;

throughout the series runs one cause or manifestation of life. His

favorite figures by which he explains this idea are, first, that of an

overflowing spring which gives rise to a second and this to a third;

and, second, that of a sun with a central source of light with its

spreading rays. (“Enneads,” V. ii. 1, 2.) Thus intellect is an

irradiation of The One and soul is an irradiation of intellect.

(“Enneads,” V. i. 6.) Drummond, holding to the idea of the

self-sufficiency of God as expressed in Plotinus, a state in which God

is alone by Himself and not in want of the things that proceed from Him

(“Enneads,” VI. vii. 40), is thus able to unfold the mystery of the One

in Three:

“Ineffable, all-powrfull God, all free,

Thou only liv’st, and each thing lives by thee;

No joy, no, nor perfection to thee came

By the contriving of this world’s great frame;

· · · · ·

world nought to thee supplied,

All in thyself thyself thou satisfied.

Of good no slender shadow doth appear,

No age-worn track, in thee which shin’d not clear;

Perfections sum, prime cause of every cause,

Midst, end, beginning, where all good doth pause.

Hence of thy substance, differing in nought,

Thou in eternity, thy Son forth brought,

The only birth of thy unchanging mind,

Thine image, pattern-like that ever shin’d,

Light out of light, begotton not by will,

But nature, all and that same essence still

Which thou thyself....

· · · · ·

Of this light,

Eternal, double, kindled was thy spright

Eternally, who is with thee the same,

All-holy gift, ambassador, knot, flame.

Most sacred Triad! O most holy One!

Unprocreate Father, ever procreate Son,

Ghost breath’d from both, you were, are, aye shall be,

Most blessed, three in one, and one in three,

Incomprehensible by reachless height,

And unperceived by excessive light.

· · · · ·

So, though unlike, the planet of the days,

So soon as he was made, begat his rays,

Which are his offspring, and from both was hurl’d

The rosy light which comfort doth the world,

And none forewent another; so the spring

The well-head, and the stream which they forth bring,

Are but one selfsame essence, nor in aught

Do differ, save in order, and our thought

No chime of time discerns in them to fall,

But three distinctly bide one essence all.”

(ll. 99–142.)

From this point on to the close, the “Hymn” celebrates the glory of God

in his works. Drummond possessed an imagination that delighted as

Milton’s did in the contemplation of the universe as a vast mechanical

scheme of sun and planets. (ll. 180–232.) His philosophic mind, however,

led him to conceive of nature in the manner of the Platonists. God, or

true being, according to Plotinus is a unity, everywhere present

(“Enneads,” VI. v. 4); and matter, the other extreme of his philosophy,

is an empty show, a shadow in a mirror. (“Enneads,” III. vi. 7.) In

closing the account of the works of God, Drummond thus writes:

“Whole and entire, all in thyself thou art,

All-where diffus’d, yet of this All no part;

For infinite, in making this fair frame,

Great without quantity, in all thou came,

And filling all, how can thy state admit

Or place or substance to be said of it?

· · · · ·

Were but one hour this world disjoin’d from thee,

It in one hour to nought reduc’d should be,

For it thy shadow is; and can they last,

If sever’d from the substances them cast?”

(ll. 285–298.)

Drummond’s “Hymn” is the work of a mind in which poetical sensuousness

and philosophic abstraction are well-nigh equally balanced. In More the

philosopher had outweighed the poet. In Milton the poet asserts his full

power. To him the Plotinian scheme of the hypostases is valuable only as

they enable his love of beauty to be satisfied in conformity with his

intellectual apprehension of the relation between God and the Son in the

Trinal Godhead. Plotinus had outlined the relation between The Good and

Intellect as that of a principle of beauty by which the intellect is

invested and possesses beauty and light. (“Enneads,” VI. vii. 31.) The

Good itself is the principle of beauty, hidden in its own rays of light.

In Milton the conception of God as hidden in inaccessible light, and of

the Son as the express image of the invisible beauty of God, is

explained in conformity with the Platonic scheme, and also with those

Scriptural texts, one of which mentions God as a King of kings, who only

hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto

(1 Tim. vi. 16); and the other proclaims that in Christ “dwelleth all

the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. ii. 9). Thus in heaven the

angels hymn their praises:

“Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent,

Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,

Eternal King; thee, Author of all being,

Fountain of light, thyself invisible

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt’st

Throned inaccessible, but when thou shad’st

The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud

Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine

Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,

Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim

Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.

Thee next they sang, of all creation first,

Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,

In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud

Made visible, the Almighty Father shines,

Whom else no creature can behold: on thee

Impressed the effulgence of his glory abides.

Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests.”

(P. L., III. 372–389.)

And the Almighty addresses the Son:

“‘Effulgence of my glory, Son beloved,

Son in whose face invisible is beheld

Visibly, what by Deity I am.’”

(VI. 680–682.)

This relation of Christ to God which in the Scripture was indicated only

as in an outline sketch has been filled in with the substance of the

Plotinian æsthetics, in which The One and The Good is beauty itself

(καλλονή) and intellect is the beautiful (τὸ καλόν). (“Enneads,” I. vi.

6.)

The attraction which this philosophical explanation had for those whose

work reveals its presence is twofold. To the religious mind in which the

metaphysical cast of thought was prominent, the idea of the transcendent

immanence of God in all things as their life, yet apart from all things

as objects in time and space came home with its wealth of suggestion of

the nearness of God to man. In Henry More this feeling is uppermost in

his “Psychozoia.” In the midst of his description of Psyche’s robe he

breaks out into a passage on the constant care which God shows toward

the world. In Psyche’s mirror of Arachnea and Haphe God is aware of all

on earth that falls under sense. The roaring of the hungry lion, the

burning thirst of the weary traveller and every movement of the little

sparrow are all known to him.

“Do not I see? I slumber not nor sleep,

Do not I heare? each noise by shady night

My miroir represents: when mortals steep

Their languid limbs in Morpheus dull delight,

I hear such sounds as Adams brood would fright.

The dolefull echoes from the hollow hill

Mock houling wolves: the woods with black bedight.

Answer rough Pan, his pipe and eke his skill,

And all the Satyr-routs rude whoops and shoutings shrill.”

(I. 54.)

In his second canto, where he repeats the idea of the universal life of

Psyche, he dwells on the fact of God’s immanence in the world. He is the

inmost centre of creation, from whom as rays from the sun the individual

souls are born.

“Dependence of this All hence doth appear

And severall degrees subordinate.

But phansie’s so unfit such things to clear,

That oft it makes them seem more intricate;

And now Gods work it doth disterminate

Too far from his own reach: But he withall

More inward is, and far more intimate

Then things are with themselves. His ideall

And centrall presence is in every atom-ball.”

(II. 10.)

In those minds less metaphysical in nature, the high speculations of

Platonic philosophy opened a way by which they could conceive God as a

principle grasped by the mind rather than as a personal judge and

punisher of sin. In Drummond this contrast in the two conceptions of

God—one feeding itself on philosophy, and the other on the imagery of

the Scripture—is strikingly brought out by a comparison of the opening

and the ending of “An Hymn of the Fairest Fair” with those of “A Prayer

for Mankind.” The “Hymn” begins with a confession of the elevating power

of his subject:

“I feel my bosom glow with wontless fires

Rais’d from the vulgar press my mind aspires,

Wing’d with high thoughts, unto his praise to climb,

From deep eternity who called forth time;

That essence which not mov’d makes each thing move,

Uncreate beauty, all creating love:

But by so great an object, radiant light,

My heart appall’d, enfeebled rests my sight,

Thick clouds benight my labouring engine,

And at my high attempts my wits repine.

If thou in me this sacred rapture wrought,

My knowledge sharpen, sarcels [_i.e._ pinions] lend my thought;

Grant me, time’s Father, world-containing King

A pow’r, of thee in pow’rful lays to sing,

That as thy beauty in earth lives, heaven shines,

So it may dawn or shadow in my lines.”

(ll. 1–16.)

