The Philosophy of John Norris

The Philosophy of John Norris

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The Philosophy of John Norris

W. J. Mander

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York  W. J. Mander 2008 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Mander, W. J. The philosophy of John Norris / W. J. Mander. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–923030–3 (alk. paper) 1. Norris, John, 1657–1711. I. Title. B1299.N44M36 2008 192—dc22 Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–923030–3 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of Gabriel

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Preface No more argument is needed for considering any philosopher than the intrinsic interest of the ideas which they put forward and, as the following pages will demonstrate, in the history of English thought John Norris’s intellectual perspective is as fascinating as it is unique. Driven by passion as well as logic, he presents a system which, if it will not submit humbly to the expectations of common sense, demands rational acceptance as robustly as any of its contemporary rivals; on which at the same time it offers an interesting perspective not usually encountered in ‘standard’ histories of philosophy. Outside the circle of experts in the history of seventeenth-century thought, the philosophy of John Norris is largely unknown, it is true, but since the range of possible thoughts is far wider than the range of fashionable ones and any accepted list of great past philosophers runs the risk, in its canonical selectiveness, of closing as many lines of thought as it opens, we should not let his relative obscurity dissuade us from examining what he has to say. I should like here to thank Leslie Armour, who first introduced me to Norris and whose encouraging discussions about this project have been both an immense pleasure and an invaluable help, and three anonymous referees for Oxford University Press for their useful suggestions on how the manuscript might be improved. I would like also to thank the Principal and Fellows of Harris Manchester College for providing me with a term’s leave in which to research this book. Lastly, I want to thank Avril, Sam, and Breesha for all their love and encouragement.

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Contents List of Abbreviations 1. LIFE, WORK, AND INFLUENCES

xi 1

1.1. Life 1.2. Work 1.3. Influences

1 2 4

2. METAPHYSICS

15

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4.

The Intelligible World The Existence of the Intelligible World The Intelligible and the Divine World The Intelligible and the Natural World

3. KNOWLEDGE 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 3.7.

Mind and Body The Souls of Animals Knowledge: Thought and Souls Knowledge: God Mediate Knowledge: External World Discussion and Assessment of Norris’s Theory Was Norris an Idealist?

4. FAITH AND REASON 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 4.6. 4.7.

The Socinian Controversy Faith Reason Above Reason and Contrary to Reason The Measure of Truth Faith and Reason Malebranche

16 18 37 55

61 61 66 68 72 75 86 91

99 99 101 105 107 110 115 117

x contents 4.8. Descartes 4.9. Locke

5. LOVE 5.1. The Theory of Love 5.2. The Regulation of Love 5.3. The Measure of Divine Love

6. CONTROVERSY WITH LOCKE 6.1. Norris’s Criticisms of Locke 6.2. Locke’s Responses 6.3. Concluding Comments

7. CONCLUDING REMARKS Bibliography Index

119 121

127 130 145 156

169 169 185 197

199 207 215

List of Abbreviations M RR CR

MDL

TRL LOG RF IW

CSM/CSMK

ECHU LO JS

A collection of Miscellanies (Oxford, 1687 first edition). Referred to in the text as Miscellanies. Reason and Religion (London, 1689 first edition). ‘Cursory Reflections upon a book called An Essay on Human Understanding’, in A Discourse on the Beatitudes: Christian Blessedness (London, 1690 first edition). Referred to in the text as ‘Cursory Reflections’. ‘A Discourse concerning the Measure of Divine Love’, in Practical Discourses Upon several Divine Subjects, Vol. III (London, 1693 first edition). The Theory and Regulation of Love (London, 1694 second edition). Letters Concerning the Love of God (London, 1695 first edition). An Account of Reason and Faith (London, 1697 first edition). An Essay towards the theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (London, 1701–4 first edition). Two volumes. Referred to in the text as Essay. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (volume 3 only). Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (references given by book, chapter, section). Malebranche, The Search after Truth, ed. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp. Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion, ed. Nicholas Jolley, trans. David Scott.

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1 LIFE, WORK, AND INFLUENCES 1.1 Life John Norris lived through some of the most momentous years that philosophy has ever seen, the formative period known as the Early Modern, in which medieval schemes of thought were finally put away to be replaced by new intellectual patterns which still shape our ideas today. His lifetime overlapped with that of Hobbes, Descartes, Arnauld, Cudworth, Huygens, Locke, Spinoza, Newton, Leibniz, and Berkeley. And yet in contrast to all this ferment, Norris’s own life was uneventful, and can be told in but a few words. He was born 2 January 1657, the second son in a family of three boys and one girl, in the village of Collingbourne-Kingston, near Ludgershall in Wiltshire. In 1670 he went to Winchester School and received (as was normal for the time) a wholly classical education, proceeding in 1676 to Exeter College, Oxford, where his elder brother Samuel had been a student also and was now a fellow. The University was at this time at a very low ebb but, unlike many of his contemporaries, Norris worked hard and his classical training was there supplemented with studies in logic and metaphysics. The philosophy taught at that time was still predominantly Scholastic, although students may also have received at least elementary grounding in mathematics and natural philosophy.¹ In 1680 he ¹ Feingold (1997), 391.

 life, work, and influences took his BA and was appointed a Fellow of All Souls College. Two years later he received his MA and was ordained. Altogether he spent a further nine years studying, writing and preaching in Oxford and, although it is impossible to assign any precise dates in such matters, it was during this period that his interest in Platonic thought as well as his own philosophical ideas were first developed. In 1689 he married and, vacating his fellowship, was appointed rector at Newton St Lowe, a village just outside Bath. It seems he was not altogether content there, for only three years later in 1692, he moved to become rector of Bemerton (today a suburb of Salisbury, but then a small village just outside it); a post which the philosopher John Locke was influential in helping him to secure. He remained at Bemerton, in the rectory which had been built by the poet George Herbert, a previous rector there (1630–3), until his death in February 1711, at the relatively young age of 54. He had three children. The son of a clergyman himself, two of his sons went into the Church, while his daughter married into it.

1.2 Work This study focuses on the central themes in Norris’s philosophy. A chronological list of his main philosophical works may be found in the bibliography and all of these are considered, some in detail; however, in addition to philosophy, Norris wrote on a great range of other subjects, and it is fitting that at least some of these should be noted. As might be expected of a high-minded and serious clergyman, much of his output was in the sphere of what might be called ‘practical religion’. Books such as his Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life (1690), Spiritual Counsel (1694), Practical Discourses (four volumes, 1690, 1691, 1693, and 1698), A Practical Treatise concerning Humility (1707), and A Treatise Concerning Christian Prudence (1710)—which were by far his most successful works—all stress the need to place Christian moral principles at the very centre of everyday life and, given religious apathy at the time, in many ways

1.2 work  point forward to the more serious Christianity of the Methodist Revival. For Norris, Christianity was an allegiance to shape one’s whole life; but his consequent criticism of those he called ‘‘Almost Christians’’ or ‘‘Half Religious’’, those who ‘‘will never stand the Test of Divine Judgement’’ since ‘‘he that does almost hit the Mark, does really miss it’’² could not make a comfortable message for readers of a less ‘enthusiastic’ persuasion. Like George Herbert, his more famous predecessor at Bemerton, Norris also wrote poetry. Indeed today, as was the case in his own time, he is as well known for his poetry as his philosophy. Verse, however, was an occupation of his youth. His Miscellanies of 1687 contains some seventy poems, but after that he published no more, except for two pieces inserted into his main philosophical treatise, An Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (1701–4). Although not a figure of great importance in the history of letters, his poems are of no small skill or literary interest. They contain also material of philosophical note in so far as many demonstrate the way in which he brings together in passionate intensity his twin commitments to Christianity and Platonism; and on several occasions in the following we shall have occasion to stop and note verses illustrative of Norris’s ideas.³ It is worth saying a few words at this point about Norris’s general literary style. As a writer he is diffuse and verbose, at times even laboured. His tone is often speculative and mystical, and his argument sometimes breaks off into devotional reflection, prayer or even verse.⁴ But least that give the wrong impression, it ² Treatise Concerning Christian Prudence (London, 1710), 228–9. ³ See below nn. 5 and 12; Ch. 2, n. 31; Ch. 5, p. 137 and nn. 17, 20; Ch. 6, n. 28. While small numbers of Norris’s poems have been reproduced in numerous locations, more substantial collections of his poems may be found in two places: Poems of John Norris of Bemerton, included in Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library, ed. A. B. Grosart, vol. III (Blackburn, 1871). Where is my Memorial? The Poems of John Norris of Bemerton, ed. Peter D. E. White (Bishops Waltham, 1991). ⁴ Michael Ayers has described his approach as one of ‘‘systematic pedantry’’ (Ayers 1981, 231) and his chief work, An Essay towards the theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, even attracted in 1700 a parody version, An Essay towards the theory of the Intelligible World. Intuitively

 life, work, and influences should be stressed also that for the main he writes in clear logical prose. Although his is a quite old-fashioned style—he can be ponderous, and fills pages with lists of ‘authority’ (be it scriptural or philosophical) to back up his views—the writing is recognizably ‘modern’ in so far as it is addressed not to scholars but directly to the non-professional reader. In this way, as much as say Descartes or Locke, he played his part in the general process of secularization that characterized seventeenth-century philosophy. That he feels called to appeal to recognized authority is perhaps more than anything else a sign of his modesty, for he is never dogmatic in tone, and always prepared to concede ignorance or to rethink questions. As he says in the Reader’s Preface to his Essay: And yet as much as I have thought, and as well as I seem to have consider’d of these things, yet being not unmindful of Human Infirmity in general, and my own in particular, as also of the Sublimity and Singularity of my Argument, I would not (however through Imprudence I may happen to express my self) be understood to be so positive in any thing, but that where I deliver my Sense with most assurance ’tis always Salva meliori disquisitone, not barring my self the Liberty and Advantage of after Thoughts, or the Information of better Judgements, which I shall always be ready to receive with a thankful Submission, even to the Retracting of the most Fundamental Notion here maintain’d upon due Conviction of its Falshood, as designing only to find that Truth which I enquire after, and not to establish any Notion or Opinion of my own, purely as Such. (IW 1: v, also IW 2: Preface, 17)

1.3 Influences Norris claimed that his philosophy was one which he had worked out by himself. That we see and know all things in God is, he says, ‘‘a Notion which I very early lighted upon, by the Natural Parturiency of my own mind, before I consulted with any Considered. Designed for Forty-Nine Parts. Part III. Consisting of a Preface, a Post-Script, and a little something between by one ‘Gabriel John’ ( Thomas D’Urfey). For further discussion of this see John Hoyles, The Waning of the Renaissance ( The Hague, 1971), 88–91.

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Authors that might imbue me with it’’ (RR 185–6). It was only afterward, he continues, that he found it confirmed by Plato, Plotinus, Ficino, Augustine, Du Hamel, Aquinas and especially ‘‘by the incomparable Monsieur Malebranche’’ (RR 187). Be that as it may, whether they influenced or merely corroborated it, numerous figures need to be taken into account in relation to Norris’s thought, for he was very widely read. 1.3.1 Plato, Neo-Platonism, Augustine, and Cambridge Platonism First of all, it is necessary to draw attention to the Platonic tradition, with which Norris revealed his close affinity from the very beginning. One of his earliest works, in 1682, was a translation of the Neo-Platonist Hierocles’s Upon the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans, while in 1684, in his Poems and Discourses, he published a ‘Letter concerning the True Notion of Plato’s Ideas, and of Platonic Love’ (hereafter his ‘Letter on Ideas’.)⁵ The interest was not merely one of his youth, and his writings continued to display a wealth of references from that same tradition; Plotinus, Proclus, Porphry, and Philo are all brought in.⁶ Nor was the interest superficial or merely literary. In doctrinal terms Norris is a fully signed up Platonist, ascribing to all the key dogmas such as the existence of forms, the elevation of reason over sense, and the emphasis on abstract beauty and goodness; although he is perhaps more Neo-Platonic, than ⁵ The ‘Letter on Ideas’ was republished in 1687 in his Miscellanies. Page references are to its occurrence there. Similarly Platonic sentiments can be found in his poems of the same period. Consider, for instance, from ‘The Aspiration’, How long great God, how long must I Immur’d in this dark prison lye! Where at the grates and avenues of sense My soul must watch to have intelligence. Where but faint gleams of thee salute my sight. Like doubtful moon-shine in a cloudy night. When shall I leave this magic sphere, And be all mind, all eye, all ear! ⁶ Plotinus (M 413, IW 1:14, 177, 240, 287, 431. 434), Proclus and Porphry (M 438), and Philo (IW 1: 29, 30; Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life (1690), 33).

 life, work, and influences genuinely Platonic, especially in his emphasis on our oneness with God—a doctrine more associated with Plotinus than with Plato. One key authority from the Platonic tradition to whom Norris refers with great regularity is Augustine (whom he speaks of as St Austin). Norris had a thorough knowledge of Augustine and, moreover, the very highest regard for him. Indeed, in the Preface to Part One of his Essay, he claims that Augustine has been his principal guide (IW 1: xv), while in the concluding chapter of Part Two, in which Norris reviews the overall case for and implications of his system, he extensively cites Augustine’s support, ‘‘not because I have no other, but because I know no greater’’ (IW 2: 525). Nor is this empty praise; whether by reference or quotation, the authority of Augustine is invoked in Norris’s writing more than that of anyone else—on almost every other page in Part One of his Essay.⁷ Norris’s knowledge of the Platonic tradition was thorough and even included the Renaissance Platonist Marsilino Ficino (1433–99), cited as an authority in several places,⁸ not least as Norris’s source for the unusual term ‘omniform,’ which he employs to characterize the all-containing nature of God.⁹ More than any of these sources, however, Norris has been thought by commentators to have been influenced by the Cambridge Platonists, for certainly both historically and geographically they were to him the nearest representatives of that long tradition. Indeed, he has even been classed among them and called the ‘last of the Cambridge Platonists’.¹⁰ Flourishing from the 1630s to 1680s the school, centred around Emmanuel College, Cambridge and inspired by Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83), included Peter Sterry (1613–72), Henry More (1614–87) Ralph Cudworth (1617–89), John Smith (1618–52), John Worthington (1618–71), Nathaniel ⁷ For this reason Muirhead (1931), 74 dubs him ‘‘the English Augustine’’. ⁸ TRL 36; RR 85–6; IW 1: 136, 180, 431. ⁹ IW 1: 148, 175, 178, 254. See below p. 43. ¹⁰ Gilbert D. McEwen in his introduction to Norris’s Cursory Reflections (Los Angeles: Augustan Reprint Society, 1961), 2.

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Culverwell (1619–51), and Richard Cumberland (1631–1718). There was no one agreed set of doctrines held by them all, but enough commonality for it to be worth grouping them together as one school.¹¹ There can be no doubt about Norris’s familiarity with their thought. His works contain passing reference to Cudworth and Cumberland, and to Henry More, with whom in fact as a young man he entered into a lengthy correspondence.¹² And there can be no doubt also that there was a considerable measure of shared belief and feeling between Norris and the Cambridge Platonists. They were staunch defenders of the existence of God, of the immortality of the soul, of the freedom of the will, as well as of the eternal objectivity of moral principles and essences of things—all points Norris could agree on. And like him, though open to the insights of experimental science, they held fast to a dualism between spirit and matter, which rendered them hostile to the encroachments of empiricist materialism and receptive to their Cartesian alternative. But perhaps the most important element of Cambridge Platonist thought was the high value they placed on human reason, and their belief in the fundamental harmony between philosophy and religion. All from theological backgrounds yet close followers of the latest developments in science and philosophy, their central aim was to reconcile faith and reason. With this too Norris was in full agreement, for him religion was as fundamentally rational as human reason was divine—an indwelling God-given light for the discovery of truth. Matters such as the existence and nature of God, the immortality of the soul, or the validity of the moral law ¹¹ For further consideration of the Cambridge Platonists see Sarah Hutton, ‘The Cambridge Platonists’, in S. Nadler (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. ¹² Cudworth—IW 1:401; Cumberland—‘Discourse concerning Perseverance in Holiness’, M 264; More—IW 1: 241–2, RR 14. The correspondence with More which lasted from 1684–6 was published in 1688 as an appendix to The Theory and Regulation of Love. Norris’s admiration for More even found its way into poetry; ‘To Dr. Henry More. An Ode’ exalts the Cambridge philosopher’s achievements calling him an ‘‘intellectual epicure’’ and ‘‘another Solomon’’.

 life, work, and influences he regards as properly discoverable by rational inquiry, not held in blind faith or grasped by some mysterious inner light. For all such pillars of belief, if the rationality of religion is to be preserved, he argues, ‘‘we must look about for a proper Ground ... in Philosophy’’ (MDL 12), and even in cases where divine truth is revealed, Norris rests assured that ‘‘every Revelation of God will bear a Rational Sense and Interpretation’’ (IW 1: xiv).¹³ But not only does religion lead us to philosophy, philosophical reflection itself has the power to take us in the opposite direction. Throughout his philosophical work Norris stresses the great practical value of his Ideal Theory for religion, supporting its central claims and motivating us in its ideals. This is particularly apparent in his Reason and Religion where each philosophical ‘Contemplation’ concludes with two explicitly religious sections: ‘The Use of this to Devotion’ and ‘The Aspiration’—the latter of which takes the form of a prayer. Norris’s allegiance to the Cambridge Platonists must not be overstated, however. For while he cites them on occasion with approval, such references in his works are hardly numerous, and there exist moreover important differences between their views. To start with, despite their name and a professed admiration for Plato, the Cambridge Platonists were only ‘Platonists’ in a very loose sense—they did not, for example, all believe in transcendent forms¹⁴—while Norris, by contrast, was strongly so. A second key difference was their adoption of the doctrine of innate ideas. Even if this was not held in quite so crude a form as Locke suggests in his famous attack on their position,¹⁵ their understanding of innateness in terms of inherent capacities stimulated by experience places them in clear opposition to Norris. Third, although dualists, ¹³ Although a staunch advocate of natural religion and hostile to the thought that anything in Christian doctrine might be opposed to reason, he nonetheless allows that it might contain some elements above or beyond reason, in the sense of propositions not discoverable by reason or whose truth reason could not settle. See Chapter 4 below. ¹⁴ Cudworth speaks of the doctrine that ‘‘the Constituent essences of things could exist apart separately from the Things themselves’’ as an ‘‘absurd Conceit’’ which ‘‘Aristotle frequently, and no less deservedly chastises’ (R. Cudworth, A Treatise Concerning Eternal Immutable Morality (London, 1731), 285). ¹⁵ An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. I, chs. 2–4.

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the Cambridge Platonists were interactive ones. For example, More via his notion of extended spirit in ‘‘vital congruity’’ with matter¹⁶ and Cudworth via his notion of ‘‘plastic nature’’ acting as an intermediary between God and the world both developed dualisms which allowed for commerce between their separate realms. Norris, by contrast was doubtful whether mind could affect matter and quite certain that matter could not affect mind. 1.3.2 Scholasticism, Aquinas, and Suarez Norris’s great allegiance to Platonism did not exclude debt to the more established and rival tradition of Scholasticism and it should be noted that he was far more influenced than has been generally recognized by such patterns of thought. Nonetheless his relation to Scholasticism was a complex one. Little taken with the philosophical tradition in which he was educated, he was as aware as any one in the seventeenth century of its great faults,¹⁷ and, of course, he found himself in direct opposition to the Schoolmen on several key points (such as, the manner in which forms exist, and the nature of sense experience). But Norris was more influenced by that philosophical upbringing than he allowed. He always regarded Scholasticism as a venerable tradition, and where possible, was only too glad to call on its authority—indeed, as we shall see throughout this study, his appeals to the authority of Aquinas and Suarez are second in regularity only to those to Augustine and Malebranche—while his use of Scholastic terminology and argument mark him out as an Oxford rather than a Cambridge ¹⁶ See below p. 161, n. 37. ¹⁷ In Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life (London, 1690, 49–50), he complains about the practice of Scholastic disputation: ‘‘Another thing there is which passes for wonderful Learning which I cannot well reduce either to Necessary or Contingent Truth, for indeed it does not belong to Truth at all, and that is our Sophistical way of Disputation. And indeed it may well be call’d so, for as ’tis generally manag’d, ’tis nothing but meer Quibbling and Jesting, not Arguing but Punning’’. And in wider terms, in his Spiritual Counsel (London 1694) the philosophy ‘‘which reigns in the Schools’’ is dismissed as ‘‘a mere Fantastick Amusement, made up of insignificant Terms, and a company of loose indeterminate Maxims, all built upon dark unintelligible Principles’’ (Treatises Upon Several Subjects (London, 1698 edn.), Counsel XLIII, 499–500).

 life, work, and influences voice. By the time of his Essay he had come to a clear and even-handed estimation of his allegiances in this matter; ‘‘however the Physicks, or Natural Philosophy of the Schools does not please me’’, he says, ‘‘I have a great Value and Esteem for their Metaphysics, and for their Theology’’. So much so, he ventures, ‘‘that nothing of any moment, either in Philosophy, or in Religion, can be either distinctly stated, or well understood, without the help of their useful, I might say, necessary Distinctions’’ (IW 1: Preface, v–vi). 1.3.3 Malebranche If Norris’s earliest ideas were influenced by the Platonic tradition, the principal influence on his later thought was undoubtedly that of the French philosopher, Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715). Although we cannot say with certainty when, it was most likely sometime in the late 1680s, during the latter half of this time at All Souls, that Norris discovered Malebranche and in so doing met with a voice that seemed to be saying precisely what he had been trying to express.¹⁸ His admiration for Malebranche was of the highest possible order. In Reason and Religion (1689) he describes Malebranche as one ‘‘who, I think, has established the truth of [the notion that we see an know all things in God] beyond all cavil or exception, as well as reasonable doubting’’ (RR 187). While in his Spiritual Counsel (1694) he describes The Search after Truth as ‘‘an ever-rising and flowing Spring of Knowledge’’ and ‘‘one of the best Books that is in the World’’.¹⁹ In Part One of the Essay (1701) the praise reaches even greater heights as he describes Malebranche as ‘‘the great Gallileo of the Intellectual World’’ (IW 1: 4). So complete is his agreement with Malebranche’s thesis that the proper, immediate and only object of human knowledge and love is God, that he ¹⁸ Since mention is made of Malebranche in the Theory and Regulation of Love (1688) but not in the Miscellanies (1687) it seems a reasonable conjecture that it was at some point between these two dates that he first encountered the Frenchman’s work. ¹⁹ In Treatises Upon Several Subjects (London, 1698 edn.), Counsel XLIII, 501.

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openly and extensively uses Malebranche’s ideas and arguments in his own work, reporting and even quoting them at great length. This is especially so in the second epistemological part of his Essay, as Norris himself is the first to acknowledge (IW 1: xvi). In this way, Norris was influential in introducing and popularizing Malebranche in England. But the debt has led also to the claim that he is simply a disciple of Malebranche—‘the English Malebranche’ he has been called—with nothing to say that was not said first or better by Malebranche himself.²⁰ Such a harsh judgement, however, is unfair and one of the theses of this book will be to challenge it. There are four types of defence which may be made on Norris’s behalf. First, it should be noted that much of what may seem to be Malebranche’s influence on Norris is in fact attributable to their common influence by Descartes. Malebranche’s debt to Descartes is no secret, but what is less well known is the extent to which Norris also follows him. In the Letters on the Love of God, he describes Descartes as ‘‘my most admired Philosopher’’,²¹ and he was clearly very familiar with his thought, for he constantly appeals to him. For example, his defence of dualism, (IW 2: 14, 16, 28–9) his mechanical conception of animals (IW 2: 92), and his emphasis on the necessity for clearness and distinctness of thought (RF 268, IW 2: 152 ff.) are all presented as much with Descartes in mind as Malebranche. The agreement of course is far from complete—on innate ideas and on the idea of God, for example, they are far apart—but the influence is undeniable. Second, it should be noted that there are several aspects of Malebranche’s system that Norris just rejects, or at least casts ²⁰ ‘‘Norris has been called the English Malebranche, and, in the main, the description is just; for it is true that the later books of the Englishman are little else than a reproduction of the Frenchman’s teaching’’ (Powicke, 1894, 141). Muirhead describes his position as ‘‘practically indistinguishable from the Master’s’’ (1931, 75). Passmore says that his Essay ‘‘fully justifies his nickname ‘the English Malebranche’ ’’ (1967, vol. 5, 522). McCraken describes him as ‘‘under the power of his [Malebrache’s] views’’ and as displaying novelty ‘‘chiefly in the orderliness and detail’’ of his presentation. He says too that the epithet was first applied to him by his contemporary and adversary, John Sergent (1983, 157, 160, 179). ²¹ LOG 118.

 life, work, and influences doubt upon. For example, (i) while Malebranche is an occasionalist about all causation, Norris allows causal power to both bodies and spirits, and even considers the possibility that spirit could affect body, employing occasionalism only for the case of body’s apparent influence on spirit. Again, (ii) while for Malebranche revelation makes certain our belief in the existence of matter, for Norris this is a matter for reason alone and probable only. (iii) Malebranche rejects the idea of pure benevolence—nothing can be done, not even divine grace, other than for the good of the one who does it—while Norris, by contrast, believes in the possibility of disinterested love, urging that God’s love, and at times even our own, is wholly for the good of others. (iv) While Malebranche denies that we could ever see the essence of God, Norris sees no great problem with this and suspects that in some fashion it may in fact be the case. (v) The account of perception as vision in God which for Malebranche is the certain and only possible centre of his system is, for Norris, merely the most reasonable hypothesis available regarding human knowledge. Norris was quite unconvinced regarding Malebranche’s doctrine of ‘intelligible extension’. Each of these differences will be discussed during the course of this study. Third, while acknowledging the importance of Malebranche’s contribution, Norris claimed that the Frenchman had left things only half-done: ‘‘even this great Apelles has drawn the Celestial Beauty but half way’’ (IW 1: 4) he says. And thus there are respects in which Norris goes beyond Malebranche. For example, he is far more self-consciously Platonic than Malebranche. Malebranche advances towards a theory of ideas as divine universals on the basis of a theory of knowledge, Norris sees him as having broken into a vast metaphysical territory standing in its own right, and wishes systematically to expound the Ideal Realm in its true metaphysical order, not simply in its relation to us. Their motivations are quite different. Malebranche’s striving for an adequate theory of human knowledge is one part of his interest in the new experimental science. Norris, by contrast, although he accepted a mechanistic

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conception of the material world, had no interest in natural science, only in what it implied. Lastly, even if we consider those aspects of his philosophy in which Norris seems most closely to follow Malebranche, the precise nature of their coincidence may be questioned. For it could be argued that Norris is really only superficially Malebranchian. His original and underlying sympathies are Platonic and Augustinian, but his delight at finding a kindred spirit and his consequent choice to express himself in Malebranchian idiom make his views look more dependent on Malebranche than they really were.²² ²² Acworth (1979), 90.

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2 METAPHYSICS Norris had plans for a full length Latin treatise on metaphysics and epistemology while still a fellow at All Souls but, despite writing two and a half chapters, he left the project unfinished (IW 1: i), and it was not until he left Oxford that he published any substantial account of his philosophical beliefs. However, his Reason and Religion of 1689, for all its interest, is brief and in large part devotional. It falls far short of being a systematic presentation of his views, lacking the detail or rigour needed to make good his philosophy against rivals or criticisms; though for a long time it remained the only available account—it was, for example, the source for Locke’s knowledge of Norris’s system. A complete and definitive account of his position finally appeared in An Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, which was published in two parts in 1701 and 1704. Less successful than his more popular works, the book was not without admirers however,¹ and remains the definitive statement by which his metaphysical system is to be understood and judged. The lengthy book, running to over one thousand pages, is arranged in two parts; the first considering the ideal or intelligible world ‘Absolutely in it self’ and the second part treating it ‘in Relation to Human Understanding’. Part One will be considered below and Part Two in the next chapter. ¹ See Acworth (1979), 12, 14.

 metaphysics

2.1 The Intelligible World Given the very title of his book, Norris realizes that his first task is to explain what he means by the ‘Ideal or Intelligible World’. Of course, as with any philosophical concept, the full meaning becomes clear only as the discussion proceeds, but he offers an initial account. Reality or the state of things is, he claims, distinguished into the natural and the ideal: By the Natural State of things, I mean that State which they have in rerum natura as we speak, that is, as they exist according to those Natures or Essences which were in time Created or Produced out of nothing by the Free and Arbitrary Will of their Almighty Cause. ... By the Ideal State of things, I mean that State of them which is necessary, permanent and immutable, not only Antecedent and Praeexistent to this, but also Exemplary and Representative of it, as containing in it Eminently and after an intelligible Manner, all that is in this Natural World. (IW 1: 7–8)

What Norris is proposing here is, of course, a species of Platonism and he quite correctly identifies his position as lying in that tradition which goes back from Augustine, through Philo and Plotinus, to Plato himself (IW 1:13–14). The Ideal World is the world of things whose nature and existence is necessary, things uncreated and possessed of eternal, immutable being. By contrast the natural world is the world of the contingent, the world of things which were (Norris believes) created and which have only temporary and changeable histories. The two worlds are also known as the Archetypal and Ectypal worlds (IW 1: 12); the former standing to the latter as both original—the ‘‘Model and exemplar’’—and ideal—‘‘the Measure and Standard’’ (IW 1:8). The forms and types of the Ideal World are also metaphysically prior to and independent of any beings which exemplify them, for it encompasses not just what actually exists, but ‘‘the whole possibility of Being’’ (IW 1: 8). For Norris, the Ideal World has full and authentic reality. Although (as we shall see) in some sense ‘mental,’ it does not exist simply as an object of thought, but is there whether or not it

2.1 the intelligible world  is known or thought about. Its designation ‘ideal’ or ‘intelligible’ refers not to the manner in which it exists, but rather to the manner in which it is known. it is the first and only proper intelligible object of understanding; immediately present to the human mind, directly experienced as necessary and eternal to anyone who attends carefully enough to it. It is of a single type with the understanding itself. By contrast, the natural world is given to our senses, which feel but do not comprehend. It is properly intelligible only in the measure that it resembles, or partakes of, its ideal counterpart (IW 1: 12–13). The inhabitants of the Ideal World Norris most commonly refers to as ‘‘essences’’ or ‘‘ideas’’. However, there is some ambiguity as to just which denizens are to be found among that population. It certainly includes such ‘abstract’ notions as circularity, triangularity, equality, number, motion, causation, beauty, goodness; the kind of things which form the subject matter of such disciplines as geometry, arithmetic, physics, metaphysics, and ethics. But it is less clear how much further it extends. Norris quite often implies that it includes physical forms (the sun and stars, the sea) and perhaps biological ones (plant and animal species). He also speaks of the ‘‘Simple Truth of Contingent Beings’’ in so far as ‘‘they are conformable to their Ideas or Intelligible Measures’’ (IW 1: 357), which might suggest that even particular contingent beings have associated with them ideas or essences. However, he is not always consistent on such matters, suggesting at other times a constituency limited only to abstract necessities.² It is worth pointing out that nowhere does he suggest that it might also include such things as types of physical material (lead, gold, etc.) forms of natural qualities (red, blue, wet, dry, etc.) or the patterns of man-made objects (the bed, the loom, etc.), so his ideas are not simply universals in the logical sense. The inhabitants of the natural world, by contrast, are somewhat easier to enumerate. It is the realm of everything particular, ² For further discussion of this see below pp. 34–7 and pp. 86–8.

 metaphysics everything contingent, everything transient or changing. As such, it covers all physical objects, but the intended contrast is not between the material and the spiritual, for Norris’s natural world includes also finite spirits; since they too, he thinks, even if noble, excellent and immortal are nonetheless created, temporary, contingent, and mutable (IW 2: 325).³

2.2 The Existence of the Intelligible World In his earliest works Norris’s Platonism is scarcely argued for, but by the time of his Essay, stung by the criticisms of detractors, he realized the need to offer a full defence of his position against the nominalist conceptualism of his empiricist contemporaries. Therefore, having explained what he means, Norris proceeds to offer six separate arguments for the existence of an Ideal World. For our purposes it is best to divide them into four which do not presuppose the existence of God, and two further ones which do. 2.2.1 Argument from Uniformity The first argument we shall consider is one from the uniformities that can be observed in nature. Without disputing that each distinct creature is in some way different from every other, why is it nonetheless true that things fall into general types? Why do similarities among individual existents occur in clusters rather than spread evenly throughout? Why do individuals which resemble in a given respect tend to resemble each other in many other respects also, so that they all fall into clear groups or classes? There seems no necessity in it. For example, instead of all men coming out ³ Norris’s use here of the word ‘‘temporary’’ deserves comment. Although very often used to apply to beings of potentially, if not actually, limited duration, the term is also applied more widely to mean simply temporal as opposed to timeless or eternal. A good example of this (to us) double usage is his dismissal of human cognition as the ‘‘Temporary Thought’’ of a ‘‘Temporary Mind’’ (IW 1: 313)—for Norris, of course, the human soul is immortal.

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  in broadly the same way, why do not some have, say, utterly different sizes and shapes? ‘‘Why is not the Body of one Man as big as the Globe of the Sun, while that of another is too small to be seen without a Microscope?’’ (IW 1:39). All this regularity can be accounted for, Norris argues, only on the supposition that resembling individuals are all made in accordance with a single idea or plan. It might be objected that it is (better) explained naturalistically, and certainly the laws of bio-engineering and of natural selection place real constraints on possible creaturely types.⁴ But conformity with these laws, even if it circumscribes the range of viable uniformities, will not of itself explain why there exist such uniformities in the first place. And it is this which Norris is urging we must explain by reference to pre-existing models or varieties. Creatures have the natures they do, not individually or arbitrarily, but by belonging to, by manifesting, a given species or type; everything is a certain kind of thing. Therefore (he continues) there must exist such types. For if this explanation is to be a real one, and not simply an instrumental or fictional device, it must carry with it ontological implications. It would make no sense to appeal to shared DNA to explain why, say, all herons or all dogfish look the same as each other unless we really thought there was such a thing as DNA; and in the same way ideal patterns or types could not explain uniformity in nature unless they really existed.⁵ As a potential objection to this argument, Norris considers the question of monsters. Does not the fact that certain creatures occur in an irregular or aberrant form disprove the suggestion that all are made according to an ideal type? Norris argues that there is no need to draw this conclusion since we have available to us an alternative explanation of such irregularities. This is to appeal to the nature of law. Norris suggests that although the ⁴ J. B. S. Haldane, ‘On Being the Right Size’ in his Possible Worlds and Other Essays (London: Chatto and Windus, 1928), 18–26. ⁵ Not all philosophers of science would agree that explanation must be understood in such a realist fashion. See Bas Van Fraassen, The Scientific Image (1980), ch. V.

 metaphysics creation of the world—a one-off event—was something which God brought about by particular decrees (IW 1: 42, 290), the world itself which He created is one that runs by the simplest most general laws possible, such simplicity reflecting His wisdom and grandeur. The significance of this fact is that, unlike particular objects or events, laws have the potential (in principle at least) to conflict with one another; but where this happens, one must give way to another, introducing irregularity into their otherwise universal reign. By way of illustration Norris cites the interruption that occurs in the lawlike experience of bodily sensation when its mechanisms are defeated by the equally lawlike effects of bodily paralysis (IW 1: 43). In this way monsters are born; anomalies to law produced when a lesser law is over-ridden by a superior one. Norris admits that it would have been possible for God to have avoided all monsters, but this could have been done only by making increasingly complex laws, a process tending in its limit to individual volitions, something contrary to His glorious plan for nature (IW 1: 47–8). So paradoxically, on this view of law, Norris finds himself able to conclude that monsters reinforce rather than undermine his case for the role of paradigmatic ideas; since irregularity is precisely a product of the reign of simple lawlike rule, and law presupposes the Ideas (IW 1: 292). One very important point to note about the argument just considered, with its emphasis on ‘‘Trees and Plants and the Bodies of Animals’’ (IW 1: 38), on ‘monsters’, and on the nature of law, is that the essences we are considering here seem to be those which govern and shape the natural world in which we live. However the matter is quite otherwise as we move to consider Norris’s second argument, which works from the altogether more abstract science of geometry. 2.2.2 Argument from Geometry The emphasis, one might almost say the subject matter, of Norris’s second argument differs greatly from the first. He begins

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  by observing that we characteristically take ourselves in everyday sense experience to see such things as right angles, globes, circles, squares, and so forth—the corner of the table, the ball, the clock, the window. But reflecting more closely upon the matter, we realize that none of these things have the precise geometrical characters we attribute to them; the closest microscopical examination would always reveal some defect or other (IW 1: 51–2). And yet somewhere somehow we must become acquainted with such perfect forms, for it is undeniable that we understand them; indeed, it is only because we do so that we can judge strictly defective the material approximations which we first mistook for them. If I did see no other Figures but those Sensible one’s which ly before me, how should I be able to know whether they were perfect or no? Other Figures therefore I do see, and those perfect one’s, because I make use of their perfection as a Measure whereby to discover the others Imperfection. (IW 1: 53)

The figures I contemplate, or see with my mind’s eye, are not those my physical eyes rest upon, rather concludes Norris I must be acquainted with ideal types located in an Ideal World. Our knowledge of geometry is knowledge of the Intelligible World (IW 1: 56) and would remain entire and unshaken were the material spatial world itself annihilated (IW 1: 61). He notes its presence in Augustine (IW 1: 60) and (on the authority of Suarez) in the Pythagoreans (IW 1: 58), and elsewhere he adds the names of Aquinas and Du Hamel (M 206), but, of course, the most famous appearance of this argument is in Plato himself; in the Phaedo.⁶ However, despite its illustrious pedigree, since he fails even to consider any alternative accounts that might be given our geometrical understanding, in Norris’s hands this comes out as a very weak argument. In so far as it does explain ⁶ Phaedo, 74a ff.

 metaphysics that knowledge, perhaps it can stand as part of an overall strategy of inference to the best explanation—one further piece which fits into place if the general account be accepted—but on its own it carries little power to persuade. 2.2.3 Argument from Eternal Truths If the two lines of reasoning considered so far are both somewhat derivative, the third of Norris’s arguments for the existence of an Ideal World is far less so—indeed, he himself thought of it as an original creation (M 194). Rightly regarding it as his central argument, Norris advanced it on at least three occasions. It was given in concise form in a piece entitled, ‘A Metaphysical Essay Toward the Demonstration of a God from the Steddy and Immutable nature of Truth’ (hereafter his ‘Metaphysical Essay’) which first appeared in his 1687 Collection of Miscellanies—though composed, he tells us, ‘‘a considerable time’’ before (M 204), and thus clearly pre-dating the influence of Malebranche. The argument was repeated in 1689 in Reason and Religion, again quite concisely, but in the first volume of his Essay it was given centre stage and received a very full and extensive treatment. In fact it is there presented twice, first in overview and then in detail.⁷ The thesis of the argument is that the existence of what he calls eternal truths or eternal verities proves that there exists an Ideal or Intelligible World. To begin with it is important to get clear about just what sort of truths Norris is considering here. In the ‘Metaphysical Essay’ (M 197–8), although his nomenclature is a bit unfamiliar to us—he there designates ‘logic’ what we would call metaphysics, and ‘mathematics’ what we would call geometry—he gives familiar enough examples of the type of truth he has in mind; that cause is always before effect, that nothing can be and not be at once, that right angles are equal, that parallels are transitive, that there is such a thing as truth. Elsewhere Norris tells us that there are ⁷ See Miscellanies, 193–207; RR 71–91; IW 1: 62–126, 303–405.

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  also eternal truths of ethics (IW 1: 380, also CR 14). From this, it would be tempting to regard the class in question as that of a priori truth, but that is belied by the same list’s inclusion of the truths of physics—truths such as that all motion is by succession [i.e. by contact]—and his inclusion elsewhere of statements of essence—truths such as ‘‘man is an animal’’ (IW 1: 83). Strictly speaking, the defining mark of the class of truths in question is simply that they are eternal or unalterable (whatever the reason for that). Norris draws a distinction between truth of the thing, or object, and truth of the understanding, or subject (M 195; RR 69; CR 38; IW 1: 310), and insists that eternal verities are characterized by the former and not the latter type of truth (M 196; IW 1: 312). Subjective truth indicates agreement either between our understanding and the way things really are (which he calls logical truth), or between what we think or intend and what we say (which he calls moral truth, or veracity). Objective truth, by contrast, makes no reference to us at all. It means in effect: the way things are. Elsewhere he makes the same distinction using slightly different terminology as he contrasts what he calls mental and ideal propositions.⁸ Mental propositions are the union or disunions we make among the ideas in our understanding, and as such can be true if they correspond or false if they fail to correspond to the way things are. Ideal propositions, by contrast, do not simply reflect but have a ‘‘real Identity’’ with their subject matter and as such are ‘‘alwaies Right’’ (IW 1: 107). Subjective truth he also defines as knowledge (M 197), and so we could regard Norris’s distinction here as one between what we might call ‘epistemological truth’ and ‘ontological truth’.⁹ The reason why the eternal verities must be thought of as having the latter rather than the former is that subjective truth involves propositions in the mind or understanding. But such propositions are simply thoughts, and no thought—which is but a temporary ⁸ He notes (IW 1: 110, 310) that this is equivalent to the subject and object terminology. ⁹ I owe these terms to Leslie Armour.

 metaphysics event in a temporary mind—could ever be necessarily or eternally true (IW 1: 310, 313). We must not allow apparently familiar terms to mislead us, for Norris’s distinction is quite unlike the modern contrast between subjective and objective, in which a subjective truth is subjective only, one which the understanding makes rather than finds, one which is merely a product of our own thought or definitions. By contrast, for Norris, subjective or epistemological truth is basically just thought which corresponds to ontological truth, so there could not be a subjective truth which was not grounded in some objective reality. To call a truth subjective is in no way to question the fact of the matter it describes. That might make it puzzling as to why Norris is so concerned to draw this distinction at all, and to insist that eternal truth is objective rather than subjective in character. But a rationale can be found. For even if subjective and objective truth coincide, even if you could never have the former without the latter, it is still a crucial question which comes first, which has metaphysical priority. And with regard to eternal truth, thinks Norris, it is our beliefs that track the facts of the matter and not the facts of the matter that track our belief. This line of motivation may be glimpsed when at one point Norris finds himself forced to concede that strictly not all thoughts are temporary; for God, ‘‘always understanding things as they are’’, will thereby have in his mind ideas as eternal as they are true. To admit that, however, does not undermine his argument that no subjective truth is eternal for, he argues, God’s understanding is true by corresponding to the real objective state of things, not vice versa. As a subjective truth it is, we might say, only ‘accidentally’ eternal (IW 1: 312).¹⁰ Within the class of objective truths, Norris distinguishes between the simple and the complex, holding that his argument applies only to complex truths (M 196; IW 1: 313). To explain this distinction, ¹⁰ Later on Norris draws the same distinction between these two points of view by contrasting the mind of God as intelligible or exhibitive and the mind of God as intelligent or conceptive. See below pp. 53–4.

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  simple or transcendental truth, he says, ‘‘is convertible with Ens, and runs through the whole Circle of Being whereby every thing is really what it is’’ (M 195). It much the same as the intrinsic intelligibility of a given thing (IW 1: 309). Complex truth, on the other hand, consists in the relations which things have to one another (or, as Norris regularly expresses it, the ‘‘habitudes’’ between them—using that term in its now archaic sense of the relation or respect in which one thing stands to another). The relations may be of various kinds—positive or negative, union or disunion, agreement or disagreement, equality or inequality—and between various things—between objects and faculties, ends and means, subjects and predicates, premisses and conclusions¹¹ (M 196–7; IW 1: 309). In so far as both thinkers are making an ontological distinction about the grounds of true thought, the simple–complex contrast which Norris is making here may be helpfully compared to that made by Wittgenstein in his Tractatus between objects and facts or states of affairs,¹² although differences between them would emerge were one to press further about the precise nature of the terms and relations involved. We may ask also in what sense Norris’s eternal truths are ‘eternal’? Is it that they exist sempiternally, at all times, or are they somehow timeless, outside the applicability of temporal predicates altogether? His anti-psychologism would seem to point to the latter view, suggesting that a time index of any type is simply irrelevant to the being of ideas. They can neither come into being nor cease to exist for, strictly speaking, they do not exist in time at all. At no point, however, does Norris explicitly confirm that this is his understanding of the matter. Having clarified what he means, Norris attempts to persuade us that there really exist such eternal truths. He argues that to deny there is any truth, or perhaps more modestly to say that we can never reach it, would be self-refuting, for it is precisely to ¹¹ Insofar as premisses and conclusions are beliefs this last is perhaps, on Norris’s part, an unfortunate lapse from objective or ideal truth back into subjective or mental truth. ¹² Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), §§1–2.02.

 metaphysics make a claim to truth (M197; IW 1: 63–4). While it is doubtful whether this argument in fact establishes the existence of any more than one eternal truth (namely, that there exists at least one eternal truth) Norris nonetheless considers the reality of eternal truth most evident, especially in first principles, in their immediate consequences, and in those Propositions which (as the Logicians speak) are in primo modo dicendi per se, wherein the Predication is Essential, that is, the Predicate belongs to the Essence or Definition of the Subject, one of these Ideas vertually including and containing the other. (IW 1: 66)

In this last Norris reveals that the class includes (although it is not necessarily exhausted by) those propositions which we would now call ‘analytic truths’. The existence of eternal truth is, he further suggests, presupposed by the existence of science, whose business it is to deal with precisely such truths (IW 1: 306, 315).¹³ In sum, he concludes, that there are eternal truths is undeniable to the ‘‘Thoughtful and Considerate of all Ages.’’ (IW 1: 62). Moving on from the nature and existence of eternal truths to the case they provide for the Ideal World, Norris argues that such truths may hold only if there exist eternal ideas. As we have seen, complex truth in the object consists in the obtaining of relations. But if the truths in question are eternal so must be the relevant relations, for only so long as they hold will the matter remain true. But relations need terms, and in cases like these, such terms must be every bit as eternal as the relations they ground (IW 1: 67–8). But where may we find such everlasting terms? Nothing that we see in nature is eternal, says Norris, rather everything is changing all the time; so, he continues, we must look instead to the ideal realm, to the Divine Ideas, for they in their very nature are timeless and incorruptible. The relations must obtain between the eternal ideas themselves (M 201). Thus Norris concludes that the existence of eternal truths proves the reality of a realm of simple eternal essences, ¹³ For more on Norris’s conception of science, see below pp. 34–7.

