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² This correspondence was first printed by Clerselier, Claude, Lettres de Monsieur Descartes (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar. More also published the letters, as “Epistolae quatuor ad Renatura Des-Cartes” in A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings (London, 1662)Google Scholar. The standard edition is in Descartes, ' Oeuvres, ed. Adam, & Tannery, , vol. v (Paris, 1903)Google Scholar. There is also a recent edition, with a French translation, Descartes, Correspondance avec Arnaud et Morus, ed. Lewis, G. (Paris, 1953)Google Scholar. For a partial English translation, see Cohen, L. D., “Descartes and Henry More on the Beast Machine”, Annals of Science, i (1936), 48–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ For a vivid expression of More's grounds for rejecting Cartesianism, see his letter to Boyle, 4 December 1665, in Boyle, 's Works, ed. Birch, T., 6 vols. (London, 1772), vi, 313–315.Google Scholar

⁴ Nicolson, M., “The Early Stage of Cartesianism in England”, Studies in Philology, xxvi (1929), 356–374Google Scholar. Lamprecht, S. P. disputes More's dominance in early Cartesianism, “The Role of Descartes in Seventeenth-Century England”, Columbia University, Studies in the History of Ideas, iii (1935), 181–242.Google Scholar

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⁸ Hall, John, An Humble Motion to the Parliament of England Concerning the Advancement of Learning: And Reformation of the Universities (London, 1649)Google Scholar. Hall's friend, John Davies of Kidwelly, who moved from Oxford to Cambridge in 1646, translated many French works, including the anonymous, Reflections upon Monsieur Des Cartes discourse of a method for the well-guiding of reason, and discovery of truth in the sciences (London, 1655).Google Scholar

⁹ Worthington, John, Diary and Correspondence, ed. Crossley, J., Chetham Society, 3 vols. (Manchester, 1847–1886)Google Scholar; ii, 254. Letter dated 29 November 1667.

¹⁰ Biographica Britannica, ed. Kippis, A., vol. v (London, 1760), p. 3174.Google Scholar

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¹⁵ Power's initial approach to natural philosophy was through anatomy and physiology. In a letter to Sir Thomas Browne, 15 September 1648, he reported that “Descartes, and Regius … answer'd my doubts & Quaeries in that Art”.B.M.Sloane MS. 1911–13, ff. 80–81. For a discussion of the Cartesian influence on Power, see my paper: “Henry Power's Experimental Philosophy”, Ambix, xiv (1967), 150–178.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Barrow, Isaac, “Cartesiana hypothesis de materia et motu haud satisfacit praecipuis naturae phaenomenis”, published in Barrow's Theological Works, ed. Napier, A., 9 vols. (Cambridge, 1859), ix, 79–104Google Scholar. Barrow described Descartes as “vir proculdubio optimus atque ingeniosissimus, ac serio Philosophus, et qui videtur adPhilosophiae hujus contemplationem ea attulisse auxilia, qualia fortassis nemo unquam alius; intelligo eximiam in Mathematicis peritiam” (p. 81).

¹⁷ Glanvill, , Vanity of Dogmatizing, op. cit., 73–74.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Cassirer, , op. cit., 1.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Hartlib papers, Sheffield University Library, XVII. The existence of this correspondence was first pointed out by Turnbull, G. H., Hartlib, Dury and Comenius (London, 1947), 87–88Google Scholar. Only More's letters are preserved in the Hartlib papers, Hartlib's letters having not been traced. One at least still exists, since a letter of 1649 was quoted by Miss Syfret, R. H., “The Origins of the Royal Society”, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, v (1948), 75–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 98. However, Miss Syfret (personal communication) has not been able to find the source for this quotation. There are 24 letters from More; in chronological order, their dates are 27 Nov. 1648; 11 Dec. [1648]; 5 Feb. 1648/9; 20 Feb. 1648/9; 5 March 1648/9; 12 March 1648/9; 15 April 1649; 27 Aug. [1649]; [c. 10 Sept. 1649]; 24 Sept. [1649]; 9 Oct. [1649]; 21 Oct. [1649]; 5 Nov. [1649]; 30 Dec. [1649]; 28 Jan. [1649/50]; 2 April [1650]; [1650?]; 12 Aug. 1651; 2 Feb. 1651/2; 7 Feb. 1652/3; 18 April 1655; 4 May [1655]; 28 May [1655?]; 28 July [1655?]. The first letter iss an extract, all others are complete and are originals. The recipient of the first letter is not given; all others are to Hartlib.

²⁰ Letter from Hall, to Hartlib, , 13 04 1647Google Scholar, Hartlib Papers, LX, 14.

²¹ Letter from Smith, to Hartlib, , 20 11 1648Google Scholar; Hartlib Papers, XV, vi.