At the close he prays:

“What wit cannot conceive, words say of thee,

Here, where, as in a mirror, we but see

Shadows of shadows, atoms of thy might,

Still owly-eyed when staring on thy light,

Grant that, released from this earthly jail,

And freed of clouds which here our knowledge veil,

In heaven’s high temples, where thy praises ring,

I may in sweeter notes hear angels sing.”

(ll. 329–335.)

“A Prayer for Mankind,” however, opens with the note of humble adoration

and a sense of sin.

“Great God, whom we with humble thoughts adore,

Eternal, infinite, almighty King,

· · · · ·

At whose command clouds dreadful thunders sound!

Ah! spare us worms; weigh not how we, alas

Evil to ourselves, against thy laws rebel;

Wash off those spots which still in mind’s clear glass,

Though we be loath to look, we see too well;

Deserv’d revenge O do not, do not take!”

(ll. 1–13.)

It closes similarly:

“Grant, when at last our souls these bodies leave,

Their loathsome shops of sin, and mansions blind,

And doom before thy royal seat receive,

They may a Saviour, not a judge thee find.”

(ll. 65–68.)

In Spenser’s “Hymne of Heavenly Beautie” in the first portion of which

he sings the ascent of the mind through ever rising stages of perfection

to

“that Highest farre beyond all telling,”

the mingling of these two ways of approach to God is very apparent.

Spenser is first a Platonist and then a Christian. How, he asks, if

God’s glory is such that the sun is dimmed by comparison, can we behold

Him?

“The meanes therefore which unto us is lent,

Him to behold, is on his workes to looke,

Which he hath made in beauty excellent,

And in the same, as in a brasen booke,

To reade enregistred in every nooke

His goodnesse, which his beautie doth declare,

For all thats good, is beautifull and faire.

“Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,

To impe the wings of thy high flying mynd,

Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation,

From this darke world, whose damps the soule do blynd,

And like the native brood of Eagles kynd,

On that bright Sunne of glorie fixe thine eyes,

Clear’d from grosse mists of fraile infirmities.”

Then comes in the sense of sin, and he approaches God in a different

spirit. He continues:

“Humbled with feare and awful reverence,

Before the footestoole of his Maiestie,

Throw thy selfe downe with trembling innocence,

Ne dare looke up with corruptible eye,

On the dred face of that great _Deity_,

For feare, lest if he chaunce to looke on thee,

Thou turne to nought, and quite confounded be.

“But lowly fall before his mercie seate,

Close covered with the Lambes integrity,

From the just wrath of his avengefull threate,

That sits upon the righteous throne on hy.”

(ll. 130–152.)

II. NATURE OF THE SOUL

The nature of the soul from the standpoint of Plotinian metaphysics was

treated by Henry More in his two poetical treatises, “Pyschathanasia”

and “Anti-psychopannychia.” In the former he follows the course of the

argument set forth in the seventh book of the fourth “Ennead” of

Plotinus. In the Plotinian defence two propositions are established;

namely, that the soul is not body, and that it is not a function of

body. By demonstrating these, it followed that the soul is an immaterial

thing, a real being, and consequently eternal. This is the drift of

More’s argument in “Psychathanasia.” The first and second books are

devoted to the establishment of the definition of the soul as an

incorporeal substance, and the proof of its incorporeality is deduced

from considerations of its functions.

The soul, More holds, is an incorporeal thing because it is a

self-moving substance present in all forms of life. Plotinus had taught

that soul was everywhere. “First, then,” he says, “let every soul

consider this: how by breathing life into them soul made all animals,

the creatures of earth, sea, air, the divine stars in heaven; made the

sun, made the great firmament above us, and not only made but ordered

it, so that it swings round in due course. Yet is this soul a different

nature from what it orders, and moves, and vivifies. It must needs then

be more precious than its creations. For they are born, and when the

soul which ministers their life abandons them, they die; but the soul

ever is because it never abandons itself.” (“Enneads,” V. i. 2.) More

finds this soul present in the growth of all forms of vegetation, the

sphere spermatic (I. ii. 30), in the life of animals, sensation, and

self-directed motion; and in the intellectual life of man. (I. ii.

17–22.)

“Thus have I trac’d the soul in all its works,

And severall conditions have displaid,

And show’d all places where so e’r she lurks,

Even her own lurkings of her self bewray’d,

In plants, in beasts, in men, while here she staid.”

(I. ii. 23.)

He next demonstrates that this soul is a self-moving substance. It is

self-moving in plants, as the quickening power of the sun on vegetation

shows. Through the heat of the sun the hidden centre, or soul, is called

into the life of blossoming and growth.

“Thus called out by friendly sympathie

Their souls move of themselves on their _Centreitie_.”

(I. ii. 31.)

In animals the self-moving soul is manifested in motion and the life of

sensation.

“Then be the souls of beasts self-moving forms,

Bearing their bodies as themselves think meet,

Invited or provok’d, so they transform

At first themselves within, then straight in sight

Those motions come, which suddenly do light

Upon the bodies visible, which move

According to the will of th’ inward spright.”

(I. ii. 36.)

In man the self-motion of the soul is present in the activity of reason,

whether as the presiding power in all of the operations of the

image-making faculty, or as the contemplative and speculative power. (I.

ii. 41–44.)

After this account of the nature of the soul as a self-moving substance,

More addresses himself to the task of showing that all life is immortal.

In a time of despondency a Nymph once came and declared to him,

“_All life’s immortall_: though the outward trunk

May changed be, yet life to nothing never shrunk.”

(I. iii. 17.)

According to the theory unfolded by the Nymph there is an ever present

unity in all things which is the true source of their life. This is God.

From Him are six descending degrees of existence, called intellectual,

psychical, imaginative, sensitive, plantal, or spermatic. (I. iii. 23.)

Below all of these is matter, which is nothing but mere potentiality, or

the possibility of all created things. (I. iv. 9.) Though these various

degrees of life are distinct, they are manifestations of the one

pervading unity. (I. iii. 25.) Matter thus cannot be the prop and stay

of life. (I. iii. 26.)

The second proof of the incorporeal nature of the soul is found in the

character of its functions. After a hasty attack on the doctrine of

materialism in the form of a _reductio ad absurdum_ (II. ii. 13–25; cf.

Plotinus, IV. vii. 3), More shows, first, that the faculty within us by

which we are aware of the outward world of sense is one and individual,

yet everywhere present in the body. (II. ii. 32.) This faculty, called

“the common sense” (II. ii. 26), sits as judge over all the data of

sense knowledge (cf. Plotinus, IV. vii. 6); it decides in case of

disagreement between two senses, and distinguishes clearly between the

objects present to each sense. (II. ii. 28.) The common sense must be

one, else, being divided, it would breed confusion in consciousness (II.

ii. 31); and it must be everywhere present in the body because it shows

no partiality to any sense, but has intelligence of all equally. (II.

ii. 32.)

The rational powers of the soul are a further proof of the soul’s

incorporeal nature. The first consideration draws attention to the vast

scope of man’s will and soul. In the virtuous the soul can be so

universalized and begotten into the life of God that the will embraces

all with a tender love and is ever striving to seek God as the good.

(II. iii. 6.) If this is so, More asks whether the soul thus

universalized can ever die. (II. iii. 7.) Man’s understanding, too, can

become so broadened that it can apprehend God’s true being, not knowing

it, to be sure, in its true essence, but having such a true insight that

it can reject all narrow conceptions of His nature and welcome other

more comprehensive ideas as closer approximations to the truth. The

understanding is in a state that More calls parturient; God under

certain conditions can be born within the soul. (II. iii. 9–12.) For the

reason, then, of the vastness of the power of will and understanding

More holds that the soul cannot be a body. (II. iii. 4.)

The next argument in regard to the rational powers of the soul centres

about her power of pure abstraction. (Cf. “Enneads,” IV. vii. 8.) In

herself the soul divests matter of all time and place relations and

views the naked, simple essence of things. (II. iii. 18.) She thus

frames within herself an idea, which is indivisible and unextended; and

by this she judges outward objects. (II. iii. 18–20; cf. “Enneads,” IV.

vii. 12.) This property is not a property of body. (II. iii. 26.)