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  whose interrelations those truths describe. ‘‘Eternal Truths ... are in the Reality of this Definition Ideal Relations, or the Relations that are between the Divine Ideas’’ (IW 1: 328).¹⁴ In fact, this argument can be shortened since, for Norris, there is ultimately no difference between relations and terms. Relations do not add anything extra over and above their relata; they are just the things themselves considered in a certain way (IW 1: 329). Norris is here following Suarez. For Suarez, unlike a real distinction which actually intervenes between things designated distinct as they exist in themselves, a mental distinction is one which distinguishes them only as they exist in our ideas; in thought alone may they be separated. However, mental distinctions come in two varieties, those of the reasoning reason (distinctio rationis ratiocinantis) which are wholly ungrounded and result from our own inadequate conceptions, and those of the reasoned reason (distinctio rationis ratiocinatae) which have a foundation in reality.¹⁵ Falling into the second category, relations are genuine, in the sense that they are not mere fictions of the human mind, but they enjoy no real or actual distinction from the terms whose relationship they express. Thus, for example, the likeness of one white object to another, is nothing but the very whiteness by which it resembles the other (IW 1: 330). Although he gets it from Suarez, there is nothing especially Scholastic about this view of relations—it was shared, for example, by Locke and Leibniz. That all relations derive from our ways of regarding the non-relational features of things is a bold claim, particularly hard to establish with respect to metaphysically robust connections such as spatio-temporal or causal ones, and Norris makes no attempt to prosecute such a case; the view is taken on board, with scarcely any argument, as an established Scholastic maxim, and the only examples given are more conceptual relations, like equality and similarity. But in so far as the kind of relations that go to make ¹⁴ Norris’s conception of eternal truth may be interestingly compared with Malebranche’s. See The Search after Truth Bk. 3, Pt. 2, ch. 6, and Bk. 6, Pt. 1, ch. 5 (LO 233–4, 433–4). Fruitful comparison is also possible with Leibniz. See Monadology § 43. ¹⁵ Francisco Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, Dis. VII, §1, para. 4.

 metaphysics eternal truths are arguably all of this more modest type anyway, his case is perhaps not too much weakened by the lack of argument here. The identification of relations with their terms allows him to conclude that the eternal truths, the relations between the Ideas, are really nothing more than the Ideas themselves; that is, to pass directly from the eternal truths to the Intelligible Ideas (IW 1: 330). Over the course of his discussion, Norris defends his understanding of eternal truths against three rival accounts. One of these, a way of allowing eternal truths without having to admit eternal essences, is the view of the ‘‘Systematical Men’’ (IW 1: 82), i.e. the Scholastics, a view which Norris locates more specifically in Suarez (IW 1: 85). According to this position eternal truths need to be understood in a conditional fashion. The relations which they describe are attributed to their terms, not absolutely, but hypothetically; that is, instead of presupposing the existence of their subjects with certain relations between them, the judgements state simply that were such subjects to exist then certain relations would hold between them. So, for example, in ‘Man is an animal’ the word ‘is’ has no implication of existence but merely connects the predicates ‘man’ and ‘animal’, claiming that if there were any men they would be animals (IW 1: 84). The fact that they are always true does not mean that we need to find for them corresponding subjects which always exist, for the ground of their enduring truth lies only in the existence their terms would have were they instantiated.¹⁶ It will be recognized immediately that such a hypothetical or conditional reading is precisely the way in which contemporary logicians choose to treat universal statements. Norris objects to this account on several bases. To start with he points out that eternal truths are not only true, but verifiably so, now.¹⁷ When I say that if the leader of the opposition were to ¹⁶ For further details see Norman J. Wells, ‘Suarez on the Eternal Truths’, The Modern Schoolman, 58 (1981), 73–106, 159–74. ¹⁷ Norris claims that such verities ‘‘are at this present, or any assignable instant, actually True’’ (IW 1: 99) echoing his claim that ideal propositions are ‘‘alwaies Right’’ (IW 1: 107). This might seem to contradict my suggestion above (p. 25) that such truths have no proper

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  become prime minister he would be even worse than the current incumbent, for all we might think we know, we must wait to see if what I say actually comes out true, but we do not have to wait for the relevant things to come into existence in order to verify eternal truths. [W]hen I say, for instance, that every part of a Circle is equally distant from the Center, this Proposition does not hang in suspence, then to be verify’d when the things shall exist in Nature, but is at present actually true, as true as it ever will or can be. (M 205)

Indeed, that a circle is round or has equal diameters would be true even if there never existed a material circle (IW 1: 99), just as it is true that unicorns have only one horn and tail-less kangaroos topple over. Neither truth nor reference can be ungrounded, thinks Norris, and if we say anything true at all about objects, even a claim about what they would do if they existed, they must in some sense already be there for us to truly make that claim. Yet if they are not to be found in the real world, that existence can only be in the Ideal World (M 205). The claim ‘tigers are fierce’ makes no claim about actual tigers which may or may not exist, only about the eternal essence of tigerhood, which certainly does. Going further, Norris attacks the very idea of a hypothetical union which lies behind this analysis. As he puts it, ‘‘there is no Union or Relation of things but what properly speaking is Absolute and Actual, and if things are not so related, how are they related at all? For what is it for things to be related ex Hypothesi?’’ (IW 1: 91). The analysis has it that we can speak of the relation that would hold between things were they to exist, but Norris objects that there is no such thing as a hypothetical relation (IW 1: 92). A relation that simply would hold, no more actually obtains than one which would not. If the items do not exist, there is no relation between them, and if there is a relation between them they must in some sense exist. time index. But Norris’s usage of these terms is loose and not too much should be hung on it. That he follows up his argument here with the case of a circle that never existed shows that the real import of the contrast he desires to make is between the conceptual and the actual, not the eternal and the temporal.

 metaphysics Against this it might be objected that some eternal truths are explicitly hypothetical in form; surely Norris is not denying the legitimacy of these? Norris responds by providing an analysis of conditionals. He argues that, despite their apparent form, the relations which ground the truth of such statements are as actual and absolute as any other, for the conditional judgement as a whole is something affirmed absolutely. It is a truth that, If anything has four sides then it has four angles, but what we are affirming is neither, That anything has four sides nor, That anything has four angles, and nor consequently any relation between these two things—not even hypothetically. Rather what we affirm of reality without any qualification at all is the whole content, That if anything has four sides then it has four angles (IW 1: 93–4).¹⁸ In treating ‘Man is an animal’ as ‘If man is, he is an animal’ Norris complains that Suarez undermines the traditional distinction between categorical and hypothetical judgement. He reduces the former to the latter (IW 1: 113). One might wonder if a reverse charge could not be made against Norris, for since on his scheme there is no such thing as a conditional union—a subject and predicate not absolutely united are not united at all (IW 1: 114)—categorical and hypothetical statements must both be read to assert an absolute connection. Norris responds, however, that a distinction may still be drawn from the fact that in the first case the predicate attributed to the subject is simple while in the second it is complex. Thus the categorical statement Man is an animal is analysed ‘man (animal)’ attributing to man the simple predicate of animality, while the hypothetical If man exists he is an animal is analysed ‘man (if he exits, then an animal)’ attributing to man a complex conditional predicate (IW 1: 117–18). Moving on from the Suaresian conception of eternal truths Norris attacks the more recent Cartesian account. Reacting against ¹⁸ This analysis of conditionals has much in common with that offered by the British Idealist F. H. Bradley in his The Principles of Logic (1922), ch. 2.

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  the idea that there could exist anything independent of or uncreated by God, Descartes had concluded that God must have created the eternal truths every bit as much as the natural world. He wrote to Mersenne, The mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on him entirely no less than the rest of his creatures. Indeed to say that these truths are independent of God is to talk of him as if he were Jupiter or Saturn and to subject him to the Styx and the Fates. (CSMK III 23)

According to Descartes our knowledge of such truths is innate, for at the same time as establishing them in the world God set up our minds with a proper function in harmony with His creation. God’s legislative willing is here the same as his knowledge, suggests Descartes—‘‘by the very fact of willing something he knows it’’ (CSMK III: 24)—but, just like our own will, it is free, and so Descartes embraces the further consequence that God could have created different truths or even alter the ones He in fact set up, ‘‘as a king changes his laws’’ (CSMK III: 23). Although that He would not lightly do so is something guaranteed to us by the constancy and goodness of God. The ‘‘monstrous’’ Cartesian theory that God creates necessary truth as a legislator, Norris finds ‘‘Absurd’’ as well as ‘‘Dangerous and Pernitious’’ (IW 1: 340). He objects that the doctrine makes such truths as contingent as any of God’s other creatures (IW 1: 343), undermining science, religion, and morality. In saying this he is joining his voice with a great many other contemporary critics, for the doctrine of the divine creation of eternal truths was one of the most widely challenged and rejected aspects of Descartes’s philosophy. And since Norris has nothing really new to add here, he resorts to quotation. He offers two pages of quotation from the contemporary Jesuit Daniel (IW 1: 350–2),¹⁹ that if truth depends on God’s arbitrary decree, one could not move from an idea’s ¹⁹ Gabriel Daniel (1649–1728) was a French Jesuit, a philosophical and theological controversialist, but most celebrated as the author of a seventeen-volume history of France.

 metaphysics clarity and distinctness to its truth. How could we know that God is no deceiver, if all truth depends on His decree? We should first have to know that He has decreed that he is not a deceiver. This objection is followed by a further two pages in which Norris quotes and endorses Malebranche’s criticisms of the Cartesian doctrine (IW 1: 353–5),²⁰ chiefly that while God’s decrees could very easily be limited in scope to a certain time and place, eternal truths we recognize as absolutely necessary and universal; they are truths which even God is obliged to follow. And surely there is justice in all these complaints, for Descartes’s voluntarism amounts to the claim that such truths are only contingently necessary, which is in the end to say they are really contingent. A third alternative conception of eternal truths would be to regard them as neither conditional, nor divinely instituted, but merely inventions of the human mind; matters true simply in virtue of the way we think, or in virtue of our definitions. This is a view very familiar today through the understanding of a priori truth as analytic, but in the seventeenth century it was highly unusual. Norris locates and criticizes a view of this general type in the writings of the contemporary Cartesian Regis.²¹ Despite its problems of the kind noted above that turned so many away from the view, Regis adhered to Descartes’s doctrine that God is the author of essence every bit as much as of actuality—something which he thought was the inevitable consequence of taking seriously the notion of God’s omnipotence. For Regis it is God’s will that makes things either possible or impossible, but He creates these possibilities for things by creating the very things themselves, so that such matters can be known only through experience or revelation. In this way he avoids the a priori aspect of Descartes’s doctrine, rejecting the claim that the human soul ²⁰ Norris is quoting here from The Search after Truth Eluc. X (LO 615–16). ²¹ Pierre-Sylvain Regis (1632–1707) was a highly successful popularizer of the philosophy of Descartes, strongly opposed to Malebranche’s idealism. His lectures enjoyed enormous success, but in view of the controversy which his Cartesianism generated, were suppressed by the Archbishop of Paris. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1699.

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  has innate knowledge of essences. That might seem to be refuted by our apparently non-empirical grasp of eternal truths, but Regis offers an account of such knowledge which diffuses this challenge. He argues that all such truths have both a matter and a form. The first consists in the elements which make up their subject matter, the component substances and properties of the judgement, while the second consists in the manner in which these are brought together in the understanding. A triangle, for example, is made up of extended lines which are real quite independently of us—its matter—but the way in which they come together to make what we call a triangle—its form—is a purely human creation, existing nowhere but in those minds that conceive it.²² Fully accepting the implications of this idea, Regis rejects too the strict necessity and eternity of such truths, holding that they have only a hypothetical necessity and what he calls ‘immutability’. If they seem different from other truths this is but a function of how we think of them. Norris finds it hard to make much sense of Regis’s precise view, and in consequence his complaints against it are quite general, aimed as much at any theory that would make eternal truths into creations of the human mind as at the specific mechanisms of this account (IW 1: 379–88). He objects that Regis’s position renders an objective truth into a subjective one. Surely we contemplate rather than make such truths as this theory would have it? For if we made them could we not alter or unmake them? And why should all people make them in the same way? Regis’s ²² ‘‘Les Veritez qu’on apelle Eternelles’’ he holds, ‘‘ne sont autre chose que certaines manieres, dont l’ame con¸coit les objects de ses id´ees’’. They fall in to three classes, geometrical, mathematical, and metaphysical, but all such truths, ‘‘soit geometriques, soit numeriques, ou metaphysiques, sont compos´ees de deux parties, dont l’une tient lieu de matiere, & l’autre tient lieu de forme: La matiere de ces Veritez consiste dans les substances & dans les modes, & la forme dans l’action, par laquelle l’ame considere les substances & les modes d’une certaine maniere ... D’o`u il s’ensuit que toutes les Veritez numeriques, geometriques, & metaphysiques, estant consider´ees formellement ne peuvent exister que dans l’ame qui les con¸coit, mais qu’estant consider´ees selon leur matiere premiere elles existent actuellent hours de l’ame’’ (Cours entier de philosophie, ou Syst`eme g´en´eral selon les principes de m. Descartes, contenant La logique. La Metaphysique, La Physique et La Morale. Livre Second de La Metaphysique, ch. XI (Amsterdam, 1691), vol. 1, 177–8).

 metaphysics claim that we are all created alike leaves him unimpressed. He objects too that Regis fails to capture their genuinely eternal character; the suggestion that they have nonetheless an ‘immutability’ grounded in our underlying human nature, again, leaving him unconvinced. With his own proposed account of eternal truths defended against these three current rivals, Norris takes the matter to be closed and the existence of the Intelligible World established, for appeal to the inhabitants of that realm, he says, ‘‘gives the best and indeed only intelligible account of Eternal Truths’’ (IW 1: 81). 2.2.4 Argument from Science The fourth argument which Norris offers is one from the nature of science. The possibility of science, he urges, proves the reality of the Ideal World. It is instructive to consider this argument as a pair with that just examined above from the nature of eternal truth, for, parallel to his central distinction between objective and subjective truth, Norris draws a distinction between objective and subjective science, between science ‘‘in the thing’’ and science as an ‘‘Intellectual habit’’ ‘‘in the Mind’’ (IW 1: 127–8). He says that in the current argument his concern is with the second of these only, since the first is really just the system of eternal truths over again. Thus the argument he is now putting forward may be understood as one from the nature of knowledge, the subjective parallel of the argument above from the nature of reality. Norris asserts that the subject matter of science is whatever is universal, necessary, and immutable, and that it is concerned not with questions of existence but only with ones about essence.²³ But, he continues, everything in the natural world is singular, contingent, and changeable, as are the constructions of our mind. In consequence, if science is to be possible, which surely it is, there must exist a changeless realm of universal essences which it describes. In short, unless the intelligible world existed there could ²³ IW 1: 130, much repeated elsewhere e.g. IW 1: 65, 1: 410, 2: 427.

2.2 the existence of the intelligible world  be no science (IW 1: 131). Essentially the same argument appears in reverse in the second part of the Essay. He argues there that our scientific knowledge cannot be acquired by direct perceptual contact with the things of the material world themselves, for those things are constantly changing while science is a necessary and changeless scheme. This feature of scientific knowledge is explicable only if we take it as a study of Ideal types in a realm distinct from the natural material world (IW 2: 314–17). It is, of course, tempting to question Norris’s assumption here that science is unconcerned with existential matters and deals only with what is necessary, for few contemporary scientists would accept that. But the claim needs to be understood in its historical context, for the term ‘science’ did not mean then what it does today, that is, experimental or natural science. In origin it means basically ‘legitimate knowledge,’ and thus in holding that it is restricted to the realm of the necessary Norris can be regarded as in effect proposing a definition of legitimacy in knowledge. Nor is he to be thought eccentric in his proposal. In root it goes back to Plato who, insisting that knowledge needs to be something fixed and stable, made a sharp distinction between knowledge which comes from reason and opinion which comes from sense,²⁴ and, as Norris himself notes, the Schoolmen too admitted that science was concerned not with particulars but universals (IW 1: 130). Even Norris’s more famous and indeed, more scientific, contemporary, John Locke, had a similarly strict sense of epistemic legitimacy, defining knowledge as either intuitive or demonstrative and seeming thereby to exclude the possibility of perceptual or experimental knowledge.²⁵ But matters are more complex than this might suggest. The term ‘science’ in Norris’s hands is not simply an archaic technical term, ²⁴ Republic V (474b–480a). ²⁵ ECHU 4.2.14. See also ECHU 4.12.10 where Locke insists that experimental investigation (what we would now call ‘science’) could never be science because not certain. It is worth noting that this general usage continued well into the eighteenth century, Johnson in his famous Dictionary (1755) defining science as ‘‘certainty grounded on demonstration’’.

 metaphysics for it has clear relation also to our modern sense. The word is one in a state of transition; looking back to its traditional employment with traces of its more contemporary use beginning to creep in. This complication is clearly visible if we attempt to pinpoint its exact extension as Norris deploys it. It certainly covers subjects like metaphysics and geometry (IW 1: 129), to which might also be added arithmetic and ethics. But what else? It is unclear. There is evidence that Norris thought it could be stretched to include physics. This might seem odd, for physics deals with the changeable material world, but in so far as mathematical physics is an idealized abstraction from the irregularities of perceived reality, it could be regarded in a similar light to geometry or even metaphysics. There is (it should be remembered) a long tradition, from Galileo to Einstein, of doing physics by thought-experiment. We might wonder too whether science for Norris includes biology; study of the forms of those ‘‘Trees, Plants and the Bodies of Animals’’ which he sometimes mentions (IW 1: 38). At this point we might seem a long way from the realm of the necessary and the immutable, but if necessity includes natural necessity (and Norris makes no distinction between natural and logical necessity) a case could very well be made. For while individual biological forms, and even species, may come and go, in another sense the types themselves are eternal—it is after all possible to scientifically study ‘dinosaurs’ although the creatures themselves have long been extinct. If these extensions are allowed, we can see Norris as trying to carry forward an old conception of science into a more modern usage. Originating in Pre-Socratic thought, another ancient idea we might want to question is the claim that the natural world is thoroughly mutable. Without denying that it contains change, does the world in which we live not also display much constancy, making it a perfectly suitable object for scientific investigation? There are two problems with this question. The first is that the natural world is in time, and anything in time can change, even if it does not. But science, Norris is here supposing, deals with the genuinely immutable, that which is wholly insusceptible to

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  change, not simply that which happens not to change. However, and secondly, it is doubtful whether Norris would even allow, without serious qualification, the claim that much in nature does not change. For we only find the immutable in the changing world through a process of intellectual abstraction, and that plays directly into Norris’s hands. If changeless things do not exist in rerum natura as it actually occurs but only in so far as we think about it, are they not, as Norris is suggesting, things really to be found in a separate Ideal World accessed by intellect rather than sense?

2.3 The Intelligible and the Divine World 2.3.1 The Existence of God For Norris, as for Malebranche and Berkeley, the driving motivation for philosophy is theological.²⁶ The three share, moreover, a common strategy in this regard: they aim to refute atheism and to place belief at the very centre of everything by so weaving God into the fabric of their system that nothing really makes sense without Him. In other words, the fundamental case for God is holistic; the existence of God stands or falls with the system as a whole. But short of the entire system it is also possible to identify in Norris a few relatively free-standing reasons for belief in the existence of God, and in the following section I shall outline briefly four such arguments. To start with Norris defines God in such a way that His nonexistence is practically inconceivable, or to be more precise, in such a way that if anything at all exists, God exists. For he understands God as ‘Being itself’, something which cannot fail to designate so long as there exists at least one thing. In Reason and Religion he takes issue with those who define God as an absolutely perfect Being. While He is indeed such a Being, says Norris, that is not His true ²⁶ While this is true for a great deal of early modern philosophy, and no direct inference may be drawn from profession to motivation, it does seem noteworthy that all three of these philosophers were, in fact, clergymen.

 metaphysics or fundamental essence. Really He is nothing other than ‘‘Being it Self, or Universal Being, or Being in General, Being in the Abstract, without any restriction or limitation’’ (RR 22). This, according to Norris, is the true force of the name ‘I AM’ which God gave in response to Moses.²⁷ Talk of ‘Being itself’ is puzzling, recalling to mind a host of figures from Eriugena to Tillich, but Norris’s principal source here seems to be Malebranche²⁸ and, going further back, Plato himself. That there must exist a universal nature or essence of Being itself, something common to all individual beings yet distinct from any of them is, he urges, as certain as that there must exist other general forms, such as that of the triangle or the circle (RR 23). Once we accept the reality of Being itself, continues Norris, we must identify it with God, for God is the first thing conceivable, the foundation of all things, while Being itself is precisely the first concept conceivable, the foundation of all thinking (RR 24). These are two ways of picking out the same thing. This highly Platonic piece of reasoning is, of course, open to Aristotle’s counter that there is no genus of Being, no univocal sense in which all things are, and it seems highly unlikely that Norris was unaware of this; although he never mentions it. The key to mounting a response to Aristotle is to show that Being itself is not just a vacuous abstraction, and this Norris does by arguing that it is the explanation behind all particular beings—that from which they derive their own being—and that it possesses in itself all the perfections of those beings; which, indeed, it imparts to them. (RR Part I, Contemplation III).²⁹ Another line of thought which grounds Norris’s belief in God concerns goodness. Goodness, for Norris, is not merely one of God’s properties, though it be the ‘‘principal’’ or ‘‘Divinest’’ of them (RR 133). He goes further than this and endorses Plato’s conception of God as the very idea or form of Goodness itself, ²⁷ Exodus 3: 14. ²⁸ With a similar reference to Exodus 3:14 Malebranche too describes God as ‘‘universal being’’ (The Search after Truth, Bk. III, Pt. II, ch. 5 (LO 229)). ²⁹ For further discussion of this see pp. 43–5 below on the omniform nature of God.

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  something he regards as confirmed in the scriptural claim that ‘God is love’.³⁰ The world in which we live is an outflowing of God’s goodness, its own goodness a participation in His, an imitation of Him who ‘‘has all Good in himself’’ (IW 1: 335), who is ‘‘the Sum and Abstract of all Goodness’’ (TRL 9). In consequence the pursuit of beauty and happiness, which are nothing but enjoyment of the good, both lead us from the things of this world to the contemplation of beauty and goodness in abstraction, which are nothing less than God Himself.³¹ God is thus ‘‘the only true good of our Souls’’ (IW 2: 434). In this way value itself is a pointer towards and argument for the existence of God; we can no more deny the existence of the latter than the former. The equation of God with Goodness itself is no mere eccentricity but rather the inevitable consequence of taking seriously the self-sufficiency of God, for otherwise goodness would constitute some kind of external criterion to which God had to conform. God is not just the author of being, but Being itself. He is not just good and the source of all good things, but Goodness itself. Moreover, thinks Norris (as we shall see in more detail below), He is not just our key to discovering truth, but as it says in the Bible, truth itself.³² Putting these thoughts together Norris’s God can be seen as something highly abstract and intellectualized; not something sharply distinguished from the world, indeed, not clearly a ‘thing’ at all. However, Norris was guided always by his Anglican faith, and if the ideas with which he flirted have the ³⁰ RR 135; 1 John 4: 16; see also LOG Preface to the Reader, p. iv. ³¹ See ‘Letter Concerning the true Notion of Plato’s Ideas’ (M 441–5) and ‘An Idea of Happiness’ (M 414–16). This too is the theme of his poem ‘Beauty’ whose third stanza goes He’s Beautie’s vast abyss and boundless sea, The primitive and the greatest Fair; All His perfections beauties are, Beauty is all the Deity. Some streams from this vast ocean flow, And that is all that pleases, all that’s fair below. ³² IW 1: 336. The Bible passage is John 14: 6.

 metaphysics potential to lead down unorthodox paths (for example, paths over emphasizing God’s immanence in creation or paths casting doubt on his personhood) Norris himself was careful never to follow them that far. For example, although he is clear that truth is divine, and nothing really different from God, he is reluctant to allow us to swap round the biblical claim and assert that ‘Truth is God’. In apprehending eternal truths we apprehend God, he admits, but this needs to be understood with care: it is not because these truths themselves are God, rather because they are relations of ideas existing within the mind of God (IW 2: 507–9). In a similar way although he allows the claims that God is Love, Goodness, and Being, his caution holds him back from ever embracing their less orthodox reversals that Love, Goodness, and Being are God. Whether this restraint be regarded as a failure of philosophical nerve or a proper respect for the truths of revelation will depend upon our view of the proper spheres of faith and reason; Norris’s treatment of that matter will be discussed in Chapter 4. Norris’s more orthodox theological thinking can be seen in a third argument he endorses for belief in the existence of God. This is the cosmological argument, which he supports in at least two of its traditional forms. In Reason and Religion he advances a version, originating in Aristotle and Aquinas, that starts from the idea of motion. Although the particular cause of the motion of any given body is the pressure or impulse it receives from some further body, he argues that this cannot give us the universal cause of motion, the cause of motion itself. But since bodies cannot move themselves, nor the sequence of transferred motion regress backwards forever, the origin of their motion must be God, the first unmoved mover (RR 230–1). In the Essay Norris’s focus is broadened from motion to the existence of the world as a whole, as he puts forward a version more like the Kalaam cosmological argument. It is obvious, he argues, that the world owes its being to God. It cannot be eternal and so must have had a beginning but, unable to give being to itself, or to spring into being from nothingness, it could only have received its being from some other being. This must be

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  a being of great power—indeed, infinite power—for what less could bring forth being where there is nothing? (IW 1: 18–19). In neither of these short presentations does Norris make any original contribution to this familiar argument, but they are noteworthy for revealing his commitment to certain key assumptions about time, causation, and existence. A final argument for the existence of God is given simply in passing but should, nonetheless, be noted. While in general, Norris says, establishing possibility is only one step on the way to establishing actuality, with God matters are different: If God be a possible Being, that is, whose Nature or Essence implies no contradiction or Repugnance that he should be, then it necessarily follows that he actually is, since, if he were not, it would be utterly impossible that he should ever be ... here the possibility plainly and immediately infers the Act; and perhaps ‘tis the only case wherein it evidently does so. (IW 2: 413–14)

This version of the ontological argument is free from the obvious defects of its Cartesian version that treats existence as a perfection, but not from its other well-known difficulties. Since he offers no further development of the ideas involved, it is enough in this context simply to draw attention to Norris’s allegiance to this argument. 2.3.2 Argument from Creation The cosmological argument for God’s existence from His creation of material reality is extended in Norris’s hands into a further argument for the existence of the Ideal World.³³ Norris urges that God as the creator of the natural realm cannot create blindly but needs to have an idea of what He will make before He makes it. Hence there must exist a realm of being ‘‘wherein the Allwise and Almighty God, as in a fair intelligible Mirrour contemplated the Natural World before he made it, and according ³³ It is, in fact, the first of the six which he offers in IW, but we have delayed its consideration until now because of its clear dependence on the existence of God.

 metaphysics to which he Made whatever he Made’’ (IW 1: 26; RR 47), a world containing ‘‘the Patterns and Exemplars, according to which all things were made, from the Worm that creeps upon the Ground, to the Angels of Presence that wait about the Throne’’ (IW 1: 263–4). Although God made the world without any pre-existing matter—it was created ex nihilo—He could not make it except according to some pre-existing form or idea (IW 1: 27). This is not, of course, an original argument, and Norris acknowledges a similar line of thought in Augustine and Philo (IW 1: 23, 29). He could equally have cited figures from Malebranche through Aquinas and Plotinus, back to Plato’s Timaeus, the source for them all.³⁴ It might be wondered if Norris’s suggestion here about the role played by the eternal ideas in creation is compatible with his claim we noted above,³⁵ that while the world runs on general principles, its creation was a matter of particular decrees. But perhaps there is no conflict here for the creation of each individual thing, even if done along general lines, is still a particular event brought about by a specific decree of God. 2.3.3 Identity of the Divine and Intelligible Worlds Thus far in our exposition of Norris’s system we would seem to have before us two orders of being—the eternal Ideas and God—each transcendent of the sensible world, but each apparently separate. At this point, however, Norris takes the bold step of identifying them; the Ideal World and the divine nature are one and the same. More specifically, the Ideas exist in God; they are none other than God’s Ideas, the very mind of God. We shall examine below in a little more detail what this bold and strange claim could really amount to, but first we need to look at the reasons Norris offers for it. ³⁴ Malebranche, The Search after Truth, Bk. III, Pt. II, ch. 5 (LO 229); Aquinas, Summa Theologicae, Pt. I, Qu. 14, Art. 6; also Pt. I, Qu. 15, Art. 2; Plotinus, Enneads VI, Lib. 8, ch. 18; Plato, Timaeus, 29–30. ³⁵ See above pp. 19–20.

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  The first argument Norris gives is one of immense simplicity. The Ideal World is to be found within God, because the characteristics of the Ideal World are also those of God Himself. Can there, asks Norris, be anything necessary, eternal, and omnipresent which lies outside the nature of God (IW 1: 137)?³⁶ Are these not the very marks and signs, the exclusive preserve, of divinity? If this seems a tenuous argument it is worth remembering that concern about attributing either infinity or eternity to anything other than God is a common theme in seventeenth-century philosophy. We find it, for example, in the discussion of space, where it is felt that the postulation of space in itself as some sort of independently existing eternal and infinite reality poaches somehow on the being of God. The Cambridge Platonist Henry More, for example, regarded space as an infinite yet non-corporeal being which he essentially identified with God; a view which very probably influenced Newton’s strange claim that space is the sensorium of God.³⁷ But there is more at work here behind Norris’s identification of the ideal and divine worlds than simply their coincident natures, and in the Essay he gives a second more considered reason for locating the realm of ideal essences within God. He claims that this is something we can see if we only reflect upon the very nature of God. We see that God has in his nature ideas of all things (IW 1: 140) or, as he elsewhere puts it (borrowing from Ficino) that God is ‘‘omniform’’ (IW 1: 148).³⁸ This, he thinks, is something we can conclude either from thinking about the general perfection of the divine nature, or from considering the specific perfection of Divine Omniscience. ³⁶ An earlier version of this argument may be found at RF 163, 167. ³⁷ Enumerating ‘‘those divine names or titles which suit it exactly’’—one, simple, immobile, eternal, complete, independent, existing from itself, subsisting by itself, incorruptible, necessary, immense, uncreated, uncircumscribed, incomprehensible, omnipresent, incorporeal, permitting and encompassing everything, Being by essence, Being by Act, pure Act—More argues ‘‘this infinite and immobile extension will be seen to be not something merely real ... but something divine’’. (Enchiridion Metaphysicum, ch. 8, §8, translated by Alexander Jacob as Henry More’s Manual of Metaphysics (Zurich: Georg Olms, 1995) vol. i, 57; I. Newton, Optics, Qu. 28 (Dover, 1952), 370). ³⁸ See also IW 1: 175, 178, 254, CR 31; see also Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life (London, 1690), 28, 33, 72. See Marsilino Ficino [Marsilius Ficinus], Theologica Platonica de Immortalitate Animae, Lib. II, cap. X (Opera Omnia (Basle, 1576), vol. i, 105).

 metaphysics Taking the first line, he seems to offer three slightly different routes to the same conclusion. Firstly, in Reason and Religion (Part I, Contemplation III, §2) he argues that since God is Being itself, and Being itself contains all degrees of being, God must contain within Himself all the various perfections that are in particular beings. He follows that argument with a second supplementary one (Part I, Contemplation III, §3) to the effect that Being itself, as the cause of all the degrees of being in particulars—they are what they are by partaking of it—must also have in itself those same degrees; ‘‘for nothing can communicate what it has not ... ’’. Both of these two arguments are repeated in the Essay (in reverse order, IW 1: 145 and 143–4 respectively) where they are attributed to Aquinas, but there Norris also puts forward a new and third line of argument. He argues that since God is an infinite Being, He must be infinite in Being. As such, He must be as far removed as possible from not-being, so ‘‘he must have all possible degrees of Being in himself, or in other Words, he must be all Being, since if he were destitute of any degree of Being ... there he would begin to be terminated and consequently so far would partake of Nothing or not being. ... ’’ (IW 1: 142–3). A few pages later essentially the same argument is repeated and attributed to Suarez; as a perfect Being God cannot lack anything. All three of these arguments are as opaque as they are highly Scholastic, although in so far as it suggests that the nature of God in its limitless infinity can not exclude anything, the drift of the reasoning is also akin to that of Spinoza in his Ethics. Together they offer a subtle conception of God as at once the most abstract and the most concrete of beings. He is pure Being, absolutely undetermined, Being in general, yet at the same time He contains within Himself all possible determinations and characteristics, the very specificities of all individual beings.³⁹ Somewhat as in the Hegelian conception of the ‘concrete universal,’ universality and ³⁹ Mackinnon sees between these two aspects a transition between Norris’s earlier and later views (1910), 50, 67, 78, but it seems to me that both are held simultaneously throughout.

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  particularity are in God not opposed but complementary. Norris’s argument is that Being itself, if it is to participate in and thereby ‘bring to life’ whatever is, must first somehow contain within itself some sense or resonance of all that it is to inform; in a similar way, perhaps, as a great actor or actress, if they are successfully to take on any role, must find somehow within themselves some echo, trace, or appreciation of the character they are to play. The second argument Norris offers for thinking that God has in His nature ideas of all things focuses, not on the general perfection of the divine nature, but on the specific perfection of Divine Omniscience (IW 1: 148 ff.). This too was a line of reasoning he had put forward previously, in both the ‘Metaphysical Essay’ and Reason and Religion, (M 202–3; RR 67–102) but there he had done little more than repeat his argument from eternal truths. The argument in the Essay on the other hand is more interesting. It has two parts. The first part concerns knowledge of possibles. That God knows all possible things, Norris takes as his starting point, inferring from it that they must in some way exist, ‘‘since it is necessary that whatever terminates the Understanding should be a Reality’’ (IW 1: 148). There must exist some object of our understanding. Yet such possibilia cannot lie outside of God, continues Norris, for they are merely possible and, as such, do not exist in their own right, in rerum natura—for then they would be actual. They must therefore exist in God. Turning from knowledge of possibles to knowledge of things actual, the second part of the argument holds that it is absurd to think God knows things in a different way once they come into existence. ‘‘He must then know Actual Beings after the very same manner as he knews [sic] Possible one’s [sic]’’ (IW 1: 156). In sum, concludes Norris, we must hold that God knows all things through Himself, so the ideas of all things must exist within Him. This argument is problematic on two fronts. In the first place it is too summary in its dismissal of other theories of our knowledge of possibility. Modern philosophy has in its stock a whole collection of non-realist theories of modality. But second,

 metaphysics insisting that knowledge of actuals must be in line with knowledge of possibles, it undermines the sense in which God knows the actual world. To be sure, He can tell the difference between things possible and things actual—between the fact that unicorns have one horn and the fact that cows have two—by appeal to His own will which tells him what He has actually created (IW 1: 250). But besides that, His grasp of what exists is exactly the same as His grasp of what doesn’t, and this hardly seems a robust encounter with actuality. It is more like knowing what arrived by checking what was sent, or knowing what is present by consulting what ought to be there, and hardly reassures, for example, as the mode in which God knows the actuality of our own individual being. This basic argument from the knowledge of possibility and actuality Norris bolsters by objecting that if God knew creatures in themselves rather than through His own ideas of them, that would make them ‘‘illuminative’’ of Him. What he means by this strange term is that God would be beholden to them for His knowledge, that the intellectual side of His being could not be complete without them, that He would depend upon them; (IW 1: 157) something which goes against the authority of both Malebranche and the Scholastics—a point Norris establishes at length (IW 1: 157–70). To be sure, Norris is on fairly secure traditional ground here, although his argument is not wholly orthodox. For on any common sense understanding it is a problem to see how God could know the world without depending upon it. For this reason Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas all thought that, rather than God knowing things because they are the case, it was His knowing them that makes them the way they are. They see God’s knowledge as creative and causal. God knows things by knowing Himself as their origin. He knows the world in and through Himself, by knowing Himself.⁴⁰ Norris’s answers differs only slightly from this traditional account. ⁴⁰ Origen (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Bk. 7), on the other hand, like Richard Swinburne today (The Coherence of Theism, ch. 10), thinks God knows things because they are the case.

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  2.3.4 Further Defence and Discussion Notwithstanding the arguments he offers for it, Norris identification of the intellectual and divine worlds is, of course, a strange view. The boldness of its claim is shocking. Will that not imply that the ideas we apprehend in grasping eternal truths—the ideas of maths, geometry, metaphysics, ethics, science, and the like—literally reside in God, that we grasp the mind of God itself? ‘‘Yes it will’’, says Norris, ‘‘and so far is it from being an Objection that it does so, that ‘tis the very consequence I have been all this while driving at’’ (IW 1: 239). In thinking these thoughts we think the very thoughts God thinks. Truth lies in the intelligible world, that is to say, in God, but at the same time insists Norris it lies in us, because of the ‘‘intimate Union’’ our souls have with our creator (IW 1: 390). For it is after all God in whom we live and move and have our being.⁴¹ There is, no doubt, something profoundly mystical in all this, and the last chapter of Part I of the Essay is a discussion of the beauty of the intelligible world and the happiness of those that have their conversation in it. ‘‘Happy are they who dwell in thy serene and shining Regions, where God feeds his Israel with the true Food of Angels, the Manna of Truth’’ (IW 1: 433). And it is at these points that Norris has a tendency to break out into either poetry or prayer.⁴² In counterweight to this, however, it has quite correctly been observed that while Norris ‘‘was often dismissed as a visionary ... he was never accused of unorthodoxy’’,⁴³ for his position is always constrained and remains well within established bounds. For example, can it really be orthodox to suggest that we see God? Is it not an axiom of theism that God is beyond human grasping, that, as it says in St John’s gospel, ‘No one has seen God’?⁴⁴ However, some distinctions may make Norris’s claim here seem less ⁴¹ Acts 17: 28 ⁴² See e.g. IW 1: 170–5. Norris’s religious mysticism was not to the taste of all. It much irritated Locke and Lady Masham, for example, as we shall see in Chapter 5. ⁴³ Acworth (1977), 674. ⁴⁴ John 1: 18

 metaphysics outrageous. In grasping the Divine Ideas, which are not distinct from God but of his essence, we have direct or immediate knowledge of God. But it by no means follows from this that we have complete or clear knowledge of God. We are finite while God is infinite, so much about His nature must forever fall outside our purview or comprehension (IW 2: 283). Nor, insists Norris, does it follow that we see God as He sees Himself ; what we apprehend is not the essence of God ‘‘purely and absolutely as it is in itself; but [only] as it is in relation to Creatures, according to the several degrees of its Participation whereby it is communicable to them’’ (IW 2: 503).⁴⁵ Nor should it be feared that the sheer multiplicity of archetypal ideas threatens the indivisible unity of God. For not all plurality is inconsistent with simplicity; ‘‘only such as implies a real Diversity of component Parts’’, (IW 1: 294) and the Divine Ideas are not things or modes in their own right, distinct constituents that together ‘make up’ the Godhead, but rather the one divine nature itself as it is variously expressed to us in relation to the many different creatures which participate in it. Their diversity no more implies disunity in God than does that between the Father and the Son (IW 1: 294–5).⁴⁶ In these qualifications Norris is following Malebranche who was also keen to avoid his vision in God collapsing into a vision of God. As when looking into a mirror we see the objects it is ⁴⁵ Cf. Malebranche, ‘‘You are then actually seeing the divine substance, for that alone is capable of enlightening the mind. But you do not see it in itself or as it really is. You see it only in relation to material creatures, only as it is particable by or representative of them’’ (Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Dial. II. 2, JS 21). ⁴⁶ Norris is here following Malebranche who, notwithstanding his admission that ‘‘there is a great deal of difficulty in reconciling the Divine Being’s simplicity with this variety of intelligible ideas’’ (The Search after Truth, Eluc. X (LO 618)), argues that ‘‘the divine substance in its simplicity, to which we cannot attain, contains an infinity of entirely different intelligible perfections by which God enlightens us without making Himself visible to us such as He is or according to His specific and absolute reality, but according to His general reality and relative to His possible works’’ (Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Dial. II. 2, JS 22). For a more detailed account of Norris on divine simplicity, including the claim that his account is both different from and superior to that given by Malebranche, see Yang (2005), chs. 3–4.

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  reflecting rather than the mirror itself which becomes an almost transparent medium through which we see the objects, so it is with God, suggests Malebranche.⁴⁷ This is not an altogether happy illustration in so far as a mirror is a kind of passive conduit in this regard, and not something which it really makes sense to think of seeing as it is in itself. The point, Norris explains somewhat more helpfully, is simply that we see God only so far as He relates to creatures and only from the point of view of His relation to creatures (IW 2: 503). In that regard ours is, perhaps, like any other relationship. I may think I know my colleagues pretty well, but I probably know only a part of their lives (their early years or their spiritual life may be a closed book to me) and only from a certain point of view (I know them as a work associate, but not as their partner, their pupil, or their boss.) Besides, Norris is less worried by this potential objection than Malebranche. So long as we are modest, and make no claim to pre-empt the beatific vision, he sees no ‘‘real inconvenience’’ in admitting that we might see the essence of God (IW 2: 504). Indeed, if we do see Him directly, then surely we must ‘‘have some intellectual View of the Essence of God even in this Life, how dark and imperfect soever it be’’ (IW 2: 506). How else could we talk about or love Him? Mystical or not, if it is to be more than just poetry, the claim that the forms of understanding are literally identical with the ideas of God sounds very odd to modern ears. They do not seem to belong to the right categories to be identified with one another. But to understand what is going on it helps to appreciate that Norris is using both terms in ways unlike those common today, ways which make that identification easier. The modern understanding of ‘forms’ is primarily as universals, types, or patterns. It thus stresses regularity or the resemblances which things manifest that leads us to make the distinction between particular and general. Now, this aspect of the matter ⁴⁷ The Search after Truth, Eluc. X (LO 628).

 metaphysics is not absent in Norris’s conception of form, but other aspects take precedence over it. In saying that the world is structured by forms, what Norris wishes to convey is less its regularity than its rationality. It is not simply a chaos in which such regularity as there is is merely fortuitous, but rather something shaped by a coherent logical plan. For while individuals are perceived by our senses, forms are grasped by the mind; they are thus that which in things makes them intelligible or understandable. They are defined as things whose very essence is to be comprehensible. His commitment to the realm of ideas is a species of rationalism. Turning to the other side of the pair, it is crucial to recognize that Norris advances a strongly anti-psychologistic conception of ‘ideas’; ideas are a logical rather than a psychological category. They are not private mental events, but public tools common to all intellects, and lacking even temporal location, since they can be shared across times as well as persons. Whatever relation they may hold to the individual mental acts by which we grasp them, our thoughts are in their true logical character universals, both in the manner of their existing and their signification. Fresh from reading the British Empiricists, we might think this conception odd. But despite the predominance of the psychological sense of idea, the alternative logical sense has never quite disappeared from Western philosophy; in recent times we may find it, for example, in Bradley, Frege, Husserl, and Karl Popper. Norris’s understanding and consequent identification of these two categories was not simply some eccentricity on his part, for in putting forward this position he was following an established historical tradition, if only a minority one. From his own time he is drawing heavily on Malebranche but, as Norris well knew, these ideas go back further than that, through Augustine and Plotinus, to their ultimate source which is, of course, Plato. Few now, or even in the seventeenth century, would read Plato as Norris does, taking him rather to postulate a world of forms no more mental than they are physical but somehow of some ‘third’ realm. Perfectly aware

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  of that, Norris explicitly rejects that Plato ever meant anything of the kind, suggesting that ‘‘whoever can but keep himself awake while he but Reads over his Timaeus will I believe find reason to think so too’’ (IW 1: 138–9). That the received interpretation of Plato, going back ultimately to Aristotle, was mistaken was an idea Norris first put forward in his ‘Letter on Ideas’ (M 435–41) insisting that for Plato the Ideas exist in the mind of God. In his defence he appeals there to Plotinus, Porphry, and Proclus (M 438). Leaving aside questions of historical precedent, nothing can mask the fact that what Norris is claiming here is as unusual as it is counterintuitive, for realists usually regard universals or forms as separate from God. Norris, of course, is perfectly aware of this and takes pains to argue in some detail against the notion that the ideas could exist thus distinct. Focusing on eternal truths⁴⁸ he argues that, were they to exist in distinction from God, then the perfection of the divine understanding would have to depend on something external to God Himself, for, as an omniscient being, He would certainly have to know them (IW 1: 337). In treating that as something impossible Norris here appeals to the same principle as that lying behind the self-contained nature of Divine Omniscience that we considered above;⁴⁹ God could not be ‘illuminated’ by the objects of the material world, and no more could He be so by the inhabitants of an intelligible world, were they similarly distinct. Were eternal truths distinct from the divine nature that would commit us to existence of something necessary in addition to God, but this Norris regards not just as an ‘‘Impiety’’ but an ‘‘Absurdity’’ also (IW 1: 338). Here we find ourselves re-treading another line of thought considered above,⁵⁰ namely that infinity, eternity, necessity, and the like are the exclusive preserve and defining characteristics of God. ⁴⁸ These, we have already seen (see above pp. 27–8), he regards as but relations of ideas, which in turn are but ideas. ⁴⁹ See pp. 45–6. ⁵⁰ See p. 43.

 metaphysics These two arguments aside, the main thrust of Norris’s case against the separate existence of eternal truths takes the form of a dilemma: whatever is, is either the effect of God, or else is God Himself. But, he continues, necessary truths are not the effect of God, hence they are God (IW 1: 336).⁵¹ Were they effects they would need to be regarded as having necessary causes—for nothing necessary could result from any contingent action—but God cannot be under any necessity of acting; He is wholly free. Anything God produces He does so freely, not because He needs to, and thus nothing necessary could ever be an effect of His.⁵² Moreover, were God the cause of their existence, He would have to have been a wholly unintelligent cause, for, prior to the creation of truth, there could be no knowledge. Yet this is contrary to our understanding of Him as an omniscient being. Furthermore, since the eternal truths are immutable, were they created by God, He would then have created a realm over which He had no power to change or abolish, which is surely contrary to His omnipotence (IW 1: 337). If legislation may be regarded as a species of efficient causation, these considerations double-up as a set of supplementary attacks on the Cartesian doctrine of the creation of eternal truths,⁵³ but clearly the real work is done by Norris’s dilemma itself: whatever is, is either the effect of God, or else is God Himself. Appealing to the authority of Suarez (IW 1: 336), this dichotomy Norris takes as too obvious to explain or defend, but, depending on a notion of God as the creator of all things, his attachment to it is perhaps more theological than philosophical. For as a metaphysical thesis it is certainly problematic. It seems incorrect to hold that nothing could be both (would not God be the cause of His own thoughts?) and, begging the question, deny that anything could be neither. ⁵¹ An earlier version of this argument may be found at RF 154–7. ⁵² It is this line of thought which make Regis think that if the eternal truths really result from the will of God, as Descartes claims, then they cannot be truly necessary. See above pp. 32–3. ⁵³ see above pp. 30–2.