²² See note 19.

²³ Letter of 27 Nov. 1648. In the following extracts of letters, the original spelling, punctuation, etc., has been preserved, except that contractions such as wch, yt, yn, etc., have been expanded. In the two complete letters quoted below these contractions have been retained.

²⁴ See letter from Josias Allsopp to John Walker, 18 Jan. 1711/12, quoted by Peile, J., Biographical Register of Christ's College, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1910), i, 315Google Scholar. See also Nicolson, , “The Early Stage of Cartesianism in England”, op. cit., 362.Google Scholar

²⁵ Letter dated 11 December [1648]. For More's letter to Descartes of the same date see Oeuvres, ed. Adam, & Tannery, , v, 236–246.Google Scholar

²⁶ More's first letter to Descartes, op. cit. (25): “Libere dicam quod sentio: omnes quotquot exstiterunt, aut etiamnum existunt, Arcanorum Naturae Antistites, si ad magnificam tuam indolem comparentur, Pumilos plane videri ac Pygmeos.”

²⁷ See More's first letter (supra p. 364); also Descartes' “dexterous wit and th[o]rough insight into nature and Laws of Matter, has so perfected the Reasons of those Phaenomena that Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius and others have puzzled themselves about, that there seems nothing now wanting as concerning that way of philosophizing, but patience and an unprejudiced judgment to peruse what he has writ”. Immortality of the Soul, see A Collection … op. cit. (7), 166.Google Scholar

²⁸ Letter to Hartlib, , 20 02 1649.Google Scholar

²⁹ For the letter to Descartes of the same date, see Oeuvres, v, 298–317.Google Scholar

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³¹ Ibid., p. 1.

³² Hartlib Papers, VII, 123; Copy.

³³ For Drebbel (1572–1633) as an inventor and possible influence on Bacon, see Colie, Rosalie L., “Cornelius Drebbel and Solomon de Caus: Two Jacobean Models for Solomon's House”, Huntington Library Quarterly, xviii (1954/1955), 245–260Google Scholar; Partington, J. R., History of Chemistry, vol. ii (London, 1962), 321–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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³⁵ Hartlib Papers, XVIII.

³⁶ For Hartlib, Cudworth and the universities, see my forthcoming book, Samuel Hartlib: The Advancement of Learning During the Puritan Revolution.

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³⁸ Descartes' methodology and its influence on Boyle, Glanvill and Power, are discussed by Laudan, L., “The Clock Metaphor and Probabilism: The Impact of Descartes on English Methodological Thought, 1650–1665”, Annals of Science, xxii (1966), 73–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁴⁰ More's objections to Bacon were soon to be forcefully applied to the Paracelsians, in his Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (London, 1656)Google Scholar. The “more Mechanical kind of Genius that loves to be tumbling off, and trying tricks with the Matter (which they call making Experiments) when desire of knowledge has so heated it, that it takes upon it to become Architectonical… that material or corporeal fancy egregiously fumbling in more subtile and spiritual speculations. This is that that commonly makes the Chymist so pitiful a Philosopher, who, from the narrow inspection of some few toys in his own art, conceives himself able to give a reason of all things in Divinity and Nature”. Quoted from A Collection…, op. cit. (7), 36.Google Scholar

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⁴² Letter to Hartlib, , 2 04 [1650].Google Scholar

⁴³ Letter from Hall, to Hartlib, , 4 01 1646/1647Google Scholar, Hartlib Papers, LX, 14.

⁴⁴ Letter to Hartlib, , 21 10 [1649].Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Letter to Hartlib, , 5 11 [1649].Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Letter to Hartlib, , 20 12 [1649]Google Scholar. More is quoting from the celebrated opening of Hippocrates's Aphorisms.

⁴⁷ Conjectura Cabbalistica (London, 1653)Google Scholar. See especially the opening chapters of “The Defence of the Philosophick Cabbala”. See also supra, note 27.

⁴⁸ Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 114Google Scholar. For Bezaleel, and Aholiah, , see Exodus xxxv. 30–35.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See above, note 3.

⁵⁰ Divine Dialogues (London, 1668)Google Scholar; quotations are from the second edition, London, 1713, p. viii.

⁵¹ McGuire, J. E., “Force, Active Principles, and Newton's Invisible Realm”, Ambix, xv (1968), 154–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mr. McGuire will develop this theme further in his forthcoming study, “Providentialism, Divine Causation and the Laws of Nature”.

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⁵³ Ibid., viii–ix. More's revised estimate of Descartes was inserted in the 1679 edition of Conjectura Cabbalistica. See A Collection … op. cit. (7), p. 116.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Ibid., xxxii.

⁵⁵ Ibid., vi–viii.