At this point More closes the first division of his argument. By

establishing the definition of the soul as a self-moving substance, and

by an account of the nature of its functions, he has defended his first

proposition, that the soul is an incorporeal thing. He then passes on to

the second part of his argument, that the soul is an incorporeal thing

because it is independent of the body.

This portion of his defence falls into four main divisions. In the first

he explains the nature of the body’s dependence upon the soul. Through

the power that the soul has by virtue of its lowest centre of life,

called the plantal, the soul frames the body in order to exercise

through it the functions of life. (III. i. 17.) The more perfect this

body is the more awake the soul is. (III. i. 17.) But after the work of

framing the body is finished, the soul dismisses it as an old thought

and begins its life of contemplation. (III. i. 16.) The main desire is

to see God. (III. ii. 11.) Next More shows how the soul can direct her

own thoughts within herself without in any way considering the body. Her

intellectual part dives within her nature in its quest for

self-knowledge and her will affects herself after this knowledge has

been gained. All this is accomplished free from any bodily assistance.

(III. ii. 25, 26.) The third division shows how the soul is so

independent of the body that she can resist its desires. Often the

sensual impulse of our nature would lead us to be content with mere

satisfaction of our bodily desires; but the soul desirous of truth and

gifted with an insight into God’s true nature enables us to resist all

such impulses. (III. ii. 38, 39.) The fourth division contrasts the

vitality of the soul with that of sense, fancy, and memory. These three

faculties are weakened by age and by disease, and also by excessive

stimulation; but the soul never fades, but grows stronger with each

contemplative act. (III. ii. 48, 49, 56.)

The attraction which the philosophy of Plotinus had for More’s mind

lay in its scheme of speculative mysticism. The metaphysical system of

Plotinus had taught that The One, which is the truly existing being,

is everywhere present and yet nowhere wholly present. (“Enneads,” VI.

iv.) It had explained also that the only way in which the individual

soul could apprehend this truly existing being was by a mystical union

with it, in which state the soul did not know in the sense of

energizing intellectually, but was one with The One. (“Enneads,” VI.

ix. 10.) These two ideas lie at the basis of More’s theosophic

mysticism. Their presence can be felt throughout his “Psychathanasia”

as its controlling idea and also in his two less important treatises,

“Anti-psychopannychia” and “Anti-monopsychia.”

The argument of the “Anti-psychopannychia” and of the “Anti-monopsychia”

centres about the doctrine of the mystic union with God. The argument in

the “Psychathanasia” is a critique of materialism rather than a positive

plea for the existence of the soul after death. It was the purpose of

More in his two pendants to his longer poem to treat of the state of the

soul after death. That it is not enveloped in eternal night he proves in

his “Anti-psychopannychia.” His argument is briefly this: Since God is a

unity everywhere present, he is infinite freedom. (II. 2.) Since the

soul’s activities of will and intellect are free from dependence upon

the body, death will be but the ushering of the soul into the life of

God’s large liberty.

“Wherefore the soul cut off from lowly sense

By harmlesse fate, far greater libertie

Must gain: for when it hath departed hence

(As all things else) should it not backward hie

From whence it came? but such divinitie

Is in our souls that nothing lesse than God

Could send them forth (as Plato’s schools descrie)

Wherefore when they retreat a free abode

They’ll find, unlesse kept off by _Nemesis_ just rod.”

(II. 14.)

In this life of union the soul will realize the deep fecundity of her

own nature; for in her are innate ideas. To establish this theory of

innate ideas into which Plato’s theory of reminiscence has been

transformed in Plotinus (cf. “Enneads,” IV. iii. 25), More educes four

considerations. They must exist because (1) like is known only by like

(II. 31); (2) no object or number of objects can give the soul a

universal concept (II. 36); (3) the apprehension of incorporeal things

cannot be made by sense, therefore the soul must have the measure of

such within her own nature (II. 38, 39); and (4) the process of learning

shows that it is education, or the drawing out of the mind what was in

it potentially (II. 42). Inasmuch, then, as innate ideas exist within

the mind, called out by experience in life, how much more will they be

evoked in that high union with God!

“But sith our soul with God himself may meet,

Inacted by his life, I cannot see

What scruple then remains that moven might

Least doubt but that she wakes with open eye,

When fate her from this body doth untie.

Wherefore her choisest forms do then arise,

Rowz’d up by union and large sympathy

With Gods own spright: she plainly then descries

Such plentitude of life, as she could nere devise.”

(III. 2.)

But this union of the soul with The One may be thought to obliterate

self-identity after death and teach only a universal absorption of all

souls into The One. To combat this idea More contends in his

“Anti-monopsychia” that by virtue of the “Deiformity” of the soul, by

which he means its ability to be joined with God, the soul in death is

so

“quickned with near Union

With God, that now wish’d for vitalitie

Is so encreas’d, that infinitely sh’ has fun

Herself, her deep’st desire unspeakably hath wonne.

“And deep desire is the deepest act,

The most profound and centrall energie,

The very selfnesse of the soul, which backt

With piercing might, she breaks out, forth doth flie

From dark contracting death, and doth descrie

Herself unto herself; so thus unfold

That actual life she straightwayes saith, is I.”

(Stz. 35, 36.)

In the “Psychathanasia” the Plotinian doctrines of the immanent unity of

The One and of the mystical union of the soul with it are not so much

present as positive arguments incorporated in the sequence of thought,

but are felt as controlling ideas in the mind of the writer. The reason

for this lies in the fact that in the argument of Plotinus (IV. vii)

these two truths of his philosophy are not specifically elaborated. To

More, however, as indeed to all students of Plotinian metaphysics, these

are the significant ideas of his system. More thus brings them in at

opportune times throughout his argument in “Psychathanasia.”

The conception of the ever present unity of The One in all things is the

fundamental idea in the first division of his thought. The tenacity with

which he clings to this doctrine is remarkable. His argument had brought

him to the point where he had shown that all life—of plants and animals,

as well as of men—was immortal. What, then, is the state of the plantal

and animal soul after death? (I. ii. 49–53.) More does not answer

directly, but replies that although men cannot know this, it is not

permitted to reason it down.

“But it’s already clear that ’tis not right

To reason down the firm subsistencie

Of things from ignorance of their propertie.”

(I. ii. 59.)

Consequently when he comes to consider man’s immortality, he says that

all the preceding argument—the general reflection on the “self-motion

and centrall stabilitie” of the soul—may be dismissed as needless.

“Onely that vitalitie,

That doth extend this great Universall,

And move th’ inert Materialitie

Of great and little worlds, that keep in memorie.”

(II. i. 7.)

It is because of the firm conviction with which he holds to the

conception of the pervading unity of The One that he expands the idea at

length in the third and fourth cantos of the first book.

The second idea, that of the mystical union of the individual soul with

The One, is an incentive to More’s thought and feelings throughout the

course of his entire argument. From the fact that the soul can dive as

deep as matter, and rise to the height of a blissful union with God, he

derives the necessary inspiration for his “mighty task.”

“This is the state of th’ ever-moving soul,

Whirling about upon its circling wheel;

Certes to sight it variously doth roll,

And as men deem full dangerously doth reel,

But oft when men fear most, itself doth feel

In happiest plight conjoin’d with that great Sun

Of lasting blisse, that doth himself reveal

More fully then, by that close union,

Though men, that misse her here, do think her quite undone.”

(I. ii. 8.)

When in the course of his argument he arrives at a discussion of the

rational power of the soul, he launches out into a treatment of the vast

scope of man’s will and mind which

“should bring forth that live Divinity

Within ourselves, if once God would consent

To shew his specious form and nature eminent:

“For here it lies like colours in the night

Unseen and unregarded, but the sunne

Displayes the beauty and the gladsome plight

Of the adorned earth, while he doth runne

His upper stage. But this high prize is wonne

By curbing sense and the self seeking life

(True Christian mortification)

Thus God will his own self in us revive,

If we to mortifie our straightened selves do strive.”