2.3 the intelligible and the divine world  On Norris’s dichotomy, if the eternal truths are not distinct from God, they must then be, or be within, God. But in what sense is this identity or containment to be understood? Since we are made in His image, Norris regards God as a spirit possessed of both will and understanding. We have already seen that eternal truths do not depend on God’s will,⁵⁴ but it is not enough to conclude simply and straightaway that they thereby depend on His understanding, for while that is true, left as it stands it is also potentially very misleading. Following Henry More,⁵⁵ Norris makes a distinction between the mind as intelligible or exhibitative and the mind as intelligent or conceptive. In his own words, By the Mind of God Exhibitive is meant the Essence of God as thus or thus imitable or particiable by any Creature, and this is the same with an Idea. By the Mind of God Conceptive is meant a reflex act of God’s Understanding upon his own Essence as Exhibitive, or as thus and thus imitable. (M 440)

The thrust of this distinction is that it allows Norris to say two seemingly incompatible things; eternal truth and reality are what they are in virtue of a originating dependence on the mind of God,⁵⁶ but at the same time things are not true merely because God believes them to be a certain way, rather He believes them to be that way because that is how they really are. Eternal truths depend upon the mind of God as exhibitive, but as conceptive the situation is reversed and the mind of God depends upon the eternal truths; in just the same way, says Norris, as all epistemological truth ⁵⁴ See above pp. 30–2. ⁵⁵ In the ‘Letter on Ideas’ (M 440), Norris attributes the distinction to Plato, but by Essay on the Ideal or Intelligible World he corrects this calling it merely ‘‘Platonist’’ and not to his knowledge in Plato himself (IW 1: 357). That the Platonist Norris has in mind is More has been convincing demonstrated by Acworth (1979), 37–9: the edition of Rust’s Discourse on Truth to which Norris’s refers at this point contains annotations by Henry More making precisely this distinction. However, it should also be added that Norris’s treatment of the distinction is far more developed than More’s. ⁵⁶ Although not made or created by God, the mind of God is ‘‘Eternally praegnant’’ with them (IW 1: 235), which for Norris is suggestive of their identity with the Logos or Word ‘eternally begotten’ of the Father. See below p. 57.

 metaphysics depends on ontological truth, (IW 1: 358) thereby linking the distinction here with that between truth in the subject and truth in the object which we already considered above.⁵⁷ The claim that God’s knowledge conforms to the way things actually are seems at first sight like a stand on behalf of realism, but when we note that it pertains only to a somewhat secondary reflex aspect of the divine mind, and that it is paired by an equal sense in which things are the way they are by conformity to God’s understanding, a stronger impression of anti-realism takes over. It is God’s understanding that appears to constitute the world we know, at least so far as science describes it. Realism might be rescued to the degree that the mind of God conceptive can be regarded as cognitive and the mind of God exhibitive as more causal in nature, but there are limits to how far this reading could be pushed, for Norris is quite clear that eternal truth and essences of things do not depend upon the will of God, least that render them contingent and arbitrary. In the end we should conclude that, for all the number of times he states it and stresses its importance,⁵⁸ this is not as central a distinction as Norris took it to be. Regarding Norris’s identification of ideas and God, it may be helpful here to make a point about priority. Since we are faced with an identity it is, thinks Norris, possible to run an argument for existence in either direction. It is possible to argue from the existence of ideas, via the only viable theory of their being, to the existence of God. This is how Norris argues in the ‘Metaphysical Essay’ and also at times in the Essay where he delights that the arguments that disprove the anti-idealists’ position work equally well against atheists (IW 1: 131). But turning matters around, it is equally possible to argue from the existence of God, via its implications, to the existence of eternal archetypal Ideas. This is the route he more usually takes in the Essay, for instance, in discussing ⁵⁷ See above pp. 23–4. ⁵⁸ M 440; also M 207; also RR 92–3 (here, by introducing secondary issues of arbitrariness and contingency, Norris seems to confuse the issue with one of voluntarism); also IW 1: 357.

2.4 the intelligible and the natural world  creation, the omniform nature of God, or the implications of Divine Omniscience. It might be feared that an argument which runs both ways would be circular. But Norris is immune from this charge. For one thing it is possible to argue for both realms on independent grounds and then make the identification, the expository route which has been chosen for this book. But second, thinks Norris, even if we stick closely to the issue of truth—where there is no such possibility of two independent points of entry—the twined and reciprocal relationship need not be regarded as problematic, for the entailment is different in each case, rendering harmless any circle created. Specifically, argues Norris, truth is grounded in God metaphysically, as a precondition of its being, but God is founded on truth only epistemologically, as something known to exist by reflecting upon the nature of truth (IW 1: 405). In this way Norris regards himself immune from the circular reasoning which so bedevilled Descartes.

2.4 The Intelligible and the Natural World 2.4.1 Exemplary vs. Efficient Cause We have now examined how the divine world stands in relation to the ideal or intelligible realm, but how stands the natural sensible world to it? Norris is clear that nature is completely dependent upon the Divine Ideas, but further articulation is needed here for, while it is true to say that creation depends utterly on God, it must be recognized that it does so in two quite different ways. Norris distinguishes between ‘‘efficient’’ and ‘‘exemplary’’ causation (IW 1: 256); between that which explains the simple being of things (their ‘‘esse simpliciter’’) and that which explains the quality of their being (their ‘‘tale esse’’) (IW 1: 260). The existence of natural things depends on the voluntary decree of God; He is the cause that brings them into being (IW 1: 260). But their essences depend on the Divine Ideas, the patterns or exemplars according to which creatures were made. Essentially the same point can be made in

 metaphysics terms of God’s knowledge; to know the natures of things God consults His understanding, to know what actually exists He consults His will —either way He has no need to go outside of Himself (IW 1: 250). Norris’s notion of exemplary causation calls for further consideration. In part, of course, this is just Platonism. Ideas in Norris’s system are archetypal representations, existing in the mind of God, of things (or possible things) in the ordinary world. While our ideas stand to their objects as copies to originals, God’s ideas stand to their objects as originals to copies (IW 1: 231). The natural world is an imperfect and transient copy, the Ideal World its perfect and eternal original. What this amounts to, as in Reason and Religion Norris urges with some eloquence, is that God made not only Man, but the whole World, in a larger sense, after his own Image: and as Art imitates Nature, so Nature imitates God ... the whole Creation is but as ‘twere one great Mirrour or Glass of the Divinity. (RR 47 and 51)

Of course, the ideas are involved not only in the creation or first production of things, but also in all the successive generations of them as each follows its type (IW 1: 289). Norris makes the same basic distinction in another way. He observes a dispute between the Thomists, who affirm that the essences of creatures do not contain existence but are really distinct from it, and the Suaresians who, on the other hand, argue that one cannot conceive either a non-existent essence or an existence that is not the existence of some type of thing. Norris sees truth in both sides and argues that there are two sorts of essences, one not including existence and other including it. These he terms representative or intelligible essence and constitutive essence. Intelligible essences are the ‘‘Necessary, Immutable and Eternal Objects of [God’s] Wisdom,’’ constitutive essences by contrast merely ‘‘the Temporary and Contingent effects of their Omnipotent Creators will’’ (IW 1: 232; see also 1: 414).

2.4 the intelligible and the natural world  In thinking about these pairs of distinctions, it is tempting to label God’s two modes of action with regard to the natural world as simply efficient and formal cause, but that would be mistaken. The Divine Ideas are more than just a formal cause, they contribute more than just the structure of things. Things have what active powers they have—for instance the power of a magnet to attract iron filings or the power of acid to corrode—because of the kind of things they are, and so in this sense efficient causation is contained within exemplary causation. The Ideas have a real power to influence the world; although it is never properly explained just what kind of power this is. In this connection, thinking about their role in creating the world, as well as their status as the very principles of rationality, it is interesting to observe that Norris (with Augustine and Malebranche) equates the Divine Ideas with the logos, or Word, through whom St John’s gospel says all things were made,⁵⁹ that is, with Christ, the second person of the Trinity (IW 1: 242; 1: 264).⁶⁰ For how else thinks Norris are we to understand John’s statement here, since the efficient causality by which the world was created ex nihilo was surely the work of God in His undifferentiated totality? By equating the logos with the Divine Ideas and focusing on their exemplary causation, Norris sees a way to account for the peculiar role of the second person in creation (IW 1: vi ff.). He finds a parallel with the incarnation of God in Christ and the exemplification of the eternal ideas in the world. Christ is the Archetype or Exemplar of the world, possessing all forms of all things within himself, yet his exemplary causation has too, Norris admits, a measure of efficiency about it in so far as it specifies, directs, and regulates the work of creation. Indeed Christ’s causation is not just coloured by efficiency; insofar as Christ is not simply the origin but the goal of existence, the ⁵⁹ John 1: 3. ⁶⁰ The implication of this identification that the Son of God is a thought of God the father is one Norris is happy to embrace as simultaneously able to account both for their co-eternity and the latter’s procession from the former (RR 85).

 metaphysics exemplary causation of the ideas with which he is associated must also be regarded as in a sense final causation. The Ideal realm not only sets things off and gives them their powers but steers the world towards it, as approximation strives towards its ideal. Exemplary causation in Norris’s hand is thus a highly rich and fertile concept. 2.4.2 A Possible Objection As well as Aquinas and Suarez here, Norris cites Descartes’s claim in his Meditations that God must contain within him all perfections,⁶¹ suggesting that what that really amounts to is Norris’s own position. However, among modern philosophers, another far less welcome comparison that might be made here would be with Spinoza. If Ideas are the essences or natures of natural creatures, and creatures exist external to God, must not the Ideas also exist in some way ‘out of God’—a position we have already rejected. Yet if the Ideas are held to exist ‘within’ God, must not the creatures also reside there? Unless the essences of things lie completely outside them—and in what sense then would they be the essence of those creatures?—must we not conclude that God and the realm of His creatures coincide; that all things exist in God as God exists in all things? Norris is clear that he is no pantheist.⁶² Although God is ‘‘Eminently and Vertually, or if you will Intelligbly, every thing’’, he is not literally so and Norris insists that his view not to be confused with ‘‘that stupid conceit of taking the World for God’’ (IW 1: 176). But the way in which he tries to support this denial is odd. If his position is not pantheism, wherein (it might be challenged) lies the ⁶¹ IW 1: 144; Descartes, Med. III (CSM II: 32). ⁶² It might well be thought that panentheism, rather than pantheism, is a better charge to level against Norris, for while his Ideal theory might be read to imply that the world exists in God, nothing in it suggests that such indwelling exhausts the whole being of God. Norris’s orthodoxy would, of course, make him no more welcoming of this lesser charge than of pantheism proper.

2.4 the intelligible and the natural world  difference between God’s knowing the world and His knowing Himself? If to know the essence of creatures is really to know God, then how is it still possible to distinguish God’s knowledge of creatures from His self-knowledge? To answer this challenge Norris (IW 1: 167–8) has recourse to a pair of distinctions, between the primary and the secondary object of knowledge, and between an adequate and inadequate conception. He says that God does not know creatures as the ‘formal’ or ‘immediate’ objects of His understanding but only as secondary objects through an inadequate conception of Himself, that is, ‘‘according to those degrees of Being or Perfection wherein his Essence is imitable or participable by them’’ (IW 1: 167). In other words, if what is at issue is the primary object of an adequate conception then it is God that is known, but in so far as we are dealing with the secondary object of an inadequate conception then it is creatures that are known. Ignoring the apparent suggestion that God might have any sort of truck with inadequate conception, this would seem to suggest that the difference between pantheism and its denial is merely one of perspective or adequacy in knowledge. Things only seem to be other than God when we adopt an inadequate conception of them. A full appreciation of this response is not possible without considering in what sense there can be either truth or knowledge about the contingent world,⁶³ but it is far from the ringing condemnation of pantheism we might have expected. For Norris is nearer to that doctrine than he himself would care to admit. He tells us that God has in Him only that which ‘‘Intelligibly answers’’ to things. He has in Him the idea of each thing, though the thing itself be not ‘‘formally’’ in God (IW 1: postscript v, vii). But what, it has to be asked, is the ‘formal being’ of any object if all that is ‘intelligible’ about it be abstracted away? Is that not its essence and its life? It might be objected that no one champions the transcendence of God more clearly or ⁶³ See below pp. 181–4.

 metaphysics more often than Norris, but this is only so in a certain fashion. To be sure, God transcends the material world, but not as one substance over against another. Rather He does so as the true reality over dim appearance, and the test of what is real about this world is precisely what in it is to be found in the Ideal World, in God.

3 KNOWLEDGE

3.1 Mind and Body Part Two of An Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World deals with the Ideal World ‘‘consider’d with relation to Humane Understanding’’ (IW 2: title page). What that amounts to is with respect to our knowledge of it; but before embarking on epistemology proper, Norris begins with some preliminary considerations on souls, bodies, and the nature of thought. Men are thinking things. There can be no doubt about that; it is something given to us quite clearly and evidently, urges Norris (IW 2: 5). But what is it in us that thinks, in particular is it our soul or just our body? It is important to appreciate the contemporary context of this question, which Norris goes on to discuss at some length. On the one hand, Descartes had argued that thinking and extension were quite distinct, so that the thinking part of us was a soul, or spiritual substance, quite other than our bodies. On the other hand, Locke, while not officially dissenting from such dualism, had notoriously suggested that for all we know, God could have annexed to matter the capacity to think, challenging the necessity of the Cartesian conclusion.¹ ¹ ‘‘It is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it’’ Rene Descartes, Med. VI (CSM II: 54); ‘‘We have the Ideas of Matter and Thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know, whether any mere material Being thinks, or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover, whether Omnipotency has not given to some Systems of Matter fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think’’ (John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 4.3.6).

 knowledge Norris explicitly brings in both of these figures, but his sympathies are unreservedly with Descartes, and he argues that that in us which thinks must be some immaterial soul, because it is wholly impossible that matter might think. In support of this claim Norris uses a Cartesian-type argument from the distinctness of their concepts to the distinctness of their actual being. He says: Extension and Thought are two distinct Ideas, distinct in their whole Kind, as distinct as a Circle and a Triangle, or as any other two things can possibly be from one anther [sic]. And therefore I can assuredly say, That a Circle is not a Triangle, because I conceive them distinct, so for the same Reason and therefore with the same Assurance, I can say, That Extension is not Thought. (IW 2:15)

The essence of this argument is that if mind and body are distinct in conception then they must be distinct in reality also (IW 2: 17), and that seems right, ‘‘For we have no other way to judge of the real Distinction of Things than by the Distinction of those Ideas we have of them when we think about them’’ (IW 2:18). From the fact that their concepts are differentiated and that we can imagine one existing without the other, it follows that the things themselves are two and not one. If it is to succeed, this Cartesian argument for dualism has to meet one crucial condition: we must have in our possession adequate ideas of the two things in question. For where our ideas are incomplete or confused, the fact that we seem able to conceive of one without the other signifies nothing. It may stem only from our partial grasp of the terms involved. Yet how do we know if our ideas are adequate? Norris is only too aware of this potential challenge to the argument, and explicitly discusses the possibility that the ideas we employ may not be up to the work we set them. He insists that the ideas which we use must be distinct ‘‘not by Abstraction or inadequate Conception, but in themselves and in their own absolute Natures’’ (IW 2: 18–19). The test for genuine distinctness between items is not simply whether we can think of one without thinking of the other, but whether

3.1 mind and body  we can have a clear conception of one existing without the other (IW 2: 27–8).² The Cartesian argument involves two interlocking intuitions— that nothing in matter entails thought, and that nothing in thought entails matter—and Norris is committed to both. For the first, Norris operates with a concept of matter as nothing more than solid extension, and he finds it clear that nothing in such a concept could allow it to have the further property of thought. ‘‘To seek for it here is to seek for the Living among the Dead’’ (IW 2: 46) he says. Locke, as noted, comes to a different view and, while admitting that thought is not a property or consequence of extension itself, sees no reason why God might not add to a substance that was extended the further property of thought. In this connection it is worth drawing attention to the fact that Locke and Norris have rather different conceptions of matter. For Locke (following Newton) the inner or real essence of any substance is something unknown and unknowable, though we may make more or less well-informed scientific hypotheses about it. For example, regarding matter, we suppose that it is essentially extended and solid, the differences between distinct material bodies reducing to differing groupings and configurations of minute corpuscles. But nothing in that conception excludes thought and its openness leaves room for it—for all we know God may also have given to this largely unknown nature the power to think. Norris does not dispute that for the most part the inner or real essences of particular things are unknown and that accordingly we must classify them on the basis of their appearances to us. (CR 35) Both ‘‘our own and other Men’s Souls’’ as well as ‘‘the inward Essences of Bodies’’, though intelligible in themselves, are not so to us, at least not in this life (IW 2: 267). However, the basic root conception of matter he regards as an idea or essence from the intelligible realm, and as such, something no less complete in itself than it is accessible to us. We have a sufficient conception of matter to see that while God might ² For a more detailed discussion of this point see Yang (2005), ch. 5.

 knowledge somehow be able to transform a material being into a thinking spiritual one, (IW 2: 49) not even He could not make matter qua matter able to think, for not even He could give to a substance some power which is nowhere contained in its essence or idea (IW 2: 52).³ Agnosticism about the specifics of the empirical world is something Norris is happy enough with, but deep metaphysical agnosticism of the kind Locke manifests here about extended substance in general is precisely the sort of thing which Norris hopes his theory of understanding in God will relieve. Turning to the second intuition, it has been objected that Norris’s use of the Cartesian argument is incompatible with his agnosticism about the nature of spirit; he cannot claim to have a clear idea of thinking being apart from extended being when elsewhere he openly admits that we have no clear idea of spirit.⁴ If Norris is not to be convicted of inconsistency here, his claims to ignorance about spirit will need to be tempered, for he certainly holds that we can form a clear conception of a thinking being in the absence of all material being (IW 2: 28).⁵ In support of the possibility of disembodied mentality he appeals to Descartes’s observation that, although we cannot doubt the existence of our minds, we can question the existence of the sensed material world. And to bolster the Cartesian arguments from error and dreaming, he brings in his own occasionalist understanding of sensation, according to which it would be simply impossible for a physical body to create in us sensation of any kind.⁶ But moving beyond these fairly traditional lines of thought, Norris offers two further, more original, considerations that deserve ³ Acworth (1979), 236, 239 puts forward a similar point to this. However, he suggests that Locke and Norris have different conceptions of substance in general which, as this paragraph shows, is not quite correct; the difference lies only in their conceptions of material substance. ⁴ McCraken (1983), 171. See below pp. 68–71. ⁵ Contrary to my suggestion here, in order that Norris’s position does not expose itself to the objection in question, Acworth (1979), 233 presents him as advancing only the unthinking nature of body and not the unextended nature of mind. But the texts (IW 2: 28–33) do not support this claim. Moreover such a lop-sided strategy would be wholly unable to demonstrate the truth of dualism. ⁶ See below pp. 76–8.

3.1 mind and body  our closer attention. First of all, he argues that there needs must hold necessary truths; truths which are, in their essence, intelligible. Yet this property of intelligibility in turn implies intelligence, and thus it is equally necessary that there should exist at least one thinking thing. However, by contrast, all matter is wholly contingent. Finally, since no necessary being could ever be formed out of, or otherwise depend upon, merely contingent reality, it follows that we can conceive of mind or intelligence existing despite the absence of anything material (IW 2: 30–1). This is an extremely interesting argument in that it sheds considerable light on Norris’s conception of the eternal Ideas. His understanding of them is seen to be less realist and more idealist than might have been thought. To understand this it is helpful to consider an analogous phenomenon, namely that of sensible or secondary properties, like colours. There are two ways in which we could think of these. Are they objective properties which, as a matter of fact, happen to affect us in a certain way, or do colour terms refer precisely to the capacity of objects to affect us in certain ways, giving them an essential subjective reference? Contemporary philosophers divide on this question, but what is important for us to notice here is that it is a choice which could be applied equally to the ‘intelligibility’ of eternal truths. And in this case Norris seems to be saying that the ‘intelligibility’ of ideas is not some objective property of truths which minds happen to be able to grasp, but it is rather something that makes essential reference to mind, such that if there are intelligible ideas there must somewhere be minds to understand them. This gives an anti-realist, almost idealist, flavour to his thought: reality is such as to make essential reference to thought which grasps it. Norris’s second more original contribution works from the idea of God which, like Descartes, he thinks that we all possess. He argues that the idea of God necessarily includes within it thought (since that is a positive quality or perfection) but at the same time necessarily excludes extension (whose divisibility makes it contrary to the perfection of God) which demonstrates these two ideas are distinct, not merely by abstraction, but in themselves (IW 2: 33).

 knowledge For what can in any one case be incompatible must in all others be at least distinct. This implication is perhaps no surprise, for if the concept of God is one that makes sense, so too does the concept of a disembodied spirit, the possibility of which is precisely the focus of Norris’s argument here to prove.

3.2 The Souls of Animals Norris moves on from this issue of mind–body dualism to consider the closely connected question of whether animals think, or equivalently, since he now takes himself to have shown that matter itself cannot think, whether they are simply material or possessed of immaterial souls? He finds a host of problems associated with this last idea. Were we to attribute thought to animals, could we stop there, or might we not also have to attribute reason to them (IW 2: 63–5)? And where along the chain of creatures would we stop? With animals? With insects? With vegetables? (IW 2: 66–7.) And if creatures really had souls, would these souls be immortal? And if so, what sort of immortality would they enjoy? And could we possibly continue to kill or use them as we do? Norris piles on the questions, less as a series of genuine queries to be settled, as some more ecologically-minded thinkers might find today, than as a series of mounting absurdities and conundrums with the doctrine.⁷ For these come simply as a precursor to a rivalcounter suggestion, namely that animals be regarded as machines. Here he is following Descartes, Regis, and Malebranche,⁸ and ⁷ ‘‘[I]t would be a very hard thing to digest, that a Creature that has an immortal Spirit should be slaughter’d to nourish and keep alive my mortal Body, when there are so many other Provisions for its Sustenance. Especially considering that the Creature I kill and feed on is Innocent, and I a Sinner’’ (IW 2: 70). This is an argument contemporary vegetarians would propose in all seriousness. ⁸ For Descartes, ‘‘since art copies nature, and people can make various automatons which move without thought, it seems reasonable that nature should even produce its own automatons, which are more splendid than artificial ones—namely the animals.’’ However, he immediately goes on to qualify this by insisting that he denies thought only to animals, not life or sensations (CSMK III: 366). Norris’s occasionalism with regard to sensations would debar him from following Descartes in this. Instead, his view must be understood

3.2 the souls of animals



shows himself (for all that elsewhere he is a somewhat old-fashioned thinker) to be a staunch advocate of the new mechanical philosophy. ‘‘The World is a great Machine, and goes like a Watch’’ he says (IW 2: 87). Today, of course, such a suggestion is received easily enough, but Norris knows that in his own context he has an uphill struggle and he goes to considerable lengths to demonstrate the great possibilities of mechanism. ‘‘[I]f Mechanism can rise to such things under the Conduct of Human Art, what will it not be able to do under the Direction of a Divine Hand?’’ he asks (IW 2: 85–6). In general, Norris believes that there are operating everywhere, often still unknown, mechanical principles capable of producing all kinds of fantastic phenomena. Such an argument is, of course, a double-edged sword, for the more success Norris has in persuading us of the complex possibilities of mechanically generated phenomena, the more it may be wondered whether, ‘‘for ought we know, we our selves may be no more than Machines’’ (IW 2: 98). Against this objection Norris responds that, although matter could be arranged in such a way as to produce all the observable operations and behaviour which, in our own case, are the products of underlying thought, this is not at all the same as saying that it could be made to think, something we introspectively experience ourselves to do. No degree whatsoever of complex ability machines might have at imitating the outward manifestations of thought would be any reason for supposing they could do the thinking itself. Drawing as more that like of Pierre Sylvain Regis who, whilst allowing too that we may speak of the life or sensations of animals, insists that such talk must be understood mechanically, and concludes that ‘‘d’autant que les bˆetes peuvent faire absoluement tout ce qu’elles sont par la seule disposition de leurs organes, nous n’avons crˆu qu’il estoit plus a` propos d’expliquer toutes leurs fonctiones par la machine, que de recourir pour cet effet a` une ame dont l’existence est si incertaine qu’il est impossible’’. (Cours entier de philosophie, ou Syst`eme g´en´eral selon les principes de m. Descartes, contenant La Logique. La Metaphysique, La Physique et La Morale. Livre Septieme de La Physique, ch. XVII (Amsterdam (1691), vol. 2, 632)). Malebranche, on the other hand, is altogether less generous. For him ‘‘They eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing’’ (The Search after Truth, Bk. 6, Pt. 2, ch. 7 (LO 494–5)). For more detailed discussion of this issue see Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine; Animal Souls in French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941).

 knowledge such a strong Cartesian distinction between essential introspective experience of thought and its accidental manifestations is less plausible today, and makes it harder to solve the problem of other minds, but that is not an issue which much occupies Norris. In recent times the doctrine that animals are machines has received a dreadful press, not simply on its intellectual basis, but in large part on the grounds that it has been thought to licence or even excuse cruelty towards animals. On this specific charge of condoning cruelty Norris must be acquitted, for he holds that it is impossible to give a definitive answer to the question whether animals think (IW 2: 59) and, since reason may deceive us in this matter, that we should not be cruel to them but treat them as though they had sense and thought (IW 2: 99–100).⁹ This last response seems very inadequate. It is unreasonably cautious: if the argument is plausible enough to serve as a basis for action why is it not plausible enough to serve as a basis for belief? If in our actions we should treat them as though sentient why in our belief should we not regard them the same way? It is also unreasonably limited: why is Norris holding only that we should avoid cruelty and not that we should treat animals as though they were full members of the moral community?

3.3 Knowledge: Thought and Souls Turning from the metaphysics of knowing minds, Norris moves on to epistemology proper, enumerating all the various possible objects of knowledge, as well as the available theories to account for it. It is with regard to this part of his system that the charge of slavishly following Malebranche is most easily raised, but even here we should be wary of underestimating Norris, for he shows more originality than is commonly allowed. ⁹ interestingly, this echoes precisely the line that Descartes himself takes: ‘‘though I regard it as established that we cannot prove there is any thought in animals, I do not think it can be proved that there is none, since the human mind does not reach into their hearts’’ (CSMK III: 365). See also P. Harrison (1992), 226.

3.3 knowledge: thought and souls  His discussion begins with a distinction: there are two and only two ways in which things may be understood, either directly by themselves or indirectly by means of representations or ideas (IW 2: 277). He takes these in turn. Following the epistemological agenda inaugurated by Descartes, Norris begins at home. The first objects of which we have immediate knowledge are the actual contents of our own minds—our thoughts, imaginations, sensations, desires, affections, inclinations, etc. These are all perceived immediately, he thinks, and there is no need for ideas in order to know them (IW 2: 278). The soul ‘‘can reflect upon her own Actings, and upon her own Sensations, and need not go out of her self, for the Perception of any of these, because they are in her self ’’ (IW 2: 279). If we were unable to grasp these directly, what better known intermediary could ever convey them to us? Thus, that we do indeed exist as sensing, feeling, thinking things is something given to us quite clearly and evidently (IW 2:5). This is of course very Cartesian but when, after asserting clear knowledge of his existence, Descartes goes on to profess equally clear knowledge of his substance, Norris declines to follow. And in this he is in step with Malebranche. He argues that mind is far from the transparent open book Descartes thinks, that, although the mind is directly acquainted with its own activity, it has no clear idea of its own substance or nature. We know, for example, that we think and we can enumerate the objects of thought, but as to just how it is that thought works, we are at present utterly incapable of explaining, nor should we ever expect to be able to do so (IW 2: 265–6). Similarly, that we have sensations, for example of pleasure and pain, is something of which we are as certain as possible, as certain as we are of any eternal truth, but regarding the nature of these feelings ‘‘there is nothing but Darkness and Obscurity’’ (IW 2: 213). We have no idea where they come from, how they work, or what they signify. In short, ‘‘the Soul turns her dark side, as I may say, to her self, as having no clear view of her own Essence’’ (IW 2: 279). We feel ourselves to be, we know

 knowledge what it is like to be ourselves, but just what we are—we have no idea. Norris’s attitude towards (what Hume called) sensations of reflection is (as we shall see) basically the same as his attitude towards sensations in general (that is, sensation associated with external bodies); their occurrence is undeniable but they convey no information. As noted above, the bald claim that we have no knowledge whatsoever of our own substance is incompatible with the assertion that we know we are not material beings.¹⁰ It must therefore be tempered. And this is perhaps not too hard to do, for it may consistently be maintained both that we have certain and negative knowledge that we are not a particular kind of substance and that we have no positive knowledge at all about what sort of substance we are. That we can be so certain of our own existence but so utterly ignorant of our own nature, suggests to Norris that these two things are known in quite different ways. Were we directly acquainted not only with our activity but also with our substance, that too would be clear to us. That it is not thus clear is, according to Norris, explicable by the fact that it is something known not directly, but indirectly, via the mediation of an idea, an idea which in this case we crucially do not have. But what holds for our own souls, he continues, would hold equally for all other finite souls. Thus Norris thinks it most probable (and he is explicit that this is a realm in which no certainty can be expected) to suppose that God is the only spiritual being whose substance is known directly to us and that all other spirits are known (if at all) by way of representative ideas (IW 2: 324–6). This is a terrible argument in that our absence of clear knowledge of ourselves is unable to tell us anything about how selves are known when, indeed, they are; it may stem just as well from a lack of direct acquaintance as from the lack of any representative idea. The driving force behind the ¹⁰ See above p. 64.

3.3 knowledge: thought and souls  argument seems to be Norris’s uncritical assumption that surely, if selves were knowable in an unmediated fashion then we would already enjoy clear self-knowledge—‘‘as intimately united, as we are with our selves’’ (IW 2: 325)—which unfortunately we do not. Still, Norris’s failing here is not one of great moment, for given that we do lack such knowledge, it matters not very much precisely what species of knowledge it is that we lack. As will be examined in more detail below, there is a neat asymmetry between Norris’s views of mind and matter: we know the existence but not the nature of the self, while we know the nature but not the existence of material things.¹¹ And yet it might be wondered whether this asymmetry is not simply the product of a certain double-dealing or unequal treatment. Material objects we know to be extended and solid, but this is not simply a consequence or part of some essentially unknown inner essence, rather it is that essence itself. Materiality (in general) is something we know fully and clearly. On the other hand, although we know with equal certainty that souls think, Norris believes that this knowledge still leaves us ignorant of their true underlying essence. With respect to the knowability of their underlying essence, matter and mind seem to be treated differently. This difference in treatment is perhaps based on the fact that Norris regards thought as an act of mind (IW 2:101), and action is not so easy to regard as a basic feature in the same way as, say, extension or solidity; we seem called upon to further ask how or on what basis we act. What the ground of the action of thinking is or how it works Norris finds it quite impossible to discern (IW 2: 110), in the main, because the character of each individual thought is determined by its distinctive contents, almost completely obscuring the formal act of thinking itself (IW 2: 116). ¹¹ This asymmetry, of course, occurs in Malebranche too. The Search after Truth, Bk. 3, Pt. 2, ch. 7 (LO 237). Note, however, that ‘know’ is being used here in the strict sense of ‘certain belief ’. Less strictly Norris allows that reason may show probable the existence of the material world. See below pp. 95–6.

 knowledge

3.4 Knowledge: God Of far greater importance than ourselves is the second object of which we have direct awareness; and that is God. At the very centre of Norris’s philosophy, pervading right the way through it, is the belief that we all of us all the time encounter God directly. One of the ways in which this occurs—our grasp of intellectual truths—we have already seen. Others—our perception of the world and our experience of value—we shall encounter below. Together they imply that we have constantly, as Norris puts it, the most ‘‘intimate union’’¹² with God, and thus it might be said that Norris’s thought is every bit as ‘god-intoxicated’ as that of Spinoza; though as a counterpoint to this it should be remembered here that in this life our perception of God, if direct and all-pervasive, is nonetheless obscure and confused.¹³ It should be emphasized that, although direct, our perception of God is not necessarily explicit or self-conscious. That might be thought to be problematic. If a friend of mine plays a part in a drama which I watch, but is so made-up that I fail to recognize them, have I seen them? It is plausible to say that I have not, that I have seen only the character whom they were portraying, for the context is one modern logicians would call an intensional one. The context before us, however, Norris treats extensionally; whether we recognize it or not, it is nonetheless God whom we see when we regard the things of this world. In part that reflects the metaphysical depth at which Norris’s thought is functioning, but even he was aware of the problem and stressed—increasingly as his thought developed—the duty we all have to come explicitly to recognize what is in fact implicitly the case.¹⁴ That we know God directly is, thinks Norris, the only possibility of us knowing Him at all. For there can be no representative idea of God. Norris is happy enough to admit that we have in a ‘‘loose’’ ¹² IW 1: 390; see also 2: 284; 2: 572. See below pp. 91–3. ¹³ See above pp. 47–9. ¹⁴ See below pp. 149, 156–67.

3.4 knowledge: god  or ‘‘popular’’ (IW 2: 280) or ‘‘large’’ (IW 2: 370) sense, an idea of God. That is, a rough if limited understanding of the kind of being He is, but he denies that we can have an idea in the strict and proper sense. If it is unclear quite what he is admitting here—one is reminded of Berkeley’s admission that we have a ‘notion’ but no ‘idea’ of Spirit—what Norris is denying is clearer. Ideas are ‘‘any Forms, Representations or Similitudes of things’’ (IW 1: 230), ‘‘that whereby we perceive any Being, as by its Intelligible Representative’’ (IW 2: 370), so Norris’s point is that it is impossible to form any mental intermediary that could convey to us the form and likeness of God. For one thing, we use ideas to help make sense of things, but God is the most intelligible thing there is (IW 2: 281) and already more intimately present to us than anything else (IW 2: 284), and so there is no need of further illumination, nor could anything improve on His current presence to us. Moreover, insists Norris, it is simply impossible that there could be an idea of God—for nothing finite can represent the infinite: We may beat the Field of Nature over and over for Ideas, or imploy Intellectus Agens to forge them for us; but still we shall find that there is nothing in the sensible, nor yet in the intellectual World that can represent God. (IW 2: 285)

Either he is known directly or not at all. In a fashion, awkward today, but typical of Norris, these more philosophical considerations are woven together seamlessly with more theological and scriptural ones. Spending some considerable time citing scriptural and Scholastic evidence for this, Norris argues that since this is how God shall be known to us hereafter, in the Beatific vision, it makes sense to suppose that this is in fact how He is known to us now (IW 2: 285 ff.). The fact that we perceive God directly gives Norris what is really his strongest argument for the existence of God. In this context he discusses Descartes’s argument in his third Meditation that God must exist as the cause of our idea of him, the craftsman who has left his stamp upon us (IW 1:144, 2: 291–5). The argument

 knowledge is flawed, he says, because Descartes was mistaken in thinking we have a representative idea of God. But something of the case might be salvaged if, instead of arguing from an idea of God, Descartes had argued from our ‘‘Notion or Perception’’ of Him (IW 2: 294). From the fact that we perceive God it follows without doubt that He must Exist. He is immediately present to everyone, and needs only to be recognized. Norris’s argument might seem naive here, and open to reductio. For surely the same might be said of the physical world, but no sceptic was ever so easily defeated as this! But Norris’s case is more considered. He argues that while the material things we seem to see might not be seen directly (they might be apprehended via ideas in some other being) God could only be seen directly; and in consequence if we see Him He must exist (IW 2: 295). This result is, for Norris, the most significant of his Ideal Theory, for the problem with other epistemologies (and the main rival here is, of course, Locke’s) is that they are, he thinks, ‘‘consistent with Atheism’’ (IW 2: 553). But the Ideal Theory makes the being of God essential and undeniable. It has been suggested that in a sense Norris expresses here the core Protestant idea of direct access to God¹⁵ but, while there is value in this observation in so far as it draws attention to the strong current of religious feeling constantly under the surface in Norris’s philosophy, it should be remembered that the union here is not so much personal and spiritual as cognitive. It occurs through the direct grasp of the Divine Ideas and of eternal truths (IW 2: 296, 298) and, as we shall see later, of goodness. In this connection, it is also worth stressing that although God and the truths within His nature are present to us, this only concerns general truths about the Divine Ideas. For particular truths about God and His plan for our salvation, revelation, and faith remain necessary.¹⁶ ¹⁵ Acworth (1977), 675. That it was doctrine which could appeal also to the Catholic Malebranche is in no way denied. ¹⁶ Acworth (1979), 295.

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3.5 Mediate Knowledge: External World While spiritual objects may be apprehended either mediately or immediately, Norris argues that it is impossible that we should have anything other than mediate knowledge of material bodies (IW 2: 310). Following Aquinas he argues that whatever is understood must be some way or other present to the Mind, because no Power can act upon an Object that is utterly distant from it ... But now ’tis plain, that material Objects have not with the Mind any such intimate Presence or Union. And accordingly ... in Corporeal things it is apparent that the things seen cannot be in the Seer by its own Esence, but only by its Similitude. (IW 2:311)

In other words, if the mind directly perceives only what it is immediately united to, and it cannot be immediately united to bodies—because the mind is not material, because they are as the Scholastics say ‘‘disproportionate’’ to each other (IW 2: 311)—then bodies will be capable of being known only mediately, by means of representative ideas. If earlier philosophies, such as those of the Cambridge Platonists, find these two realms closer in type and more able to communicate that he does, Norris’s argument here highlights his commitment to an uncompromising Cartesian type of dualism. The argument is weak in so far as it relies on an almost completely unanalysed notion of ‘union’, but since this was an objection upon which Locke laid considerable stress we will postpone our discussion of it until Chapter 5.¹⁷ Anyway, Norris can afford to be careless here, for he is pushing at an open door; the assumption being one he shares with his empiricist rivals, such as Locke, who also discount the possibility of any direct perception of matter. Where he disagrees with other philosophers is over the nature of these representative ideas, and so it is to this question that we must turn. Just what are these ideas? And where are they to be found? ¹⁷ See below pp. 193–5.

 knowledge In considering how one might respond to such questions, Norris decides that he cannot improve upon Malebranche’s ‘‘very just and Comprehensive Division’’ of the range of potential answers (IW 2: 327), and consequently proceeds (in both Reason and Religion and the Essay) to follow the latter’s five-fold classification (as it occurs in his The Search after Truth, Book III, Part II, Chapters II–VI) of the possible sources of our ideas. Before we follow Norris down this route, one point worth drawing attention to (for it becomes important) is the way in which his discussion oscillates between issues of the perception of material objects and issues of their comprehension as he inquires—without always distinguishing between these—into the manner of both our awareness and our knowledge of material things. (1) Although admitting it the ‘‘most Plausible’’ of the available options, (IW 2: 369) Norris argues that ideas by which we perceive objects do not come from the objects themselves (IW 2: 330). Rather than consider his argument for that claim here, it will be discussed in Chapter 5 in the context of his general criticisms of Locke’s empiricism for, while by no means the only representative of such a theory, Locke is certainly a key exponent of it. But there is one further point which does need to be mentioned here and that concerns sensations. Norris argues that, not only do the ideas which we have of bodies not come from the bodies themselves, but neither do the sensations which we naturally think they bring about in us—for example, if we bump into them, lift them, taste them, or get burnt by them. That bodies could ever produce something so different from themselves as a sensation is, thinks Norris, impossible, for they have nothing in them of the same order, just figure, motion, and the like. (IW 2: 221; MDL 34). Endowed with such a nature, he says, bodies can act only by impulse, only upon what they can touch, and only upon other bodies (IW 2: 223). Such dogmatic restriction on the range of capacities matter might conceivably manifest is something we

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have already met in considering his discussion of whether matter could think,¹⁸ but Norris has in addition a further, and rather more interesting, argument. He urges that the differences between diverse sensations are ones in kind and, as such, are incapable of being explained by appeal to diverse types of motion which differ one from another merely in degree (IW 2: 222; also MDL 29). This is a subtle argument. That motion, in the form of vibration in our ears should produce sound, but in the form of molecular agitation in our fingers result in a feeling of heat, is certainly curious and in no way explained simply by saying that this difference arises from differences in the perceiving organs involved.¹⁹ Since it is obvious that we are not their cause—and here Norris is probably too easily impressed by the seeming passivity of sensation (IW 2: 219)—the only remaining option, he declares, is that sensations are brought about in us through divine action; that ‘‘God only is the cause of our Sensations’’ (IW 2: 225). It is, of course, true, that sensations occur when we come into contact with material objects, but we must not confuse a regular concomitance with a relation of production, and such contact is merely the ‘condition’ or ‘occasion’ of such sensations, not their cause (IW 2: 224; also MDL 23). It cannot be denied that there obtain laws which associate them, that burnt fingers (for example) accompany contact with bare flames, but to say this is to refer the effect, to attribute it, to the law, not to the fire itself. Yet what is the law but the Will of God, in which case to appeal to laws is but another way of saying that God is the efficient cause of the sensation (MDL 45–6). The point is one of great importance. If sensations are just changes in our state, brought about by God on the occasion of our encounter with external objects, we have no reason to treat them ¹⁸ See above p. 63. ¹⁹ That purely mechanical change could result in the production of new properties, and that quantitative operations bring about qualitative change, was something Robert Boyle had insisted on in his Origin of Forms and Qualities (Oxford, 1666), but what he offered was experimental proof that it must occur not theoretical explanation of how it does.

 knowledge (as we commonly do) as some sort of window onto the world; we have no reason, that is, to regard the occasioning bodies as in any way similarly characterized. Malebranche too was an occasionalist about sensation—and Norris was certainly influenced by him here—but Malebranche’s occasionalism in this regard was merely one application of his worries about finite causation in general. Norris by contrast limits the theory to the specific issue of the action of matter upon mind.²⁰ He remains undecided on the converse question of whether minds can have causal power over bodies—he finds it hard to comprehend how that might come about yet does not want to rule it out of court (IW 2: 226–8)—but is quite happy to allow the action of spirit on spirit, or body on body. He argues that spirits are active as well as passive, their activity taking place in the ‘‘attention’’ or effort of mind they bring to intellectual perception, (IW 2: 135) as well as in their volition (IW 2: 133). While, with regard to the agency of one material body on another, he says ‘‘Body can act only upon Body; for it can act only upon what it touches’’ (IW 2: 223).²¹ Thus he is happy to allow, for instance, that external objects cause impressions in our own bodies (IW 2: 231), vibration in our ear drums, a warming of the skin, a retinal image, etc.—although these it must be remembered are only occasions of the sensations we consequently experience. Generally he says little about such material causation—as, indeed, he says little about the material world in general—but in so far as the idea of something with certain powers, say a magnet, is a kind of idea that could find a place in his realm of ideas, Norris would have no objections to such purely physical causation. ²⁰ At the time of Letters Concerning the Love of God (1695), Norris suggests that a careful reading of Malebranche ought to persuade us that occasionalism holds not just for sensations but for everything else too, such that ‘‘that GOD is the only true efficient Cause, and that his Servant Nature is but a mere Chimera’’ (LOG 309). However, by the time of the Essay, he withdraws from this position. ²¹ See also RR 230 and MDL 34.