(II. iii. 12, 13.)

Again, when his argument brings him to the point at which the

independence of soul from body is to be proved, he breaks out with an

exclamation of the bliss of that union of soul with God, when

“reason shines out bright,

And holy love with mild serenity

Doth hug her harmlesse self in this her purity;”

(III. ii. 28.)

and passes on to a description of The One as seen in the vision

“Unplac’d, unparted, one close Unity,

Yet omnipresent; all things, yet but one;

Not streak’d with gaudy multiplicity,

Pure light without discolouration,

Stable without circumvolution,

Eternal rest, joy without passing sound.”

(III. ii. 36.)

Finally in the last canto of his third book he testifies to the vanity

of that knowledge of the reasons for the soul’s immortality, even as he

had given them (III. ii. 11), and confesses that the only sure stay in

the storm of life is a faith in “the first Good.”

“But yet, my Muse, still take an higher flight,

Sing of Platonick Faith in the first Good,

That Faith that doth our souls to God unite

So strongly, tightly, that the rapid floud

Of this swift flux of things, nor with foul mud

Can stain, nor strike us off from th’ unity,

Wherein we steadfast stand, unshak’d, unmov’d,

Engrafted by a deep vitality

The prop and stay of things is Gods benignity.”

(III. iv. 14.)

As in his “Psychozoia” it was noted how the omnipresence of Psyche

appealed to More’s religious sense of the nearness of God to His

children, so in his other treatises, especially his “Psychathanasia,”

the mystical union of the soul with The One is for More another name for

the love of God as known in the soul of the Christian. The Christian

religion had taught that God is love, a conception far removed from

Platonism, whether of the dialogues or of the “Enneads” of Plotinus. But

the tendency to find in Platonism a rational sanction for religious

truth was so strong in the theology of the Cambridge school, to which

More belonged, that this conception of God as love—which, indeed, is

held by the Christian not as an idea but as a fact of his inmost

religious experience—was interpreted in the light of the speculative

mysticism of Plotinus; and thus the formless One, the ultra-metaphysical

principle above all being, became the Christian God of love.

III. ETERNITY OF THE SOUL AND OF MATTER

In the work of Vaughan and Spenser two distinct phases of another form

of Platonic idealism are presented: one in which the poet looks back

upon eternity as a fact of the soul’s past experience, and the other in

which he directs a forward glance to the future when the soul shall find

its eternal rest.

In the expression of his sense of eternity, Vaughan recurs to the

doctrine of the preëxistence of the soul as it is expounded in Plato. In

Vaughan this idea is felt as an influence either affording the substance

of his thought or determining the nature of his imagery. The idea which

Vaughan carries over into his own poetry is found in Plato’s account in

the “Phædrus” of the preëxistence of the soul in a world of pure ideas

before its descent into the body. “There was a time,” says Plato, “when

with the rest of the happy band they [_i.e._ the human souls] saw beauty

shining in brightness: we philosophers following in the train of Zeus,

others in company with other gods; and then we beheld the beatific

vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most

blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any

experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of

apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we held

shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that

living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the

body, like an oyster in his shell.” (“Phædrus,” 250.)

This idea occurs in two forms in Vaughan. In “The Retreat” the

reminiscence of a past is described as a fact of Vaughan’s religious

experience. He longs to travel back to the time when, in his purity, he

was nearer to God than he is now in his sinful state.

“Happy those early days, when I

Shin’d in my angel-infancy!

Before I understood this place

Appointed for my second race,

Or taught my soul to fancy ought

But a white, celestial thought;

When yet I had not walk’d above

A mile or two from my first love,

And looking back—at that short space—

Could see a glimpse of His bright face;

When on some gilded cloud, or flow’r,

My gazing soul would dwell an hour,

And in those weaker glories spy

Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound

My conscience with a sinful sound,

Or had the black art to dispence

A sev’ral sin to ev’ry sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dress

Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O how I long to travel back,

And tread again that ancient track!

That I might once more reach that plain,

Where first I left my glorious train:

From whence th’ enlighten’d spirit sees

That shady City of palm-trees.

But ah! my soul with too much stay

Is drunk, and staggers in the way!

Some men a forward motion love,

But I by backward steps would move;

And when this dust falls to the urn,

In that state I came, return.”

The second form of this idea appears in Vaughan’s poem called

“Corruption.” Man is represented as enjoying the happiness of innocence

in the garden of Eden, where he was in close touch with the beauties of

heaven. Here he had a glimpse of his heavenly birth; but when, by reason

of sin, he was forced to leave that place, he found earth and heaven no

longer friendly.

“Sure, it was so. Man in those early days

Was not all stone and earth;

He shin’d a little, and by those weak rays

Had some glimpse of his birth.

He saw heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence

He came, condemnèd, hither;

And, as first love draws strongest, so from hence

His mind sure progress’d thither.

Things here were strange unto him; sweat and till;

All was a thorn or weed.

· · · · ·

This made him long for home, as loth to stay

With murmurers and foes;

He sigh’d for Eden, and would often say

‘Ah! what bright days were those!’

Nor was heav’n cold unto him: for each day

The valley or the mountain

Afforded visits, and still Paradise lay

In some green shade or fountain.

Angels lay leiger here: each bush, and cell,

Each oak, and highway knew them;

Walk but the fields, or sit down at some well,

And he was sure to view them.”

In this poem, although there is no such parallelism with the account of

a preëxistent state as it is given in Plato, the fundamental idea is the

same as that of “The Retreat.” Vaughan describes man’s life in Eden as

one of closer intimacy with his celestial home than his lot on earth

affords him, just as he had described the experience of his own

“angel-infancy” and its contrast to his earthly life. In both poems is

present the conviction that the human soul once lived in a state of pure

innocence; and in both is heard the note of regret at the loss of this

through sin.

In Vaughan’s poem, “The World,” the influence of Plato’s account of the

preëxistent life of the soul is felt only in affording the character of

the imagery which Vaughan has used to express his idea. In the “Phædrus”

Plato describes the progress of the soul in its sight of the eternal

ideas in the heaven of heavens. Each soul, represented as a charioteer

guiding a pair of winged horses, is carried about by the revolution of

the spheres, and during the progress it beholds the ideas. The souls of

the gods have no difficulty in seeing these realities; “but of the other

souls,” says Plato, “that which follows God best and is likest to him

lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world, and is carried

round in the revolution, troubled indeed by the steeds, and with

difficulty beholding true being; while another only rises and falls, and

sees, and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds.

The rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world, and they

all follow, but not being strong enough they are carried round below the

surface, plunging, treading on one another, each striving to be first;

and there is confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort; and

many of them are lamed, or have their wings broken, through the

ill-driving of the charioteers.” (“Phædrus,” 248.)

In this account of the revolution of the soul about the eternal

realities of true being, Vaughan found the suggestion for his poem, “The

World.” Instead of the revolution of the soul about true being, he

describes the revolution of time about eternity. The figure of the

charioteer is absent, too, but it is by the use of the “wing” that those

who make the revolution about eternity mount up into the circle, just as

in Plato. Time in the poem also is represented as being “driven about by

the spheres.” Such coincidences of imagery show that Vaughan found in

Plato’s fanciful account of the soul’s preëxistent life in heaven the

medium through which he expressed his view of the relation of the life

of the present day world to that of eternity. At first he pictures the

revolution of the world about the great ring of light which he calls

eternity:

“I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,

Driv’n by the spheres

Like a vast shadow mov’d: in which the world

And all her train were hurl’d.”

He then describes the lover busied in his trifles,—his lute, his

fancies, and his delights. Next moves the statesman, pursued by the

shouts of multitudes. The next to follow are the miser and the epicure.

“The doting lover in his quaintest strain

Did there complain;

Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,

Wit’s sour delights;

With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure

Yet his dear treasure,

All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour

Upon a flow’r.

“The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe,

Like a thick midnight fog, mov’d there so slow,

He did nor stay, nor go;

Condemning thoughts—like sad eclipses—scowl

Upon his soul,

And clouds of crying witnesses without

Pursued him with one shout.