3.5 mediate knowledge: external world  (2) Returning from sensations to ideas, that the ideas whereby we understand the material world might be ones which the soul produces itself, is a suggestion Norris rejects on two grounds. First of all he insists that the finite soul has no such powers of production; only God can create (IW 2: 380). But second, he says that the theory is question-begging. Borrowing an illustration from Malebranche he argues that just as a painter could never represent an animal she had never yet seen, so we could not form an idea of something we had never yet known, that is, unless we already had an idea of it (IW 2: 383). The creative power of the human mind is certainly more interesting and problematic than Norris allows for here, but with no one supporting this particular view, he knows himself to be pushing against an open door and moves smartly on. (3) The next suggestion Norris considers and rejects is that our ideas of the material world might be placed in us by God. That we have innate within us such divinely implanted ideas is of course a view most famously associated with Descartes and Leibniz, and even if they never suggested that we have such ideas of individual species of material objects, there is no reason why the doctrine might not be extended in this direction. For the most part Norris’s rejection of this hypothesis simply follows Malebranche. If the suggestion is that God created these ideas in us once and for all at the time of our birth, in other words that they are innate, it must be rejected because they would have to be infinite in number (IW 2: 386). But this is contrary to the efficiency of God since these are more than we will ever actually need (IW 2: 388), and it becomes difficult to see how soul could choose the right ones (IW 2: 389). We might think to escape the problems by suggesting that God creates the ideas in us individually upon the occasion of their being thought, but, as Malebranche has shown, it is in fact necessary that we have in us already all these ideas, since at all times we can will to think any of them (IW 2: 390).

 knowledge However, if Norris follows Malebranche extensively on this topic, he also strikes out on his own. But there is a shorter and more demonstative way of proving this general Conclusion, that our Ideas are not Created by God, and that is, because they are not in themselves of creable Nature. Were they at all Created, I should not doubt to attribute the Creation of them to God ... But indeed they are not at all Created, nor at all capable of being so ... because they are Necessary, Eternal and Immutable. (IW 2: 392)

This argument (which, of course is equally applicable to the first two hypotheses as well, that our ideas were created by sensible object or by ourselves) gets really to the heart of the matter, as essentially logical entities ideas do not really exist in time at all. The individual psychological acts whereby they are grasped have dates and locations, but not the contents of the thoughts themselves. For they would still hold good even if they were never thought of at all. Nor do they exist forever, for they would still hold good even if there were no such thing as time. Only temporal entities can be created or destroyed. We shall consider some further points that Norris makes about innate ideas when we come to examine his discussion with Locke,²² but for now we may move on to the fourth hypothesis. (4) The fourth hypothesis which Norris considers is that the mind perceives external bodies by contemplating modifications or perfections of its own existence. Attributed by both Norris and Malebranche to Arnauld, seriously considered at one point by Descartes, and held also by Regis and La Forge,²³ this is a theory not without its merits. In the first place, this is very much the account, which Norris adopts with regard to sensation. As we have seen, on his view it is a mistake to think that sensible qualities, such as heat, sweetness, and colour, exist in ²² See below pp. 171–5. ²³ Antoine Arnauld, On True and False Ideas (ch. 27); Rene Descartes, Med. III (CSM II: 30–1); Nadler (1992), 134.

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the things outside us, when really they are just modifications of ourselves produced on the occasion of our exposure to the bodies (IW 2: 395). They are natural states of the soul itself with no representative capacity. Not that this theory of the mind’s ideas is incapable in itself of accounting for representative perception, for Norris admits that this is indeed the way in which God knows His ideas. For as was shown above when we discussed God’s omniscience:²⁴ The Mind of God, as Intelligent, understands things by contemplating the several Perfections of the same Divine Mind as Intelligible; so that he understands things not by any proper Species of their distinct from himself, but by his own Essence ... and so is sufficient to himself for his Knowledge as well as Happiness, being his own Intelligible as well as Beatifick Object. (IW 2: 397)

But, unlike God, we are finite and do not contain all beings in ourselves in the way that God does, so the fact that God knows things in this way is no reason for thinking that we do (IW 2: 399). Indeed there are positive reasons for doubting that, for we have a clear grasp of ideas but only ever a confused grasp of our selves (IW 2: 402). Moreover, since we are particular beings, and the modification of a particular must itself be particular, this answer could not possibly account for our possession of general ideas (IW 2: 403). (5) Moving on to the fifth and final suggestion, Norris asks whether it is possible that the ideas whereby we perceive or think about the material world might be none other than the Divine Ideas existing in the mind of God (IW 2: 415). At first blush the suggestion sounds ridiculous, but Norris presses the case for its consideration. For these ideas are in their essence intelligible, fit objects of thought; and they are representative of the things of the world; and though it might seem odd to say that we are ²⁴ See above pp. 45–6.

 knowledge acquainted with someone else’s ideas, Norris insists, following St Paul that God is not far from each of us, indeed that it is in Him we live and move and have our being,²⁵ making this a very real possibility (IW 2: 416). Possibility is one thing, of course, and actuality quite another, and Norris is in no doubt of the need to show that what might be so is in fact the case. This he goes on to do. In a sense, his main argument for this suggestion has already been made, for it is precisely an argument from exclusion; all other possible suggestions have been dismissed and this is the only remaining option. So it must be true (IW 2: 426). No one will suppose that this is a strong case. It suffers from the weakness of all such arguments, in that even if we can be sure to have fully dismissed each rival alternative, we can never be certain to have enumerated all possible answers.²⁶ Perhaps someone clever than us could think of another. For this reason Norris is well aware of the need to supplement his argument from exclusion with a further direct and more positive case. In both Reason and Religion and Essay he repeats the positive considerations which Malebranche puts forwards.²⁷ He notes, for example, from The Search after Truth that this is in accordance with God’s simplicity or ‘‘economy’’—why would He create many ideas in each mind, if He could achieve the same effect by showing us the one idea in His own?–that it produces the greatest possible dependence on God, that it accounts for the priority of the ideas of both being and infinity, and that it does justice to the requirement God create things for no end other than Himself. He notes too Malebranche’s supplementary argument from Elucidation X that the universal, immutable, necessary, infinite nature of our reason reveal it to be no different from that of God Himself. ²⁵ Acts 17: 27–8. ²⁶ This was something Locke pointed out in his Examination of P. Malebranche’s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God, §§ 2, 8. ²⁷ RR 195–202; IW 2: 446–91; Malebranche’s arguments themselves can be found in The Search after Truth, Bk. II, Pt. II, ch. VI (LO 230–5) and Eluc. X (LO 613–15).

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All this is repetition, but of more interest to us here, is the fact that in both books, Norris supplements this derivative Malebranchean catalogue with a number positive arguments of his own.²⁸ We can isolate five separate lines of argument for his conclusion. We can begin with a pair of highly Platonic arguments. Norris claims that all knowledge is desirable, that there is nothing which we do not desire to know. But how (he continues) could we desire something unless we already had some (at least confused) knowledge of it? And how could it be that we already have implicit knowledge of everything other than by our having ‘‘a confuse[d] glance of that Being in whom are all things, and who is All’’ (RR 210–11)? Norris seems to be influenced here by Plato’s paradox that in order to learn we must somehow know what it is that we seek, which paradox of course leads him to the famous doctrine of recollection.²⁹ Norris does not go this far, but suggests that only through an acquaintance with God or Being itself would it be possible for us to acquire the necessary pre-acquaintance to motivate our search for knowledge. If the search for knowledge is the search for God, then God must contain within him all knowledge. Less obviously derivative, but equally Platonic in theme, Norris’s second argument suggests that the things of the world are thought through God, since God is more intimately united to our soul than anything else could ever be, and in fact the only thing we ever think about. Just as in loving various particular things in various different ways, we are always loving goodness in general, so, in thinking of the things that exist in the world, we are always thinking of Being in general (RR 217–18). And Being in general, he holds, just is God. Thus we think of God at all times and in all places. Indeed we think of him necessarily, for whatever we think of, we ²⁸ In Reason and Religion these are placed beforehand (RR 203–19); in the Essay they are placed afterwards (IW 2: 424–40). There is, moreover, repetition of theme between the two lists so I have treated them together. Inevitably these arguments echo Malebranchian themes but, unlike the previous set, they are not simply copied from Malebranche. ²⁹ Meno, 80d ff.

 knowledge think of something which is, so we think of Being, so we think of God (RR 219). But, if necessarily God is the only thing we ever think about, there is simply nowhere else to look for our ideas of external things. This argument might seem spurious, but it is not always trivial to find an underlying common perception in diverse experiences. For example, if I express a liking for several pieces of music, it might be suggested that what I am really enjoying here are their Latin rhythms, a suggestion which could be both informative and testable. The question is whether Being itself constitutes a similarly serious commonality, or whether it is just a trivial abstraction which means no more than ‘everything’. This is something we have already considered,³⁰ concluding that in so far as Norris gives to Being itself both complex detail and causal power he seems not to be obviously open to this charge. Another argument appeals to the nature of the ideas themselves. The ideas whereby we understand things are necessary, eternal, and immutable, thinks Norris, for it is the very nature of science to deal only with such ideas (IW 2: 427). But, as such, they must be in God, for the relations we apprehend among natural substances are all temporary and not eternal (RR 208). Indeed, if the truth we apprehend is not in God, from whence does it acquire its unity, identity, steadiness, immutability, everlastingness, and perpetuity (RR 207)? Ambiguous in whether it is directed primarily at the ideal or the empirical world, this is perhaps little more than a repetition of Norris’s earlier arguments from eternal truths and from science but, as such, it represents a central strand in his thinking to which he comes back again and again. A fourth connected argument appeals not so much to the permanence of what we know as to its commonality. Truth argues Norris is not relative to individuals, but the same for all (IW 2: 435). And what holds for truth holds for the ideas or concepts by means of which it is expressed, ‘‘they also are Common, Universal, Unconfined, and Omnipresent’’ (IW 2: 436). This, Norris notes, ³⁰ See above p. 38 and pp. 43–6.

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is a presupposition of the very possibility of speech; not everyone means exactly the same thing by their words, but unless meanings could be shared language would be impossible (IW 2: 437). Again, Norris’s distinctly logical conception of ideas, as opposed to any more individualistic or psychological one, comes to the fore. The implication, he feels, is sufficiently obvious for him to close this section of the Essay with a rhetorical question to his reader: ... whether this common, universal, unconfined Light can be any thing less than Divine; or whether this universal Nature which so undividedly Communicates itself to all that is Intellectual, can be anything less than God; And accordingly whether this again does not prove, that the Ideas whereby we understand are the Divine Ideas, I leave to be considered by as many as think it worth their while to know how they understand. (IW 2: 438)

The reader might well wish, at this point, that Norris had credited him with rather less insight, for the point is not easy. There seems to be a two-stage thought at work. First, the fact of commonality, the fact that the more we study the more we come to agree on things, implies the constraint of something unitary and independent of us and our understanding (RR 214). But second, that must be God, for only God could be simultaneously present to many minds in this way. Such omnipresence is not only a mark, but an exclusive mark, of divinity. In a fifth line of thought Norris appeals to what we might call the teleology of intellect. Ideas (he says) are ‘‘the Principles of our Intelligence, the Light of our Minds, and the Perfection of our rational Natures’’ (IW 2: 432). The thing known is the perfection or completion of the knower. But surely we must admit that God is ‘‘the only true good of our Souls’’ (IW 2: 434).³¹ This is why Aquinas supposes God to understand by way of his own ideas, least something external should be needed to perfect him. Yet in that case how could anything besides God be suitable to perfect us (IW 2: 435)? Indeed, to cast matters in a more theological idiom, since ³¹ An earlier version of this argument may be found at RF 157–9.

 knowledge God knows by means of the Ideal World, and we are made in His image, it is likely that we do also (RR 215); in the same way now as we will do subsequently in heaven (RR 216). In this argument, Norris highlights something which also concern us in Chapter 5 as we deal with his doctrine of love,³² namely, that the Divine Ideas provide not only the formal cause of understanding but also its final cause. It is notable that in each of these five arguments (as well perhaps as in the positive arguments he quotes from Malebranche) we have moved away somewhat from perception to questions of knowledge in general, and this is a matter to which we shall shortly return.³³ But, for the moment we need simply to note that, using all of the arguments we have considered so far, together with a measure of scriptural support (RR 219–4), Norris now takes himself to have shown that our knowledge of the external world is via ideas in the mind of God. His position is of course the same basic account as that of Malebranche, who says all things are seen in God. However Norris prefers his own way of expressing it, that our understanding of the world is by way of the Divine Ideas, least it be thought that things exist in God just as we sense them (IW 2: 442).

3.6 Discussion and Assessment of Norris’s Theory Even if we allow that Norris has established his theory, there remains considerable ambiguity in quite what it is he has established. He therefore follows his demonstration with a degree of what he terms ‘‘Explanation’’ (IW 2: 491). Following him in this, the next topic we need to note is that of ‘intelligible extension’. To understand this, however, we need first to look at Malebranche in a little more detail. On first presenting his theory in The Search after Truth, Malebranche spoke as though in perception we saw in God particular ³² See below pp. 135–6.

³³ See below pp. 88–9.

3.6 discussion and assessment of norris’s theory  ideas, one idea for each individual thing, or at least each species, for as he says, ‘‘God must have within himself the ideas of all the beings he has created’’.³⁴ Later However, in Elucidation X he seems to deny this and suggest that what we perceive is something more general or typical than that. He says: When I said that we see different bodies through the knowledge we have of God’s perfections that represent them, I did not exactly mean that there are in God certain particular ideas that represent each body individually, and that we see such an idea when we see the body; for we certainly could not see this body as sometimes great, sometimes small, sometimes round, sometimes square, if we saw it through a particular idea that would always be the same. But I do say that we see all things in God through the efficacy of His substance, and particularly sensible things, through God’s applying intelligible extension to our mind in a thousand different ways, and that thus intelligible extension contains all the perfections, or rather, all the differences of bodies due to the different sensations that the soul projects on the ideas affecting it upon the occasion of these same bodies.³⁵

Returning to Norris, far from slavishly following Malebranche, we find him undecided on this crucial issue. It may be wondered, he says, whether the intelligible World has such a Relation to that which is Material and Sensible, that there are in it particular and precise Ideas for every thing; as suppose, an intelligible Sun, and intelligible Tree, etc. and that we see one of those precise Ideas whenever we look on one of those Bodies. Or (as Mr. Malebranche seems rather to think) that we see all things in God by the various and different Aplication which he makes to our Minds of Intelligible Extension, sometimes after one manner, and sometimes after another, in conjunction with those different Sensations which we have with it upon the impression of Bodies, particularly that of Colour, which serve to specifie, particularize, and distinguish our Ideas, and to make them represent the several differences of Bodies, as well as to inform us of their Existence. (IW 2: 511–12) ³⁴ The Search after Truth, Bk. 3, Pt. 2, ch. 6 (LO 230). ³⁵ The Search after Truth, Eluc. X (LO 627–8).

 knowledge But rather than enter into any ‘‘nice Disquisition of such mysterious Speculations’’, Norris proposes to permit some clouds amid the daylight of his theory and ‘‘leave every one to conceive of this Matter as he please, or as he can’’ for it concerns only a ‘‘Modality’’ of the theory not anything ‘‘Essential’’ to it (IW 2: 512).³⁶ As commentators our feelings are, perhaps, rather different. While this may be a ‘modality’ in the sense that broadly the same theoretical base could be further developed in either direction, it nonetheless seems a most substantial gap, introducing a fundamental uncertainty into just what his overall position was. Norris’s worry here is whether the realm of Divine Ideas extends further than mere abstractions, such as geometrical extension, to include species and types of extended object or even the ideal models of individuals and, as such, it should not come as a surprise that he is still undecided here, for this is a hesitation we have noted right from the start in his discussion of the intelligible world.³⁷ Norris’s doubts here regarding intelligible extension are also perhaps symptomatic of more general reservations he has about the theory of cognition by ideas in God. In particular he worries about extending it beyond a theory of the understanding into one about perception as well: That the Divine Ideas are the Ideas whereby we understand, seems proved beyond all possibility of reasonable Exception. And this part of the Theory I am in good measure perswaded of, and can hardly forbear being positive in. That which seems more liable to be questioned, as well as more against the Grain of common Prejudice, is whether the same Divine Ideas are also the Ideas whereby we see. (IW 2: 514) ³⁶ In an earlier work, An Account of Reason and Faith, Norris shows no such qualms. He there cites extension, which he equates with Malebranche’s intelligible extension, as an example of one of God’s communicable attributes of which we are able to make clear and intelligible sense (RF 195). But not enough is said to allow us to settle whether he believes that God has this idea in addition to or, by incorporation, instead of, the various ideas of other extended objects. ³⁷ See above p. 17. By contrast Acworth has argued that Norris’s indecision here was caused by his not fully understanding Malebranche’s theory of ‘‘intelligible extension’’ (Acworth (1979) 142, 299).

3.6 discussion and assessment of norris’s theory  The problem is that, prima facie, perception confront us with ideas which are very different in type from those with which understanding would seem to deal. The objects which perception places before us are existent particulars from the world of time and change, while the understanding grasps objects in their universal and changeless aspect. There seems to be a fundamental tension between Norris’s original Platonic metaphysics and the Malebranchian theory of perception he is trying to bolt on to it. Norris finds some help in bridging this gap by following Malebranche’s distinction between idea and sensation, or ‘‘sentiment’’ as Norris likes to call it. We do not see things in the intelligible world ‘‘according as they appear to us in that sensible view which we have of them’’ (IW 2: 494), for there occurs a division in perceptual awareness between the work and the contribution of two faculties, sensation and understanding.³⁸ While the understanding acquaints us with ideas in their pure and abstract form, in perception this is overlain by the contribution of associated sensation, whereby we tend to ‘‘Cloath our Ideas with our Sentiments, or if you will assume our Sentiments into our Ideas as essential Parts of them, and so out of both make up as it were one intire sensible Object’’ (IW 2: 496). ‘‘That Idea and Sentiment should be confounded in Vision is not so strange, because of their constant and undivided Concomitancy’’ (IW 2: 206). So, for example, when we look at the sun (IW 2: 495), there is intellectual acquaintance with the pure idea of a circle, and yet characteristically associated with that there are also sensations of light and heat. These occur in us and are no true part of the idea itself, which is in God, but inevitably in our loose sense of ‘awareness’ they become part of what we take ourselves to be aware of. To properly appreciate the role of the Divine Ideas in perception we need to learn to abstract ³⁸ With Norris’s ideas akin to logical concepts and his sensations like sense data, he comes out as a kind of precursor of Kant. Steven Nadler adopts a similar reading of Malebranche in his Malebranche and Ideas (1992), but since the more Platonic Norris places greater stress on the logical character of ideas than does Malebranche, this is perhaps a better interpretation of the former than the latter.

 knowledge out all associated sensation, for that is how God sees things, and consequently how we see things in God—‘‘we see nothing in the Intelligible World but the pure Ideas of things, and all the rest we feel’’ (IW 2: 496). The idea we see in God, the sensation we feel in ourselves. Another way of looking at this is to see Norris agreeing with Descartes and Malebranche that things have only primary qualities, that secondary qualities (colours, smells, tastes, etc.) have no real existence in bodies (IW 2: 250). In this way Norris comforts himself that the difference between perception and thinking is perhaps not so great after all, for on this account, seeing is after all a kind of thinking or understanding; it differs only in the manner in which we encounter ideas, in the degree of accompanying sensations (IW 2: 514). It must be remembered that there is no component of judgement in sense (IW 1: 198). We may make inferences about it, but in itself it conveys no information, makes no representation and can be neither true nor false. Sentiments lack intentionality; they are not of or about anything. But surely the things we perceive are mutable or corruptible, while the mind of God and its ideas is immutable. How is it possible to see the changing in the changeless (IW 2: 497)? Norris takes seriously this challenge—which lead Augustine to limit his theory—but he reflects that if God is omniscient and the creator of all things then He must have in Him the ideas of all things, even the mutable, making Augustine’s worry ‘‘unnecessary’’ (IW 2: 499). Norris says the problem is seen to be spurious if we remember that we do not see the mutable things themselves in God, only their ideas, for these are immutable albeit representative of mutable things outside of God (IW 2: 498). He goes on to endorse Malebranche’s suggestion that our awareness of the object be divided. Whatever is immutable about an object we may see in God, but whatever is changeable about it must be placed in the realm of associated sensation (IW 2: 501–2). Unfortunately Norris does not seem to realize that these are two quite different answers. The first is to incorporate change into the Divine Ideas themselves, but to do so in a way that neutralizes

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it. The ideas themselves do not change, we may say, but they can nonetheless be representative of things that do. The idea of a rose is of something that buds, blooms, and fades, but that idea itself does not change. Alternatively we might think of the problematic idea as in fact a collection or sequence of ideas none of which themselves change (rather as a movie film is in fact a sequence of stills shown in succession). The second Malebranchean strategy is quite different in that it works by relocating the troublesome change from the idea itself to the accompanying sensations. While our sensation, say, of a thing’s colour, smell, or taste may change, all the while our apprehension of its basic shape or type may remain unaltered. Both answers locate our awareness of change in a misapprehension on our part of ideas in God, but the second places it wholly in us while the first finds an objective correlate to the changing states (even if a misperceived one) within God. Norris’s failure to separate these is problematic, but not untypical of his somewhat opportunistic approach to philosophy; his reluctance to disagree with any potential ally.

3.7 Was Norris an Idealist? In the concluding section of this chapter I wish to make some final overall assessment of Norris’s metaphysics. In particular I want to ask, whether he was an idealist. In considering this matter, there are two types of distinction that need to be drawn. On the one hand, we must distinguish between different forms of the question such as, ‘Was Norris a self-confessed idealist’? ‘Is that what his view really amounts to’? ‘Ought he to have been one’? or ‘How much would it take to turn him into one’? On the other hand, we need also to distinguish between different types of idealism. It would seem unproblematic to say that Norris was a Platonic idealist, in the sense of one who affirms the reality of an eternal world of ideas or Forms. Nowadays it is more common to describe Plato’s position as realism, than idealism. But we find ourselves in something that deserves to be called idealism if we focus in on

 knowledge two (rather neglected) Platonic themes; his belief that the Forms were more real than particulars, and his characterization of them as ideas. It was Plato’s clear belief that the Forms exist more fully and genuinely than the particulars, which achieve only a shadowy halfbeing. In the Republic he says they hover between being and not being.³⁹ He thinks of Forms as paradigm beings, while particulars are but vague and shadowy appearances of the real, related as dreams to waking experience.⁴⁰ The distinction he illustrates with his memorable picture of the cave.⁴¹ Norris agrees; compared to the Ideal World, he says, the ‘‘Material World is but a Phantom or a Shadow’’ (IW 1: 10). Turning to language, although it is usual nowadays—and, indeed, essential if confusion is to be avoided with the modern subjective psychological sense of ‘idea’—to use the word ‘Forms’ to translate the Platonic εἱoς and ἱδἑα, there is still merit in the older rendering of them as ‘Ideas’. For they are not only sorts, patterns, or models of things but also the natural and proper objects of understanding. The locus of meaning, rationality, and value, they exist more in the manner of concepts than brute things. Insofar as Norris is a Platonist subscribing to both of these tenets of the theory, and not simply a realist about universals, his position may with justice be called idealism. A second sense in which Norris might be described as an idealist concerns his view of finite spirits and their relation to the one infinite spirit, for it is a common stance of many idealisms, known as ‘Absolute Idealisms’, that the finite spirit is but a part or mode or aspect of God. Is this the case with Norris? Is the ‘intimate union’ of our minds with God’s that occurs in knowledge and love reflected at the level of ontology also? It can be argued that that is so and that the tendency of his thought is towards just such a system of absolute idealism.⁴² He says that not only is the Ideal World in us but that we are in it (IW 1:3), when it, of course, is in God. Even more explicitly he holds that ³⁹ Republic, 477a. ⁴⁰ Republic, 476c. ⁴² This is the view of MacKinnon (1910), 92.

⁴¹ Republic, VII.

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the Essence of God is intimately and immediately united to the mind of Man; this is plain from Scripture, which tells us that in God is our Life, our Motion, and our Being. And from Philosophy, which assures us, that what pervades all things, must needs be immediately united with every thing.⁴³

He goes on immediately to endorse Malebranche’s claim that ‘‘God is the place of Spirits as space is of Bodies’’.⁴⁴ Again in the first volume of his Practical Discourses he says ‘‘God dwells in us by his special Presence, by the spirit of Grace and Benediction. But we dwell in God Essentially and Totally. ... All spirits good and bad, however qualified, dwell in him. For where else should they dwell, since he is in all and fills all’’.⁴⁵ Such hints are very suggestive, yet it must also be allowed that Norris never really explains in detail the relation between finite spirits and God, and other comments point in a different direction. He insists that ‘‘Things are not in God as they are out of Him (neither Body nor Spirit) but after a far more perfect and excellent Manner’’ (IW 1: 296) which seems clearly to imply that spirits do, in some manner, exist externally to God. For all his thought moves in such a direction, the orthodox Norris could not explicitly endorse the monism of Plotinus. But leaving these two behind, what about idealism in its third and most familiar sense of a philosophy that denies, either outright or through reinterpretation, the existence of the external material world? Was Norris an idealist in this sense? For Norris, the human mind has no direct contact with material things. All that it ever encounters are ideas and sensations, that is, other mental entities. And nor, reciprocally, have material things any contact whatsoever with minds. In particular, it must be remembered that these ideas and sensations are in no way produced in us by the objects, as most other philosophies maintain. The ideas are things which God reveals to us existing in His own Being, while the sensations are ⁴³ Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life (1690), 37. ⁴⁴ Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life (1690), 37–8. This is something Malebranche says at The Search after Truth, Bk. III, Pt. 2, ch. 6 (LO 230, 235). ⁴⁵ Practical Discourses I (1690), 159.

 knowledge events in our souls which He brings about. The material world itself seems to take no causal part at all in our knowledge of it; the only world that affects us in any way is the Ideal World. But at least, it might be said, we have indirect contact with material things. We do see them, but via ideal intermediaries, just as we really do hear someone down the telephone. For, it might be said, the only differences between this and, say, Locke’s account are that the ideal intermediaries are not caused by the things and that some of them are located in God’s mind rather than ours. All would be well if Norris could say this, but it is far from clear that he can. For it is doubtful, even if objects exist, whether the mental items we encounter really represent them. Starting with sensations, Norris is quite clear that they do not represent. They are caused in us by God on the occasion of our meeting with physical things, but they do not represent them. The tickle which a feather gives us, or the pain a hot object causes in us, are not attributed to the objects, and no more so should other sensations be. Turning to ideas, Norris thinks they do represent. But he is not really entitled to that view. He is unable to justify the claim that what we are seeing are real things, via God’s ideas, rather than just God’s ideas themselves. For how could he show that God’s ideas truly are representative of the real things? Neither of the indirect realist’s usual strategies can apply here. Norris cannot say that God’s ideas of things are caused by the things, for he rejects the thought that God might be ‘illuminated’ by or causally dependent on His creations. But neither can God’s ideas strictly resemble the real things, for the ideas are universal and the things particular. The idea we see in God is circularity, not the particular circle that is the sun. In short then, neither in sensation nor perception, do we meet the world even indirectly. We feel ourselves and we see God, but in neither case do we encounter the material world. In consequence of these points Norris finds himself obliged to relinquish one of the most familiar and fundamental assumptions about perception, namely, that it is a direct encounter with an individual that must consequently exist. And that means that very

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existence of the world becomes problematic. It becomes necessary to make a sharp distinction between questions of its nature and questions of its existence. For if perception of material reality is in fact a matter of acquaintance with Divine Ideas that gives us certain knowledge of the nature of the world, but none whatsoever of its existence. (This, it should be noted, is the exact opposite of the case with ourselves.⁴⁶) The problem is only compounded if we reflect upon the nature of God. This is so in two ways. Firstly, God is necessary but the world is contingent—it could only exist as the effect of an utterly free creative act by God, so there can be no a priori proof of its reality (IW 1: 189). Secondly, we have already seen that Norris regards God as a being of great efficiency,⁴⁷ but in that case why does he not do away with bodies altogether, for they play no role in our lives, and none in any other that we know of? Indeed Norris himself at one point says he ‘‘can easily conceive, that GOD can, if he pleases, raise the Sensation of Pain in [the Soul] though no Change be made in the Body, nay though she had no Body at all’’.⁴⁸ Malebranche faced a similar problem which he solved by appeal to faith or revelation; for does not the Bible tell us that God created the world? But, notwithstanding his great desire to bring in God wherever possible, Norris rejects this answer, for he points out that we can have no more confidence in revelation than we have in the sense experience that supports it, yet it is precisely the legitimacy of sense experience that is being challenged in this context (IW 1: 190). Norris’s response is at the same time more commonplace and less certain. While acknowledging that it is in no way caused by or representative of the external world, and thus treating this as a piece of reasoning rather than the evidence of sense itself (IW 1: 200), Norris nonetheless wonders if sensation ... perhaps, is a Mark or Indication of its Existence, it being not easie to assign a Reason why God should touch us with a Sentiment upon his ⁴⁶ See above pp. 69–70.

⁴⁷ See above pp. 19–20.

⁴⁸ LOG 62.

 knowledge exhibiting to us such an Idea, but only to admonish us of the existence of that thing whereof we have an Idea. (IW 2:495)

He also suggests, explicitly following Descartes, that it would be contrary to the goodness of God to give us senses which naturally incline us to believe in the external world, were there really none there (IW 1: 208). Both suggestions are really just reasonable hypotheses—he cannot prove or demonstrate either of them—but he concludes that, ‘‘There is evidence enough from Sensation to exclude all Reasonable, but not all Possible Doubt concerning the Existence of Bodies’’ (IW 1: 210). But overall, in view of these difficulties and of the strength of his arguments for the Ideal World, it comes as no surprise to see that Norris thinks we can be more certain that there exists an Ideal World than that there is a material one (IW 1: 214; also IW 1: 184). It has been thought that this admission of external bodies (when the arguments for are so weak and the arguments against so strong) is inconsistent, or at least that it shows a falling away from faith in argument.⁴⁹ But a better line to take is to wonder what this admission of the existence of bodies really amounts to; just what is it that we are saying exists? It has for Norris but little content. He says that: ... as God is that Light in which there is no Darkness; so Matter, on the contrary, may be said to be darkness wherein there is no light at all: A pure and an unmingled Darkness, being no more able to inlighten the Mind, than it is to act upon it, or cause any Sentiment in it, but as utterly invisible as ’tis inefficatious. (IW 2: 320)

Being of such little moment, he thinks it is odd that these material objects should so excite, as they do, our passions and appetites (IW 2: 321), for matter is dark and ‘‘unintelligible’’ (IW 2: 320). In the manner of Locke’s substratum—the ‘something I know not what’ that supports qualities—or Aristotle’s ‘prime matter’, is something which, in itself, abstracted from all that it bears, is empty. It is but a ⁴⁹ Collier was first to think this (see below pp. 201–2) but the point is repeated by Mackinnon (1910), 77.

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virtual place-holder, the point on which interpretations converge. Unlike the Aristotelians who regarded causality as immanent in material things, Norris treats both formal and final cause as located outside them, in God. And even their efficient causality—say, the power of magnets to attract iron—belongs to them only by virtue of their (externally located) scientific form. Norris is a cautious thinker and recoils from the explicit denial that we find in the more courageous Collier and Berkeley, but in general it seems that his admission of the existence of external material things is not a large concession, but one concerning appearances only—a point born out in his understanding of contingent truth, a topic we shall consider in Chapter 6.⁵⁰ In this way Norris’s position comes very close to idealism. Dangerously so, it might be said, but Norris himself is not disquietened by these tendencies and it is important to see why. For most thinkers idealism is a threat to the objective material world, it looks to shut us up in a private realm of thought. But with Norris the case is quite otherwise. Though the world may be ideal, it is in no way private, for ideas are public. Indeed next to a position like that of Locke’s or Descartes’s, which threatens to slide into subjective solipsism or scepticism, Norris’s idealism might even be recommended as a way of securing the objectivity of the world. The fact that Norris takes such a different conception of ideas to, say, Berkeley means that there is a radical difference between their two idealisms. ⁵⁰ See below pp. 181–5.

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4 FAITH I have already noted Norris’s conviction that there obtains a harmony between religion and philosophy and considered his philosophical arguments for the existence of God,¹ but to leave matters there could give a false picture. For however close his theology came to his philosophy, Norris was far from believing that everything in true religion, everything essential for salvation, could be determined by unaided human reason; to complete that sphere there is need also of faith. This position, though orthodox enough, was one which set him against a growing trend in theological thinking that emphasized human reason as both the key to discover, and the test against which to legitimize, all religious belief. Norris’s attempt to distance himself from that movement was the occasion of one of his most important books, An Account of Reason and Faith: In Relation to the Mysteries of Christianity (1697), in which he attempts to explain the necessity and appropriateness of faith, as well as its relation to reason.

4.1 The Socinian Controversy The Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Toleration Act of 1689, and the abolition of state licensing of the press in 1694, together formed in England conditions favourable to the development of unorthodox religious ideas which had hitherto lain suppressed, resulting in a rapid blossoming of such views in the last decade of ¹ See above p. 7 and pp. 37–41.

 faith the seventeenth century. Among the radical views much proposed and debated at this time were those of the Socinians or, as they later preferred to be known, the Unitarians. The Socinians were a religious group which originated in sixteenth-century Italy with the work of Laelius Socinus (1525–62) and his nephew Faustus Socinus (1539–1604). The sect flourished principally in Poland, but its ideas spread too into Transylvania, the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Their heresy was broadly that of Arianism, in that they accepted the importance of Jesus but considered him merely a man, rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity. For them the Bible was authoritative but was only properly understood through individual rational analysis rather than through institutional tradition; they therefore rejected infant baptism and the doctrine of eternal damnation (believing instead in the annihilation of the wicked). Not surprisingly these heretical ideas were resisted by traditionalists every bit as strongly as they were promoted by their adherents, and the ‘Socinian controversy’ is the name given to a debate within the Church of England occasioned at this time by the growth of such ideas. Lasting roughly the two decades either side of the turn of the century, it was characterized by many pamphlets to and fro, but a key event was the publication in 1696 of Christianity not Mysterious by the Irishman John Toland (1670–1722).² Although Toland does not mention John Locke by name, there is no doubt that the epistemology of Christianity not Mysterious was both meant to be and recognized as a paraphrase of that to be found in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. However, Toland was more aggressive than Locke in applying those principles, and with a highly Socinian emphasis on the role of reason in the interpretation of scripture, he insisted that no Christian doctrine could be mysterious, or above the ability of human rationality to fathom. Christianity not Mysterious ² The full title was Christianity not Mysterious: or, a treatise shewing, that there is nothing in the gospel contrary to reason, nor above it: and that no Christian doctrine can properly be call’d a mystery.

4.2 faith  was Toland’s first book and considered so blasphemous that it was burnt by Dublin’s public hangman while Toland himself escaped prosecution only by fleeing to England, where he spent most of the rest of his life continuing to engage in polemical writing. Norris too was scandalized by what he read. Regarding it ‘‘one of the most Bold, daring and irreverent pieces of Defiance to the Mysteries of the Christian Religion that even this Licentious Age has produced’’ (RF Preface iv), Norris first thought to write a direct point-by-point reply to Toland, but on further consideration he judged it better ‘‘to give an Absolute Account of the Positive Side of the Question’’ (RF Preface v). In other words, to set out directly the underlying principles governing the true relation of faith and reason, from which the error of Toland’s position would be easy to see. In this way his book rose above the short-lived polemics of other replies to Toland, received considerable praise, and became one of his most successful.³ Norris was moved to reply, because he saw in Toland’s ideas, if they caught on, the potential for development into even more serious deviancies. For whatever Toland might claim to the contrary, in truth his principles led to Deism, the denial of all revealed religion (RF 331). Robbed of its splendour, a Christianity not mysterious would cut but a little figure and dwindle down almost to nothing (RF 334), a mere moral code (RF 335). Even worse, a resolute distrust of anything beyond reason, must in the end lead to Atheism, the denial of all religion, for the Deist’s self-existence, eternity, and immensity are in truth notions just as opaque to human understanding as the traditionalist’s Trinity (RF 328).

4.2 Faith In order to begin to assess Norris’s position, it is necessary to understand what he intends by the term ‘faith’. This is not a ³ Acworth (1979), 213, 228.

 faith question of personal trust in the character or promises of some supremely good being but rather a species of propositional assent, that is, belief in the truth of some proposition (RF 53). To be more specific we may draw a three-fold division of types of assent distinguished by their differing sorts of ground or motive. Assent upon incomplete knowledge is what is termed opinion. Assent upon complete evidence is what is commonly called knowledge or science (RF 57). But sometimes, of course, we may have no evidence at all in the matter beyond the say-so of some authority or other. Assent on such grounds is what Norris calls faith (RF 59). More completely, he puts it, faith is ‘‘an Assent grounded not upon the internal Reason and Evidence of the thing, but upon the bare Testimony and Authority of the Speaker’’ (RF 54). Faith is a matter of will, rather than understanding, for assent is judgement, and judgement is will (RF 96). It is to be noted here that Norris follows a traditional understanding of faith, going back at least as far as Aquinas, in which faith is the correlate of revelation. For faith to be possible there must be some claim we can identify as proposed or ‘revealed’ by some authority. This needs to be contrasted with some more recent employments of the term ‘faith’ in which the fact that certain claims are divine revelations, the fact even that God exists, would count as items that might be held to call for faith. In Norris’s use, however, it would be necessary to arrive at rational belief in both of these matters before any question of faith in a given matter could even arise. In claiming that faith comes into play where we lack evidence, Norris wishes to avoid misunderstanding, and so is quick to clarify his meaning. He draws an important distinction between the thing believed—the matter or object of faith—and the reason or motive which induces us to believe it—the formal reason of faith (RF 69). For when faith is said to be obscure or inevident this applies only to its matter or object and not to its formal reason or motive; for, he insists, there can be perfectly clear reasons why we should believe obscure things (RF 70). Another way of putting the same

4.2 faith  point that he often employs is to distinguish between internal and external evidence. Though there is no internal evidence relating to the phenomenon itself, there may be plenty of external evidence why we should believe the authority in question. Referring to any sort of appeal to authority, faith is not for Norris an exclusively religious notion; the expertise appealed to may be as equally man’s as God’s. Indeed, thinks Norris, it is quite common in our day-to-day lives that we are ‘‘forced by the pressing urgency of certain External and Collateral Considerations to assent to things internally obscure’’ (RF 260–1) upon the say-so of others better able to tell than we are. Moreover, to Norris, the normality of such appeals plays no small part in the case for their acceptability with regard to God. Nonetheless the two types of case are also very different. Given the fallible nature of human beings, Human faith is always liable to error and thus (even when true) uncertain (RF 60). Divine faith, on the contrary, ‘‘is strictly and Absolutely infallible’’ (RF 61). We can draw a parallel, thinks Norris, with the two different species of cognition based on evidence which we noted above: as human faith resembles opinion in being uncertain, so divine faith resembles knowledge or science in being certain. This is, of course, a very strong claim, but Norris is quite adamant that ‘‘Divine Faith has all the Certainty that is possible’’ (RF 63) and is every bit as secure as the most evident assent in science. The reasoning which convinces him of that fact he himself sets out syllogistically. For any given revelation we may argue; Whatever is reveal’d by God is true, This is Reveal’d by God, Therefore this is true (RF 71). There is benefit in considering both of the premisses here. To understand the first, we need to bring in a contrast Norris draws between faith as explicit, when we believe determinately a given thing in particular, and faith as implicit, when we believe whatever some authority proposes to us, without even knowing what in particular is proposed. It might be doubted whether it is even possible, and certainly whether it can really be rational, to

 faith believe whatever someone says without even knowing what, if anything, they have said. But rather than a weaker species of faith, Norris insists that this is in fact the prior and stronger variety; all particular explicit faith is grounded upon a more general implicit faith (RF 90), for without some general claim about the reliability of authority Y the mere claim that something is supported by authority Y is of no persuasive power. Implicit faith in human authority must be tempered—most of what Y says is true, in general Y is reliable—but in the divine case there is no need for such restriction, and we may confidently assert that whatever is revealed by God is true. The ground for this unrestricted endorsement lies in the infallibility of God (RF 93). And, thinks Norris, that God cannot Himself be deceived, nor can He deceive us (RF 62), are truths which, if not self-evident, follow from the very definition of God as perfect and unlimited (RF 71). Of course, it is not enough to know that whatever is revealed by God is true. We need to know of any given proposition that it has in fact genuinely been revealed by God. Concerning himself with the general principles of the matter rather than specifics Norris does not consider in any great detail this second premiss—and certainly to enquire into the provenance each putative revelation of God would be a massive work beyond his scope. But he expresses every confidence. The case, he claims, has been abundantly and convincing made good in no small detail by other abler hands, though it anyway be ‘‘Obvious to every Eye that can but read the Bible’’ (RF 300–1). The evidence available is ‘‘sufficient for all the purposes of Christian Life, to perswade a Man to renounce the present World for the Glories of the next’’ (IW 1: 221). It is hard not to regard this as utterly complacent, but for all his opponents might tackle him on the provenance of particular doctrines, he is right too that he differs from them in general matters as well as particulars, and that is where he has chosen to fight.⁴ ⁴ In his later work the extreme confidence expressed here becomes tempered. See below pp. 124–5.

4.3 reason 

4.3 Reason Norris’s inquiry is into the relation between faith and reason, so we need to ask also what it is that he means by ‘reason’. He notes that reason may be considered either objectively or subjectively. It may refer either to the underlying logic of reality, or to the human reasoning process. Norris’s concern is with the second of these but that too he notes is ambiguous. Subjective reason may be considered either narrowly or largely, referring either to deductive reasoning or to thought in general. Again Norris’s concern is with the second of these, and he thus specifies that by reason he will mean ‘‘the Power of Thinking or Perception in general, whereby a Man is capable of knowing or understanding any Truth, let it be by whatever means, or in what order or method soever’’ (RF 22). In adopting such a broad sense of reason, Norris was resisting a growing tendency to identify reason and deduction. He presents reason as something more than mere inference. He suggests that it may be taken as equivalent to understanding (RF 23), which, contrary to common opinion that defines its operations as apprehension, judgement, and discourse (RF 27), in truth has but one operation, and that is perception—‘‘to understand a thing being no more than to perceive its Ideas’’ (RF 30). Reason is a matter of seeing the truth. It is passive and its opposite is not error or misperception, but ignorance. Part of Norris’s aim here is to heighten the contrast with faith which, as a species of assent or judgement, is an active operation of the will that can be erroneous. It is a matter of our consenting or acquiescing to those representations first made by the Understanding (RF 32). Augustine and Aquinas both took knowledge by evidence and knowledge by faith as mutually exclusive domains, such that if a thing were held in faith it could never be known by evidence, and vice versa. But insisting that ‘‘we must follow Reason before Authority’’ Norris dissents from this position and argues that nothing in fact prevents one and the same item from being both

 faith an object of faith and science (RF 78), for this is a distinction, not in the nature of the thing, but in how it is known. Suppose God revealed to us a geometrical truth which we afterwards learned how to prove demonstratively. Why should the new knowledge destroy our earlier faith? We would still have just as much regard for the authority of God (RF 80–1). Reason is often held up as a great glory of humanity, but without disputing that it is what elevates us from the beasts and allows us to know the existence of God, Norris fears that we tend to take too high an opinion of our own reason. He offers a few considerations to counter such pride. Following Descartes, he says that knowledge may be intuitive or demonstrative: ... in Intuitive Knowledge we have an intire and simultaneous view of things and see all at once; wheras in Demonstrative Knowledge our prospect opens by degrees, and we proceed step by step, advancing from the knowledge of one thing to that of another. (RF 40)

Although both are equally certain, intuition is the more perfect and excellent way of knowing; more clear, more simple and more entire (RF 46). It is how God knows (RF 47) and (it is to be hoped) how we shall know in the hereafter (RF 48). At present, however, our intuition is short-sighted and reaches but a little way. Norris employs an analogy. Natural reason, he suggests, is like a magnifying glass. Artificially through logic its range may be improved allowing us to see further and rendering it more like a telescope. But that it permits such improvement is in itself at the same time a sign of how limited and defective it is in the first place (RF 49). Instead of a glory or perfection, reason is ‘‘a Mark of our Limitation as Creatures, and ... of our Infirmity as Men’’ (RF 50). There is so much we cannot see, so much in which we have to feel our way by clues and extended chains of thought that, rather than filling us with a sense of our own superiority, a proper reflection on human reason should serve to take down our pride and occasion in us ‘‘the profoundest Humility and Self-dejection’’ (RF 51).

4.4 above reason and contrary to reason 

4.4 Above Reason and Contrary to Reason Socinians generally reject the mysteries of faith as contrary to sense and reason. A common reply to this is that such mysteries are not contrary to reason but above reason, that we are not asked to believe what reason opposes only that which it cannot fathom. And this is Norris’s line also. But because its opponents had been inclined to dismiss this contrast, to treat it as ‘‘mere Shift and Evasion’’ (RF 104), Norris undertakes to defend it. He defines the distinction as follows: By things above Reason then ... I conceive to be Meant, Not such as Reason of it self cannot Discover, but such as when proposed it cannot Comprehend. And by things Contrary to Reason I conceive such as it can and does actually comprehend, and that to be absolutely Impossible. Or in other words, a thing is then above Reason when we do not comprehend how it can be, and then Contrary to Reason when we do positively comprehend that it cannot be. (RF 116–17)

At first sight this seems clear and plausible, but there are a number of points to make about Norris’s account here which complicate the picture. First of all, in claiming that the articles of faith are ‘above reason’ Norris is in no fashion suggesting that they are beyond sense or meaning. They may be obscure, inevident, or incomprehensible, but this should not be understood with respect to the intelligibility and significance of their terms. ‘‘[W]hatever Darkness there may be in Faith’’, insists Norris, ‘‘it is still so much a Luminous Assent, and an Act of Reason, as to require that we understand the simple Meaning of the Proposition we are to believe, as well as the Grounds of Credibility upon which it Challenges our Assent’’ (RF 74). Indeed we must grasp more than just the terms, we need to know the ideas they stand for, that is, their meaning or signification. Otherwise we cannot properly be said to believe anything (RF 75). If a proposition was so unintelligible in its very sense or meaning that we could see nothing clear in

 faith it, we could no more believe it than we could believe something contrary to reason (RF 131).⁵ The inevidence lies not in the meaning of the propositions but only as regards their truth (RF 76). They are propositions whose truth we cannot settle. Norris introduces the distinction by way of Robert Boyle whose consideration of the issue, he says, is the only account of which he knows (RF 101).⁶ However, where Boyle describes what is above reason as ‘undiscoverable’, he prefers the term ‘incomprehensible’ for, as he points out, Socinians think not simply that we cannot discover such things but that, even if we could, we would be unable to understand them (RF 105–6). Norris is not perhaps so far from Boyle as this might suggest, for in unpacking what he means by the incomprehensible, his account of understanding as perception⁷ turns it into the category of ‘‘things which we cannot perceive the truth of,’’ which is something really rather close to what Boyle was suggesting. But greater distance is found if we focus on a further element. For later (and more in keeping with the usual understanding of incomprehensibility) he adds to the condition of not being able to settle the truth of something, the further element of not being able to see how it is true—the ‘‘Manner’’ of it (RF 131). This is certainly the point of the one example he offers to explicate his meaning. He contrasts the case of an hyperbola and a triangle (RF 122). That the sides of a triangle could never be parallel is something acceptable to us as easily as it is evidently true. But that the sides of an hyperbola should never meet is something more puzzling; we have no problem with the truth of the matter—it has Norris admits ‘‘Certainty’’—but it ‘‘passes the Reason of Man to ⁵ Although, even then, the classes would still be different since what is contrary to reason is well understood. Only by understanding its terms can we see that they contradict themselves. ⁶ Reflections upon a Theological Distinction, according to which it is said that some Articles of Faith are Above Reason, but not Against Reason, published as an appendix to his Christian Virtuoso (London, 1690–1). That Norris did not know Locke’s discussion of this distinction is hard to credit (see below pp. 122–3). ⁷ See above p. 105.