· · · · ·

“The fearful miser on a heap of rust

Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust

His own hands with the dust,

Yet would not place one piece above, but lives

In fear of thieves.

Thousands there were as frantic as himself,

And hugg’d each one his pelf;

The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,

And scorn’d pretence;

While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,

Said little less;

The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,

Who think them brave;

And poor, despisèd Truth sate counting by

Their victory.”

At this point Vaughan ends his catalogue of human types and comments

upon the unwillingness of the many to soar up into the ring by the aid

of the wing.

“Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,

And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the ring;

But most would use no wing.

O fools—said I—thus to prefer dark night

Before true light!

To live in grots and caves, and hate the day

Because it shows the way;

The way, which from this dead and dark abode

Leads up to God.”

Spenser finds his suggestion of the eternal in life, not in a

consciousness of a past existence, but in a conception of the world of

matter built up in accordance with the Platonic doctrine of stability of

the substance amid the flux of changing forms. This conception of the

world is explained by him in his description of the “Garden of Adonis”

in the “Faerie Queene” and in his “Two Cantos of Mutabilitie.”

The conception of matter which Spenser teaches is the doctrine of

Plotinus expressed in accordance with the account of flux and stability

of natural phenomena explained by Plato in the “Timæus.” According to

Plotinus matter is an indestructible “subject” of forms which endures

through all the various changes which it is constantly undergoing, and

this unchanging something is never destroyed. (“Enneads,” II. iv. 6.) In

the “Timæus” Plato had outlined a theory of flux with which this

doctrine of the indestructibility of matter could be easily harmonized.

In his discussion of the world of natural phenomena he distinguishes

three natures, as he calls them, and likens them to a father, a child,

and a mother. “For the present,” he says in the “Timæus” (50), “we have

only to conceive of three natures: first, that which is in process of

generation; secondly, that in which the generation takes place; and

thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a resemblance. And we may

liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the source or spring to a

father, and the intermediate nature to a child.” According to this piece

of poetic imagery he describes the various manifestations of matter in

the outward world. The elements are constantly changing in and out of

one another and have in them nothing permanent. They cannot be called

“this” or “that,” but only “such.” Only the receiving principle, the

universal nature, “that must be always called the same; for while

receiving all things, she never departs at all from her own nature, and

never in any way or at any time assumes a form like that of any of the

things which enter into her; she is the natural recipient of all

impressions, and is stirred and informed by them, and appears different

from time to time by reason of them.” (“Timæus,” 50.)

The explanation of the myriad changes of matter of the outward world of

sense after the manner of this account by Plato is found in Spenser’s

description of the “Garden of Adonis.” The term “garden of Adonis” is

found in Plato’s “Phædrus” (276), where is meant an earthen vessel in

which plants are nourished to quick growth only to decay as rapidly. On

this term Spenser’s imagination built its superstructure of fancy by

which the garden of Adonis became symbolic of the world of natural

phenomena described after the manner of Plato in the “Timæus” and

Plotinus in the “Enneads.” The garden is described at first as a

seminary of all living things, conceived first as flowers:

“In that same Gardin all the goodly flowres,

Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautifie,

And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,

Are fetcht: there is the first seminarie

Of all things, that are borne to live and die,

According to their kindes. Long worke it were,

Here to account the endlesse progenie

Of all the weedes, that bud and blossome there;

But so much as doth need, must needs be counted here.”

(III. vi. 30.)

Spenser’s imagination now changes, and he conceives of the objects in

this garden as naked babes, in accordance with the suggestion of the

intermediate nature which Plato conceived as a child. Genius as the

porter of the place is thus described:

“He letteth in, he letteth out to wend,

All that to come into the world desire;

A thousand thousand naked babes attend

About him day and night, which doe require,

That he with fleshly weedes would them attire:

Such as him list, such as eternal fate

Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire,

And sendeth forth to live in mortall state,

Till they againe returne backe by the hinder gate.”

(III. vi. 32.)

Again there is a change, and the objects issuing from this garden are

forms which borrow their substance from the matter of chaos.

“Infinite shapes of creatures there are bred,

And uncouth formes, which none yet ever knew,

And every sort is in a sundry bed

Set by it selfe, and ranckt in comely rew

Some fit for reasonable soules t’ indew,

Some made for beasts, some made for birds to weare,

And all the fruitfull spawne of fishes hew

In endlesse rancks along enraunged were,

That seem’d the _Ocean_ could not containe them there.”

(III. vi. 35.)

When these forms are sent forth from the garden they take for their

substance the matter found in chaos which is ever eternal.

“Daily they grow, and daily forth are sent

Into the world, it to replenish more;

Yet is the stocke not lessened, nor spent,

But still remaines in everlasting store,

As it at first created was of yore.

For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,

In hateful darkenesse and in deepe horrore,

An huge eternall _Chaos_, which supplyes

The substances of natures fruitfull progenyes.

“All things from thence doe their first being fetch,

And borrow matters whereof they are made,

Which when as forme and feature it doth ketch,

Becomes a bodie, and doth then invade

The state of life, out of the griesly shade.

That substance is eterne, and bideth so,

Ne when the life decayes, and forme does fade,

Doth it consume, and into nothing go,

But chaunged is, and often altred to and fro.”

(III. vi. 36–37.)

Spenser now stops the play of fancy and becomes the philosopher,

explaining the doctrine of matter as taught by Plotinus. The substance

of things is eternal and abides in potency of further change.

“The substance is not changed, nor altered,

But th’ only forme and outward fashion;

For every substance is conditioned

To change her hew, and sundry formes to don,

Meet for her temper and complexion:

For formes are variable and decay,

By course of kind, and by occasion;

And that faire flower of beautie fades away,

As doth the lilly fresh before the sunny ray.”

(II. vi. 38.)

Finally, Spenser closes his account of the garden with a mingling of

fancy and philosophy. He adopts the suggestion of Plato that the source

of the many changes in natural phenomena is a father, and blends the

conception with the myth of Venus and Adonis. In the garden Venus is

represented as enjoying the pleasure of the presence of Adonis

perpetually, for he is described as the father of the various forms who

abides eternal in all change.

“There wont faire _Venus_ often to enjoy

Her deare _Adonis_ joyous company,

And reape sweet pleasure of the wanton boy;

There yet, some say, in secret he does ly,

Lapped in flowers and pretious spycery,

By her hid from the world, and from the skill

Of _Stygian_ Gods, which doe her love envy;

But she her selfe, when ever that she will,

Possesseth him, and of his sweetnesse takes her fill.

“And sooth it seemes they say: for he may not

For ever die, and ever buried bee

In balefull night, where all things are forgot;

All be he subject to mortalitie,

Yet is eterne in mutabilitie,

And by succession made perpetuall,

Transformed oft, and chaunged diverslie:

For him the Father of all formes they call;

Therefore needs mote he live, that living gives to all.”

(III. vi. 46, 47.)

The attraction which this doctrine of the indestructibility of matter

had for Spenser lay in the comforting assurance which it brought him of

an eternity when things should be at rest. Throughout Spenser is heard a

note of world weariness.

“Nothing is sure, that growes on earthly ground.”

These words placed in the mouth of Arthur (I. ix. 11) are essentially

characteristic of Spenser’s outlook on the things of this world: they

are his _lacrimæ rerum_. The “Cantos of Mutabilitie” is the best

instance in point. These two cantos celebrate the overthrow of

Mutability by Nature. To the claim of preëminence among the gods which

Mutability lays before Nature, and which she bases upon the fact that

everything in the wide universe is subject to constant change, Dame

Nature replies that though they be subject to change, they change only

their outward state, each change working their perfection; and she

further remarks that the time will come when there shall be no more

change. At the end of Mutability’s plea Dame Nature thus answers the

charge:

“I well consider all that ye have sayd,

And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate

And changed be: yet being rightly wayd

They are not changed from their first estate;

But by their change their being doe dilate:

And turning to themselves at length againe,

Doe worke their owne perfection so by fate:

Then over them Change doth not rule and raigne;

But they raigne over change, and doe their states maintaine.