4.4 above reason and contrary to reason  Comprehend how it can be’’. For surely if the sides keep getting closer and closer they must meet eventually? It is a shame Norris does not say more here, about the precise sense in which we fail to grasp what is being put forward, but he has said enough to show that at least some element of incomprehensibility in its more usual rendering is at work within the class of what is above reason. To say simply that some proposition is above reason in itself makes no judgement of truth or falsity about it, but Norris further suggests that it is also to not even make any judgement regarding its possibility or impossibility (RF 125). This is especially curious. If we take him seriously here, Norris is recommending that we should reject as contrary to reason anything we see to be impossible but that the class of things above reason (and thus potential candidates for faith) should be permitted to include anything not known to be impossible. However, assuming that we can have faith only in what is possible, that we can believe only what might be true, this rule amounts to the position that something should be deemed possible unless we can clearly see that it is impossible. It seems that candidates for revelation are, in Norris’s eyes, innocent until proven guilty. Overall, Norris’s conception of propositions above reason does not withstand well the scrutiny of modern philosophy of language. We cannot determine whether they are true, we do not understand how they could be true, we do not even know if their truth is possible; in view of these three defects for Norris to continue to talk about the ‘‘plain simple meaning’’ of such propositions shows an uncritical attitude to meaning, no less unfortunate than it was typical of his age. A final point to make about the notion of something’s being above reason is that, for Norris, to be above reason is a relative notion; ‘‘to be Above Reason is not to be Above Reason in general or all Reason, so as to be absolutely incomprehensible, but only Human Reason’’ (RF 128). To believe in the truth of such matters is in no way to abandon commitment to the fundamental rationality and coherence of the world; since they in no fashion

 faith transcend divine reason—rationality itself—it is to highlight a deficiency in us rather than in reality. Turning from what is above to what is contrary to reason, we continue to be dogged by unclarity. Unlike the description ‘above reason,’ which is non-committal with regard to truth-value, to call something ‘contrary to reason’ is to make a judgement of falsity about it (RF 127–8), stemming either from internal self-contradiction or inconsistency with some other truth. It is, moreover, an absolute judgement; what is contrary to our reason is contrary to any reason (RF 129). But the apparent force of these points is diminished by unclarity in the notion of exactly what inconsistency with some other truth might mean. That with which the proposition might clash is variously described as ‘‘Some Principle’’, ‘‘Some Conclusion of Right Reason’’, or ‘‘some evident and incontestable Truth or other’’ (RF 119, 121), but this could refer to anything from the axioms of logic, through the principles of metaphysics, to merely well attested laws of nature; in other words, the impossibility invoked might be logical, metaphysical, or merely physical. The designations ‘‘Absolute impossibility’’ and ‘‘utterly impossible’’ (RF 120, 123) imply that Norris is thinking here of the strongest possible kind, but the fact remains that no proper account is given of the kind of truth or principle against which this is derived.

4.5 The Measure of Truth As mentioned above the Socinians were inclined to doubt the distinction between what is contrary to reason and what merely above it, implying that the latter differs only verbally from the former. Norris does not deal well with this objection. He insists that these are two quite different ideas, as distinct from one another as the ideas of a man and a tree (RF 123, 133), but this reply never really gets to the heart of the Socinian worry that really a thing could only be obscure or difficult for us to understand if somehow it violated or transgressed our usual beliefs

4.5 the measure of truth  or understandings, collapsing the unknown into the impossible. We only call a ‘mystery’ that in which we find some problem or obstacle to belief. Norris, it seems, is aware of the limitations of his response, for, although he takes himself to have vindicated the distinction between what is contrary to reason and what is above reason, he does not simply leave the matter there. Rightly suspecting that, behind the Socinian tendency to conflate these two, there lies a deeper assumption that renders both equally suspect, he sets himself to isolate and challenge it. There are different ways in which this underlying principle might be expressed depending upon whether one supports it or not. Viewed positively as a sound but cautious methodological directive, it might be presented as the rule that we should accept only what we properly understand and clearly see to be true. Norris, however, looks at it from the opposing camp, and for him it amounts to an inadmissible restriction on the realms of what might be true, or at least what might reasonably be believed to be true. It is to limit the scope of believable reality to what we can understand, to make human reason the measure of truth.⁸ And Norris will have none of this. If the only truths that may be accepted as revealed are those we fully understand and can see to be true, that is to say that God can reveal nothing to us but what we can comprehend, that we can comprehend all God can possibly reveal to us, this surely resolves either into a miserably low opinion of God or into an extravagantly high one of ourselves (RF 312–13). Socinians, he complains, ‘‘either ... Humanize God, or Deify themselves and their own Rational Abilities’’ (RF 10). Norris, by contrast, is committed to preserving the utter difference and vast gulf between defective finite human reason and perfect unlimited divine understanding. The latter inevitably transcends the former. At least that is what he now sets himself to prove. ⁸ Of course, the phraseology here is reminiscent of Protagoras’s doctrine that ‘‘man is the measure of all things’’ (Plato, Thaetetus 152a), which, with his Platonic learning, would be quite familiar to Norris.

 faith We can identify perhaps four distinct arguments in chapter 4 of Reason and Faith. The first rests upon Norris’s equation between truth and God or, more strictly, between eternal scientific truth and the relations which obtain among the Divine Ideas. This we have already examined in Chapter 2, and several of the arguments for that identification but briefly presented here (RF 150–66) are more fully developed in his later Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World.⁹ What calls for our attention here is the upshot of this position, for Norris argues that since the Divine Ideas are infinite so must be the relations between them and, therefore, so too must be truth itself (RF 153). From the ‘‘Coessentiality and Consubstantiality of Truth with the Divine Nature ... it evidently and necessarily follows again that Truth is Infinite’’ (RF 166–7). But if truth is infinite it follows immediately that human reason, being itself finite, ‘‘is not fully adequate to it, does not intirely possess it, nor all over and wholly comprehend it, and consequently cannot be the Measure of it’’ (RF 174). The import of Norris’s claim here is that there must be an unending number of truths and hence that human reason could never know them all —to set out on a course of study is, he suggests, like launching out onto an endless and bottomless sea (RF 171). By way of illustration he instances the vast fecundity of even the simplest proposition in geometry (RF 173). But he is fully aware of the weakness of this answer, for even if we cannot know all truths, it by no means follows that there are any particular truths that we cannot know (RF 177). We are under no obligation to accept that there could be any particular revelations lying beyond the reach of our reason. Against this putative response Norris offers new arguments. He begins with a contextualist response. ‘‘[S]uch is the reciprocal dependence and concatenation of Truth’’ (RF 178), he suggests, that it is not enough to understand any single proposition in isolation, we need also to grasp its manifold relations and dependencies ⁹ See above pp. 42–6.

4.5 the measure of truth  to other truths. We have here an interesting early anticipation of holistic notions of meaning with no small plausibility, although Norris himself does not really defend it. But if it be so, then it will certainly follow (as Norris points out) that for each and any particular truth the finite understanding will find itself at a considerable disadvantage with respect to the infinite understanding. For God, able to appreciate the whole picture, will certainly have a fuller and clearer sight of each truth than we, and there may even be some matters which the lack of a complete view of this kind prevents us from obtaining even an adequate grasp of (RF 179). Such truths, suggests Norris, lie ‘‘so far within the Bowels of the Intellectual systeme’’, so connected to everything else, that ‘‘they cannot possibly be understood without an intire and all-comprehensive view of the whole Rational Systeme’’ (RF 183–4). The example he offers of such a truth is Divine Providence, where our inability to take in the full complex picture prevents us from ever seeing why the individual events and outcomes of life all in fact happen precisely in accordance with God’s plans (RF 184–91). Norris proceeds to identify a second species of truths which needs must elude the finite human grasp, namely particular truths about the essence of God. The essence or nature of God may be considered either absolutely as it is in itself (His incommunicable attributes) or in relation to and representative of things without (His communicable attributes) (RF 194). The latter are finite and comprehensible by us, but not so the former (RF 198).¹⁰ This result opens up for us a large tract of particular truths we can never comprehend (RF 204)—ones pertaining to the nature of God as He is in Himself—and indeed later on Norris uses this idea to defend one of the most notorious mysteries of all, the Trinity. The Trinity is a revelation of the nature of God Himself, he suggests, so it is not in the least surprising that we cannot comprehend it (RF 323–5). We should not expect to do so. ¹⁰ By way of illustration here Norris contrasts the ‘‘comprehensible’’ predicate of extension (RF 200) with the ‘‘incomprehensible’’ predicate of divine immensity (RF 201).

 faith The arguments of Norris which we have considered so far rest solely on the fact that human reason is finite, but if we look beyond this point and consider in detail the nature of that reason, a further case may be built. For, suggests Norris, our cognitive faculty is not merely finite but positively narrow and straitened. There is so much we do not understand that its natural compass must be judged very limited, a defect we ourselves only compound by darkening its vision yet further with sin, passion, and prejudice (RF 211–12). Even if (contra what we have argued above) truth is finite in its extent, human understanding is such a puny thing, argues Norris, we can hardly be confident that its range is not smaller still than that of the truth (RF 213). These a posteriori reflections Norris supplements with what, though it is only presented in a sketchy form, might be regarded as the beginning of an analogical argument based on differing orders of being. We should take note (he suggests) of how the understanding of an adult surpasses that of a child, of how that of an educated adult surpasses that of an ignorant or illiterate one, and of how what was dark to the educated of past times is now clear to us with the help of modern knowledge. By analogy it seems reasonable to suppose that what is unclear to us in this mortal and embodied state may be made clear in the hereafter; but even then there may be things beyond the grasp of human souls which may be clear to angels, just as there may be things above angelic vision which can be seen only by God (RF 240–1). In short, reflection on our low to middling position in the hierarchy of orders of being should make us recognize that human beings can know only a modest proportion of what there is to be known. We should not be put off this argument by a distaste for its metaphysics, for a more palatable version appealing only to intellectual evolution is easy enough to construct. When we think how many thoughts we now have that were impossible to past ages, it is rash to suppose that the limits of sense now might be the limits of sense for all time. Concepts evolve and it is quite certain that future generations will think thoughts we cannot even entertain.

4.6 faith and reason  Norris’s arguments that human reason is not the measure of truth are of great interest, for they amount in effect to a defence of realism, in at least a limited form. The case for realism is made in a metaphysical fashion rather than, as modern philosophy has tended to prefer, via the question of meaning, but the concern is essentially the same. It is the attempt to prove that things exist and have the nature they have regardless of whether we can know or even understand that to be the case. Norris’s arguments would be unlikely to persuade committed anti-realists, for the metaphysics upon which they are based is itself already a realist one, but Norris would no doubt insist that a true epistemology is impossible without first finding the right metaphysical basis—indeed, that (it could be argued) is precisely the point of his philosophical system. To say that Norris is a defender of realism is not incompatible with attributing to him (as I did in the previous chapter) a species of idealism, for although human reason is not the measure of truth, reality and rationality itself nonetheless coincide, ‘‘For Truth in general carries a necessary Relation to understanding in general’’ (RF 144). The limits of God’s reason and the limits of reality are one and the same (RF 13). All truth is intelligible, but it is not all intelligible to humans.

4.6 Faith and Reason It will be remembered that, rather than attack Toland’s arguments directly, Norris chose to take issue with the underlying principles behind his position, allowing the opposite conclusion to fall out of its own accord. And putting together what he has said about the above reason/contrary to reason distinction and about the measure of truth, he now takes himself to have accomplished that task. For while he allows that incomprehensibility is grounds for suspending belief about a given proposition when we have no evidence of its truth from any authority (RF 256), he concludes that, where we possess the requisite external evidence, that some things are above reason is no bar whatsoever to our believing them.

 faith For anyone still in doubt he bolsters his case by arguing that any blanket ban on belief in things above reason would be quite devastating to science. All the time we accept as happening in the world around us things whose how or why we cannot begin to explain. It is plain, he says, ‘‘that there are many things in Nature which we see are True, and must be True, and so not only may, but cannot help Assenting to them, though at the same time we are not able to Comprehend how they are, or can possibly be’’ (RF 259). But if we accept mystery here, Norris concludes, we cannot with consistency reject it in religion. This must be judged a weak comparison. He is clearly appealing here to one particular side only of the above reason category—the inability to grasp ‘how’ rather than the inability to show ‘that’—for the essence of science is never to admit the occurrence or existence of anything except on sufficient evidence. In matters of revelation, by contrast, we are usually as unable to demonstrate ‘that’ as we are to explain ‘how’. However, in so far as it shows that in other spheres inability to understand the mechanisms behind things is not in itself taken as a reason to dismiss them, the comparison has some value. Once established, Norris spends considerable time stressing the rationality of his position, for he is keen to claim back ground stolen from him. The Socinians speak as if they were the only ones to use and champion reason, but this is rhetoric that must be countered. Orthodoxy is just as much in favour of reason as they are (RF 289). God cannot contradict sound thinking, for He is the author of reason as well as of revelation. Religion, Norris insists, need not ‘‘fear to be brought before the Bar of Human Reason, or to undergo the Test of its severest Discussion’’ (RF 286). For there is not any thing, neither Doctrine nor Precept in that true Religion that is reveal’d by God, in Evangelical Christianity, that need fly the Light of Reason, or refuse to be tried by it. Christian Religion is all over a Reasonable Service, and the Author of it is too reasonable a Master to impose any other, or to require ... that Men should follow him blindfold. (RF 287)

4.7 malebranche  God cannot require us to believe anything against reason, or even anything without reason (RF 288), only what is above reason. Nevertheless, if Norris’s view does not oppose the use of reason in religion, it has clear implications for its appropriate employment. His account carries with it a measure of practical import for biblical study, and censure of the way it is currently conducted in at least some quarters. For if all he has said is right, our focus of study should be on determining whether any given doctrine truly is a revelation, rather than trying to fathom its reason, intelligibility, or truth. For so long as it makes sense, such investigations cannot affect one way or another the question of whether we ought to believe it (RF 291). Norris’s approach here is highly conservative; we should not waste our time questioning or interpreting matters which call only for our belief and obedience.

4.7 Malebranche It is helpful to compare Norris’s position on reason and faith with that of some of his contemporaries. As we might expect there are not inconsiderable similarities on this issue between Norris and Malebranche. For Malebranche all knowledge is revelation, since even our understanding of the natural world consists in a grasp of those Divine Ideas God chooses to reveal to us. But he insists ‘‘there are two kinds of revelations’’, the natural and the supernatural.¹¹ In addition to the ideas behind the everyday world God makes special revelations. For the most part these are things which we could not discover for ourselves, for example, that ‘‘He created a heaven and an earth, or that the Word was made flesh, or that Scripture is a divine book’’.¹² As such they call not for evidence but faith. Says Malebranche, ‘‘in matters of faith, evidence must not be sought before belief ... to be among the Faithful, it is necessary to believe ¹¹ Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Dial. VI. 7 ( JS, 96). ¹² The Search after Truth, Eluc. VI (LO 575); Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Dial. VI. 8 ( JS 100).

 faith blindly ... for divine authority is infallible’’,¹³ Stemming from one root, the sphere of reason and faith cannot conflict, that is, we cannot be asked to believe what is contrary to reason. But we may be called to assent to that which is above reason; where we cannot prove or do not understand, we must simply accept. Thus Malebranche insists ‘‘that the mind should not be employed except on subjects suited to its capacity, and that our mysteries should not be scrutinised lest they benumb us’’.¹⁴ With all this Norris is in perfect agreement. However, there are two differences worth noting. As a Catholic, Malebranche adds to—or perhaps one had better say includes within—divine say-so, the authority of the Church itself and its traditions. He says ‘‘matters of faith are learned only through tradition, and reason cannot discover them’’.¹⁵ But the Protestant Norris will have none of this. The claim to such status by the Church he regards as ‘‘matchless Arrogance and Presumption’’ (RF 93), for God alone is infallible. A second difference between the two concerns the appropriateness of philosophical explanations of the mysteries of faith. For Malebranche faith and reason are both expressions of the one eternal Word; ‘‘it is the same Wisdom that speaks immediately through itself to those who discover truth in the evidence of arguments that speaks through the sacred scriptures to those who interpret them well’’.¹⁶ Not only do the two revelations not conflict, but they tell the same story. And thus, not withstanding occasional retreats into mystery, by and large Malebranche, is keen to press philosophy into the service of theology, attempting to explain the mysterious articles of faith such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, or the Eucharist by its means.¹⁷ Norris by contrast is more content to leave such matters mysterious. This difference between the two ¹³ The Search after Truth, Bk. 1, ch. 3 (LO 14). ¹⁴ The Search after Truth, Bk. 3, Pt. 2, ch. 8 (LO 245–6); see also Eluc. III (LO 561). ¹⁵ The Search after Truth, Bk. 2, Pt. 2, ch. 5 (LO 145); see also Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Dial. XIV. 3 ( JS 268). ¹⁶ The Search after Truth, Bk. 6, Pt. 2, ch. 6 (LO 486). ¹⁷ Pyle (2003) 11–12, 93. The converse is also true. Malebranche is keen to bring the truth of faith into philosophy ‘‘because without it I am unable to find the solution to

4.8 descartes  should not be exaggerated. Norris is not hostile to such efforts, it is simply that he does not pursue them himself or press them upon his readers.

4.8 Descartes We have already had occasion to note Norris’s reliance on Descartes, and in particular his endorsement of the latter’s celebrated methodological rule that we should believe only what is clear and distinct.¹⁸ However, in their restriction of belief to what reason alone can fathom, many Socinians too would claim to be following Descartes’s maxim. For was not Descartes a rationalist? It may therefore be wondered how Norris’s endorsement of belief in that which is above reason can be squared with his Cartesian epistemology. It would be possible to respond by saying the maxim does not apply in matters of faith, but, rather than take that route, Norris answers by stressing again the distinction between internal and external evidence. The proposal to accept only what is evident challenges faith only if it means that we should limit our acceptance to that which has adequate internal evidence. But if we widen our view to mean evidence at large, both the internal evidence of sense or reason and the external evidence of authority, then we break no rule in believing what is beyond reason (RF 270–5). This, urges Norris, was what Descartes really meant by his methodological advice. For, although a rationalist philosopher, he did not exaggerate the power of human reason; indeed, he had by contrast a very healthy sense of its defects (RF 278). And thus Cartesianism, properly understood, does not lead to Socinianism (RF 281). Norris is surely correct in his reading. In general Descartes had no taste for religious controversy and strove as far as possible to thousands upon thousands of difficulties’’ (Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Dial. IV. 5, JS 154). ¹⁸ See above p. 11.

 faith keep philosophy and theology separate and to steer clear of the latter; all of its revelations are set on one side in the process of doubt (CSM I: 125; CSM II: 321; CSMK III: 25, 26, 342). He treats them as two distinct spheres of authority, separate and independent. Nonetheless he believed that there could be no conflict between the truths of faith and the truths of philosophy (CSM II: 392; CSMK III: 350), and that his own philosophy was a better support of traditional religion than any other (CSM II: 4; CSMK: 75, 88, 172, 212). Any appearance to the contrary he put down to a regrettable tradition on the part of Scholastic philosophy of conflating the authority of the Bible with that of Aristotle (CSMK III: 14, 177). Many articles of faith, such as the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, he believed could be proved also by philosophy, but he was equally clear that others (such as the Trinity or the doctrine of Christ) were unamenable to our natural light and could only be cheapened by the attempt (CSM II: 105; CSMK: 26, 155, 166, 211). Revealed truth has still a ‘‘basis in our intellect’’ and is discoverable by either intuition or deduction (CSM I: 15)—it is either by intuition or deduction, that is, that we discover that a given truth has indeed been revealed. Even with respect to the truths of faith, argues Descartes, ‘‘we should perceive some reason which convinces us that they have been revealed by God, before deciding to believe them’’(CSM II: 273). But in itself the obscurity of a dogma is thus no bar to our accepting it. Above all else, Descartes tells us, ‘‘we must impress on our memory the overriding rule that whatever God has revealed to must be accepted as more certain than anything else. And although the light of reason may, with the utmost clarity and evidence, appear to suggest something different, we must still put our entire faith in divine authority rather than in our own judgement’’ (CSM 1: 221). Nevertheless the proximity between Norris and Descartes should not be exaggerated. For, while Norris (and indeed Malebranche) seek generally to bring together faith and reason, theology and

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philosophy, Descartes tends always to keep them at arms’ length from one another.

4.9 Locke The significance of John Locke in this subject has already been noted, for it was his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that acted as Toland’s starting point, and which in turn prompted Norris’s reply. But it is also interesting and instructive to compare directly Locke’s specifically theological views with those of Norris. The question of the relation between faith and reason was addressed in Book IV, chapter 18 of Locke’s 1689 Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was further explored in The Reasonableness of Christianity¹⁹ which appeared in 1695, only two years before Norris’s book. Norris would certainly have known both of these discussions. In many respects their views are very similar, for Locke shares the basic conception of faith espoused by Norris as response to revelation on the basis of external authority: ‘‘Assent to any Proposition, not ... made out by the Deductions of Reason; but upon the Credit of the Proposer, as coming from GOD, in some extraordinary way of Communication’’ (ECHU 4.18.2). Its proper matter is precisely those things beyond the discovery of reason, for example, that in the past the Angels rebelled against God or that in the future the dead will rise. But even here reason is not idle, for ‘‘it still belongs to Reason, to judge of the truth of its being a Revelation, and of the significance of the Words, wherein it is delivered’’ (ECHU 4.18.8). ¹⁹ There is perhaps an even closer connection between Locke and Toland than might be suggested by what has been said above, for ‘‘In 1693, he had met a young Irishman named John Toland, who seemed taken with Locke’s ideas. It had soon become known in the coffee houses of London that Toland was preparing a work denying that the Christian religion contained any mysteries (any tenets not discoverable through reason). Locke was still in contact with Toland and they seem to have exchanged some papers. It is thus possible that Locke had seen a draft of Christianity not Mysterious (published in 1696) before he wrote his Reasonableness of Christianity. The latter can indeed be seen as a pre-emptive reply to Toland’s book’’ ( John C. Attig (1985), 102).

 faith They are alike too in holding that a given truth might be both revealed by revelation and discovered by reason, that there is in principle no failure to intersect between these two species of knowledge. Indeed they give the very same example of overlap, suggesting that God might reveal to us one of Euclid’s propositions, which we could then go on to discover for ourselves (ECHU 4. 18. 4).²⁰ Perhaps most interesting of all, in chapter 17 of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding we find the distinction between what is above, contrary, and according to reason, which he explains as follows: 1. According to reason are such Propositions, whose Truth we can discover, by examining and tracing those Ideas we have from Sensation and Reflection; and by natural deduction, find to be true, or probable. 2. Above reason are such Propositions, whose Truth or Probability we cannot by Reason derive from those Principles. 3. Contrary to reason are such Propositions, as are inconsistent with, or irreconcilable to our clear and distinct Ideas. Thus the Existence of one GOD is according to Reason; the Existence of more than one GOD, contrary to Reason; the Resurrection of the Dead, above Reason. (ECHU 4.17.23)

The classification is not exactly the same as Norris’s, Locke emphasizes more the undiscoverability than the incomprehensibility of that which is above reason, but it is clearly very similar. In view of these similarities it is notable that Locke’s name is never once mentioned by Norris in connection with this topic. Despite having himself reviewed Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding,²¹ and using an identical illustration, he claims that the only person he knows to have treated the above reason/contrary to reason distinction is Robert Boyle (RF 101). How can this be? There are two reasons. First of all, there had in 1692 occurred a quarrel between Norris and Locke, which caused considerable bad blood.²² But second, and more importantly, despite their several agreements, their final positions were really very different, ²⁰ See above p. 106.

²¹ See below p. 169 ff.

²² See below p. 186.

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such that Norris would have felt most uncomfortable appealing to Locke as an ally. For Locke’s own position was under deep suspicion of precisely the sort of Socianinism that Norris was trying to fight against.²³ Nor were such accusations without basis, Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity containing many elements capable of interpretation in that direction. Its method eschews traditional dogma for rational focus on the express words of scripture alone, resulting in an extreme creedal minimalism. Locke concludes that the only essential tenet of Christianity is belief in Jesus of Nazareth’s own claim to be the Messiah. The outward signs which make such faith reasonable are his fulfilment of the various prophecies about the Messiah (fulfilment of prophecy for Locke is basically a matter of success in prediction) and his performance of miracles (A Discourse of Miracles defends the evidential power of miracles). Locke even suggests that those who have never heard the Gospel may be saved by a kind of natural piety and goodness. Combined with a denial of original sin (For Locke, Adam’s transgression brought mortality but not sin) and his intimation (in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding) of the possibility of the materiality of the soul, there is much here to please Socinians. But even more damming are the book’s omissions. For all its stress on Messiah-ship there is nothing in The Reasonableness of Christianity on Christ’s death as atonement or satisfaction for sin, and it is equally silent on the ²³ No sooner was The Reasonableness of Christianity published than John Edwards (1637–1716) responded with accusations of Socinianism in a pamphlet Some Thoughts Concerning the Several Causes and Occasions of Atheism, especially in the Present Age, with some Brief Reflections on Socinianism and on a late book entitled: ‘The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures’ (1695). Locke replied with A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), to which Edwards replied with Socinianism Unmasked (1696), occasioning from Locke a Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity (1697). Edwards had the last word with A Free but Modest Censure on the late Controversial Writings and Debates of Mr. Edwards and Mr. Locke (1698). But Edwards was not alone. Another Critic was Edward Stillingfleet (1635–99), bishop of Worcester, who, in his A Discourse in Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity (1696), had attacked the new philosophy. It was the theological consequences which were drawn from the doctrines of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, not so much by Locke himself as by Toland, in his Christianity not Mysterious, that the bishop had chiefly in view.

 faith Trinity. Whether Locke rejected these elements, was unable to make up his mind about them, or simply regarded them as inessential matters of controversy best left out of a work aimed to bring about consensus, is a very difficult question that has much occupied Locke scholars, but any of these three attitudes would place him up against orthodox believers like Norris who regarded them as essential articles of faith.²⁴ That Locke’s final position ends up so far from Norris’s own is very interesting for, despite their similarities of basic stance, when you look deeper there are considerable differences between them. This is important for it shows that the basic model of the relation between faith and reason first clearly articulated by Locke, adopted too by Norris, and of great importance in all subsequent philosophy of religion, is itself a far more fluid and variously interpretable affair than simplistic accounts would suggest. Locke and Norris differ regarding the certainty of revelation. Locke allows that divine revelation could be certain, ‘‘Only we must be sure, that it be a divine Revelation’’ (ECHU 4.16.14). But, he continues, ‘‘the Knowledge, we have, that this Revelation came at first from GOD, can never be so sure, as the Knowledge we have from the clear and distinct Perception of the Agreement, or Disagreement of our own Ideas’’ (ECHU 4.18.4). So in practice things known by revelation can never be as certain as things known by unaided human reason. This differs from the position Norris asserts in Faith and Reason; for there, more confident in our ability to know that we are faced with genuine revelations, he insists that faith can be every bit as certain as science (RF 66). Later on in the Essay, however, Norris back-peddles somewhat. He argues that although God could give us utter certainty, and perhaps did to the prophets, we today can have only moral certainty that any given revelation is from God (IW 1: 219–22). This would seem to make his position coincident with Locke’s. But in fact that is hardly ²⁴ For a more detailed discussion of these issues see John Marshall, ‘Locke, Socinianism, ‘‘Socinianism’’, and Unitarianism’, in M. A. Stewart (ed.), English Philosophy in the Age of Locke (2000).

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so. In general, Norris, for all his opposition to papal infallibility, is content to rest with the traditions of the Church of England regarding the revelation of God; Locke by contrast shows a more independent and non-conformist attitude, returning to his Bible in the light of his own reasoning interpretation. Locke is then more of a sceptical rationalist than Norris, but does that mean we should regard Norris as some sort of gullible irrationalist? Some have thought so. He has been accused of ‘‘adopting an irrationalism which made incomprehensibility a measure of truth’’.²⁵ In this connection we should note his adoption of an argument from Malebranche²⁶ to the effect that their very mysteriousness gives grounds believing in the divine origin of the articles of faith, it being supposed ‘‘that what does so very much transcend the Capacity of Man to Comprehend, does no less exceed his Ability to invent’’ (RF 295–6). The argument here has similarities with Descartes’s case in his Meditations with respect to the idea of the infinite, that our very inability to acquire, construct, or even adequate comprehend such an idea is evidence that it was given to us by God.²⁷ Yet, least one be tempted to read it in an almost Kierkergaardian fashion as saying the more absurd something is the more reason we have to believe, on the other side must be set Norris’s clear statement that incomprehensibility itself is no reason for belief (RF 256). ²⁵ Sullivan (1982), 244. ²⁶ Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, Dial. XIV. 1 ( JS 265–6). ²⁷ Descartes, Med. III.

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5 LOVE Beside the existence and nature of the intelligible world, the other great theme to dominate Norris’s philosophical system is his doctrine of love; and it is to this which I now turn. The topic of love was one of his first philosophical interests, and several of his earliest works touch upon it. For example, the second half of his 1684 ‘Letter on ideas’, which we have already examined, sets out what he regards as the true notion of Platonic love. This was reprinted in the Miscellanies of 1687, whose ‘Discourse concerning Heroic Piety’, ‘Letter concerning Love and Music’, ‘Letter concerning Friendship’, and essay on ‘Contemplation and Love’ all in addition pick out further themes to do with love. The motivation and tone of these early forays was broadly Platonic, and they foreshadow many of his later thoughts on love, but they do not amount to any systematic account of the subject.¹ It was only in 1688, newly fired by the ¹ The true notion of Platonic love, urges Norris, is ‘‘to shew the manner of the Souls ascent to God by Love’’, through the contemplation of abstract beauty (Miscellanies, 443). The ‘Discourse on Heroic Piety’ too foreshadows the view that God alone should be the object of our love (‘‘We must needs therefore be miserable in our love, unless God be the object of it. But neither is our happiness sufficiently secured by making God the object of our Love, unless we concenter our whole affections upon him, and (in the strictest sense of the Phrase) love him with all our Heart and with all our Soul’’ (Miscellanies, 288–9)). The ‘Letter concerning Love and Music,’ is the first to make the distinction between desire and benevolence. (‘‘Love may be consider’d either barely as a Tendency toward good, or as a willing this good to something capable of it. If Love be taken in the first Sense ’tis what we call Desire, if in the second. ’tis what we call Charity or Benevolence’’ (Miscellanies, 446)). The ‘Letter concerning Friendship’ defines friendship as a species of benevolence and argues there is no reason why, despite their difference in status, there should not be friendship between a husband and wife. (‘‘ ’Tis not absolutely necessary that Friends should stand upon a Level, either in respect of Fortune, State or Condition’’ so long as they have ‘‘equality of dispositions’’, with the result that ‘‘harmony of affections’’—the kind found

 love influence of Malebranche, that Norris came to organize his thinking into anything like a full theory, publishing one of his most important books, The Theory and Regulation of Love. A summary of the same basic position appeared one year later in Reason and Religion.² The topic might seem a little obscure and, certainly, the discussion of love is far from the mainstream of philosophical interest today, but Norris thinks it essential if we are to attain a complete and balanced picture of the human condition. In part here his motivation is theological. For man (he believes) was made in God’s image, and one implication of this is that just as in the Divine Nature there are what he calls two ‘processions’—that is (loosely) two sides or manifestations—one of intellect (Logos) and one of love (Holy Spirit), so in man there are two faculties, one rational and one amorous. More fundamentally than, and not necessarily coincidentally with, the Cartesian distinction between soul and body, our humanity is divided into a cognitive and an affective side, our head and our heart.³ Though we tend more greatly to value the former over the latter—Norris is writing at the end of the seventeenth century, it must be remembered—surely, he argues, as is the case with God, both are equally important and equally deserving of study (TRL 5). For all that philosophers emphasize knowing, it must never be forgotten that God created man as an amorous creature and that this is not something secondary but something absolutely fundamental to our nature—it belongs to our very essence to love. But Norris’s reason for writing about love is not just theoretical, it is also practical; he wants not simply to understand, but to influence.

between spouses—is perfectly possible (Miscellanies, 454)). The essay on ‘Contemplation and Love’ asserts that God is the true end and centre of Man and hence that ‘‘We are therefore to love him with all possible application and elevation of Spirit, with all the heart, Soul and mind. We should collect and concenter all the rays of our love into this one Point, and lean towards God with the whole weight of our Soul’’ (Miscellanies, 327). ² Reason and Religion, Pt. II, Contem. III & IV. ³ Unlike Spinoza, for whom this idea is central, Norris never explores the thought, suggested by his Trinitarian model, that at bottom these two sides of our nature may be manifestations of a single underlying source.

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For love, he thinks, is not simply a peculiar psychological relation which sometimes obtains between certain people. It concerns rather the entire affective sphere—whatever we attach ourselves to—and so determines all our choices and all our behaviour. The difference between virtue or vice, the difference between a good or bad person, lies precisely in where and how they love, in what they seek out and what they avoid. And thus Norris’s topic is really none other than that of moral philosophy itself in the widest sense, indeed ‘‘the whole Sum and Substance of it’’, for, as he goes on, ‘‘what is the grand Intendment and final Upshot of Morality but to teach a Man to Love regularly?’’ that is, appropriately (TRL 3). As the title of the book suggests, Norris considers that there are two aspects of this subject matter which demand our attention, the proper understanding of love and its proper application. Just as the doctor needs to know the anatomy of the body he wishes to cure and the logician the nature of the intellectual operations he wishes to direct, so the moralist needs ‘‘to frame a just Theory of that Affection of the Soul which he is to regulate’’ (TRL 3). That done, he can go on to show the ways in which love should properly be directed. Accordingly Norris’s book is divided into two parts, one dealing with the theory and one with the regulation of love. In stating the need for an adequate metaphysics of love before there can be any prescriptions about it, Norris’s conception of ethics is very different from that current today which aims for metaphysical, and often even psychological, neutrality. Next to Malebranche, whom Norris follows closely in this matter, perhaps the closest contemporary model in this regard would be Spinoza’s Ethics; for Spinoza too derives his moral philosophy directly from his metaphysical psychology, from his theory of the emotions.⁴ ⁴ Insofar as Spinoza places self-interest or conatus at the heart of his system and Norris stresses not only the possibility but the need for disinterested love, it might be thought that the ethical systems they build upon these bases are utterly different. But in so far as both philosophers argue that the only possible and the only satisfactory object of our love is God, they are closer in spirit than might first be thought.

 love

5.1 The Theory of Love 5.1.1 The Nature of Love The Theory and Regulation of Love begins by noting that ambiguity in the term ‘love’ itself has caused much confusion (TRL 7), but follows Malebranche in suggesting that the ‘‘General and Transcendental’’ nature of love consists in ‘‘A Motion of the Soul toward Good’’ (TRL 8).⁵ What this means is any sort of mental bias, inclination or striving—elsewhere he describes it as a species of ‘‘Willing’’ (IW 2: 133)—towards things on account of their positive value. Aware that it is ‘‘somewhat Metaphorical’’ (TRL 14) to speak of the ‘motion’ of the soul, Norris devotes a whole section to drawing out the parallels between love and physical motion. For example, he endorses the observation of ‘‘The excellent Monsieur Malebranch’’ (TRL 14) that, just as motion continues along a straight line unless otherwise deflected, so our inclinations tend only towards true good unless deflected otherwise by some foreign or external cause (TRL 15). We never fall away from goodness but are always seduced away from it. He finds a further comparison between love and specifically gravitational motion. Just as the Earth is a great magnet causing physical bodies to move towards it, so goodness might be thought of as a great magnet causing what we could call ‘‘Moral Gravity’’ (TRL 16).⁶ He even finds points of comparison between love and the specific motion of the heart. As the beating of our hearts is what gives life to our bodies, so is love ‘‘the Spring and Ferment of the Soul, that gives her Life and Energy, and without which she would be utterly torpid and unactive’’ (TRL 20). Love is the life-blood of our souls. It is hard not to agree with such an observation. ⁵ Cf. ‘‘By Love here I understand that original Weight, Bent or Endeavour whereby the Soul of Man stands inclined and is moved forwards to Good in general or Happiness’’ (MDL 13). For a parallel definition in Malebranche see The Search after Truth, Bk. I, ch. I (LO 5). ⁶ Cf. ‘‘God is the true great Magnet of our Souls’’ (MDL 17).

5.1 the theory of love  5.1.2 Two Kinds of Love Absolutely central to Norris’s thinking about love is the distinction he draws between two quite different sorts of love, which he terms on the one hand Concupiscence or Desire, and on the other Benevolence or Charity. At the simplest level, these are distinguished by a difference in their objects. Desire is ‘‘A Simple Tendency of the Soul to Good, not at all considering whether it wills it to any Person or Being’’ (TRL 25), while benevolence is ‘‘a desiring or willing of Good to some Person or Being that is capable of it’’—capable, that is, of enjoying or receiving it (TRL 42). The object of the one is some good in general, while the object of the other is the specific circumstance of its being enjoyed by some definite individual or individuals (be it another person or oneself). Norris illustrates nicely the difference between the two by referring to the biblical injunction to love both God and our neighbour (TRL 7–8).⁷ The common word here might suggest to us that this calls for a common attitude to each, but if we reflect on the matter we see that this cannot be so. To love our neighbour is to wish them well; it is what Norris calls benevolence or charity. But we cannot wish well to God, for, necessarily, He is already perfectly complete and happy; with Him things are already going as well as they possibly could. So the love we are called upon to render to God must be something different; it is what Norris calls Concupiscence or Desire. It is a sheer delight in the thing itself.⁸, ⁹ It must be said that neither ‘concupiscence’ nor ‘desire’ are especially helpful terms here; the former because of its connotation of attachment to the ‘things of the world’, and the latter because desire in ordinary ⁷ Matthew 23: 37–9; Luke 10: 27. ⁸ Cf. ‘‘We do not love God by wishing any Good to him (whereof he is not capable) but by wishing him as a Good to our selves. On the contrary, we do not, or at least should not love our Neighbour by wishing him as a Good to our selves, (for he is not our Good) but by wishing Good to him. That is in short, we love God with Love of Desire, and we love our Neighbour with Love of Benevolence or Charity’’ (MDL 71–2). ⁹ Malebranche too distinguishes between the love appropriate for God and that owed to our neighbour, but his contrast is different. He distinguishes between the ‘‘love of union’’ reserved for God and the ‘‘love of benevolence’’ due to our neighbour. Treatise on Ethics Pt. II, ch. 6, §§vi–ix (trans. Craig Walton (Kluwer, 1993), 169–70).

 love parlance can just as easily be for some specific good for some specific person (I can desire that my children pass their exams). It is important to note that Norris does not believe it is actually possible for either of these species of love to occur without the other. He insists, ‘‘these Motions are always concomitant and reciprocal. There is no Desire without Benevolence, and no Benevolence without Desire’’ (TRL 13). That is to say, we cannot desire some general good without at the same time desiring that it be enjoyed by some or other person, for general goods do not exist except as enjoyed. Nor can we seek to aid any specific individual without in the process valuing or desiring that good which we seek to bring them. But just as shape and size, left and right, giver and gift, though they cannot exist without each other, are nonetheless things very different from one another, Norris insists that these two kinds of love are distinct, even if they can only ever be held apart in an act of understanding, as mental abstractions (TRL 25–6). Although for the most part Norris explains the distinction between these types of love as deriving from a difference in their objects, when it is first introduced a slightly different terminology is used. He contrasts what he calls a certain ‘‘Connaturality or Coaptation of the Soul to Good’’ with the ‘‘actual motions and Tendencies’’ towards good which arise from it. The first he calls ‘‘Moral Gravity’’, the second ‘‘Moral Gravitation’’ (TRL 8–9). In the same vein, he says love may be ‘‘consider’d either barely as a Tendency towards Good, or as a willing this Good to some Person or Being’’ (TRL 12).¹⁰ This is to present the distinction as one between the capacity which causes the movement of our soul and that motion itself, between a disposition for love and actual loving. These two alternative ways of explaining the distinction among types of love may perhaps be reconciled if we reflect that, in broadly the same way as desiring some good for someone in particular may be a concrete manifestation of desire for that good in general, so a ¹⁰ Norris also uses this way of making the distinction when first introduced in the early ‘Letter Concerning Love and Music.’ See n. 1 above.

5.1 the theory of love  particular episode of loving may be regarded as the actualization of a deeper and otherwise unrealized amatory tendency. For example, becoming a parent might involve the expression of one’s hitherto latent and unmanifested love of small children, or falling in love with your boss might disclose your underlying attraction to people in authority. The disposition grounds and makes possible its specific expression, in the same way as an attraction generally conceived makes possible its more specific manifestation. Norris is working within a tradition here. Aristotle classified friendships into three kinds according to whether the mutual love of friends derives from the use they can get from each other, the pleasure they can derive from each other, or from the admiration and respect they have for each other. Only in the last case—in perfect or complete friendship—do people wish well to others for their own sake rather than for what can be got out of them. Drawing on Aristotle’s discussion and contrasting this third case with the first two, Aquinas distinguishes between love of friendship or benevolence (amicitia) and love of desire or possession (concupiscentia). In the one case we wish good to that which we love, but in the other case we rather wish its good for ourselves, loving it in the same way as we might love wine or a horse. This is the love associated with the world of the flesh. It is very much the same distinction Descartes has in mind when he contrasts benevolent love (amour de bienveillance) which ‘‘prompts us to wish for the well-being of what we love’’ and concupiscent love (amour de concupiscence) ‘‘which makes us desire the things we love’’.¹¹ However, these traditional understandings are modified in Norris’s hands. For him benevolence or friendship could be for ourselves as much as for others (TRL 93 ff.); the point is simply that it be for the specific enjoyment of some specific person. It could not, however, be directed to God. And concupiscence is not restricted to the sensuous things of this world but just as appropriately directed to God or other abstract values. ¹¹ Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Bk.VIII, ch. 3; Aquinas, Summa Theologicae, Pt. 2a2ae, Qu. 23, Art. 1; Descartes, Passions of the Soul, 2: 81 (CSM I: 356).

 love 5.1.3 Primary and Secondary Goods Both of these kinds of love, desire and benevolence, raise interesting problems of their own. With regard to desire, Norris draws a distinction between its primary and secondary objects, between original and derivative goods which we may desire. That motion of the soul which is love, he says, is impress’d upon the Soul primarily and originally by good in general, or by the universal good or Essence of good, that is, by God himself, who is the Sum and Abstract of all Goodness, and the Centre of all Love. (TRL 9)

Desire is directed towards God, or the Good in general, as its ‘‘primary and adequate Object’’. But, although fundamentally we desire goodness itself, we may also desire various secondary goods, say, pleasure, wealth, truth, or beauty. However, argues Norris, such particular objects of desire are sought only in so far as they manifest primary goodness itself, ‘‘only so far as they have something of the common Nature of Good, something of God in them’’ (TRL 10). Thus, although it is not false to hold that we desire many different specific things, at a more general level—and, Norris would say, a more fundamental one—we are in each case desiring the self-same thing; the good itself. One point worthy of our attention here is his almost causal equation of the Good with God. The meaning and grounds of this identification are something we have already considered in a previous chapter,¹² but it is worth dwelling here on its implications for the whole situation Norris grasps in a strongly theological light. As God, the greatest good of all, in creation brought forth from Himself the numerous secondary goods that are the things of this world, so, thinks Norris, our love for Him ‘‘becomes also multiplied, and divides its Course among several Chanels’’. But although with regard to their immediate objects they are greatly varied and multiplied, ultimately all of our many loves may be traced up to a single ‘‘Head Fountain’’—our one true love ¹² See above pp. 38–9.