“Cease therefore daughter further to aspire,

And thee content thus to be rul’d by me:

For thy decay thou seekst by thy desire;

But time shall come that all shall changed bee,

And from thenceforth, none no more change shall see.”

(VII. vii. 58, 59.)

On this decision of Nature Spenser bases his assurance of a time when

the soul shall have its final rest. With a prayer to the great God of

Sabaoth that he may see the time when all things shall rest in Him,

Spenser closes his work on his great unfinished poem—the “Faerie

Queene.”

“Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,

Of that same time when no more _Change_ shall be,

But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd

Upon the pillours of Eternity,

That is contrayr to _Mutabilitie_:

For, all that moveth, doth in _Change_ delight:

But thenceforth all shall rest eternally.

With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:

O Thou great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight.”

(VII. viii. 2.)

In the theory of the preëxistence of the soul and in the conception of

the indestructibility of matter Vaughan and Spenser were able to find

teachings which were akin to the most intimate experiences of their

lives. Although the phase of Platonic idealism which taught in these two

distinct ways the eternity of human life and of the world about us did

not have so vital an influence upon English poetry as did the opening of

a world of moral beauty, its presence is nevertheless indicative of the

strong hold which Platonism had upon some of the finest poetic minds of

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. Even when these

poets were writing from the fulness of their own personal experience, it

was in the moulds of Platonic philosophy that their thought was cast.

The elements of Platonism, then, that enter into the English poetry of

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have their source in the

dialogues of Plato and the “Enneads” of Plotinus. The body of this

teaching—its æsthetics, its metaphysics, and its ethics—was seen by the

poets in its relation to Christian doctrine and to the passion of

romantic love. The more permanent results for good are found in the

fusion of Platonism with the ideals of Christian living and with its

longing for perfection. If one passage in Plato may adequately sum up

the teaching of Platonism most influential in English poetry, it is the

passage in “Phædrus” in which the beauty of wisdom is taught (“Phædrus,”

250).

But beauty in its stricter import is a thing known to the sense, and is

carried over into the moral world only to indicate the value of moral

ideas. Plato recognized this; and in this connection it is significant

that in the part of “Phædrus,” where he speaks of the loveliness of

wisdom, he is aware of the power of pure beauty. “But of beauty,” he

says, “I repeat again that we saw her there [in the ideal world] shining

in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her

here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense.

For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that

is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had

been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible

counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of

beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight”

(250).

Spenser was the poet who caught the spirit of this teaching.

Pastorella’s beauty is presented not as Una’s, the beauty of wisdom, nor

as Britomart’s, the beauty of the inward purity of womanhood; but it is

a beauty of pure form.

“And soothly sure she was full fayre of face,

And perfectly well shapt in every lim,

Which she did more augment with modest grace,

And comely carriage of her count’nance trim,

That all the rest like lesser lamps did dim.”

(VI. ix. 9.)

And yet as she stands on the little hillock she is encompassed with a

cloud of glory.

“Upon a litle hillocke she was placed

Higher then all the rest, and round about

Environ’d with a girland, goodly graced,

Of lovely lasses, and them all without

The lustie shepheard swaynes sate in a rout;

The which did pype and sing her prayses dew,

And oft rejoyce, and oft for wonder shout,

As if some miracle of heavenly hew

Were downe to them descended in that earthly vew.”

(VI. ix. 8.)

They saw in the object before their eyes the idea of beauty in earthly

form. The miracle is no more and no less than this; it is “the privilege

of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to

sight.”

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INDEX

Absence, effect of, in love, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148.

Acrasia, a type of sensual beauty, 20;

captured by Guyon, 21.

Adam, 43, 44, 83.

Amavia, 24.

“Anatomy of the World, An,” 162, 165.

“Answer to the Platonicks,” 162.

“Anti-monopsychia,” 194, 196.

“Anti-Platonick” (Cleveland’s), 162.

“Anti-Platonick” (Daniel’s), 159.

“Anti-psychopannychia,” 194, 195.

“Apology for Smectymnuus, An,” 47.

“Arcadia,” 66.

Archimago, 14.

ἀρετή, identification of Una with, 2.

Ariosto, 26, 39.

Arthegal, his reverence for Britomart, 35, 37, 38, 40;

his training in justice, 28.

Arthur, as heavenly grace, 3, 62;

his relation to the Red Cross Knight, 62;

his function in scheme of “Faerie Queene,” 62.

Astræa, 27.

“Barriers, The,” 125.

Baxter, 92.

Beauty, in Ficino, 109, 112, 113, 114;

in Plato, 34, 35, 220;

in Milton, 41;

in Spenser, 35,38, 41, 109, 111, 112, 113, 220, 221.

of beloved, its relation to absolute beauty, in George Daniel, 131;

in Ficino, 115;

in Shakespeare, 128, 134, 135;

in Spenser, 32–34, 115, 130, 136.

earthly, 79, 80.

heavenly, a fundamental doctrine of Platonism, 1, 103;

identified as wisdom, 73;

as beauty of intelligible world, 76.

“Beauty,” 86.

Beelzebub, 58.

Being, true, 98.

Belphœbe, 5.

Bower of Bliss, 21.

Boyle, Robert, 158.

Bradamante, 39.

Britomart, 35, 36–38.

“Cælica,” 138.

Calidore, 46.

“Cantos of Mutabilitie,” 217.

Carew, Thomas, 158.

Cartwright, William, 162.

Charles I, 156.

Charleton, Walter, 157.

Chastity, Milton’s idea of, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56.

Christ, mystical love of, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99;

as true being, 98;

Milton’s idea of, 180, 181.

“Christ’s Triumph after Death,” 100–103.

Cleveland, John, 161, 162.

“Colin Clouts Come Home Againe,” 122.

“Commentarium in Convivium,” on love, 107, 108, 115, 116, 121;

on beauty, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114;

its interpretation of Plato, 140.

“Comus,” effect of sensuality on soul taught in, 49;

chastity in, 48, 49, 56;

doctrine of grace in, 63, 64;

parallelism with “Phædo,” 49, _n._ 1.

Comus, his attempts on The Lady, 51–54;

his character, 53.

“Corruption,” 205, 206.

“Court-Platonicke,” 159.

Cowley, Abraham, 161, 162.

Craig, Alexander, 138.

Crashaw, Richard, 97, 99, 138.

Daniel, George, 131, 158.

Daniel, Samuel, 138.

D’Avenant, William, 156.

Diodati, Charles, 41.

Donne, John, mysticism in, 94;

love in, 141, 144, 145, 149, 51, 152, 153, 154;

his idea of woman, 163, 164, 165.

Drayton, Michael, 125, 138.

“Dream, The,” 153.

Drummond, William, his idea of God, 174, 175, 176, 183;

his idea of love, 82, 88, 132;

his idea of heavenly love, 76, 81;

appeal of Platonism to, 76;

his idea of happiness, 86;

his idea of rest, 87.

Dryden, John, 165.

Duessa, 66.

“Ecstacy, The,” 141.

Elissa, 22.

“Enneads,” see under Plotinus.

“Epithalamion,” 31, 32, 33.

“Epithalamy,” 162.

“Epode,” 151.

Eve, 44, 45.

“Faerie Queene,” Christianity and Platonic idealism in, 1;

its teaching on holiness, 1;

its teaching on temperance, see under Guyon;

Platonic ethics in, 26, 39;

its allegorical scheme, 26;

its unity, 29, 30;

beauty of mind in, 33;

function of grace in, 62, 63.

“Fever, A,” 164.

Ficino, see under “Commentarium in Convivium.”

Fidelia, 3.

Fletcher, Giles, 100, 101, 102, 103.

Fletcher, Phineas, 83, 97.

Florimell, 66.

“Forerunners, The,” 90.

“Friendship in Absence,” 161.

Furor, 16.

“Garden of Adonis,” 213–216.