5.1 the theory of love  (TRL 10; also 26–7). All love is for God, either directly, or in so far as He is manifested in the goodness of created things. He is the source and proper object of all love; not something behind the world’s goodness, distinct from it, but continuous with it as is a spring with the water that flows out from it. As we shall see below, this was a theme that came increasingly to the fore in Norris’s later thoughts about love.¹³ It is important at this point to note that the claim that God is our one true object of love, is a direct parallel to the epistemological claim we considered in Chapters 1 and 2, namely that God is the one true object of our knowledge, that He is truth itself. ‘‘Particular goods are as much loved in the universal good, as Particular Beings are seen and perceiv’d in the universal Being’’ says Norris (RR 237). That his theory brings together knowledge and sentiment, making God our only perfection, the goal both of our understanding and our wills, Norris regarded as one of the great advantages of his overall philosophy (IW 2: 559–60). Despite the complexities and divisions of our human nature we can have a unified conception of ourselves as, in all respects, created by and created for God. It might well be asked on what basis does Norris make this claim, what non-trivial grounds has he for holding that, on generalization, all distinct desires resolve into one?¹⁴ An answer to this question may be found in Reason and Religion where, drawing heavily on the comparison between love and physical motion, he finds a parallel with the ancient puzzle of the ultimate origin of the latter. ‘‘I consider, [says Norris] that there is the same necessity of a first Mover in Moral, as there is in Natural motions’’ (RR 233). In both cases it is necessary to distinguish between particular causes and the universal cause behind them all. Individual instances of motion are caused by the pressure or impulse of particular bodies one against another, but the cause of motion in general is the first mover of the ¹³ See below p. 156 ff. ¹⁴ It is, of course, trivially true that all objects of desire have the common property of being ‘desirable’. But that doesn’t mean that there is really only one feature which all valuable things share.

 love universe at large, God (RR 231). Similarly, individual cases of love are brought about by individual goods, but the universal efficient cause of love, is God or the Good Itself (RR 233). That is, just as individual instances of movement may be taken to presuppose an originating injection of motion which is then subsequently transferred from one body to another, so the ultimate source of love in the universe is God, whatever its immediate or occasioning cause. No more than motion, is love able to create itself. But as its creator, Norris goes on, God must necessarily determine the ultimate goal of this love to be Himself, it being impossible that He should have any ultimate goal beyond Himself (RR 235). There simply can be no goal external to God, making Him the universal final cause of love as well as its universal efficient cause. This last equation introduces a slight disanalogy between love and physical motion. Only in the particular case of attraction do bodies move towards the cause of their motion, while it is standard for the cause and the object of love to coincide—we love precisely that object which causes us to love it.¹⁵ In sum, and to choose a slightly different analogy, as all water comes from the sea and aims ultimately to return there, so all love comes from God and that is where it must finally return. In this argument we begin to see that the comparison between love and motion is working as more than just a metaphor. But reflecting further on this section of Reason and Religion, it might be wondered if Norris is not pressing an even stronger case. For we could read him as saying, not merely that love and physical motion are parallel, but that they are in fact at bottom one; that the underlying causality of the physical world is essentially the same as that of the moral world. The whole universe is run by God, but God is love, and so we may say that the whole universe is run by love. Such a reading¹⁶ goes some way towards healing the radical dichotomy in the universe introduced by Norris’s Cartesian ¹⁵ Although, as McTaggart showed (The Nature of Existence, 1921–7, ch. I, §§465–6) this is not always the case; for we may continue to love an object long after its occasioning cause has ceased. ¹⁶ This reading was suggested to me by Leslie Armour.

5.1 the theory of love  dualism, for the Good is at work alike in both the spiritual and the material realm. As Norris expresses it in his poem ‘Love’ addressed to the passion itself: Love’s the great spring of Nature’s wheel, Love does the mass pervade and move, What ‘scapes the sun’s, does thy warm influence feel, The Universe is kept in tune by love. Thou Nature giv’st her sympathy, The center has its charm from thee.

It is, perhaps, surprising that so central a metaphysical theme should not feature more prominently in Norris’s magnum opus, the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, but the gap may be put down to his changing focus. By the time his great work appeared the new experimental philosophy of Locke and Newton was firmly on the rise, as nominalist as it was empiricist. Spurred by charges that his own view was just so much ‘‘Platonick Gibberish’’ (IW 1: ii) Norris felt called to defend the Ideal World, both in itself (Part One) and in relation to our knowledge (Part Two). Consequently, but unfortunately, he never developed what could have become a third and much needed part to the book detailing its relation to the natural world. Yet in this neglect he was only perpetuating what has always been a weakness of Platonic thought. 5.1.4 Freedom One of the greatest differences between love of the primary good and the love of secondary goods is that the former is irresistible while the latter leaves room for human freedom. We move towards God with complete inevitability, thinks Norris. Love to the universal Good is natural, necessary and unavoidable. We have no more command over this Love than we have over the Circulation of our Blood or the Motion of our Pulse ... in our Love of him we are as much determin’d as Fire is to burn, or a Stone to descend. (TRL 27)¹⁷ ¹⁷ See also TRL 17. The Idea was, further, one which Norris expressed in poetry in his later Essay:

 love As something like a universal law drawing us beyond ourselves and a movement over which we have no free control it is unclear whether such love is really well thought of as a kind of willing (IW 2: 133), but with the love of particular, secondary, goods matters are otherwise. It is not that our love towards these things is not subject to necessity. For if we are compelled to love good in general, and that manifests itself precisely in particular objects, how can that not but issue in a measure of necessity for particular cases also (RR 238)? Norris suggests, however, that while both species of love necessitate, they do so in different manners (RR 242). Specifically the fact that particular goods are many (unlike goodness itself which is unitary) means they can come into conflict with each other, and any one lose out to another. It is never therefore inevitable that we pursue any one particular good (TRL 27). We may be impelled towards two goals, but if they clash and only one can win out, there can be no absolute necessity in either’s influence upon us. In the same way no particular evil is ever hated or shunned absolutely, and may even be embraced, for example, to avoid a yet greater evil (TRL 28). While the good itself commands invariable allegiance, there is room with particular goods for a more variable pattern of influence. Norris insists that everything we love is good in itself, but, although separately each is good, in relation to one another or to the universal good, choice may become necessary and variability make its appearance. It might be doubted whether choice would really introduce any deep variety into this situation for would we not always choose the better of two options? If the greatest good draws us inexorably, would not greater goods draw us more strongly than lesser ones, with the consequence that any variability in our adoption of particular goods would be superficial only? Underneath would Lay down Proud Heart thy rebel Arms, And own thy Conquerour Divine, In vain thou do’st resist such Charms, In vain the Arrows of his Love decline. (IW 1: 174)

5.1 the theory of love  still reign the grip of law. But this is not Norris’s view. As he understands it there is a crucial epistemological element at work in cases of choice which utterly transforms the situation. Norris is convinced that no one can knowingly choose evil, or even less than the best. Whatever is chosen, it must be chosen under the appearance of good—even the devil can’t love evil as evil (RR 253). In this, Norris shows once again his Platonic credentials. However, it is always possible to misestimate the value of things and so choose a lesser over a greater good. In this way thinks Norris, ‘‘All irregularity of Love is founded upon ignorance and mistake’’ (RR 252–3). Apparent akrasia—action for less than the best—is a function of failure in knowledge rather than failure in will or agency. Norris’s account of liberty here should perhaps by rights have lead him to make a slight change in his definition of love; from a movement of the soul towards good, to a movement of the soul towards perceived good. For on this model we love that which we think to be best, rather than that which necessarily is so. Taken baldly, however, such an unrestricted change would be very damaging to his theory. If what we love is genuinely good Norris may with fairness employ the model of gravity—he may think of it as pulling us towards it—but if we love simply what we perceive to be good, then it may not be good at all. It may be bad. In which case the motive power impelling us towards it would have to come from us, and not from its own goodness, from the presence of God in it. Norris would be unwilling to make such a radical change, and to avoid doing so he has to hold that we misperceive only how good something is; only its measure of goodness. We cannot perceive as good that which has no goodness about it. We have no power to love the unlovable, only to love the loveable in the wrong amount or situation. Norris’s account of freedom in love should be compared with that of Malebranche. Though gratefully acknowledging its close proximity to his account, in precise details Norris takes himself

 love to differ from Malebranche (TRL 29–30; RR 238 f.). He presents Malebranche as holding that there is necessity in our love of primary good and complete indifference in our attachment to secondary goods. This is a mistaken interpretation of Malebranche, whose actual view is in fact closer to Norris’s own than he realizes, but in one respect Norris certainly has the edge on Malebranche. Since Malebranche is a complete occasionalist, it is hard to see how he can attribute to spirits even such a modest power as to influence the direction of their desires. Norris, on the other hand, though certainly no more able to explain it than anyone else, has no qualms about holding spirits ‘‘active’’, in both thought and volition (IW 2: 134), and so perhaps is able to make such a theory work. But even if their views are closer than Norris thinks, that does not show that Malebranche was his source. And in fact the ideas to be found here in Theory and Regulation of Love are very close to those of Norris’s sermon on freedom about which he corresponded with Henry More some years before his ‘discovery’ of Malebranche. The correspondence with More began (in Latin) in January 1684, touching on a number of topics in ethics, but the following year Norris gave and printed a sermon on Romans 12: 3, on the subject of freedom, dedicating it to More. And after that their correspondence, which continued until 1686, focused upon what Norris had argued in this address. The sermon was reprinted in 1687 in the Miscellanies, and their correspondence together with a summary of the sermon appeared in 1688 in the Theory and Regulation of Love. In the sermon, Norris argues (as Kant was later to do) that since we are capable of virtue and vice we must be free and that, since these are the only two options, our freedom must lie either in the will or the understanding. It cannot reside in will, since will necessarily follows understanding; we cannot help but act in accordance with how we understand things to be. It must therefore reside in understanding. But the manner in which this is so is not simple. Understanding is not obviously free; we can only understand things as they appear to us. The way they appear to us, however, is a function of the attention we pay to them,

5.1 the theory of love  and that—whether we pay attention or not, as well as how much attention we pay—is something over which we do have control. We can choose through inattention to misperceive the world, to fail to see the true value of things, opening up for us the possibility of acting for less than the best. Despite the obvious similarity with Malebranche, this position is arrived at quite independently, the two main sources to which Norris refers the reader being the Scholasticism of Aquinas and the Neo-Platonism of Hierocles.¹⁸ 5.1.5 Disinterested Love A further matter in the philosophy of love which occupied Norris’s attention was the question whether love is always interested, or motivated towards oneself? Or is it possible to love disinterestedly, without regard to any benefit that might accrue to oneself? This Norris takes as equivalent to the question of whether love always arises from lack or defect, or as he calls it, ‘‘indigence’’. Would a being who was complete, who lacked nothing, love at all? Or would such a being, having everything it needed, want for any motivation to love others? With respect to the first of the two great species of love, desire, Norris finds the case clear-cut. He says that all Love of Concupisence does proceed from Indigence, and ends in SelfLove. For all Desire is in order to further Perfection and Improvement, and did we not want something within, we should not endeavour towards any thing without. (TRL 45)

That we desire only what we lack has one clear consequence which Norris immediately draws, viz. that God is incapable of such love. Since God is utterly self-complete, He is incapable of desiring anything. Turning from desire to benevolence, on the other hand, Norris finds the situation quite different. He urges that this species of love ¹⁸ Norris finds the view that the will follows the dictate of the understanding in Aquinas (Miscellanies, 340) and attributes the view that defect may be attributed to insufficient failure to attend to the Beauty of Supreme goodness to Hierocles (Miscellanies, 343).

 love may be directed either at oneself or at others, that is, it may occur either in the form of self-love or charity. In making this claim, Norris finds himself in disagreement with those who would argue that all love is self-love, that there is no such thing as disinterested concern. Immediately Norris is prepared to make two concessions. It is true, he admits, that benevolent love is all too often born out of indigence—‘‘Our charity not only begins at Home, but for the most part ends there too. For it must be confess’d that we generally love others with respect to our own Interest’’ (TRL 46). Moreover, allows Norris, it is true also that helping others is always a pleasure and benefit to ourselves as well—‘‘a Man cannot benefit another without doing some Kindness to himself, either in the Consequence and final Issue of things, or in the very Act of Benefaction’’ (TRL 46). But to say it is rare is not to say it never occurs, while to admit it brings us pleasure is not to say that that is why we do it in the first place, and so Norris insists that there is still room for genuinely altruistic or disinterested love—‘‘all Love is not, as some pretend, resolvable into Self-Love, or founded upon Indigence’’ (TRL 50). On what grounds did Norris believe in disinterested love? He gives a two-fold argument. First, he argues that there is nothing in the nature of the case why we should not seek the good for another. It is just as much a case of good, as the good for ourselves, and it is no less reasonable to seek the one than the other.¹⁹ The desirability of the good and the rationality of seeking it, does not vary according to its manifestation in one person or another. Second, Norris appeals to what he thinks are the facts of the matter. Theologically, God’s creation of the world and His concern for creatures must be matters of pure benevolence, holds Norris, since, lacking nothing, He has absolutely nothing to gain from it.²⁰ ¹⁹ ‘‘Good as anothers, or to another, is Good as well as one’s own, and therefore may be the Object of Volition’’ (TRL 47). ²⁰ ‘‘ ... the falseness of this Epicurean Principle, is put out of all Question to us who believe a Creation; for if, that Love proceeds from want, be an Argument that a perfect Being can have no Love, then we may argue as well the other way, that if a perfect Being does Love, then Love does not proceed from want. And we have a sufficient discovery of this in the Creation, which considering the Self-sufficiency of the Divine Nature, must needs

5.1 the theory of love  This was a view he had long ago found in Hierocles, a translation of whose Golden verses of the Pythagoreans was one of the first things he ever published.²¹ But even in the human world, suggests Norris, we can find many ready examples of such disinterested love. He instances kindness to those we shall never see again, or who are dying, or when we ourselves are dying, and happiness at the success of those who lived before us, or with whom we have no contact (TRL 49). Moreover, Norris adds, were love a function of our indigence or need we would love less as our fortunes rose, but no such fluctuation occurs—peoples’ kindness or altruism do not change as they become more self-sufficient (TRL 50). In arguing against the view that all love is self-love, Norris cites the Epicureans and even Plato. His contemporary readers might well have thought of Hobbes, and modern readers no doubt could think of many other figures, but perhaps most interestingly of all Norris finds himself in disagreement here with Malebranche. According to Malebranche all love aims at happiness. In consequence, we cannot love others, and certainly not God, in a disinterested way, for we are always seeking our own happiness. And what applies to us applies just as much to God. God could not have created man out of benevolence towards Him, since that would be to set Him up as an end in Himself external to God. No more may we regard His be the effect of a pure, unselfish, and disinterested Love’’ (Practical Discourses II (1691), 214–15). ‘‘Creation doth both suppose and produce Love towards the Creature, suppose it as the Principle, and produce it as the Effect, it being impossible that God should either Create what he did not Love, or not Love what he has Created’’ (Practical Discourses II (1691), 211). The idea was also one which Norris expressed poetically in his ‘A Divine Hymn on the Creation’. In that poem, to the question, why if ‘‘He is one unmov’d self-centr’d point of rest’’ did God create at all? The answer is given: Love mov`ed Him to create Beings that might participate Of their Creator’s happy state, And that good which He could not heighten, to dispence. ²¹ ‘‘there can be no other reasonable cause alledg’d of the worlds Production, besides the essential goodness of God. For God is naturally good, and consequently cannot possibly conceive any envy or hatred against the condition of any Creature’’ (Hierocles upon the Golden verses of the Pythagoreans translated immediately out of the Greek into English (1682), 6).

 love grace as distributed for the sake of individual sinners. God’s dispensation of grace (in line with His operation in nature at large) is by general volitions; He wills that all be saved. Of course not all are saved, but Malebranche avoids awkward implications of the inefficacy of divine will by holding that God acts anyway for His own glory and not out of disinterested love for creation. Norris disagrees completely with this, holding that both man and God can act out of pure benevolence. Malebranche’s opposition to disinterested love occurred as part of the notorious controversy over quietism (‘la Querelle du qui´etisme’) which took place in France in the closing years of the seventeenth century, as he joined Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627–1704) in attacking the ideas of Fran¸cois F´en´elon (1651–1715) who had argued that perfection involves getting rid of self-love altogether, even to the extent we should become indifferent to our own eternal fate. In this connection it is important to note Norris affirms here only the rationality of loving others, not strict impartiality—the view that their good should be just as important to me as my own. Norris’s position, that desire is always self-interested but benevolence need not be, is an unusual one. It is not entirely clear why he regards desire as different in this way from benevolence. Influenced perhaps by the connotations of ‘possession’ in the term ‘desire’, he seems to think that we can desire only what we lack. In this he might almost be accused of blurring the distinction between desire and benevolence, for in so far as the former is treated as a striving on the part of the desirer to enjoy or possess the object of their desire it seems really to be a self-directed version of the second species of love.²² Surely, it might be thought, there exists a species of desire which seeks not to acquire something or make good any gap in ourselves, but is a sheer delight in the nature or being of another. Norris, however, is certain that we cannot desire anything unless we in some sense derive some good from it. Another puzzle ²² At places Norris looks especially open to this charge, e.g. ‘‘We do not love God by wishing any Good to him ... but by wishing him as a Good to our selves’’ (MDL 71).

5.2 the regulation of love  is how it is possible for there to be disinterested benevolence, if benevolence is always coincident with desire, which is necessarily always self-interested. However, Norris’s point seems to be this. Whatever we desire, we must regard it as good, and expect to be pleased or happy at its coming to pass. And in that regard, with a certain lack of sensitivity towards the subtleties on intentional contexts, we might be said to desire our own happiness. If its occurrence would not make us happy, we do not desire it at all. But nothing whatsoever follows from this regarding the actual content of our desire, just what it is that we seek and whose attainment we expect to make us happy. It may (if we are selfish) be some advancement to ourselves, but equally (if we are considerate) it may be something for someone else.

5.2 The Regulation of Love 5.2.1 The Need for Regulation Leaving the theory of love behind, Norris moves on to consider questions about its practical application; regulatory questions, that is, of when and where we should place our affection. It might be wondered what need there is for such restrictions. Why should we not love whatsoever and whenever we choose? Norris is sufficiently Aristotelian, however, to believe that each thing in nature has its own proper function and role, the human heart included. Love is, as we saw, an impulse towards the good and to place it anywhere else would be a perversion. Yet still the need might be questioned. For if love is a natural impulse towards the good, what need has it of our own interference? Can it not be left to its own devices? As he later put it, ... need any Power or Faculty be under any other Law, than that of its own Nature, to delight in its proper Object? Does the Sense want a Precept to be pleased with the sensible Good? Need we address ourselves to the Eye to persuade it to love Light, or take pains to exhort the Ear to delight in harmonious Sounds? (MDL 1–2)

 love Alas, the matter is not so easy as this. Indeed, ‘‘as ’tis impossible not to love at all’’, Norris argues ‘‘so it is one of the Hardest things in the World to love well’’ (TRL 53). The difficulty (as we saw above) arises from mistaken choice, from our miscalculation of the value of things. But unfortunately, thinks Norris, that is something to which we are all too prone. Often we simply fail to pay sufficient attention, a particular problem being our tendency to regard things only in isolation, failing to take account of the value which they have when they occur in combination with other things: ‘‘For to observe how things are in Combination requires Thought and reflection’’ (TRL 55), which commonly we are in too much of a hurry to spend. Norris reveals here the flexibility and contextualism of his ethical thinking; there can be no absolute valuations for due attention must always be paid to individual circumstances. Another major obstacle to our loving properly, thinks Norris, is the great attachment we all have to the pleasures of sense (TRL 56). We are creatures of both flesh and spirit, each of which has its own distinct satisfactions and attractions. Sadly though, we have an unfortunate tendency to rank the former over the latter, causing us to choose intense but short-lived bodily gratification which, were it presented alone, would be good enough, but which, when it leads us to pass over the greater and longer-lasting good of our souls, must be regarded as a bad choice indeed (RR 257–8). Judgements of value, once again, are comparative. The task then is to properly order our affections, to love everything according to the laws of regularity, harmony, and appropriateness laid down by God. In affirming the existence of such laws, Norris draws direct comparison with nature, suggesting that God, ‘‘who loves Order, and takes care for the Perfection of both Worlds, has prescribed both Laws of Motion and Laws of Love’’ (TRL 59). Norris says little specifically about metaethics, but it is clear from what he says elsewhere about eternal truths—of which he includes the principles of moral regulation as a species (IW 1: 380)—that he regards moral laws as both necessary and capable

5.2 the regulation of love  of being discerned by human reason.²³ A little of this understanding comes out in his disagreements with Locke. Contra Locke’s claim that there are no practical principles commanding universal assent (ECHU 1.3.1), he insists that ‘‘there are not only as Certain but as Uncontested Propositions in Morality as in any other Science’’ (CR 14). While contra Locke’s anti-realist claim that the difference between virtue and vice derives solely from the ‘‘approbation or dislike, praise or blame, which by a secret and tacit consent establishes it self in the several Societies, Tribes and Clubs of Men in the World’’ (ECHU 2.28.10), Norris insists that these differing attitudes in fact presuppose those values; that a thing is not good because it is praised, but rather praised because it is good. Ethics rests upon ‘‘more certain and immutable grounds’’ than the fickle contingencies of human preference (CR 33), it is a response to objective values which derive ultimately from the Being of God who is objective goodness Itself. In the Ideal Realm, along with the Divine Ideas and Essences, are included ‘‘the necessary and unchangeable Laws of Good and Evil’’ (IW 1: 433). Norris’s discussion of how to regulate ourselves according to these laws is best understood by following his own order, as he works through the possible objects of love. These fall into two classes, he says; those we must love, and those we may love. 5.2.2 Love of God It is only appropriate that Norris begins with the case of God. God is ‘‘the First Desirable as well as the First Intelligible’’, says Norris, once again making the connection between love and knowledge (TRL 69). God is the most desirable thing of all, the greatest good there can be—indeed nothing less than goodness itself—and hence the greatest possible object of our love. In truth, in a very real sense He is the only possible object of desire for, as that lying ²³ Although he admits that they have not the same power to convince, Norris thinks ‘‘Truths of a moral Nature’’ can be ‘‘no less certain ... and demonstrated with equal Evidence’’ as physical or mathematical ones (LOG 217–18).

 love behind all which we do love, in whatever we love, we love Him. In Norris’s words, just ‘‘as we see and understand all things in him, so in him we desire all that we desire’’ (TRL 69). Without going into any discussion of the limits of human love, it is asserted that we can never love God too much (TRL 70), for God is infinitely good and calls forth from us all that we have. Norris argues that we have a duty to love God, but he is quite specific about the nature of this duty. The love which we owe God is not the love of benevolence, for that makes no sense. We cannot wish Him well, or do anything for Him, for He already has everything. Norris knows himself to be out on a limb here. I know very well that I am singular in this Point, and that nothing is more common among those that treat of the Love of God, than to talk of it as a Love of Benevolence, and accordingly they always express our Love to God and our Love to our Neighbour under the same common Appellation of Charity, as if they were both one and the same Love. (TRL 63–4)

But Norris stands his ground. The love we have for God is not any wish for His betterment, but a sheer delight in Him as He is. And though it might seem obscure, in terms of theological attitude this is a point with real significance. For example, out of love for God we might feel tempted to regret the pain our sin has caused Him and seek to live better lives in future, lives more pleasing to Him. But on Norris’s conception such an understanding of repentance must be flawed. Another consequence concerns the possibility of loving those who are irredeemably evil. Just as it is impossible to have benevolent love towards God, someone who has everything and whom our love cannot possibly benefit, it is, argues Norris, equally impossible to love devils or the dammed, for it makes no sense to wish good upon those incapable of receiving it, and love thinks Norris is sufficiently logical that ‘‘we cannot exert any Act of Love, which we know to be in vain and to no purpose at all’’ (TRL 99). If this sounds a harsh doctrine, it might be wondered if any free creature could ever be irredeemably evil.

5.2 the regulation of love  But if he cannot be the recipient of our benevolence, neither will it do simply to say that our duty to love God is a duty to desire Him, for Norris holds (as we have already seen) that desire for God is unavoidable, an irresistible bias in us all, and no one can be morally obliged to do that which they cannot help but do. Obligation requires the possibility of being able to do otherwise. On these grounds Norris holds that our precise obligation is in fact to desire God distinctly and explicitly rather than confusedly and implicitly (TRL 62–3). We must come to consciously acknowledge and embrace the love which has hitherto driven us but unconsciously; to recognize that all that we have of value is from God, and all that we seek of value is in Him. The basis of this obligation is somewhat the same as that we bear to truth, to the discovery of the true situation in which we find ourselves; as the implicit object of all our happiness, says Norris, ‘‘ ’tis highly reasonable’’ that God should be loved explicitly (TRL 68). 5.2.3 Love of Community The second thing which we must desire is the good of the community. It is somewhat curious that Norris regards this as a species of desire rather than benevolence, for it has a definite subject who benefits from the aspiration in a quite determinate way. But perhaps the fact that community is a plurality and, it could even be said, an abstraction, explains why he regards it as a generalized rather than a specifically directed object of love. Certainly a person might set their sights on welfare or social good in the same sort of way they might on money, love, status, or beauty. It is worth noting the extremely high value which Norris places on the good of the community. It is, he thinks, next to God Himself, ‘‘the greatest possible Good’’ (TRL 71). This explains why it is an obligatory object of love, rather than just a recommended or permissible one. Equally noteworthy is the nature of its goodness. The good of the community is, of course, the coming together of many personal

 love goods—the greatest happiness of the greatest number, perhaps even of all—but for Norris its very great value is more than that, more than a mere sum. The Good of the whole, ‘‘than which, nothing can be greater’’ is, he urges, the end where all private aims point, conspire, and concentre, producing ‘‘the greatest Order, and the greatest Harmony that can possibly result from the Creature, and is the very next Resemblance of the Perfection of God, who is all in all’’ (TRL 71). He likens social interest to musical harmony, where sounds come together and are desired for their effect collectively rather than individually (TRL 72), and, a little later on, to a stone arch, where each stone supports the others (TRL 97). In short, we have a situation in which the value of the whole is greater than the sum of the values of all the parts. The harmonious union of interests has an intrinsic value all of its own. The fact that British social philosophy has always tended to be individualistic, makes Norris’s social conception of human good all the more interesting. It is perhaps best understood in terms of his tendency towards absolutist thought which was discussed in Chapter 3. As all are unified in ‘intimate union’ with God, so they may become unified in organic social wholes of shared value. Their many goods are but different streams and currents in one great river. Understood in this way Norris’s view perhaps most closely resembles the social philosophy of the British Idealists, especially the doctrine of the Common Good as found in T. H. Green.²⁴ 5.2.4 Love of Pleasure Turning from what we must to that which we may desire, Norris argues that it is permissible for us to desire pleasure. He gives two reasons. In the first place it must be accepted that the desire for pleasure is both part of our original human nature and something we could never overcome. It would be both morally wrong and, besides, quite pointless, to attempt to frustrate or outlaw something which God has placed in us; something in the very ²⁴ T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics (1883), Bk. III, chs. III–IV.

5.2 the regulation of love  plan or Idea of humanity. In this respect Norris seems right. The theological context aside, no theory which attempted to counter such a fundamental and pervasive aspect of human nature could ever hope to be accepted. Norris’s second reason for thinking we may pursue pleasure, is simply that pleasure as pleasure, singly and simply in itself, is something good (TRL 77). Were this not the case our search for it would be simply perverse and inexplicable, love or the pursuit of what we desire being nothing but the soul’s movement towards the good. Love is precisely a response to goodness, and so it is no more possible to love something bad than, say, to hear something silent or see something invisible. We can only say that love is for something bad, ‘‘by reason of some accidental Combinations and Circumstances, wherein some higher Interest is opposed by it’’ (TRL 78), when, that is, our attachment to it causes us to lose an even greater good. Hence the fact that something is loved (as pleasure is) shows that there is at least something good about it. Pleasure may be either intellectual or sensual (TRL 79), and Norris realizes that, while few would want to outlaw the pursuit of intellectual satisfaction, his case may be less strong with respect to sensual pleasure, which many have argued to be evil, and whose pressing attraction even Norris himself admits is one of the principal causes of irregular love. Ever the theologian, he notes the considerable weight of past religious authority that has classified sensual pleasure as something bad rather than good (TRL 81–2, 89–91). Nonetheless, insists Norris, sensual pleasure is not evil. Focusing on sexual pleasure, he argues (as the happily married Anglican that he was) that it is not in itself wrong, because marriage is a divinely sanctioned institution, because God has given us sexual organs and appetites, and because all goodness comes from God—‘‘every particular Good, be it what it will, is a Ray and Emanation of the universal Good’’ (TRL 83). He concludes that our strong and original desire for sensory pleasure is not in itself formally evil or sinful. The most that can be said is that it apts to become an occasion of evil, its strength persuading us to enjoy

 love it in inappropriate instances, circumstances or amounts (TRL 92). This conclusion was one which Norris had already reached some years before when, in the course of his correspondence with the elderly philosopher, the then-still-bachelor had asked Henry More whether there be any ‘‘moral turpitude’’ in ‘‘sensuality’’ (TRL 137) which as More saw straightaway was but a roundabout way of referring to sex. Norris described himself as undecided between the view of traditional authorities who regarded it as sinful in itself, and considerations of the kind above. Assisted by More he was able to settle quickly on the view which he all along suspected, that it is only as inappropriately sought that sexual pleasure is a sin (TRL 151). It is interesting to note that Norris’s position here contrasts markedly with that of Malebranche, who holds an altogether more disapproving view of sensory pleasure. Where Norris regards it (in the right context and the right amounts) as something good, for Malebranche the delights of the body are but a sinful trap. God speaks immediately to the mind, and only in order to unite it to Himself ... The body speaks to the mind only for its own sake, to connect the mind to sensible objects. ... The body speaks to the mind to blind and corrupt it in its favour. The body, by means of pleasure, traps man and plunges him into his unhappiness. In a word,. ... this dependent relation of the mind to the body is the cause of all errors and all disorders into which we fall.²⁵

In consequence, we need to make an ascetic renunciation of bodily pleasure, which can only hold us back from heaven. True, ... we must not select that death which kills the body and ends our life. But we must select the death which chastises the body and diminishes life, I mean the sort of life which is due to the union of the mind with the body, or its dependence on the body. We must begin and continue our sacrifice here, and await its consummation and reward in God. For on earth the life of a Christian is a continual Sacrifice, by which he constantly immolates his body, his concupiscence, his self love for the ²⁵ Malebranche, Treatise on Ethics, Pt. I, ch. 10 (trans. Craig Walton, Kluwer, 1993), 114.

5.2 the regulation of love  love of Order ... we must labour all our lives at the mortification of the senses.²⁶

5.2.5 Love of Self Turning from desire to benevolence, Norris asks what may be regarded as appropriate measures in wishing well to specific persons. Such benevolence, it will be remembered, he divides into self-love and charity, or love for others. He begins with the former. At first glance Norris’s view about self-love may seem surprising, and not too attractive. In general, he says, self-love is a natural dictate of nature and a necessary instrument for attaining happiness and, as such, not only is it permissible, but in fact we cannot love ourselves too much. And he states as a general rule ‘‘that Self-Love is never culpable, when upon the whole matter all things being taken into the Account, we do truly and really love our selves’’ (TRL 95).²⁷ But immediately this is qualified to produce a very different picture. Self-love is to be outlawed says Norris only ‘‘when we love our selves by halves, and in some particular respects only to our greater Disadvantage in others of more Importance’’ (TRL 95). He gives three kinds of examples. We must not mistake our true selves, and end up wishing well to the worse or lower part of our nature. For example, to look after ourselves as animals more than as people. Nor, secondly, must we mistake our true interest, and end up wishing for some lesser good at the expense of a greater one. For example, Norris tells us, to gain the whole world, but lose our soul. Nor again, thirdly, must we wish any good for ourselves which is not consistent with the good of the community. It might be thought that, in so far as what is good for one’s self and what is good for the larger community has the potential to ²⁶ Malebranche, Treatise on Ethics, Pt. I, ch. 11 (trans. Craig Walton, Kluwer, 1993), 121–2. ²⁷ ‘‘ ’Tis most natural and necessary for every man (and indeed for every intelligent Being) to be a Lover of himself, and to covert whatsoever any way tends to the perfection of his Nature’’ (M 335).

 love come into conflict, Norris is setting forth a simple ranking here. But in fact his view is more subtle and interesting than that. It is not because the good of the community outweighs good for the self, that we must not set ourselves against community, rather it is because ... that which is against the Good of the Community, cannot be upon a final Consideration of things really for the Good of any particular Person in it. For the Good of the whole is the Good of the Part, and the Evil of the whole is the Evil of the Part. (TRL 97)

A good I sought for myself which opposed the legitimate satisfactions of others could not be my true good. Again we see the strongly social character of Norris’s conception of the human good. No doubt this is a hard teaching; not opposing the good of the community as a whole might require me to sacrifice my own interests and concerns, perhaps even my life. But herein lies the importance of identifying my true self and my true interests—if in giving up all that matters in my human life, even that life itself, I thereby arrive in heaven, I shall have served the true interests of my true self, my immortal soul. Moreover, Norris is clear that loving someone is not quite the same thing as valuing them. He laments the fact that most people tend to have far too high an opinion of themselves, their talents and attributes, wryly observing that, while generally we love others because we think well of them, all too often in our own case matters are sadly reversed and we think well of ourselves only because we first love ourselves (M 336). 5.2.6 Measures of Charity Turning from benevolence as shown to oneself to benevolence as shown to others, Norris moves on to consider the appropriate measures of charity. This section adds little to what has already been said. Again his social ethos is to the fore as he argues that, generally, we should be most benevolent towards those who are most likely to be serviceable to the public good (rather than, say,

5.2 the regulation of love  to our family and friends). There seems to be a slight whiff of paternalism in the air, as Norris argues that ... we ought to consider our Neighbour’s true and best Interest, will and do him that Good which he stands most in need of, and not do him a little Kindness which will end in a greater Mischief. (TRL 102)

We should not put his convenience before his necessity, for example, tending to the interests of his body at the expense of his soul. However, it should be added that such a weighting of his interests on our part is not strictly incompatible with our seeking his opinion as to what he regards as the most pressing of his needs. As a special case of charity, limited in scope yet extreme in force, Norris takes up the issue of friendship. That was a topic on which he had already written in his ‘Letter Concerning Friendship’ where, on being asked whether genuine friendship could exist between a man and his wife—a subject which the then as yet unmarried philosopher might well be interested in—he was drawn into discussing the nature of friendship in general.²⁸ However, the matter is here dealt with in greater system and detail. He defines friendship as a Sacred Inclosure of that Benevolence, which we owe to all Mankind in Common, and an Actual Exercise of that kindness to a few, which we would willingly show to all, were it practicable and consistent with our Faculties, Opportunities and Circumstances. (TRL 104)

The question of its regulation is considered under three heads. Concerning the contracting of friendships, Norris advises that we should choose a good and virtuous person, of sweet, liberal and obliging humour, and as close as possible in temperament and disposition to ourselves. He advises further that we limit the number of our friendships; that we be ‘‘kind ... to all, but intimate only with a few’’ (TRL 108). Concerning the conduct and maintenance of friendships Norris gives a whole raft of advice, such as that we look upon our friend as another self, that we love them fervently and constantly, that we trust them with our secrets, that we make use ²⁸ In the Miscellanies.

 love of their help and not feel shy about being in their debt, that we defend their reputation, that we ignore their faults, and that we always respect and never envy them (TRL 108–9). Advice is even offered concerning the dissolution of friendships. Norris argues that friendships may be dissolved, but only on account of the most serious descent into wickedness on the part of our friend, and not so long as it is felt there is any hope of amendment. Moreover where such divorce occurs, it must be effected without descending into hatred for our friend; ‘‘tho he has forfeited my Friendship, yet still I owe him common Charity’’ (TRL 111). If today all this is felt more a matter of good practical advice than real philosophy, that is a mark of our changed conception of the subject.

5.3 The Measure of Divine Love Norris’s conception of love was significantly developed in the years after Theory and Regulation of Love, and it is these developments which I now turn to consider. In the lengthy ‘Discourse Concerning the Measure of Divine Love’ (which appeared in 1693, in the third volume of his Practical Discourses), Norris considers the biblical text of Matthew 22: 37, ‘‘Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind’’. The usual understanding of this injunction, he notes, is that, so long as we love God most of all, it is compatible with our also loving other creatures. But can that really be right? Is it not ‘‘to cramp the sense of this great Commandment’’ (MDL 7) for: Can he be said with any tolerable sense to love God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his mind, that only loves him above all other things, at the same time allowing other things a share in his Love? Can he be said to love God with all his Love, that loves him only with a Part? What though that Part be the larger Part, ’tis but a Part still; and is a Part the Whole? (MDL 10)

Norris urges that the text needs to be read in a higher sense, as saying ‘‘that God be not only the principal, but the only Object

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of our Love’’ (MDL 11). Our religious calling must be taken in all earnestness and not watered down for more palatable consumption. But Norris’s aim in writing here is not simply to encourage or exhort his readers to a take a more challenging reading of their duty, it is to explain and justify that reading. Averring once again to the need for a rational basis to faith, he says, that ‘‘to make this appear intelligible Divinity, we must look about for a proper Ground for it in Philosophy’’ (MDL 12). It might be thought that Norris need not look very far for this. For (as we have seen already) it is his view that when we love things, we love that which in them reflects or comes from God, so that while they are the direct object of our esteem they are only secondary goods, the primary good being God Himself whom we love indirectly through them: ‘‘we love Particular Goods only as they carry some Impress of the universal; or to speak more properly, we love the universal Good in the Particulars’’ (TRL 10–11). So was it not already his view that all love is directed towards God? Without abandoning this view, Norris came to feel that it was not enough. There are two problems. In the first place the call is one to explicit consciousness. It is not enough that unbeknown to us, we do love God, since in loving other things we love Him. He must be explicitly the goal of our love. Secondly, the objects in question are distinct from Him, and so there is a danger of love being taken away from God after all. Our love for secondary goods is always potentially ambiguous. Do we love the things themselves, or do we love God in them? These are different, and so Norris feels that the matter needs to be clarified. In order to found a rational basis for his reading, Norris attempts to prove that God is the only author or cause of our love, and therefore that that love should be directed back to Him. Love he argues is an inclination towards the good and, as a basic part of our nature, it is the author of nature who has put this in us. But if He is the sole author and cause of our love has He not right and title to it all (MDL 15)? And if He has put this drive in us,

 love continues Norris, it can be to none other than Himself, for God acts only towards Himself. We must conclude, that ‘‘God intended himself as the sole Object of the Love which he produced’’ (MDL 17). This argument will be recognized as essentially the same as that which he gave in Reason and Religion.²⁹ In a postscript to the ‘Discourse’ (printed at the end of the volume) Norris offers a supplementary argument. As in our own understanding we should aim to conform to the understanding of God, so in willing we should aim to conform to the will of God. But God loves only Himself, and thus so should we love only Him (MDL 343).³⁰ The matter would be straightforward enough, but Norris finds a problem. In The Theory and Regulation of Love he had concluded that we may love pleasure, because to do so is natural and because it is good. But further reflection on this secondary good causes trouble, for if pleasure is good, surely we not only may love it but ought to love it. And if we ought to love it, we ought also to love what causes it. But surely created things cause us pleasure, so it seems that we ought to love them. The very structure of the world appears to undermine Norris’s interpretation of the divine call to love. It is worth isolating and considering the underlying principle here. We are to love nothing but what is lovely, nothing is lovely but what is good, nothing is good but what does us good, nothing does us good but what causes pleasure in us. Consequently we may love only and must love whatever, causes pleasure in us (MDL 57). The self-referential character of such a principle is impossible to avoid, and was later highlighted even more explicitly. Norris ²⁹ RR 231–5. See also above pp. 135–6. ³⁰ In concluding that, as an infinitely perfect and self-sufficient being, God can love nothing but Himself, Norris is quick to stress that this is only with respect to Wishing or Desiring for, as we have seen above (pp. 141–5), we are the objects of God’s disinterested benevolent love. However, Norris’s claim here that ‘‘God can desire nothing but what is Good and Desirable, and there being not the least degree of Good or Desirable, but what is contained in himself, in his own infinite Nature, ’tis impossible that he should desire any thing out of himself ’’ (MDL 343) is not strictly compatible with his earlier position that God is incapable of the love of concupiscence, or desire (TRL 46).

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emphasizes that ‘‘not Absolute, but Relative Good is the Formal Object of our Love; that is that we love a thing not as it is good in itself; but as ’tis good to us ... the absolute perfection of GOD must become relative before it can be the Object of our Love’’ (LOG 10–11). But in saying that all love aims at our own happiness, it is important to remember here that we are dealing with love of desire not love of benevolence, for as we saw above, it was always Norris’s view that while the latter may be disinterested, the former never is.³¹ Given its implausible egoism, we might be inclined to reject this principle, but Norris takes quite another path. He seeks to argue that, contrary to appearances, in fact nothing causes pleasure in us but God, thereby preserving the rule that we should love nothing but Him. The way in which Norris tries to argue this is by appeal to his occasionalist theory of sensation (which we have already examined³²). Pleasure is a sensation but, argues Norris, it is no more caused in us by external bodies than any other sensation. Rather objects cause impressions in our bodies, while at the same time sensations are implanted in our mind by God. And since they include pleasure, and the proper object of love is what gives us pleasure, then God is after all the only proper object of our love. God is the only possible source of pleasure and hence the only possible object of our love. So then ’tis not the Sun that enlightens us, but God by the Sun. ’Tis not the Fire that gives us Heat, but God by the Fire. ’Tis not the most delicate Fruit, or the richest Perfume, that delights either our Tast or our Smell, but ’Tis God alone that raises Pleasure in us by the Occasion of these Bodies. The whole matter of the Creation though in continual Motion, is yet to us, that is, to our Spirits, an idle, dead, unactive thing. ... They are Positive Conditions, and that’s all ... tis God alone that is the true Efficient Cause. (MDL 55–6)

We must not love these things, but that is not necessarily to say that we should shun them. We may seek and use those things to which ³¹ See above p. 141.

³² See above pp. 76–8.

 love pleasure is annexed. But we should love only the true efficient cause ‘‘of that Pleasure and that Pain which we feel at their Presence and in their Use’’ (MDL 36) not these things themselves. ‘‘The short then of this matter resolves into this, we may seek and use sensible things for our Good, but we must not love them as our Good’’ (MDL 74). There can be no doubt that this is an arresting conclusion. Can we really not love anything else at all except God? What about our love for others? Indeed does not the second command—love your neighbour—contradict any such extreme reading? How can we love our neighbour if all our love must be directed to God? Norris responds to this by appeal to his earlier distinction between desire and benevolence (MDL 71). The two commands he says speak of quite separate types of love. The benevolent love we show to individuals (either for self or others) is of a quite separate kind, its stock no way diminished by the requirement that desirous love be directed only to God. ... ’tis most certain that the most intire Love of GOD enjoyn’d in the first Commandment does by no means exclude the Love of Neighbour injoyned in the second, in case these two Loves be of two different Kinds, the former suppose, Love of Desire, and the latter Love of Benevolence, there being no manner of Repugnancy between the desiring none but GOD, and the wishing well to Men, and ’tis only the joyning these two different ideas under one common Name (Love) that makes it seem as if it were. (LOG 154–5)³³

However that does not mean that the new doctrine is without significance. For where before in The Theory and Regulation of Love he allowed that we might desire pleasure, or the good of the community, he now concludes that the love of desire must be reserved for God alone. This constitutes a distinct sharpening of his view. ³³ That love for neighbour should be love of benevolence not desire follows, thinks Norris, from the fact that God commands us to love our neighbour as ourself (Mark 12: 31) and also as He loves us ( John 13: 34). For both of these cases are ones of benevolent love.

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5.3.1 Letters Concerning the Love of God Norris’s essay and its unusual position did not go unnoticed, but drew comment, both supportive and hostile, from contemporaries. Leibniz was a supporter,³⁴ but perhaps the most interesting backing came from Mary Astell,³⁵ who in September 1693 wrote to him about his view, initiating a correspondence between them subsequently published as Letters concerning the Love of God. (1695)³⁶ Fully accepting that God is not only the principal but the sole object of our love as well as the occasionalist account of Him as the efficient cause of all our sensations,³⁷ she wrote with ‘‘a difficulty’’ (LOG 3). If God causes all of our sensations, must that not include pain as well as pleasure, making him ‘‘at once the Object of our Love, and of our Aversion’’, since, she reasons, ‘‘it is as natural to avoid and fly from Pain, as it is to follow and pursue Pleasure’’ (LOG 5). Responding to her challenge, Norris acknowledges that on his view pain must be as truly an effect of God as pleasure, but insists that the cases are nonetheless different. ‘‘Pleasure is the natural, genuine and direct Effect of GOD, but Pain comes from him only indirectly and by Accident’’ (LOG 17), for God wills pleasure for its ³⁴ See letter to Pierre Coste 4 July, 1706 in Gerhardt (ed.), Philosophische Schriften von G.W. Leibniz, 3: 382. Quoted in Acworth (1979), 340. ³⁵ Mary Astell (1666–1731) was born in Newcastle and brought up under the care of her uncle, a clergyman. At the age of twenty she moved to London where she passed her adult life studying and writing. Her championing of women’s intellectual equality and promotion of their education has led to her being considered as the first English Feminist. For a more detailed consideration of Astell’s philosophical views, see Broad (2002), ch. 4, and Springborg (2005). ³⁶ Astell’s name did not as such appear on the book, although its full title Letters concerning the Love of God Between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr John Norris, refers to her previous book A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part I (1694). Part II appeared later in 1697. ³⁷ In the main body of the letters Astell accepts occasionalism, but in one letter added to the end just before publication, as an Appendix, she doubts it, suggesting that it renders God’s workmanship redundant, and wondering if it might be better to adopt an account of perception more like that of ‘‘your Friend Dr. More’’, which allows some sort of ‘‘Sensible Congruity’’ or connection between bodies and sensations (LOG 280). Norris has no sympathy for any such middle way, standing firm for occasionalism, and replying that although bodies do not affect our souls they really do affect our bodies and so are not completely redundant (LOG 303). Whether the Appendix represents her final position on this is a matter of some debate among Astell scholars. See Springborg (2005), 59–63.

 love own sake, but pain only ‘‘for the sake of something else as it is necessary to the Order of his Justice’’ (LOG 19). He wills our pleasure as creatures but our pain only as we are sinners. Were we designed and created for misery from the start, matters would be different, but ... if as to this present Life, the pain that God inflicts upon us here is only Medicinal, and in order to greater good, and consequently from a Principle of Kindness ... there will be no more pretence for not loving or hating God for this, than for hating our Physician or Surgeon for putting us to pain in order to our Health or Cure. (LOG 29)

How effective pain is as a tool for bringing about moral and spiritual health, and whether it works more in the fashion of an educative punishment or that of a therapeutic medicine, can certainly be debated but if we accept Norris’s account of God’s motivation—that pain is inflicted for the sake of our own greater good— though we may well fear God, we can have no valid reason to hate him (LOG 22). This clarification highlights an important point. We must love that which gives us pleasure, because pleasure is a species of the good but, by the same token, we must love whatever else is good for us, whether it is pleasant or not. For although it is still true nothing does us good but what causes pleasure in us (MDL 57), an option may be more pleasant through being less painful, or the pleasure it yields only enjoyed once its painful effects have passed. 5.3.2 Discourse concerning the Love of God Other commentators were less supportive. Norris’s original essay, together with his and Astell’s letters, drew sharply hostile criticism from Lady Masham in her book, Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696).³⁸ She complains of the ‘‘extravagance’’ of Norris’s ³⁸ Norris had originally been on friendly terms with Lady Masham, who was Damaris Cudworth (1658–1708) daughter of the Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth. He even dedicated two of his works to her, Theory and Regulation of Love and Reflections on the Conduct of Human Life. Later, however, they fell out, partly due to philosophical difference but partly due to personal ones. Lady Masham was close to Locke, with whom Norris also fell out. For a more detailed consideration of Lady Masham’s philosophical views, see Broad (2002), ch. 5.