God, as lover of His own beauty, 68, 69;

as The Good, 70, 86;

union of soul with, 100–103;

as “Idea Beatificall,” 102;

as source of beauty, 109, 180;

as Creator, 110;

and the three Platonian hypostases, 172;

as king, 174, 175, 176;

as philosophical principle, 176–178.

Good, The, 169.

“Gorgias,” on temperance, 24.

Grace, doctrine of, its connection with ideal of holiness, 61–63;

its connection with ideal of chastity, 63, 64;

its connection with ideal of temperance, 62, 63;

represented by Arthur, 62.

Greville, Fulke, 138.

Guyon, his adventures, 13;

his struggles with wrath, 14–18;

his struggles with sensual desire, 18–21;

character of his life, 24;

his praise of beauty of mind, 34;

his relation to Arthur, 62.

Habington, William, 147.

Heaven, 92.

Henrietta, Maria, 156, 157.

Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert, 146, 159.

Herbert, George, 71, 89, 90, 93.

Heywood, Thomas, 156.

Holiness, Platonism and, 10;

its connection with the doctrine of grace, 62.

Holy Spirit, identified with Psyche, 170.

Howell, James, 155, 156, 157.

Hudibras, 22.

“Hymn of Fairest Fair, An,” 174–179, 183, 184.

“Hymne in Honour of Beautie, An,” 106, 109–117, 118.

“Hymne in Honour of Love, An,” 105, 107, 108, 118, 121.

“Hymne of Heavenly Love,” 68, 69, 73, 74, 75, 76, 95, 96.

“Hymne of Heavenly Beautie,” 185, 186.

“Hymne of True Happiness, An,” 86.

Hypostases, the Plotinian, 167, 176, 177.

Idea, Platonic notion of, 95;

connection with mysticism, 95, 101;

term used as title, 138.

“Idea Beatificall,” 102.

Intellect, The, identified with God, 175;

defined, 170, 180;

identified with Christ, 170.

Intelligible world, 77, 78, 81.

“In the Glorious Epiphanie of Our Lord God,” 97–99.

Ithuriel, 59.

Jonson, 122, 123, 151.

“Jordan,” 91.

Joy, in religious experience, 85;

and the beatific vision, 88.

Justice, Spenser’s conception of, 27, 28;

Plato’s conception, 28;

identical with temperance, 28.

Lady, The, in “Comus,” effect of spells of Comus on, 53;

her response to Comus, 54;

her conception of chastity, 54, 56.

Linche, Richard, 138.

Love, nativity of the god of, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124;

treatment of, in Donne, 149–151, 152–155;

in Drayton, 125, 126;

in Ficino, 107, 108, 115, 116;

in Habington, 147;

in Jonson, 123, 124, 125, 151;

in Milton, 41, 47, 82, 83;

in Plato, 34, 35, 120;

in Spenser, 34, 107–109, 115–118, 120, 122;

in Vaughan, 132, 133.

earthly, 83, 88.

heavenly, defined, 67, 72, 73, 84;

in Spenser, 75;

in Drummond, 81.

Platonic, its rise at court, 155, 156;

defined, 155, 156, 160;

ridiculed, 156, 157;

described Lord Herbert, 159, 160;

in Stanley, 158;

in Vaughan, 158;

its immorality, 158.

“Love,” 71.

“Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly,” 124, 125.

Lovelace, Richard, 161.

“Love’s Growth,” 152.

“Love’s Innocence,” 158.

“Love’s Mistress or the Queen’s Masque,” 156.

“Love’s Triumph through Callipolis,” 123, 124.

Mammon, 19.

Margaret of Valois, 156, 157.

“Masque of Beauty, The,” 122, 123.

Matter, in Plato, 211, 215;

in Plotinus, 210, 211, 215;

in Spenser, 212.

Mean, the Aristotelean doctrine of the, described, 21, 22;

in Spenser, 22, 23.

Milton, John, his notion of woman, 40, 41, 44;

his treatment of Eve, 44, 45;

his love of beauty, 41, 44, 64, 65;

his debt to Platonic philosophy, 47;

his idealism, 47, 48, 55, 57, 61;

his conception of sin, 49, 57, 58;

hold of Platonism on, 40, 47, 55, 56, 57, 61, 64, 65;

his idea of chastity, 47, 48, 54, 55;

doctrine of grace in, 63, 64;

his idea of beauty, 64;

his idea of love, 82, 83;

his idea of God, 180;

his idea of Christ, 180.

More, Henry, mysticism in, 99, 196, 199;

his idea of the Trinity, 168, 173;

his idea of soul, 187–193;

his idea of Christ, 170;

his idea of the Holy Spirit, 170–174;

religious feeling in, 182, 201;

his argument for immortality, 187–193;

hold of Platonism on, 193, 202;

on innate ideas, 195.

Mysticism, erotic, defined, 92, 93;

in George Herbert, 93;

in Donne, 94;

its connection with Platonism, 95;

relation of love of Christ to, 95–103.

“Negative Love,” 153–155.

“Nicomachean Ethics,” 22.

“No Platonique Love,” 162.

Norris, John, 86, 87, 89, 157.

One, The, 153, 169, 179.

“Orlando Furioso,” 38, 39.

Palmer, The, 17, 20, 21, 25.

“Paradise Lost,” 49, 58.

“Paradise Regained,” 42.

Pastorella, 46.

Petrarchism, defined, 105, 126;

influence of Platonism on, 105, 127.

Perissa, 22.

“Phædo,” on the function of philosophy, 8;

on effect of sense knowledge on soul, 48, 49 _n._ 1, 50, 55;

on the super-sensible world, 77, 78, 81 _n._ 1.

Phædria, 18.

“Phædrus,” on the beauty of wisdom, 4, 127;

on love, 8, 34, 35;

on beauty of virtue, 4, 127, 220;

on reminiscence, 11, 57, 203, 206, 207;

on sight of true beauty, 57;

on beauty, 220.

“Philebus,” on goodness, 61.

“Piscatorie Eclogues,” 83.

“Platonick, The,” 161.

“Platonic Elegy, A,” 143.

“Platonic Love” (Ayres’s), 161;

(Aytoun’s) 161.

“Platonick Love (Cowley’s), 162;

(Cleveland’s), 162;

(Lord Herbert’s), 159, 160.

“Platonic Lovers,” 156.

Platonism, fundamental principle of, 1, 3, 30;

its relation to ideal of holiness, 10;

its part in religious experience, 12, 71, 72, 85, 91, 92, 181, 183;

its relation to ethics of “Faerie Queene,” 26, 30;

its connection with doctrine of grace, 61;

its relation to doctrine of heavenly love, 67, 68;

its appeal to sense of beauty, 85;

its influence on erotic mysticism, 95–104;

its influence on love poetry, 104;

its relation to morality of love, 136, 137, 138;

its influence on discussion of love, 140, 141;

its three hypostases, 167;

its effect on theology, 167;

its attraction for the religious mind, 183, 193, 194, 201, 202, 216,

218, 219.

Italian, appeal of, to Spenser, 117, 118;

its æsthetic theory, 139;

its debt to Plotinus, 140;

its relation to Plato, 140;

its debt to Ficino, 140.

Plotinus, “Enneads” of, on the intelligible world, 77;

on The Good, 153, 154, 169, 181;

on the hypostases, 167;

on soul, 170, 171;

on intellect, 170;

on The One, 176, 177, 181, 194;

on inter-relation of the hypostases, 177, 180;

on matter, 179, 211;

on immortality, 187.

“Prayer for Mankind,” 184.

“Prospect,” 87.

“Psychathanasia,” idea of creation in, 70;

mysticism in, 99, 194;

immortality in, 187–193;

The One in, 197, 198, 199.

Psyche, 170, 171, 172.

“Psychozoia,” idea of the Trinity in, 168;

religious feeling in, 183.

“Pure Platonicke,” 159.

“Purple Island,” 97.

Pyrochles, 17, 18.

Randolph, Thomas, 143.

Red Cross Knight, his sight of Una’s beauty, 7, 9, 10, 11;

on Mount of Contemplation, 8, 9, 10, 11, 62;

training in House of Holiness, 10;

slandered, 14;

character of, 15;

Arthur’s relation to, 62.

“Republic,” on the good, 8;

on temperance, 13, 14, 28;

on principles within soul, 13;

on justice, 28;

on imitative art, 91 _n._ 1;

on truth and opinion, 125.

Reminiscence, theory of, in Vaughan, 203, 204–206, 207, 208;

in Plato, 203, 206.

“Retreat, The,” 203, 204, 206.

Ruggiero, 39.

Sans Loy, 23.

Satan, his love of beauty, 42, 43–46;

his sight of Eden, 43;

contemplating Adam and Eve, 43, 44, 46;

his regret for lost beauty, 58, 59, 60.

Satyrane, 3.

Sedley, Charles, 161.

“Seraphick Love,” 89.

Shakespeare, 128, 129, 134, 135.

Sidney, Algernon, 157.

Sidney, Philip, on beauty of virtue, 66;

on heavenly love, 84, 85;

on Stella and virtue, 127;

on Plato, 137.

Song—“If you refuse me once,” 161.

Song II—“It Autumn was, and on our hemisphere,” 76, 77, 79–81, 81 _n._

1.

Song, “To a Lady,” 158.

Song, “To Amoret,” 133.

σοφια, Una identified with, 2.

σωφροσύνη, Plato’s idea of, 12.

Soul, three principles in the, 13;

effect of sensuous experience on the, 48, 50, 51;

its self-sufficiency, 61;

its union with God, 89, 100–103;

its formative energy, 113, 114;

union of, in love, 141, 143;

defined, 187, 192, 193;

where found, 188;

a self-moving substance, 188;

immortality of, 189, 190, 191, 192;

its identity after death, 195,196;

universal, identified with woman, 164;

defined, 170, 171.

“Soul’s Joy,” 144.

Spenser, Edmund, Platonism in, 3, 5, 7, 21, 22, 31, 35, 39, 117, 218,

220;

his idea of beauty, 4, 32, 33, 65, 66;

his idea of justice, 27;

his idea of temperance, 23, 24, 25;

his idea of virtue, 27, 29;

his idea of a gentleman, 29;

his idea of love, 31, 108;

his idea of heavenly love, 75;

his æsthetics, 109–117;

identifies beloved with idea of beauty, 130, 136;

on his hymns, 139;

his idea of matter, 212;

his world weariness, 216.

Stanley, Thomas, 158.

Suckling, John, 161.

Sylvanus, 6.

“Symposium,” on wisdom, 8;

its dialectic 8, 75;

on beauty of mind, 31;

on nativity of love, 68, 120;

interpreted by Ficino, 107, 140;

on generation and immortality, 119, 120.

“Teares on the Death of Mœliades,” 87, 88.

Temperance, Plato’s idea of, 12, 13, 14, 23;

Spenser’s idea of, 23, 24, 25;

and justice, 28;

connection with heavenly grace, 62.

“Temple of Love,” 156.

“Theologia Germanica,” 168.

θνμός, 13.

“Timæus,” on creation, 70;

on Creator, 110;

on flux, 211, 212.

“To Amoret. Walking in a Starry Evening,” 132.

“To Cinthia, Converted,” 159.

“To Cinthia, coying it,” 159.

“To Cloris, a Rapture,” 161.

“To Lucasta, Going beyond the Seas,” 161.

“To my Mistress in Absence,” 161.

“To the Countess of Huntingdon,” 149, 151, 163.

“To the Platonicke Pretender,” 159.

“To the World. The Perfection of Love,” 147.

Trinity, The, identified with Plotinian hypostases, 168–174;

its unity, 176.

Una, identified with σοφία, and ἀρετή, 2;

identified with truth, 2, 3;

guides Red Cross Knight to Fidelia’s school, 3;

presented as true beauty, 3–10.

“Urania,” 88.

“Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” 145.

Vaughan, Henry, his idea of love, 132, 133, 148;

his idea of Platonic love, 158;

his idea of preëxistence, 203.

Virtue, Plato’s idea of, 27;

a manifold of graces, 27;

its beauty, 127;

identified with woman, 163.

Vision, beatific, described as rest, 87;

as joy, 88.

Wisdom, the highest beauty, 4;

beauty of, 4, 10;

seen only by soul, 8;

sight of, quickening imagination, 10, 11;

identified with heavenly beauty, 73;

subject of “Hymne of Heavenly Beautie,” 73, 74.

“Wishes, The,” 138.

“World, The,” 206, 207, 208, 210.

Woman, her inward beauty, 31;

attraction of, 162;

identified as virtue, 163;

as universal soul, 164.

Zephon, 59, 60.

-----

Footnote 1:

Cf. Pub. of Mod. Lang. Ass. of Amer., 1897, p. 177, “Spenser’s

Imitations from Ariosto.”

Footnote 2:

Masson, Life of Milton, I. 600.

Footnote 3:

Milton, Prose Works, I. 225.

Footnote 4:

ll. 470–475 are taken from “Phædo,” 81: “And this corporeal element,

my friend, is heavy and weighty and earthy, and is that element of

sight by which a soul is depressed and dragged down again into the

visible world, because she is afraid of the invisible and of the world

below—prowling about tombs and sepulchres, near which, as they tell

us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions of souls which have not

departed pure, but are cloyed with sight, and therefore visible.”

Footnote 5:

Lib. 3. fol. 313 recto.

Footnote 6:

Besides paraphrasing “Phædo,” 110–111 in ll. 111–136, Drummond repeats

the argument given in that dialogue to prove the probable existence of

such a world. Cf. ll. 141–170 with “Phædo,” 109.—“But we who live in

these hollows [of earth] are deceived into the notion that we are

dwelling on the surface of the earth; which is just as if a creature

who was at the bottom of the sea were to fancy that he was on the

surface of the water and that the sea was the heaven through which he

saw the sun and the other stars, he having never come to the surface

by reason of his feebleness and sluggishness, and having never lifted

up his head and seen, nor ever heard from one who had seen, how much

purer and fairer the world above is than his own.... [But] if any man

could arrive at the exterior limit [of the atmosphere], or take the

wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his

head out of water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond.”

Footnote 7:

This idea of catching the truth of a thing at two removes and the

reference to a true and painted chair are reminiscences of Plato’s

discussion of imitative art, and his figure of the three beds.

(“Republic” X, 597–599.)

Footnote 8:

“Puritan and Anglican Studies,” Edward Dowden, pp. 29–30.

Footnote 9:

Walton, “Life of Herbert,” pp. 386, 396.

Footnote 10:

Poems of Shakespeare. Ed. George Wyndham, p. cxxii.

Footnote 11:

“Poems of Lord Herbert of Cherbury,” ed. John Churton Collins, p. 24.

Footnote 12:

Howell’s “Letters,” Bk. I, sect. 6, let. XV.

Footnote 13:

“Lustra Ludovicii,” p. 26. London, 1646.

Footnote 14:

“An Account of Plato’s Ideas, and of Platonic Love.” “Miscellanies,”

pp. 355–364.

Footnote 15:

“An Essay on Love,” p. 275.

Footnote 16:

“The Ephesian and Cimmerian Matrons,” 1668.

Footnote 17:

“A Treatise of Seraphic Love.” Advertisements to the Reader, p. 12.

Footnote 18:

“Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished, 1646.” Preface.

Footnote 19:

Works, ed. Grosart, I. 112–123.

Footnote 20:

Works, ed. A. H. Bullen, p. 124.

Footnote 21:

“Ben Jonson’s Conversations with William Drummond,” p. 3.

Shakespeare’s Soc. Pub. v. 8.

Footnote 22:

Works, ed. Saintsbury, xi. 124, note.

Footnote 23:

“Life of Henry More,” Richard Ward, p. 12.

Footnote 24:

“Psychozoia.” To the Reader.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected palpable typographical errors; retained

non-standard spellings and dialect.

2. Reindexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end

of the last chapter.

3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

4. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript

character, e.g. M^r.