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conclusion. (Discourse Preface) More likely to make ‘‘Enthusiasts than Good Christians’’, (Discourse, 6) it is ‘‘as wild an Enthusiasm as any that has yet been; and which can End in nothing but Monasteries, and Hermitages ...’’ (Discourse, 120). The term ‘enthusiasm’ here refers to religious feeling.³⁹ Like many at the time she was opposed to such feelings and (casting aspersions of Catholicism) accuses him of straining the duties of morality ‘‘to an impracticable Pitch’’ (Discourse, 3) which is dangerous in so far as it elevates the inner contemplative state over the external duties of social life (Discourse, 4). She sees Norris’s position as excluding the natural love of creatures, which is not only lawful, but our best route to God. She complains that the ‘‘Pompous Rhapsodies of the soul’s debasing herself, when she descends to set the least part of her affections upon anything but her creator ... are plainly but complementing God with the contempt of his Works, by which we are most effectively led to Know, Love and Adore him’’ (Discourse, 27). She rejected Norris’s division of love into two types. To say I love something—be it my child, my God, my self or my dinner—is simply to say that it is a pleasure and that I delight in it (Discourse, 18).⁴⁰ It is ‘‘but one simple act of the Mind’’, accompanied either by desire or well wishing—whichever is appropriate to the object—but not itself divisible into two such species (Discourse, 19, 25). Masham was not Norris’s only critic; another book by Daniel Whitby,⁴¹ entitled Discourse on ³⁹ Masham’s ‘teacher’ Locke himself contemptuously explains the term as follows: ‘‘Immediate Revelation being a much easier way for Men to establish their Opinions, and regulate their Conduct, than the tedious and not always successful Labour of strict Reasoning, it is no wonder, that some have been very apt to pretend to Revelation, and to perswade themselves, that they are under the particular guidance of Heaven in their Actions and Opinions ... This I take to be properly Enthusiasm ... founded neither on Reason, nor Divine Revelation, but rising from the Conceits of a warmed and over-weening Brain’’ (ECHU 4.19.5–7). This chapter first appeared in the fourth edition (1700) of the Essay. ⁴⁰ She is here echoing Locke, ‘‘any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the Delight, which any present, or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the Idea we call Love’’ (ECHU 2.20.4). ⁴¹ Daniel Whitby (1638–1726) was clergyman and theological writer. Precentor of Salisbury Cathedral, from 1672 until his death, Norris describes him as ‘‘a Neighbour and Friend’’ (Admonition, 392).

 love the Love of God (1697), made similar points showing at great length that we may love and desire the people and things of this world. Masham’s Discourse appeared anonymously and was attributed by Norris to Locke. He replied to it, together with the criticisms of Whitby, in 1698 in the fourth volume of his Practical Discourses.⁴² There Norris complains (not without cause) that Masham, in particular, treats him with ‘‘unkindness’’, ‘‘disrespect’’, ‘‘Disdain’’, ‘‘Contempt’’, and a generally ‘‘spiteful Ayr’’; noting the irony of writing about the love of God whilst at the same time showing such ‘‘Disaffection’’ to one’s neighbour (Admonition, 382–3). More substantially Norris complains that both critics have misinterpreted his meaning, and then gone to great lengths to deny something which he never held (Admonition, 401). In particular, they fall foul of an equivocation in the terms good and love. In a ‘‘large popular sense’’ creatures are good and we may love them, that is, we may use them or wish them well. Masham and Whitby bend over backwards to prove this, but Norris never denied it. He was using these terms in a ‘‘stricter and ... more Philosophical Sense’’, taking good as ‘‘that which really and truly does us good, or is the efficient Cause of Pleasure to us’’, and love as that condition of ‘‘the Souls uniting it self to any thing as its true Good, Beatifick Object, or the Cause of its Good or Happiness’’ (Admonition, 403–5). It is only in this strict sense that he denies that creatures are good or that we should love them. Yet Masham and Whitby’s mistakes are understandable. That adopting an exclusive love for God does not entail an ascetic withdrawal from the world is really not so clear as Norris would like to suppose. He admits that it is something easier to understand ⁴² ‘An Admonition concerning two late books called Discourses of the Love of God’, in Practical Discourses (1698) vol. IV (Hereafter ‘Admonition’). A fuller reply to Lady Masham was written by Mary Astell under the title The Christian Religion as Professed by a Daughter of the Church (1705), with which Lady Masham responded with her own Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705).

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than put into practice, suggesting that this is true of all duties (LOG 76), but Astell may be nearer the mark when she wonders if his ‘‘ingenious’’ distinction is not just ‘‘too nice for common Practice’’; too fine and subtle to ever translate into real life (LOG 50–1). For how is this exclusive love for God to be manifested? For example, just what does it mean to use sensible things for our Good but not love them as our Good? In Letters concerning the Love of God Norris attempts to explain the difference by reference to the mind–body distinction. I further illustrate it thus, you are to distinguish between the Movements of the Soul and those of the Body, the Movements of the Soul ought not to tend but towards him who only is above her, and only able to act in her. But the Movements of the Body may be determined by those Objects which environ it, and so by those Movements we may unite our selves to those things which are the natural or occasional Causes of our Pleasure. Thus because we find Pleasure from the Fire, this is Warrant enough to approach it by a Bodily Movement, but we must not therefore love it. For Love is a Movement of the Soul. (LOG 75–6)

While this might well explain how appreciation of a comfortable bed or desire for a refreshing drink are no obstacle to the love of God, it leaves unclear the situation with regard to less obviously material things as love of beauty, pursuit of learning, commitment to biodiversity, or the furtherance of native languages and culture. Are human goals like these obstacles to the love of God, or rather channels through which it is manifested? And if this attempt to illuminate the doctrine is problematic, nor is it much clearer for Norris to explain matters by saying that exclusive desire for God is compatible with unlimited benevolence toward creatures. For that distinction remains unclear also. Norris is concerned to ensure the compatibility of God’s two great commands, and if the two species of love are different, he asks, ‘‘Cannot I desire but one thing only in the world, and yet at the same time wish well to every thing else?’’ (LOG 156). The rhetorical suggestion sounds plausible enough, but it is may be

 love wondered in this case whether it is not the self-directed nature of the former and the other-directed nature of the latter that makes them seem compatible rather than the fact that they are supposedly different types of love. For benevolence, it must be remembered, may be to oneself as well as to others. But in that case, if benevolence is really no drain on desire, not only may I promote as much as I like the well-being of others but I am free to pursue equally vigorously my own, without in the least undermining my desire for God. It may very much be doubted if Norris would endorse that. Moreover, the very distinction between these two types of love may be called into question. Recalling both Norris’s own point in Theory and Regulation of Love that the two species of love, desire and benevolence, cannot in fact occur one without the other,⁴³ and the biblical wisdom that what is done for the hungry and the thirsty is done for God,⁴⁴ it may be wondered if these loves are really so different. If desire for God is not, as Masham and Whitby fear, a matter of withdrawing from the world into one’s own spirituality, a matter of spiritual if not literal monasteries and hermitages, how may we begin to pursue it except through the love of people, places, and things around us? In the end it would seem that the crucial factor in this question is our state of mind, the attitude with which we feel or act as we do. Love of God need not be a matter of withdrawing from the world, but may rather be a matter of loving the world consciously and explicitly for the sake of God. Whether going for a walk rather than reading the Bible is attending to God through his natural creation rather than his inspired word depends entirely upon the state of mind with which you enjoy your walk (or read your Bible!). Indeed, in the last analysis, this is the only account of his position which Norris can give. For God commands our love, and commandment makes sense only where we have the freedom to obey or disobey it. But, as Norris has already insisted, we have ⁴³ See above p. 132.

⁴⁴ Matthew 25: 45.

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no freedom whatsoever in our desire for God; it draws us to Him as inevitably as it does naturally. Our only freedom is whether or not this is something we explicitly recognize and embrace, that is, whether we make Him the intentional as well as the extensional object of our love.

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6 CONTROVERSY WITH LOCKE 6.1 Norris’s Criticisms of Locke The largest number of those who have come across the name of John Norris have done so in connection with that of John Locke, with whom he entered into a notable disagreement during the last decade of the seventeenth century. Valuable for the light it sheds on both figures, that controversy will be the concern of this chapter.¹ Both men were Oxford philosophers,² although it was after both had left their common Alma Mater that Norris became an important critic of Locke’s philosophy. More precisely, it was in 1690 while at Newton St Lowe that Norris published his Cursory Reflections upon a book called An Essay on Human Understanding, appended almost as an afterthought to his first volume of Practical Discourses, upon the Beatitudes. A friend had sent him a copy of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding asking for his opinion of it and, since the book had appeared only the year before, Norris’s account was the first detailed critique of it to appear in print.³ Although sometimes his points are verbal, in general he is a penetrating critic and, a serious assessment from a quite opposing ¹ For further discussion of this debate see Springborg (2005), 48–58. ² Locke was in Oxford from 1652 to 1667; Norris from 1676 to 1689. ³ Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (hereafter ECHU–references given by book, chapter, section) was published in December 1689. Norris’s ‘Cursory Reflections’ appeared only six months later in May 1690.

 controversy with locke point of view, his review anticipates many of the arguments against Locke’s empiricism that have since become commonplace. Instead of simply attacking Locke’s work as dangerous to religion or morality—as so many of his opponents did—Norris focuses on its validity and internal consistency. I shall begin this chapter with an account of Norris’s criticisms and then move on to consider Locke’s replies. The focus will be on the ‘Cursory Reflections’, but due note will be taken of later discussions also, for opposition to Locke’s system lies in the background of almost everything Norris wrote from 1690 onwards. 6.1.1 The Nature of Ideas Norris’s criticism proper begins with a complaint which is general and a sin of omission rather than commission but which, for all that, echoes the frustration of a great many of Locke’s readers. He says that Locke ought to have examined the nature of ideas before inquiring into their origin. If the Nature of Ideas were but once made known, our Disputes would quickly be at an end concerning their Original, whether from the Senses or not: But till that be done, all further Discourse about them is but to talk in the Dark. (CR 3)

Locke fails to explain at the outset what he means by idea, to tell us ‘‘what kind of things these Ideas are which are thus let in at the Gate of the Senses’’ (CR 22). But not only is this not done at the start, it is not done at all; something Norris judges a ‘‘Fundamental defect’’ in the work (CR 4). Locke’s account of ideas in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding which, given his advocacy of the new ‘way of ideas’⁴ ought to have been clear, central, and detailed, in fact ‘‘is as Lame and Defective as anything can well be’’ (IW 2: 517). Nor is this simply an unfortunate but harmless deficiency, for it was Norris’s belief (as we shall see below) that Locke’s failure to be clear about just what ⁴ ‘Letter to Bishop of Worcester’, J. Locke, Works (London, 1824), vol. iii, 72.

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ideas are allowed him to say several fundamentally mistaken things about them. 6.1.2 Innate Ideas We have already seen that Norris rejected the doctrine of innate ideas.⁵ From this one might expect him to be an ally of Locke, but in fact the rejection of innate principles (which, although not exactly the same as innate ideas, is closely allied to it) with which Locke opens his Essay Concerning Human Understanding forms one of the main targets of Norris’s attack. For while he agrees that there are no innate ideas, he thinks the arguments which Locke employs to show this quite inadequate; and ‘‘to say that a thing is false for such Reasons, when ‘tis not false for such Reasons, tho it be absolutely false, is as great an Injury to Truth, as to say a thing is false when ’tis not false’’ (CR 43). Norris begins with an ad hominem. As part of his attack Locke denies that there are any propositions which command universal assent, something which he thinks would follow if they were innate. Yet elsewhere, Norris points out, he inconsistently seems to allow that there are such propositions. At least, that is, he allows ‘‘self-evident’’ propositions which receive our ‘‘ready and prone’’ assent, as well as propositions which are ‘‘certain’’ and ‘‘uncontested’’, attributions Norris takes as equivalent to universal assent.⁶ Norris is perhaps somewhat opportunistic in his attack here, for Locke would no doubt wish to understand these terms in a rather more modest fashion, but he succeeds in reminding us that uniformity of belief is indeed widespread and, as such, a phenomenon in need of explanation, something Locke’s simple denial would tend rather to obscure. ⁵ See above pp. 79–80. ⁶ With regard to speculative principles, CR 4–5, where Norris fails to cite an actual example in contradiction of Locke’s denial at ECHU 1.2.4 (although the phrase ‘‘ready assent’’ and ‘‘self-evident’’ are ones frequently used by Locke, for example, at ECHU 1.2.11, 18, and 26). With regard to practical principles, see CR 13–14, where Norris cites ‘‘Where there is no Property there is no Injustice’’ (ECHU 4.3.18) in contradiction of Locke’s denial of ECHU 1.3.2.

 controversy with locke In part, Locke bases his denial of universal assent on the case of children and idiots; for they, surely, do not give any kind of assent to purportedly innate propositions.⁷ An innatist would certainly disregard such cases as beside the point, for only in fully formed and properly functioning cases ought we to expect recognition of what is present in us. Locke, on the other hand, thinks these cases relevant because he assumes that one cannot have an idea without realizing it.⁸ Norris highlights the significance of this assumption; pointing out that if there could be impressions in the mind of which we were not conscious, our failure to notice them would be no reason at all for doubting their presence (CR 7). The actual occurrence of subconscious ideas was, of course, something Leibniz also laid much stress on in his own reply to Locke’s anti-inatism,⁹ but Norris’s strategy is different here. For once again he argues ad hominem; his point is that Locke himself seems to be committed to just this point. He cites a number of passages which (it must be confessed) seem to depend upon a rather uncharitable reading,¹⁰ but in two places he is on much stronger ground. First, there is the case of memory. Locke describes memory as a ‘‘Store-house’’ or ‘‘Repository’’ in which we ‘‘lay up’’ those ideas not currently in use; that is to say, ideas in the mind but not currently before the mind.¹¹ This certainly looks like an admission of unperceived ideas. Locke immediately saw this point, and Norris’s comments caused him to amend what he had written, in an attempt to explain further his troublesome metaphor. In the ⁷ ECHU 1.2.5. ⁸ ‘‘[I]t seeming to me near a Contradiction, to say, that there are Truths imprinted on the Soul, which it perceives or understands not. ... To say a Notion is imprinted on the Mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this Impression nothing’’ (ECHU 1.2.5). ⁹ ‘‘ ... insensible perceptions are as important in the philosophy of mind as insensible corpuscles are in natural science’’ (G. W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, Preface (ed. P. Remnant & J. Bennett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 56)). ¹⁰ None of the first three passages Norris cites at CR 8—that is ECHU 2.1.6, ECHU 2.9.4, and ECHU 2.9.5—seem to bear easily the interpretation he urges. ¹¹ Norris’s objection at CR 9 cites ECHU 2.10.2, ECHU 2.10.7, and ECHU 2.10.8.

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second edition of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding he adds the clarifying sentence: But our Ideas being nothing, but actual Perceptions in the Mind, which cease to be any thing, when there is no perception of them, this laying up of our Ideas in the Repository of the Memory, signifies no more but this, that the Mind has a Power, in many cases, to revive Perceptions, which it has once had, with this additional Perception annexed to them, that it has had them before.¹²

But this attempt was hardly successful at meeting Norris’s worry since it is unclear how one can revive something which is wholly absent or, if one could, how this would differ from perceiving again something you have perceived before. Second, and perhaps equally effectively, Norris suggests that if we accept Locke’s basic empiricism, must we not allow that the senses imprint on us far more ideas than we can possibly attend to (CR 10)? Is there not a clash between our limited threshold of attention and the sheer amount of information we receive? Norris here latches on to one of the most fundamental weaknesses of introspective empiricism, and all modern accounts of sense perception would now endorse the presence of unconscious data reception and processing. Another argument that Locke offers against innate ideas is (what Norris terms) his argument from lateness, that many of the allegedly innate ideas come only late to our minds, when surely they should be expected to present there from the start. But (replies Norris) what grounds are there for saying that if we had innate ideas they would be the first ones that we think of?¹³ He finds equally implausible Locke’s connected suggestion that if there were innate ideas they would be clearest of all to children. Perhaps it is only after a certain lapse of time, he responds, or under certain laws and conditions, that we come to recognize them.¹⁴ In both of these ¹² ECHU 2.10.2. R. I. Aaron ( John Locke (1955), 137–8) makes the claim that this was added in direct response to Norris’s criticisms. ¹³ CR 12. The reference is to ECHU 1.2.25–6. ¹⁴ CR 12–13. The reference is to ECHU 1.2.27.

 controversy with locke points Norris’s reasoning is absolutely sound, and the best that can be said on Locke’s behalf is that he must have had in mind a very simple and naive model of innateness. Turning from speculative principles to moral rules, Locke claims they cannot be innate because, if they were, they would all be obvious or self-evident. But in fact there is no moral rule for which we cannot seek the reason or proof of its being so. Locke’s argument here is reminiscent of G. E. Moore’s famous openquestion argument,¹⁵ and it is equally invalid. For as Norris points out, ‘‘Why may not the same Proposition be Innate, and yet deductible from Reason too ... ?’’.¹⁶ There is no reason why God, in somewhat belt-and-braces fashion, may not have placed in us truths which could also be derived by reason. Norris could also have pointed out that, unless there hold no logical entailments whatsoever among innate propositions, it will be inevitable that some propositions be both rationally deducible and innate. By way of a second argument, Locke suggests also that the fact that men regularly transgress moral rules with ease or without remorse proves that they are not innate. But, Norris points out, an innate law is no different in this regard from a written one; the way in which it is known has no bearing on how easy or difficult it is to follow.¹⁷ Lastly, Locke suggests that if there were innate moral knowledge, its deliverances would be easy to distinguish from truths learnt in other ways, and thus to identify. But that hardly seems to be the case. Norris, however, takes issue with Locke’s underlying assumption here. Surely we may know some truth, but not realize where it comes from, and thus be unable to distinguish it from things known through other sources. It may be as difficult, he says, to give an example, as distinguishing in our own minds between divine inspiration and what we ourselves have come up with.¹⁸ Our ¹⁵ G. E. Moore (1903), §13. ¹⁶ CR 15–16. The reference is to ECHU 1.3.4. ¹⁷ CR 16. The reference is to ECHU 1.3.9. ¹⁸ CR 17–18. The reference is to ECHU 1.3.14.

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knowledge does not wear its pedigree on its sleeve. As much as with speculative principles, Norris must be judged to have the better case here. If the catalogue of complaints listed above was first raised by Norris, it is a list such as might have (indeed, which has) occurred to pretty much anyone who reads Locke’s opening chapters; for his attack on innate ideas is famously weak (So weak, indeed, that one wonders how much weight it was ever intended to bear; his concerns over the doctrine being as much political and moral as they were epistemological.). But Norris’s last criticism is far more significant, uncovering what he regards as a much deeper flaw, one that could not be corrected simply by more careful or more detailed argumentation. He objects that Locke treats ideas as ‘impressions’. But in taking them this way, in so far as he allows that ideas may be impressed upon the mind by the senses, he cannot then turn round and say it is impossible in principle that ideas might be impressed upon a mind before birth. For the difference is only one of timing; ‘‘why may they not be first as well as afterwards?’’ (CR 19). The suggestion is even harder to rule out if one believes in the possibility of pre-existence which, thinks Norris, no one can say is impossible. Locke’s conception of ideas is unable to rule out innate ideas in principle; they remain the kind of thing which could be innate. By contrast, Norris wholly rejects such a conception of ideas: I do not allow any such thing as Mental Impressions, or Characters written upon the mind, which if it pretend to any thing more than Figure and Metaphor, I take to be mere Jargon, and unintelligible Cant. (CR 20)

For Norris by contrast, ideas are not dated events in some individual’s psychological history but rather eternal and uncreated universals and, as such, the question of when they are first produced—either before or after our birth—simply cannot be raised. Ideas ‘‘are not in themselves of a producible Nature’’ (IW 2: 381). They are not the kind of things which could be innate.

 controversy with locke 6.1.3 The Origin of Ideas We have seen that Norris’s deep-seated objection to Locke’s empiricist conception of ideas is one which flows from the most abstract level possible; he disagrees with Locke’s very conception of an idea as a mental ‘impression’. However, this did not prevent him from taking issue also with the details of empiricist accounts, such as Locke’s, explaining the origin of our ideas. Since this is such an important issue it is worth tracing in some detail the development of Norris’s views in this regard, both with respect to empiricist views in general and in their specific direction to Locke’s own version. In Reason and Religion Norris contents himself with a shortened and uncritical report of the arguments given by Malebranche, in his The Search after Truth, against the view that material objects convey to, and subsequently impress upon, our senses, emissions or ‘species’ which then represent (by resembling) their origin.¹⁹ Material bodies do not ‘‘send forth certain Species like themselves’’, Norris reports, for the whole of space would then be full of such impenetrable emissions, they could not account for variations in apparent size or shape due to varying distance or perspective, and in the end the body which continuously sent them out would become diminished (RR 188–91). Taking the account criticized above for an adequate description of Locke’s own view, in his ‘Cursory Reflections’ Norris repeats Malebranche’s objections (CR 24), adding further worries about how such material effluvia could be held in the brain, or ever come to represent immaterial or intellectual objects (CR 25). Ideas, he concludes, cannot be material, but must be immaterial. However, that, he thinks, seals the case against empiricism, for how could material bodies emit immaterial substances? ‘‘Matter can send forth nothing but Matter’’ (CR 26–7), he insists. For all the difficulties there may be in being precise about the exact form of Locke’s theory of perception, Norris’s argument here ¹⁹ The Search after Truth, Bk. III, Pt. II, ch. II.

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seems only weakly directed towards him, and therefore largely ineffective. Although with his last point, that empiricism struggles to get across the metaphysical gulf between body and spirit, he is on stronger ground. With perfect courtesy, but not a little irony, he says of Locke: Some I know talk of strange Feats done by the Dexterity of an Intellectus Agens and Patiens, which they say refine and spiritualize these Material Phantasms; but I suppose our Author is of too Philosophical a Faith to admit of such a Romantick Transubstantion. (CR 26)

Although adequate perhaps to believers, Norris must have realized that in the land of Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, and Newton something more substantial than these Malebranchian echoes was called for, and by the time of the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World his attack on empiricism—‘‘the most commonly received Hypothesis concerning the Origin of our Ideas, and withal, by far the most Plausible’’ (IW 2: 369).—is much further developed and considerably expanded. He yet again repeats Malebranche’s arguments (IW 2: 333–42), but now he sees this is not enough, for perhaps we need not be so extravagant as to suppose that bodies emit streams of physical particles. Two alternative accounts are also considered. Perhaps it will suffice to note that all bodies reflect light—a fact that Newton had brought to the forefront of attention in his Optics, published the same year (1704). Might not this explain perception, at least in visual terms? Norris considers this hypothesis but rejects it. He readily admits that light is the occasional cause of vision. ‘‘We do indeed see things by Light, as by an Occasion, in as much as we have an Idea of a material Object presented to our Minds upon the impression which Light makes upon our Eyes’’ (IW 2: 358). But he denies that it can be anything more than an occasion. Norris finds it hard to see how light could convey information, or how ‘‘Images of things could be ... faithfully and readily drawn upon the Retina by the Pencil of Light’’. But even were that possible these could not be the immediate objects of our mental attention, being themselves

 controversy with locke corporeal (IW 2: 364). Moreover, he asks, with two eyes would we not see two images? And would the images not be inverted (IW 2: 366)? Despite what might seem to us a certain scientific naivety, Norris correctly sees that however much it may be involved in it, light cannot be the sole agent of human visual perception. The problem with both this optical account and with the sort of particle theory Malebranche considered was that they dealt only with material species, but Norris considers it impossible that matter could ever be the direct object of mental awareness. Yet modern readers may be less inclined to reject these hypotheses quite so emphatically as Norris does, preferring to regard them as incomplete. For surely the thought behind both is that material activity further works to bring about in our mind some form of spiritual awareness? In connection with this, it is interesting to see how Norris deals with a third account, that of the Scholastics, which urges something rather similar. Some Scholastic philosophers attempted to explain our perception of material bodies by suggesting that the bodies send out species resembling themselves—which are not, as Malebranche seems to think, some sort of substantial emissions, but rather corporeal accidents or qualities—which then impress themselves upon our senses. Being corporeal, this transaction does not yet provide any direct object of awareness to the mind, and in order to explain that they further posited an active faculty of mind (intellectus agens) ‘‘which refines them and spiritualizes them till from material Phantasms they become Intelligible Species’’ (IW 2: 350).²⁰ As intimated above, Norris finds this nothing but an obfuscating mystery. He objects that we have no sense or awareness of this strange power within us, that it seems contrary to the very nature of understanding to create its own object, that it is quite beyond its power to change something material into something spiritual, and that even if that were possible, the result would be only some sort of spiritual ²⁰ See e.g. Aquinas, Summa Theologicae, Pt. 1a, Qu. 50, Art. 4; Pt. 1a, Qu. 79, Art. 3.

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accident or event not an intelligible idea able to represent other things (IW 2: 351–3). In short, this so-called theory only names the problem. It does nothing to solve it, and no more shows empiricism to be a viable theory of perception than any other account. Turning at last to an explicit consideration of Locke’s own view, Norris finds that he is able to be swift. He urges that if Locke means that material objects do, via our senses, cause perceptual ideas in us, then (for all the reasons just canvassed) he is mistaken. But if he means that the impressions which material objects make upon our senses are the occasion of our having such Ideas, then that may be so, for God might have arranged matters thus (IW 2: 371–2; also 516 ff.). It is hard to imagine that Norris so little understood Locke as to think this last was what he meant, so perhaps this last concession is merely one of courtesy. 6.1.4 Inadequacy of Empiricism As well as attacking empiricism as a theory of perception, Norris attacks it also as a theory of understanding, that is to say, as a theory designed to account for the content and possibilities of thought. The empiricist holds, of course, that only what we have first experienced or composed out of what we have first experienced can we ever intelligibly think or understand. Against this account Norris objects that, even were we to grant (per impossible) that some of our thoughts might derive their significance from sense experience, there are a vast number of others which could never be accounted for in this way. In challenging this source for our ideas Norris’s point is not, of course, to claim that they are innate, but rather to urge that we apprehend these ideas in the essence of God. In ‘Cursory Reflections’ he criticizes Locke for holding that the idea of God is empirical. Although he allows that our knowledge of the existence of God is demonstrative, Locke suggests that the idea is one we may arrive at simply by enlarging or extending our

 controversy with locke conception of ourselves.²¹ But, urges Norris, nothing created by God, that is, nothing in the world, could ever manage to represent its creator in relation to which it must always be a lesser being.²² Yet Norris’s anti-empiricist worries are not limited to the divine. He complains generally that it could only explain our ideas of perceived material things, which ‘‘cannot represent a quarter of the things which we are concern’d to understand’’ (CR 25). To cite merely one of ‘‘a thousand more’’ he could instance, how on earth, asks Norris, could empiricism explain a word like ‘although’ (CR 34). He also suggests that it is hard to see how moral ideas might be derived from sense (CR 37), for they by there very nature describe not what is the case but what ought to be. Of course, as a Platonist Norris finds himself with a ready account of our possession of moral notions, but Locke himself was a sharp-eyed enough critic to see and complain that if Norris is well able to explain our possession of ideas like these, his ideal theory struggles somewhat to explain our possession of more everyday ideas, the precise field in which Locke’s own theory is strongest. Ideas of number, extension, and essence, complains Locke, ‘‘are not half the ideas that take up men’s minds’’.²³ The strengths and weaknesses of their two positions are exact opposites of each other. The basic line of attack on empiricism as a theory of understanding is further continued in his Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World. He considers its underlying maxim, captured in the Schools’ axiom: there is nothing in the intellect not first in the senses (IW 2: 373 f.). If this means that ideas are transmitted, via the senses, to the understanding, it is false, says Norris, but if it means there is nothing in the understanding, but by the occasion of sensible impression, this may ‘‘in great measure’’ be allowed (IW 2: 374). In this way Norris finds himself able to accept much ²¹ On the origin of the idea of God see ECHU 2.23.33. On the existence of God see ECHU 4.9.2 and 4.10 passim. ²² CR 29. ²³ ‘Remarks Upon Some of Mr. Norris’s Books’, §9. For further discussion of this point see below p. 190.

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of the empiricists’ orientation towards knowledge, although the qualification ‘in great measure’ is certainly necessary for Norris believes that we can know God, as well as other abstract and intellectual notions (such as moral and mathematical ones) without even the occasion of any prior sense perception (IW 2: 375). 6.1.5 Truth Locke defines knowledge as ‘‘the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas’’, a definition which at first sight might seem one that Norris himself could endorse. But when he expresses himself more clearly it turns out to be Locke’s view that knowledge itself is less a matter of perception than one of belief, specifically belief in true propositions, where truth is defined as ‘‘the joining or separating of Signs, as the Things signified by them, do agree or disagree with one another’’. That is, he regards it as a property of propositions (be they spoken, written, or simply thought) which succeed in corresponding to facts.²⁴ Norris criticizes this general conception of truth. He allows that it captures the nature of truth in the mind or subject, but not as it exists in the thing or object, ‘‘which consists not in the minds joyning or separating either Signs or Ideas, but in the Eternal Habitudes that are between the Ideas themselves’’. And that, he insists, is ‘‘the Principal Kind of Truth’’.²⁵ We have already had occasion to note Norris’s conception of truth, but his view is so unusual that it is worth saying a bit more about it. One important point to note is that the distinction between truth in the object and truth in the subject coincides with the distinction between necessary and contingent truth, the distinction between that which cannot but be as it is and that which could be otherwise. That this is the case can be seen from its coincidence with the distinction between ideal and mental propositions for, Norris says, ideal propositions (which are always true) are necessary ²⁴ ECHU 4.1.2; 4.5.2.

²⁵ CR 38. The reference is to ECHU 4.5.2.

 controversy with locke and eternal, while mental propositions (when true, for they can be either) are only contingent and temporary (IW 1: 107).²⁶ A true belief lasts only so long as we actually believe it. The coincidence of these pairs is confirmed by two further observations. First, science deals with truth, but science (we have already seen) is confined to what is necessity and immutable (IW 1: 130). Second, God is one and the same with truth, but God is a necessary being (IW 2: 507). In calling mental propositions contingent, it is tempting to object that Norris has simply confused a thought with its content. Surely the fact that we only believe a proposition for a limited time does not make the thing itself which we believe something that only holds for a while? But such a response falls precisely into Norris’s hands, for it requires us to distinguish between the thought (which is temporary) and its content (which may be eternal). But once that distinction is made it is open for Norris to argue that what we want to call the ‘content’ of a mental act is, in fact, an extra-mental and divine archetype upon which the mental act is directed. Norris’s equation of the distinction between ‘truth in the object’ and ‘truth in the subject’ with that between necessary and contingent truth is a difficult doctrine to swallow. It seems to imply that, while temporary thoughts such as ‘Two plus two is four’ or ‘Parallels never meet’ may possess truth in the subject by matching up with the necessary and eternal relationships that obtain among their corresponding Divine Ideas, temporary thoughts such as ‘Norris was Vicar of Bemerton’ or ‘The Manx national flag is red’, with no corresponding eternal verities to match up against, would seem not to be really true at all. We would seem to end up with a kind of Platonic distinction between ‘knowledge’, which deals with truth, and mere ‘belief or opinion’, whose precise object is puzzling but is certainly something less than truth. ²⁶ Cf. ‘‘ ... there are two General Sorts of Truths extremely different one from another, and therefore carefully to be distinguish’d. Those that regard only the Abstract Nature of things, and their immutable Essences, independently on their actual Existence. And others again that do regard things that do actually Exist. The former of these Constitute that Order of Truths which we call Necessary, the latter that which we call Contingent’’ (RF 147–8).

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How then can Norris account for the ‘legitimacy’ (for want of a better word) that such contingent statements as ‘Norris was Vicar of Bemerton’ or ‘The Manx national flag is mostly red’ possess? The answer lies in his Platonism. He argues that God, as the cause of all the degrees of being to be found in particular objects, must also have in Himself those same degrees, ‘‘for nothing can communicate what it has not’’ (RR 44). But more than this, he urges that these perfections must exist in a more eminent or excellent manner in God than in the particular beings themselves, for in God such perfections are to be found in themselves, in the abstract, while in particulars they are always concretized and derivative (RR 50). The extract always falls short of the original (RR 47). What this amounts to is a claim that behind every contingency in space and time there exists an ideal archetype, more or less well, but never fully, manifested. Next to such a world, nothing we might experience could ever be really true but, in so far as such things more or less adequately express their ideal underlying pattern, there is room for something like a notion of degree of truth, or approximation to truth.²⁷ It is closer to the underlying reality, more ‘legitimate’ to say that Norris was a Vicar of Bemerton than to say he was a shipbuilder on the Clyde. Norris’s Platonism involves subscription to, not just the real existence of universals, but also the more esoteric doctrine of Plato that they are more real than their particulars. It was for this reason we suggested in Chapter 2 that Norris could be described as a Platonic idealist. Something more of this comes out in a passage of the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World in which he considers the fact that man has a natural hunger and thirst for truth. Pursuing further this analogy of the diet of knowledge, Norris suggests that only ideal truth—necessary, eternal, immutable, divine—can give the soul ‘‘solid and substantial Food’’. Truths of fact, languages, history, etc., are like ‘‘those dry heartless and insipid Meats that afford her ²⁷ In the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, he speaks of the ‘‘Simple Truth of Contingent Beings, which are so far true as they are conformable to their Ideas or Intelligible Measures’’ (IW 1: 357).

 controversy with locke no wholsome, or kindly Nourishment’’, while opinions, fables, fancies, probabilities, and appearances are but ‘‘Dreams of Eating and Drinking, that cheat and delude the hungry and thirsty Soul’’ (IW 1: 439).²⁸ Regardless of its relationship with necessary and continent truth, there is another objection that might be raised against Norris’s distinction between ‘truth in the subject’ and ‘truth in the object’. If in his ‘Cursory Reflections’ Norris took exception to Locke’s conception of truth, Locke in his ‘Remarks upon certain of Mr. Norris’s Books’ returns the favour, objecting that only propositions, not things, can be true (§§19, §22). And here modern philosophy would seem to be with Locke. For, without quibbling over the ‘correct’ use of the word, have we not here just a simple ambiguity? In its application to the truth-maker, rather than the truth-bearer, does Norris not use truth where we would use fact? Perhaps there is no ‘right’ answer here about how these terms should be employed, but Norris’s use is not as perverse as it seems to Locke and might first seem to us, especially when we remember his restriction of truth proper to the realm of necessary truth. For necessary truth is the same as eternal truth, and here ‘truth of the Object’ is a matter of the relations or habitudes which hold between the Divine Ideas. Such an objective ground is, at least, something ideal—it is quite literally the thought of God—and so arguably deserves the name of ‘truth’; even more so, perhaps, ²⁸ Norris expresses a similar idea poetically in his verse ‘The Discouragement’ the third stanza of which goes: Thought I, for anything I know, What we have stamp’d for science here, Does only the appearance of it wear, And will not pass above, tho current here below; Perhaps they’ve other rules to reason by, And what’s truth here, with them’s absurdity. We truth by a refracted ray View, like the sun at ebb of day: Whom the gross, treacerous atmosphere, Makes where it is not, to appear.

6.2 locke’s responses  than doomed human attempts to catch, for a moment in time, its eternal and changeless form. Again, the message is an idealist one; if the nature of ultimate reality is mental then it is as least as deserving of the description ‘truth’ as it is of the description ‘existence’. Norris criticizes not only Locke’s understanding of truth in general but, more specifically, his account of eternal truths. For Locke, eternal truths are those which concern the agreement or disagreement of specifically abstract ideas,²⁹ and as such they lack even the ground in reality—the ‘truth in the subject’—which he allows to other types of truth. They are valid, not in the sense of existing somehow outside of any mind antecedently to any understanding of them, nor even in the sense of existing for all minds at all times, but simply in the sense that all people whenever they acquire the ideas involved will see the interrelations such propositions describe. Against this essentially Aristotelian account Norris asks, were such propositions true before they were known or not? If not, how can our understanding make something true? ‘‘But if they were in being before the Existence of Man, then their Eternity does not consist in their being understood by Man when ever he shall exist, but in their own fixt and immutable Relations’’.³⁰ Norris has a good argument here, in so far as any theory which places truth is something like human recognition or discovery will have difficulty accommodating our sense that it is something there anyway and already; a sense quite clearly part of the terms ‘recognition’ or ‘discovery’.

6.2 Locke’s Responses For all Norris’s disagreement with Locke, he had a high opinion of his rival’s efforts. The Essay on Human Understanding [sic] is, praised Norris, ²⁹ ECHU 4.11.14; cf. 4.3.31.

³⁰ CR 39. The reference is to ECHU 4.11.14.

 controversy with locke ... a very extraordinary Performance, and worthy of the most publick Honour and Respect. And tho I do not approve of every particular thing in this Book, yet I must say that the Author is just such a kind of Writer as I like, one that has thought much, and well, and who freely Writes what he thinks ... . I am perhaps as great an Admirer of him as any of his most sworn Followers, and would not part with his Book for half a Vatican. (CR 41–3)

And thus, despite the difference in viewpoint, initially relations between the two philosophers were good. Indeed it was Locke who, at Damaris Masham’s behest, recommended Norris to the Earl of Pembroke for the living at Bemerton. But later in the same year (1692) a quarrel broke out between them—Locke accused Norris of opening a letter addressed to him—that soured any further relations between them. In the last year of his life, on being sent a summary of the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, Locke in his reply still felt moved to complain, with as much injustice as ill-grace, that ‘‘Men of Mr. Norris’s way seem to me to decree, rather than to argue ... [and] examine not strictly the meanings of the words they use’’.³¹ Although after their quarrel, there was no direct correspondence between them, there exist three writings which tell us of Locke’s response to Norris’s criticisms. 6.2.1 The Draft of a Reply The first piece³² written, it would seem, at the time of their quarrel, is as short as it harshly sarcastic in tone. It was never published. Penned as a direct response to the ‘Cursory Reflections’ of two years before, it begins with Norris’s opening point. Which is unfortunate. For Norris’s opening gambit is, it must be confessed, a quite appalling piece of criticism, based on only reading half ³¹ J. Locke Works (London, 1824), vol. ix, 283–4. In its turn, it is appropriate to regard Norris’s Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World as in large part a response to Locke, for that, as he himself strongly hints in the Preface to the Reader in vol. i, was one of his primary reasons for writing it (IW 1: ii, xiv). ³² This was written in 1692, but only published in 1971 in the Locke Newsletter. It is reproduced in Acworth (1979), 357–61.

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of Locke’s opening sentence.³³ Understandably this draws Locke’s sarcastic complaint—‘‘if it be not the privilege of a Cursory Reflector to take notice of or pass by what he pleases the very next words would have told him what the author intended’’—but unfortunately he continues at length in such a personal and peeved tone that he never really tackles any of the more serious issues Norris has raised. Against the charge that he has not really defined or explained ideas Locke maintains simply that readers should be ‘‘satisfied’’ by the definition he gave in his opening chapter, ‘‘whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding when a Man thinks ... whatever it is, which the Mind can be employ’d about in thinking’’.³⁴ At the same time he accuses Norris of ignoring his stated method, ‘‘If a Cursory Reflector were not excused from remembering anything he reads he might have prevented this exception by taking in good part what I say c. 1, §2’’, that is, his statement of intention not to attempt speculation about the essence of mind or how it gets its ideas, but simply to describe things as they are given; the so-called ‘‘Historical, plain method’’. Surely he is entitled, Locke complains, simply to treat ideas as the immediate objects of perception, without further being asked to say exactly what they are, whether real or not, whether substantial or adjectival, whether material or immaterial; matters on which, unlike Norris, he is prepared to admit ignorance. 6.2.2 The Remarks upon Norris A year later Locke took up his pen once more against Norris. The work, which has come down to us as ‘Remarks on Some ³³ Locke says the mind, like the eye, ‘‘takes no notice of it self ’’ (ECHU 1.1.1). Norris complains that if this means simply that the mind can’t focus on itself while simultaneously attending to other things (i.e. that it can’t focus on two things at once) that is unobjectionable, but if it means that the mind can’t focus on itself at all then it contradicts the whole book (CR 2). But this is a selective quotation, for Locke in fact carries on ‘‘And it requires Art and Pains to set it at a distance, and make it its own Object’’ rendering Norris’s comments irrelevant. ³⁴ ECHU 1.1.8.

 controversy with locke of Mr. Norris’s Books’,³⁵ is described in its original manuscript as ‘loose thoughts’,³⁶ and consists in a set of thirty-five isolated comments (some only one sentence long) on Norris’s philosophy. It was certainly unfinished, and very likely not intended for publication. The text to which it principally addresses itself is Reason and Religion, at that time still the only account of Norris’s philosophical system that had appeared. Its opening, however, harks back to ‘Cursory Reflections’, as it takes up again the charge that Locke has given no adequate account of ideas. Locke responds with the counter-complaint that it is unfair to say he has not explained the nature of ideas, when really Norris himself has no further advanced our understanding by suggesting that we ‘see them in God’ (§1)—which, if it is not mere verbiage, is to explain the obscure by the equally obscure. Locke presents his account of ideas as solely a description of immediate experience, a mere indication of what everyone experiences and best knows in their own case, while Norris he presents as engaged in putting forward metaphysical supposition with doubtful meaning and no basis. But that is hardly true in either part. For all his protestations of neutrality, Locke has a very definite notion of ‘idea’. Even if unsure of its exact ontological category, Locke is quite sure that the object of the mind is always some individual psychological content, and hence that ideas cannot exist except in human minds. Although he says only that they are before the mind, that they are what the mind is directed upon, it is very clear that by this he means they are in the mind. They are particular internal private events of which words are the external public signs.³⁷ Their very essence is to be ‘‘fleeting’’, and for that reason Locke thinks it probable they are somehow the products of motion (§17). Crucially, all this is theory which goes well beyond mere ‘experience’. But if Norris and Locke alike put forward metaphysical theories about given experience, neither will it do to ³⁵ This was written in 1693, but first published posthumously in 1720. ³⁶ Bodleian Library, Oxford University. The Lovelace Collection, MS Locke, d. 3. ³⁷ ECHU 3.1.2.

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suggest, as Locke does, that no sense can be attached to Norris’s alternative conception. To be sure, what is intended by saying that the ideas of which we are aware are Divine Ideas, is not wholly clear and some of its import can be found only in passages of the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World which did not appear until much later, but at least some of Norris’s meaning is certain. Norris’s point is that what we are aware of, the object of our thought, is something quite different from our awareness or thinking itself. The later is a contingent occurrence at a time within some distinct individual, but the former is something necessary, eternal, and common to all minds in every time and place. Ideas for Norris are universals; their very essence is to be not ‘fleeting’ but eternal. It is Norris, of course, who has the older more traditional conception of ideas while Locke continues an individualistic conception which was arguably initiated by Descartes. Just how far Locke has come along this route is seen by the question he poses Norris. He insists on asking what alteration it makes in a man to apprehend such ideas as Norris advocates (§2)? Surely there is a difference between someone who has an idea and someone who has not, but in that case is not the idea to be found within the person himself? Locke’s question is reasonable enough—the issue of individual psychology cannot be postponed forever—but it is not perhaps as undermining as Locke believes. Later in Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, Norris makes some attempt to deal with it. Drawing a distinction between the act and the object of thought, between what he calls ‘‘formal thought’’ and ‘‘objective thought’’ (IW 2: 104),³⁸ he does not deny that ³⁸ Norris’s distinction here echoes that of the Scholastics and is usefully compared with that made by Descartes in his Third Meditation (CSM II: 28). The account is also similar to Malebrache’s ‘pure perceptions’ or ‘pure intellections’ whose character is so exhausted by their content that they become totally transparent, lacking all phenomenology (The Search after Truth, Eluc. XI (LO 635–6); see also Radner (1978), 72,100). Although insofar as Malebranche goes further and denies that they make any impression on, or in any way penetrate or modify the soul (The Search after Truth, Bk. 1, Ch. 1 (LO 2)), which is absurd, Norris would seem to have the more reasonable account.

 controversy with locke in thinking there takes place an individual psychological act, but insists that the character of the thought as a whole comes entirely from its object. Thus Norris would simply resist Locke’s line of thought here. The difference between apprehending one idea or another, is not one lying solely within the thinking individual; it is rather a relational difference, the crucial term of which is an external universal idea. Against the doctrine of vision in God, Locke objects, weakly, that this hardly seems to be the case (§8). That is, of course, irrelevant for Norris’s theory is precisely an analysis of what seems to be the case, not a description of it. It is as much an explanatory hypothesis of what underlies our immediate experience as is Locke’s own causal theory of perception. More seriously, however, Locke points out that Norris’s theory of understanding in God can only account for a fraction of our ideas. There is far more to our thought than number, extension, and essence, but that is all the ideal realm covers (§9). Reason and Religion does not contain an account of Norris’s subsequent distinction between idea and sensation, so Locke did not have Norris’s probable answer that much of what we think we ‘understand’ is really just accompanying sensation. Yet even with that reply, it must be confessed that Locke has put his finger on a real weakness here. For as we have seen,³⁹ Norris is ambiguous and perhaps even inconsistent on the extent of the ideal realm. It covers geometry, metaphysics, and morals, but surely we think of more than just that. Whether it was consistent to do so or not, Norris seems to have agreed. Last of all on this topic, and rather briefly, Locke wonders how the theory of Vision in God really differs from pantheism. (§11). Norris’s response to this challenge we have already considered,⁴⁰ although coming from the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, once again it was something not available to Locke at the time. Behind all these objections, lies one even more fundamental difference of opinion between Locke and Norris. Perhaps the ³⁹ See above pp. 17, 34–7, and 86–8.

⁴⁰ See above pp. 58–9.

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central plank of Norris’s position is that ideas are universals and, as such, could only exist in God. Locke resolutely denies the existence of universals, and in this sense he thinks Norris’s entire theory of knowledge rests upon a mistaken understanding of generality (§§4, 12, 21). Locke is a conceptualist, holding that generality exists only in the representative power of mind. Whatever exists or is experienced (whether in or out of God) is particular, and it is only by abstracting out from experience that we can come to have general ideas. This, of course is directly opposed to Norris’s view, who could not be more realist about universals. Thus even if they agree that things have real essences, they differ completely over what that means. We considered Norris’s lengthy arguments for their existence in Chapter 2 which, coming from the Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, Locke, of course, did not know (except as they occur incidentally in Reason and Religion) but even so, there is no real meeting between the two on this point, their positions lying too far apart for engagement to be of much use. At no point in his writing does Norris offer anything like a critique of conceptualism. In his criticisms of Norris, Locke makes at least one straightforward mistake about Norris’s view. He challenges Norris’s occasionalism about perception as contrary to divine simplicity. What purpose is served by all the complexities of sensation—the curious structure of the eye, nose and so forth—if they play no role in generating our experiences (§§3, 13–4)?⁴¹ This is a good question, although not perhaps fatal, for as Berkeley showed the seemingly redundant details of the world may be explicable in terms of lawlike regularity.⁴² However, Locke goes on from there (in §§15–16) mistakenly to attribute to Norris occasionalism in general, with respect to creatures on each other, with respect to will on body, and with respect to our own understanding. But, as we have seen, Norris was an occasionalist only ⁴¹ This objection was one raised also and independently by Mary Astell. See above p. 157, n. 37. ⁴² G. Berkeley, Principles of Human Understanding, §62 (in his Works, vol. ii).

 controversy with locke with respect to sense perception. To be fair to Locke, there is little in Reason and Religion that would contradict this, but the real problem seems to be an uncritical assumption on Locke’s part that whatever Malebranche held may also be attributed to Norris. 6.2.3 The Examination of Malebranche The most fully developed account (although it too is unfinished) of Locke’s position in this debate is his Examination of P. Malebranche’s Opinion of Seeing All Things in God,⁴³ also written in 1693. From its title this work might seem to have a different focus, but appearances can be deceptive. Since the piece was published while Norris was still alive (although after Locke’s death), certain material from the manuscript which was directly aimed at Norris was omitted from the published version.⁴⁴ In particular, the opening paragraphs, which complain of the conceit of those whose own opinions will not suffer them to permit the confessed ignorance of others and make explicit reference to Norris as one of ‘‘those who wth an air of infallibility adopt what others have proposed & set themselves up for Dictators in ye Commonwealth of learning’’,⁴⁵ clearly show that Norris was the impetus, if not the direct target, of the ensuing discussion. With a deliberately sarcastic dig at Norris’s originality he says that ... though this pregnant Author tells us ... That this is a notion wch he

very early lighted on by the natural parturiency of his owne mind before he had consulted wth any authors yt might imbue him w th it, yet since P. Malebrance had ye luck of being first in print to rob him of ye Glory of ⁴³ This was written in 1693, first published posthumously in 1706. Since the ‘Remarks Upon Some of Mr. Norris’s Books’ was written in the same year, there is room to wonder which came first. The order of presentation here is based on the content of the two pieces. ⁴⁴ Charlotte Johnston, ‘Locke’s Examination of Malebranche and John Norris’s Journal of the History of Ideas, 19 (1958), 553–5. ⁴⁵ Bodleian Library, Oxford University. The Lovelace Collection, MS Locke, d. 3. Such a comment seems especially unfair, for as we have seen, Norris is often modest in his claims. His theory of human understanding he puts forward merely as ‘‘an hypothesis’’ satisfied only ‘‘that no Body can, upon just grounds, say, that it is not so’’ (IW 2: 513).

6.2 locke’s responses



this discovery, He will pardon me if I have recourse for my information to him that is looked on as ye author of it.’’⁴⁶

Rather than continue attacking the disciple, Locke took himself to the original source. And in that respect it must be admitted that Norris’s thought is sufficiently close to that of Malebranche for the Examination to be useful in revealing key differences between Locke and Norris also, and allowing us more fully to develop the ‘loose thoughts’ of the previous two papers we have considered. Continuing in his tone of affected ignorance, time and again Locke complains that the basic question of what ideas are or how the individual stands to them has simply not been answered. To call ideas ‘spiritual substances’, or to say they are ‘in God’, who is intrinsically ‘intelligible’—none of these really explain matters. ‘‘I have ideas, that I know; but I would know what they are, and to that I am yet only told, that I see them in God’’, Locke complains (§25), although he never tells us just what it would be to give an explanation. One point which draws Locke’s fire in particular is the notion of ‘union’. As we have seen, in numerous places Norris speaks of our soul’s ‘close union’ with God, a union which moreover we cannot have with our bodies. This is a mode of expression which Malebranche also frequently uses,⁴⁷ but Locke takes exception to it. For what can it mean? If the term be taken literally, we must allow that God is just as intimately united with material bodies too, for he is omnipresent and as close as can be to each (§25). But if the phase is metaphorical, what is it metaphorical of? It would be hard not to have sympathy with Locke’s puzzlement here. When Descartes in his Meditations speaks of the way in which his mind and body are very ‘closely’ joined and intermingled⁴⁸ part of his meaning is to be explained cognitively, in ⁴⁶ Bodleian Library, Oxford University. The Lovelace Collection, MS Locke, d. 3. The reference is to RR 185. ⁴⁷ See e.g. The Search, after Truth, Bk. 3, Pt. 2, ch. 8 (LO, 241); Bk. 5, ch. 5 (LO 363); Bk. 6, Pt. 1, ch. 2 (LO 412). ⁴⁸ Med. vi (CSM II: 56).

 controversy with locke terms of the former’s direct epistemic access to the latter. But no such course is available in this case, for with respect to us and God, matters are reversed, and the possibility of our direct epistemic access to God is something Norris hopes to explain by appeal to our ‘closeness’ to him. The religious context in which Norris understands this union—twice (RR 202; IW 2: 284) he explains it in terms of Paul’s statement in Acts 17: 28 that ‘God is not far from every one of us: for in him we Live, Move and have our Being’—does little to aid our philosophical grasp of it. Nevertheless, some headway can be made in understanding the notion. Some help may be found if we consider something else with which we are ‘‘intimately united’’, namely ourselves (IW 2: 325). Towards the end of his discussion of eternal truth Norris says that truth is in God but that—because of our intimate union with God—it is also to be found in ourselves. All we really need to do to find it is to consult ourselves, to look within our own breast (IW 1: 390). The sense of our union with God, then, is the sense in which He resides within us, immanent in our reason and conscience, as close to us as our life itself. This understanding of our access to God is, as Norris well realized, in many ways close to the Quaker idea of ‘the light within’.⁴⁹ Norris’s reason for denying that we can have direct awareness of material things, his claim that mind can have no ‘‘intimate Presence or Union’’ with them (IW 2: 311), provides us with another clue regarding his meaning. For the most natural reading of the problem here is that bodies cannot register with minds perceptually, since they cannot affect minds causally in any way, lacking any point of connection or resemblance with them. Bodies are not close ⁴⁹ Although, as he also realized, there were important differences between their positions. For them the light was a message from God, not (as for Norris) God himself, and it conveyed solely spiritual matters, never (as for Norris) secular ones. Moreover, for Norris, the light was available to all while for the Quakers it was a private illumination afforded to the elect only. Arising from a sometimes bitter controversy with them, these similarities and differences he explored in a postscript to the 1691 second edition of Reflections Upon the Conduct of Human Life, as well as his 1692 Two Treatises Concerning the Divine Light.

6.2 locke’s responses



enough to minds in type to interface perceptually with them. This suggests that our close union with God is as much a question of affinity in our natures—of our being made in God’s image—as it is an explicitly spatial analogy. But whatever light these two points may shed there remains, as Locke further notes, one further point of puzzlement. However we take it, union cannot be the whole story, for despite our ‘intimate union’ with Him we do not see everything there is in God, only that which He shows us (§25). Whether we reply that our union with God is only partial and at God’s discretion, or that more is required than mere union for us to see things in God, either way, the basis of our epistemological access to ideas remains, in at least this one respect, troublingly obscure. For despite the magnitude of this gap, neither Norris nor Malebranche ever attempted in detail to account for it, except to say that God chooses to show only certain of His ideas to us. Yet that is not to say that the gap could not in principle be filled. In the Examination, Locke defends in more detail his own view of perception, ‘‘that from remote objects material causes may reach our senses, and therein produce several motions that may be the causes of ideas in us’’ (§14). Whilst not pretending to know the whole story, Locke ventures that ‘‘Impressions made on the retina by rays of light, I think I understand; and motions from thence continued to the brain may be conceived, and that these produce ideas in our minds, I am persuaded, but in a manner to me incomprehensible’’ (§10). There are elements in this of all three of the empiricist models of perceptions—material species, optical effects, and intellectus agens—whose critique by Norris we considered above,⁵⁰ and it is clear that he would not have been persuaded. What Locke describes as production ‘‘in a manner to me incomprehensible’’ Norris would regard as a mystery standing in for an impossibility, for matter can affect only other matter. ⁵⁰ See above pp. 176–9.

 controversy with locke To consider further points of difference, we should note that Locke rejects the distinction of Malebranche and Norris between pure ideas and sensations. To him they are fundamentally on a par, such that if on perceiving a rose, we should say that its shape or figure is in God, we really ought to place there as well its smell, taste, and other sensory qualities (§38). Neglecting its obvious connections with his own distinction between primary and secondary qualities, Locke fails to appreciate the difference between intentional and non-intentional states; he fails to recognize the conceptual element in genuine perception. Here Locke seems on weak ground, and many subsequent philosophers have criticized him for his failure to distinguish concepts and sensations, between representative ideas and mere feelings, like a tickle or itch. Perhaps in Modern philosophy this distinction is only finally clarified in Kant, but Malebranche and Norris (in their distinction between sentiment and idea) begin to make this contrast. Norris allows that the way in which they habitually come together can lead us to confuse them, but that careful thought requires their separation. Lastly, Locke also raises the problem of the external world; how do we even know that it exists at all? How can we know whether there is a sun at all if we have never seen it, if all we have met is an idea in God (§20)? This is certainly a serious objection to the epistemological scheme under consideration here, and a subject we have already discussed at some length in Chapter 3.⁵¹ However, with his fondness for ad hominem criticism, Norris might well have replied that it is far from clear that Locke is on better ground here himself, for if all we ever have direct access to are our own ideas, how do we know (as Locke believes) that there really is, behind them, a material world which they represent and which causes their occurrence in us?⁵² ⁵¹ See above pp. 93–7. ⁵² For discussion of this see H. E. Matthews, ‘Locke, Malebranche and the Representative Theory’, in I. C. Tipton (ed.), Locke on Human Understanding, 55–61, and J. L. Mackie, Problems from Locke, 37–41.

6.3 concluding comments 

6.3 Concluding Comments There are echoes in this Norris–Locke controversy (1690–3) of that portion of the Malebranche–Arnauld controversy which concerns the nature of ideas (1683–4) with Locke playing the part of Arnauld to Norris’s Malebranche.⁵³ Both philosophers certainly knew the earlier debate and were probably influenced by it,⁵⁴ but it would be a mistake to see the latter simply as a replay of the former. Not only is a Locke–Norris debate of greater interest to English philosophy, but it raises some slightly different issues. Locke’s belief that he makes no theoretical commitments simply allows him to flounder helplessly among different unconscious ones, making it hard to find any one view which he opposes to Norris; ideas in Locke are by turn objects of understanding, activities of mind, mental entities, mental contents, images, feelings, concepts, and more besides.⁵⁵ Locke does at least allow that ideas are ‘‘real beings’’, but insists that they are not substances, ‘‘as motion is a real being, though not a substance’’.⁵⁶ Yet that he considers this an objection to Norris, shows only how far he is from really grasping Norris’s view of them as universals. For all his realism about ideas, Norris would no more regard them as ‘substances’ than Locke; indeed, the Ideal Realm is defined in part precisely by its distinction from the world of particular substances. For Locke anything which is before the mind is an idea. But this a definition Norris cannot sign up to. For him an idea is only one kind of object of awareness; not everything known is known by ⁵³ Norris rejects Arnauld’s view that Ideas are modalities of the soul on the grounds that ‘‘if they were, they would then affect us as strongly as our Sensations do’’, which they do not (IW 2: 212). ⁵⁴ Norris refers to the debate at IW 1: 41 and IW 2: 500. That Locke also knew and was influenced by it has been argued by John Yolton in Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid, 88–104, and Locke, An Introduction (Basil Blackwell, 1985), 3, 122, 150. ⁵⁵ Probably the first to attempt exhaustively to classify these different senses was Gilbert Ryle (‘John Locke on the Human Understanding’, in C. B. Martin and D. M. Armstrong (eds.), Locke and Berkeley; A Collection of Critical Essays (London: Macmillan 1968, 14–39)), but many have subsequently found different and further distinctions. ⁵⁶ ‘Remarks Upon Some of Mr. Norris’s Books’, §17.

 controversy with locke an idea. God, for example, is known directly and not by means of any idea. (Admittedly in coming to know the Divine Ideas we come to know God, so there is a sense in which He is known via ideas. But that is quite different from saying that we have an idea of God.) Yet Norris, for his part, cannot be wholly cleared of the charges of obfuscation and mystery which Locke presses upon him. Ideas may be only ‘‘in our selves’’ ‘formally’, as what we think with, rather than ‘objectively’, as what we think of (IW 2: 109), but nonetheless the question of how finite minds come to apprehend such universal ideas is one Norris confesses himself quite unable to answer. What this formal Thought or Perception is, as to the Reality of the thing, you will ask me in vain, because ‘tis in vain that I ask myself. I know, or rather feel by inward Sentiment that I think ... but what that Act of mine which I call Thinking is, I want, I will not say words to express, but penetration of Thought to comprehend. Sometimes my Fancy whispers me that ‘tis a kind of application of the Mind to its Ideal or Intelligible Object ... Then again I say to my self, that sure ‘tis an intellectual Sight, a kind of Vision of the Mind ... I enter into my self again and again, I consult my self over and over, but can have no answer. Nor can I reasonbly expect one, till I have an Idea of my Soul. (IW 2: 109–11)

Locke is right to press that there remains a fundamental gap in Norris’s account.

7 CONCLUDING REMARKS Norris is a philosopher little read or studied today. One reason sometimes put forward for this is the accusation that his thought is wholly unoriginal, that he has nothing to say which was not said first or better by his predecessors. There are two points worth making in response to such a charge. The first is that, although often dismissed as derivative—by turns he has been set aside as merely ‘Neo-Platonist’, ‘the English Augustine,’ ‘the last of the Cambridge Platonists’, or the ‘English Malebranche’—Norris is, in fact, more original a thinker than is generally recognized. As this study has demonstrated, he both modifies the notions he takes on board and offers interesting ideas and arguments of his own. But it would, of course, be wrong to suggest that Norris was a highly innovative philosopher. However, in admitting that, we are brought to a second and more subtle point. To say that Norris should not be read because he is not original is to make an underlying assumption that cannot be warranted: that only those whose thinking breaks new ground warrant the attention of their successors. The history of philosophy is often presented as a sequence of ‘great’ figures; mountains rising up above the foothills. But just as studying the peaks only and ignoring the valleys would lead to a distorted view of any landscape, so to look only at great philosophers while ignoring more rank and file thinkers must distort our understanding of past philosophy.

 concluding remarks The interest of more quotidian thinkers often lies in the complexity and subtlety of their thought. For originality is commonly bought at the cost of a certain simplistic one-sidedness, a messianic sense that one has found the one key to unlock all doors and therefore need not seriously consider alternative or opposing points of view. ‘Real life philosophy’, on the other hand, is often presented with many such ‘exclusive’ insights, and faces the complex task of trying to fuse together what seems to be of value in their different and competing lines of thought. In this sense the general tendencies of an age may often be seen more clearly in its writers of the second rather than of the first rank. Norris is a particularly interesting example in this regard. Held in some of the great cross-currents of the seventeenth century, his own ideas reflect the many philosophical forces around him. He represents a fascinating coming together of three distinct traditions—Platonism, Scholasticism, and the Cartesianinspired philosophy of Malebranche—with the steadfast resistance of a fourth—Baconian scientific empiricism. This last opposition has led many to regard him as an essentially conservative or backwards thinker, one unable to embrace modernity. But this is crude. He was fully aware of and highly sympathetic to much in modern thought (such as Cartesian methodology and mechanism in nature) but simply resisted the claim that the draw of the new entailed the wholesale rejection of the old. With regard to arriving at a balanced understanding of the history of philosophy it is a mistake to suppose that only figures who spoke with a powerfully original voice had any influence. Those unfriendly historians like to dismiss as mere popularizers, synthesizers, teachers or disciples (as though these were unimportant roles) can have just as much, or even more, impact on the thought of their age, and this provides us another reason for looking at more rank and file philosophers.

concluding remarks  Again, Norris is a case in point. Well regarded in his day and for years afterwards,¹ he was more influential than current neglect of his work might suggest. His books went into numerous editions, and continued to be read for many years. Practical Discourses went into fifteen editions, Reason and Faith into fourteen editions, A Collection of Miscellanies into nine editions, Theory and Regulation of Love, Reason and Religion, and Treatise Concerning Christian Prudence each went into seven editions, while Letters concerning the Love of God went into three editions. His Collection of Miscellanies, Reason and Faith, and Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World, for example, figure in the ‘‘List of Books on Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics recommended or in use at Cambridge in 1730’’.² It is not always easy to separate his own influence from that of the Malebranchianism he did so much to introduce into Britain—it is likely that many knew their Malebranche only through Norris—but he played no small role in helping to shape the conception of Christian theism in the eighteenth century and in carrying forward the Platonic tradition from the medieval to the modern world. Details of the influence which Norris had may be traced through the writings of several of his successors. The most direct case was that of Arthur Collier (1680–1732), a younger Oxford educated clergyman, who resided less than ten miles from Norris at Steeple Langford. Much stimulated by Norris’s ideas, Collier’s Clavis Universalis (which was published in 1713) argues, first, that the world we know is an internal one, sensible qualities existing only in the minds of those that perceive them, and second, that there is no ¹ In 1747, thirty-six years after Norris’s death, the novelist Samuel Richardson still felt able to speak in a letter to Mrs Elizabeth Carter of ‘‘the famous Mr. Norris, of Bemerton’’ (Rev. Montagu Pennington, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs Elizabeth Carter (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1807, 69)). Similarly to George Ballard in his Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain (Oxford, 1752, 380) he was still ‘‘the celebrated Mr. Norris’’. ² Christopher Wordsworth, Scholae Academicae: Some Account of the Studies in the English Universities in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1877), 131.

 concluding remarks external world, such a realm would be not only redundant but in fact impossible. He realizes that in saying this he is going further than Norris—‘‘The late judicious Mr. Norris, who purposely considered this question of an external world, was yet so far from concluding as I have here done, that he declares it to be no other than arrant scepticism to make a serious doubt or question of its existence’’³ —but regards Norris’s reluctance to take this last step as more or less explicitly contradictory. In that sense he regarded his own work as an extension or completion of Norris’s thought. Norris is significant in the history of British Philosophy also for the recognition and encouragement he gave to women philosophers. His important exchange of letters with Mary Astell has already been discussed,⁴ but there was philosophical correspondence too with Elisabeth Thomas, Mary Chudleigh, and Damaris Cudworth;⁵ figures whose contribution to early modern philosophy—like that of Mary Astell—has only recently been recognized. Whether Norris influenced George Berkeley (1685–1753) is a question upon which we can only conjecture. The latter’s Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonus were published in 1710 and 1713 respectively and, although we have no direct evidence that Berkeley knew Norris’s work, it is very likely that he did.⁶ Certainly Norris was in large ³ A. Collier, Clavis Univeralis (Edinburgh, 1836), 123. ⁴ See above pp. 161–2. ⁵ Elizabeth Thomas (1675–1731) was principally a poet who went under the pen name ‘Corina’. Her correspondence with Norris is preserved in Plyades and Corina (London, 1732), vol. ii. Norris, on receiving from her an ode composed in his honour (pp. 217–24) proceeded to enter on an exchange of letters with her (pp. 199–216), offering suggestions for philosophical reading and discussing criticisms of the newly published first volume of his Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World. Without regard to her sex, he writes to her as one inquirer after philosophical truth to another. Mary Chudleigh (1656–1710) was an essayist and poet from Devon, who corresponded with Mary Astell and Elizabeth Thomas as well as with Norris. Hers, in a letter to Elizabeth Thomas, is the only description that survives of Norris’s physical appearance, as ‘‘a little man of a pale complexion’’ with ‘‘A great deal of sweetness and good humour in his face’’ (p. 250). On the early correspondence between Norris and Damaris Cudworth see Hoyles (1971), 94. Their later relations (as noted above pp. 162–4) were less friendly. On the place of women in early modern philosophy in general see Broad (2002). ⁶ In a letter dated 27 Nov. 1710 to Sir John Percival (The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, London: Nelson, vol. 8, 41), Berkeley explicitly rejects

concluding remarks  part responsible for the introduction into Britain of Malebranche, whose thought undoubtedly did influence Berkeley. There are key similarities between the systems of Norris and Berkeley—such as their shared scepticism about the power of matter to affect minds, the denial that we can have any idea of the soul, and the firm belief in the simplicity of God’s operations—but in the end it must be allowed, that in both spirit and doctrine, they are also quite distant. Berkeley’s sense of ‘idea’ owes more to Locke than to Plato, and he specifically rejects the suggestion that the ideas with which we are acquainted are to be found in God.⁷ Norris’s influence was not confined to Britain, but spread even to North America where he was read by Samuel Johnson (1696–1772), the first president of King’s College (now Columbia University) and possibly by Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), the great evangelical theologian.⁸ The appeal of Norris’s works extended beyond mere philosophers and his influence was similarly widespread. The religious dimension of his philosophy was important for the way it served to prefigure and make room for the more serious and wholehearted Christianity of such figures as William Law (1686–1761) and Joseph Butler (1692–1752), who managed to rise above the generally depressed condition in which the English Church found itself in the first half of the eighteenth century. But perhaps Norris’s being ranked alongside Malebranche and Norris. In terms of allegiance he is correct, but influence is another matter, and the remark demonstrates that he was certainly aware of both philosophers. ⁷ Berkeley’s objection is that our ideas, as something passive, could not reside in God who is a wholly active being. He is objecting to Malebranche, not Norris (G. Berkeley, Three Between Hylas and Philonus, Second Dialogue. Works, vol. 2, 214). ⁸ McCraken (1983), Appendix. Besides recommending the study of Norris in general (Noetica, vii), Johnson brings in his authority more specifically to support his own argument for the existence of divine archetypes (Noetica, ch. 1, §9, 9) and the location of eternal truths within the mind of God (Ethica, Pt. I, ch. 2, 28). Both of these works are contained within his Elementa Philosophica (1752). The case of Edwards is harder to establish. However, the fact that his ‘Catelogue’ of reading mentions both Norris’s Miscellanies and the Practical Treatise Concerning Humility, together with the availability of Norris’s Essay in the Yale College Library at the time Edwards was there, has lead some scholars to suggest that there was influence. See Fiering (1981), 23, 43, n. 80, and Townsend (1955), vi.

 concluding remarks greatest influence in this regard was on John Wesley (1703–91), the founder of Methodism, who was a great admirer. He studied Norris extensively during his early Oxford years. The following works by Norris all appear in the list of Wesley’s reading compiled from his diaries for the period 1725–34, several more than once: Practical Discourses, Cursory Reflections, Theory of the Ideal World, Practical Treatise concerning Humility, Treatise Concerning Christian Prudence, The Charge of Schism, Spiritual Counsel, Miscellanies.⁹ In 1734 he republished in shortened form Norris’s Treatise Concerning Christian Prudence and his Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life, apparently for the benefit of the students at Oxford, but that his was more than a merely a youthful interest is evident from the fact that he kept these two books in print for the rest of his life. Indeed he continued throughout his life to regard Norris as an authority, citing him in a variety of contexts and including his works on lists that he drew up for people. To a student friend at Cambridge University, Samuel Furley, he wrote of ‘‘that masterpiece of reason and religion, the Reflections on the Conduct of Human Life, with Regard to knowledge and Learning; every paragraph of which must stand unshaken (with or without the Bible) till we are no longer mortal’’, adding a month later ‘‘I have followed Mr. Norris’s advice these thirty years, and so must every man that is well in his senses’’.¹⁰ It is not hard to see what attracted Wesley to Norris. The heart of his religious revival was that direct and immediate knowledge of God was possible in Jesus. But this was precisely Norris’s claim. That he have available always direct and immediate knowledge of God, or rather, the Logos, knowledge not mediated by any representative idea, was the very heart of his message. And both ⁹ Green, 1961, Appendix 1. ¹⁰ 14 March 1756, 16 April 1756 (The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, ed. John Telford, London: The Epworth Press (1931), vol. iii). Wesley endorsed Norris’s poetry as well as his theology. See, for example, his letter to the Monthly Reviewers, 9 Sept 1756, recommending Norris’s poem, ‘The Meditation’, ibid., and three paraphrases based upon poems from Norris’s Collection of Miscellanies, which he included in his hymnals of 1730 and 1738 (The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, ed. G. Osborn (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office (1868), vol. i, 118–19, 341–3).

concluding remarks  men agreed that that God should be loved with all our heart to the exclusive of any competition. Naturally to a religiously apathetic age such a faith was uncomfortable and Wesley found himself accused of ‘enthusiasm’ just as Norris had done before him. Here too he found an ally in Norris. In order to counter the charge Wesley developed the concept of ‘spiritual sense’, more than mere empiricism but less than utter subjectivity. No doubt in this he was influenced by Norris’s talk of the ‘‘Spirtual Senses’’ as contrasted with the ‘‘Outward Senses,’’ the ‘‘spiritual eye’’ as contrasted with the carnal ‘‘Eye of the Flesh’’ by which he hoped to avoid the narrowness of empiricism without falling into the unrestrained subjectivity of, for example, the Quaker light.¹¹, ¹² That Norris was a writer popular with more than just philosophers and the clergy is shown by the further traces of his influence to be found in such literary figures as Isaac Watts (1674–1748),¹³ Samuel Richardson (1689–1761),¹⁴ Henry Needler (1690–1718),¹⁵ James Thomson (1700–48),¹⁶ and Laurence Sterne (1713–68).¹⁷ Studying the thought of so-called ‘minor’ figures is also important for the way in which it helps us to understand that of those we mark as ‘great’. For in order to properly appreciate any thinker we need to understand the full context within which they worked. ¹¹ ‘‘Seeing our ideas are not innate, but must all originally come from our senses, it is certainly necessary that you have senses capable of discerning objects of this kind [the things of God]—not only those which are called ‘natural senses’, which in this respect profit nothing, as being altogether incapable of discerning objects of a spiritual kind, but spiritual senses, exercised to discern spiritual good and evil’’. The Works of John Wesley (Oxford University Press, 1975), vol. xi: 56. See also vol. I: 145–6, 251, 433–5; vol. ii: 192–3; vol. iv: 49, 200; vol. xi: 46; Norris, Spiritual Counsel, Counsel XXXI, in Treatises Upon Several Subjects (1698 edn.), 485; Practical Discourses (1690), 156, 170–1; IW 2: 4. For Norris and the Quakers see above p. 194. ¹² For a fuller discussion of this matter see English (1991). ¹³ In the Preface to his Lyric Poems, Watts holds up Norris as embodying the ideal model for sacred verse (Works of the Rev. Isaac Watts, Leeds: Edward Barnes (1800), vol. vii, 125). ¹⁴ Taylor (2000). ¹⁵ Drennon (1931). Needler’s glowing appreciation of Norris’s Essay may be found in his Works, 206–11. ¹⁶ Drennon (1938). ¹⁷ New (1996).

 concluding remarks Aspects of their thought which may seem strange to us, if they are read in isolation, can often be explained when we consider the context in which they were working. Reading Norris certainly sheds a fascinating and helpful light on late seventeenth-century English philosophy. A scholar at heart, he was immensely well-read not only in ancient and medieval but in contemporary philosophy, with his finger firmly on the pulse of current debates. On a great many matters Norris takes a different philosophical line to that of his more celebrated contemporaries and for that, no doubt, he has been neglected, but therein lies much of his value to us today as he reveals the possibility of a somewhat different perspective on this seminal period in philosophical history. His disagreements with Locke are of particular interest in this regard, reminding us that not everyone at that time was travelling in the same direction.

Bibliography Works by Norris Arranged in chronological order. Apart from the Miscellanies, which was published in Oxford, all of these items were published in London. In recent years Thoemmes Press have published Norris’s Collected Works (2001) edited by Richard Acworth, and Ashgate have published an edition of the Letters concerning the Love of God (2005) edited by E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New. 1682 1684 1687 1688

1689 1690 1690

1691 1692 1693 1693 1694 1695 1697 1697 1698 1701–4

Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans. Poems and Discourses occasionally written. Three years later an expanded version appeared as: A Collection of Miscellanies. The Theory and Regulation of Love, a moral essay (appended to which is, Letters Philosophical and Moral between the Author and Dr. Henry More). Reason and Religion. Reflections on the Conduct of Human Life. Practical Discourses, vol. i ( To this work was added as an Appendix, ‘Cursory Reflections upon a book called An Essay on Human Understanding’). The Charge of Schism. Two Treatises concerning the Divine Light. Practical Discourses, vol. ii. Practical Discourses, vol. iii ( This volume includes his, ‘Discourse Concerning the Measure of Divine Love’). Spiritual Counsel. Letters concerning the Love of God. An account of Reason and Faith. Treatises Upon Several Subjects. Practical Discourses, vol. iv. An Essay towards the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World.

 bibliography 1707 1708 1710

A Practical Treatise concerning Humility. Philosophical Discourses concerning the Natural Immortality of the Soul. A Treatise Concerning Christian Prudence.

Poems of John Norris of Bemerton, included in Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library, ed. A. B. Grosart, vol. iii, (1871) Blackburn. Where is my Memorial? The Poems of John Norris of Bemerton, ed. Peter D. E.White, (1991) Bishops Waltham.

Primary Sources Arnauld, Antoine, [1683] On True and False Ideas, trans. Stephen Gaukroger 1990 (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Astell, Mary, (1694) A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part I (London). Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologicae, Blackfriars Latin/English edn., 1964–66 (London: Eyre and Spottiswode). Ballard, George, (1752) Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great Britain, who have been celebrated for their writings or skill in the learned languages, arts and sciences (Oxford). Berkeley, George, (1948–57) The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, 9 vols. (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons). Boyle, Robert, (1666) The Origin of Forms and Qualities according to the Corpuscularian Philosophy (Oxford). (1690–1) Reflections upon a Theological Distinction, according to which it is said that some Articles of Faith are Above Reason, but not Against Reason, published as an appendix to his Christian Virtuoso (London). Collier, Arthur, (1836) Clavis Univeralis (Edinburgh). Cudworth, Damaris, (1696) Discourse Concerning the Love of God (London). (1705) Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (London). Cudworth, Ralph, (1731) A Treatise Concerning Eternal Immutable Morality (London). Descartes, Ren´e, (1985–91) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). D’Urfey, Thomas (‘Gabriel John’), (1700) An Essay towards the theory of the Intelligible World. Intuitively Considered. Designed for Forty-Nine

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bibliography  Bradley, F. H., (1922) The Principles of Logic 2nd edn. (London: Oxford University Press). Broad, Jacqueline, (2002) Women Philosophers in the Seventeenth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Drennon, Herbert, (1931) ‘Henry Needler and Shaftesbury,’ PMLA ( Journal of the Modern Language Association of America) 46, 1095–1106. (1938) ‘James Thomson and John Norris,’ PMLA ( Journal of the Modern Language Association of America) 53, 1094–1101. English, John C., (1991) ‘John Wesley’s Indebtedness to John Norris,’ Church History, 60, 55–69. Fiering, Norman, (1981) Jonathan Edwards’ Moral Thought and its British Context (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press). Feingold, Mordechai, (1997) ‘The Mathematical Science and New Philosophies’ in Nicholas Tyacke (ed.), The History of the University of Oxford, vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Green, V. H. H., (1961) The Young Mr Wesley (London: Edward Arnold). Haldane, J. B. S., (1928) Possible Worlds and Other Essays (London: Chatto & Windus). Harrison, Peter, (1992) ‘Descartes on Animals,’ The Philosophical Quarterly, 42, 219–27. Hoyles, John, (1971) The Waning of the Renaissance ( The Hague: Nijhoff ). Hutton, Sarah, (2002) ‘The Cambridge Platonists’ in S. Nadler (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell). Johnston, Charlotte, (1958) ‘Locke’s Examination of Malebranche and John Norris’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 19, 553–5. McCraken, C. J., (1983) Malebranche and British Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press). McEwen, Gilbert D., (1961) Introduction to John Norris’ Cursory Reflections Upon a Book Call’d An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Los Angeles: Augustan Reprint Society). Mackie, J. L., (1976) Problems from Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press). MacKinnon, Flora Isabel, (1910) The Philosophy of John Norris of Bemerton, (Baltimore, MD: The Review Publishing Company). McTaggart, J. M. E., (1921–7) The Nature of Existence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Marshall, John, (2000) ‘Locke, Socinianism, ‘Socinianism’, and Unitarianism’ in M. A. Stewart (ed.), English Philosophy in the Age of Locke (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

 bibliography Matthews, H. E., (1977) ‘Locke, Malebranche and the Representative Theory’, in I. C. Tipton (ed.), Locke on Human Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 55–61. Moore, G. E., (1903) Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Morawetz, Bruno, (1963) The Epistemology of John Norris (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Toronto). Muirhead, J. H., (1931) The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy (London: George Allen & Unwin). Nadler, Steven, (1992) Malebranche and Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press). New, Melvyn, (1996) ‘The Odd Couple: Laurence Sterne and John Norris of Bemerton,’ Philological Quarterly, 75, 361–90. Passmore, John, (1967) ‘John Norris’, in The Macmillan Encylopedia of Philosophy, vol. 5 (London: Collier Macmillan). Powicke, F. J., (1894) A Dissertation on John Norris of Bemerton (London: George Philip). Pyle, A., (2003) Malebranche (London: Routledge). Radner, Daisie, (1978) Malebranche: A Study of a Cartesian System (Assen: Van Gorcum). Rosenfield, Leonora Cohen, (1941) From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine; Animal Souls in French Letters from Descartes to La Mettrie (New York: Oxford University Press). Ryan, J. K., (1940) ‘John Norris; A Seventeenth Century English Thomist’, New Scholasticism, 14, 109–45. Ryle, Gilbert, (1968) ‘John Locke on the Human Understanding’, in C. B. Martin and D. M. Armstrong (eds.), Locke and Berkeley: A Collection of Critical Essays (London: Macmillan) 14–39. Springborg, Patricia, (2005) Mary Astell; Theorist of Freedom from Domination, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Sullivan, Robert E., (1982) John Toland and the Deist Controversy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Swinburne, R., (1993) The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press), rev. edn. Taylor, Eugene Derek, (2000) Samuel Richardson’s ‘Clarissa’ and ‘the famous Mr Norris of Bemerton’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Florida). Townsend, Harvey G. (1955) Introduction to his edition of The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards from his Private Notebooks (Eugene: University of Oregon Press).

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Index All Souls College, Oxford 2, 10, 15 Aquinas 5, 9, 21, 40, 42, 44, 46, 56, 58, 75, 85, 102, 105, 133, 141, 178n Arnauld, A. 1, 80, 197 Aristotle 38, 40, 51, 96, 120, 133, 145, 185 Astell, M 161–2, 164n, 165, 191n, 202 Augustine 5–6, 9, 13, 16, 21, 42, 46, 50, 57, 90, 105, 120, 199 Berkeley, G. 1, 37, 73, 97, 191, 202–3 Bible 4, 38–40, 47, 57, 73, 82, 86, 95, 100, 104, 117, 120, 123, 125, 131, 140, 156, 160n, 166, 194 Boyle, R 77n, 108,122 Bradley, F.H. 30n, 50 Cambridge Platonism 6–9, 43, 75, 162, 199 Christ 53n, 57, 120, 117, 120, 123 Christianity 2–3, 8n, 100–1, 104, 116, 121–5, 152, 163, 201, 203 Collier, A 96–7, 201–2 conceptive and exhibitive mind 24n, 53–4 concrete universal 44 contingency 17–18, 31, 59, 65, 95, 181–4 Creation, the 20, 30–32, 41–2, 55–7, 80, 134, 142, Cudworth, R. 1, 6–9, 28n Cumberland, R. 7 Daniel, G 31 Descartes, R. 1, 4, 11, 55, 58, 69, 79–80, 90, 96, 106, 133, 189 animals 66, 68 arguments for existence of God 41, 73–4, 125 on eternal truths 30–32, 52 on faith 119–21

innate ideas 31, 79 mind-body dualism 7, 61–6, 75, 128, 193 enthusiasm 3, 163, 205 essence 17, 23, 26, 29, 32, 34, 38, 41, 50, 59, 63–4, 69, 71, 81, representative or intelligible vs constitutive 56 of God 12, 48–9, 53, 93, 113, 134 exemplary vs. efficient cause 16, 55–8 evil 138–9, 148, 151, 154, 156 faith 7–8, 40, 74, 95, 101–4, 105, 109, 117–8, 120–4, 157 Ficino, M 5–6, 43 freedom 7, 16, 31, 52, 95, 137–141, 148, 166–7 friendship 127, 133, 155–6 geometry 17, 20–22, 36, 47, 88, 106, 112, 122, 190 God see also Divine Ideas as Being itself 37–8, 44, 83–4 essence of 113–4 existence of 7, 37–41, 73–4, 120 as Goodness 38–9, 134–7, 151 infallibility of 104 is love 10, 39–40 necessary 41, 95 omniform 6, 38, 43, 55 omnipresence 85 omniscience of 45–7, 51, 55, 81 perfect 37, 43–5, 51, 65, 85, 93, 104, 111, 131, 142n, 159 as the place of spirits 93 the sole object of love 10, 39, 85, 134–5, 147–9, 156–67 Green, T.H. 150 Herbert, G. 2–3 Hierocles 5, 141, 143 Hobbes, T. 1, 143, 177 Huygens, C. 1

 index idealism 16–17, 54, 65, 91–7, 183, 185 ideas 17, 65, 188–9 Divine Ideas 26, 27, 42–6, 48, 55, 57, 74, 81, 85–6, 88–90, 95, 112, 117, 147, 182, 184, 189, 198 Empirical 179–81 innate 8, 11, 33, 79–80, 171–5 logical not psychological 25, 50–1, 80, 85, 97, 203 Ideal World 8, 16–7, 56, 60–1, 86, 92, 94, 137, 197, 204 Arguments for 18–37, 41–2, 96 Identical with God 42–6 immortality 7, 66, 120 intellectus agens 73, 177–9, 195 intelligible extension 12, 87–8 interactionism 9, 78, 193

love, concupiscence/desire vs. benevolence/charity 131–3, 141–3, 149, 160, 163, 165–6 love of community 144, 149–50, 153–6 disinterested 12, 141–5, 159 efficient and final cause of love 136 love of God 49, 92, 135, 147–9, 156–67, 205 motion of the soul towards good 130, 134, 139, 165 love of pleasure 150–3, 158–60, 161–2 regulation of love 145–7 Platonic 5 love of self 153–4 underlying principle of the universe 136–7

knowledge of God 48–9, 72–4, 113, 135 finite scope of human knowledge 112–3 defective nature of human knowledge 114, 119 of natural world 64, 71, 75–86, 93–6 of our selves 64, 68–71

Masham, D 42n, 162–4, 166, 186, 202 Malebranche, N. 5, 9, 10–11, 27n, 32, 37–8, 42, 50, 57, 68–9, 71n, 76, 79–80, 82, 89–90, 93, 128, 176, 178, 189n, 193, 196–7, 199–201, 203 on animals 66 differences between Norris and 11–13, 22, 46, 83n on faith 74n, 95, 117–20, 125 on freedom 139–40 on love 129, 30, 131n, 139, 141, 143–4 occasionalism 12, 64, 77–8, 140, 192 intelligible extension 12, 86–88 on pleasure 152–3 vision in God 12, 48–9, 190, 192, 195 Mechanism 12, 20, 66–7, 200 Monsters 19–20 Morality 2, 7, 17, 23, 31, 66, 68, 101, 129, 140, 146–7, 149–50, 152, 162–3, 170, 174–5, 180–1, 190 Moral Gravity 130, 132, 135–7, 139 More, H 6, 7, 9, 43, 53, 140, 152, 161n

Leibniz, G.W. 1, 27, 79, 161, 172 Locke, J. 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 27, 35, 47, 75, 76, 82n, 94, 96, 100, 137, 147, 192, 197, 203, 206 attack on innate ideas 8, 80, 171–5 conceptualism 18, 191 empiricism 179–181 reviewed by Norris 169 Ideas and sensations 196 the origin of ideas 176–9 possible materiality of the soul 61, 63–4, 123 quarrel with Norris 162, 164, 186–7 On religion 121–125, 163n truth 181, 184–185 soul’s union with God 193–5 unclear about the nature of ideas 170–1, 187–9, 193, 198 universals 191 vision in God 190

Newton, I. 1, 43, 63, 137, 177

index  occasionalism 12, 64, 66n, 76–8, 93–4, 140, 159, 161, 179, 191–2 pantheism 58–9, 190 Philo 5, 16, 42 poetry 3, 5n, 7n, 39n, 47, 137–38, 143n, 184n Porphry 5, 51 Plato 5, 21, 35, 42, 50–1, 53n, 111n, 127, 143, 183 Platonism 2–3, 5–6, 8, 12–13, 16, 18, 53n, 56, 83, 89, 91–2, 137, 201 Pleasure 134, 142, 146, 150–3, 158–60, 161–2 Plotinus 5, 6, 16, 42, 50–1, 93 Proclus 5, 51 providence 113 primary and secondary goods 134–7, 157 Quakers, the 194, 205 quietism 144 rationality 7–8, 50, 57, 92, 100, 109–10, 115–116, 142, 144 reason 82, 105–7 above vs. contrary to 107–110 reality not relative to human reason 110–115 Regis, P-S 32–34, 52n, 66, 80 realism 54, 91, 115, 197 relations 25–9, 51n, 84, 112, 182, 184–5 revelation 8, 12, 32, 40, 61n, 74, 95, 102–4, 109, 112–113, 116–118, 120–22, 124–125, 163n science 7, 12–3, 26, 34–7, 84, 116

Scholasticism 1, 9–10, 27–8, 35, 44, 46, 73, 75, 97, 120, 141, 178, 180, 189n, 200 secondary qualities 90 sensations, see also occasionalism, 69–70, 77–8, 81, 87, 89–91, 94, 96, 190, 196, 197n socinianism 99–100, 107–8, 110–11, 116, 119, 123 Souls 18 active 78, 105, 130, 140 of animals 11, 66–8 distinct from body 7, 11, 61–6, 70, 137, 165 union with God 47, 72, 74–5, 83, 92, 131n, 150, 193–5 Spinoza, B. 1, 44, 58, 72, 128n, 129 Suarez, F. 9, 21, 27–8, 30, 44, 52, 56 temporary 18 Toland, J. 100–1, 121n, 115, 123n Trinity 57, 100–1, 113, 118, 120, 124 Truth eternal 22–34, 51–4, 65, 112, 185 of the object and of the subject 23–4, 181, 184 simple and complex 24–5 contextual nature of 112–3 Locke’s account of 181, 185 infinite nature of 112 uniformity in nature 18–20 universals 12, 17, 35, 49–51, 92, 175, 183, 189, 191, 197 vision in God 10, 12, 48, 86, 188, 190, 192–3, 195 Wesley, J. 3, 204–5