Anne Conway, Early Quaker Thought, and the New Science

Anne Conway, Early Quaker Thought, and the New Science David Byrne* Anne Conway was the most spiritual philosopher of the seventeenth century. Shewas also aQuaker. SarahHutton eloquentlydescribes Conway's debt to the Quakers in regard to issues such as improvement and theodicy, but the center-piece of Conway's natural philosophy is the Quaker notion that no body is void of spirit. From this premise Conway constructed an original and comprehensive systemofnaturalphilosophywhichwas fundamentally a spiritual-monism. Anticipating the ideas of the most famous spiritualist, Bishop George Berkeley, Conway argued that even the seemingly most hard, impenetrable piece ofmatter contains an infinite amount of spirit. This allows Conway to construct a cosmology which, while consistent with the mechanical philosophy, also included room for a providential God. Conway, like virtually all seventeenth century thinkers, was a product of Cartesian metaphysics which described the physical world as infinitely extended body, so motion is merely caused by body A hitting body B. Operating like a finely tuned machine, there is no place for a vacuum or empty space in the world since unperceivable matter fills all voids. However , a physical world full of body threatened the belief in an immaterial substance or God fordevoutbelievers because it seemedto rule out a"place" for spirit. Descartes did not draw these consequences himself, and in fact argued that a separation ofmind and matter established the means to prove the existence ofGod, spirit and matter.1 Cartesian metaphysics nonetheless fostered deism by banishing the immaterial realm from natural philosophy. His philosophy proved God, but his science did not. Thomas Hobbes' system was even more problematic since it explicitly denied the existence ofan incorporeal God, or anything incorporeal for that matter. Even thought, perception and ideas can be reduced to mechanical vibrations in the brain. Hobbes' physics were akin to Descartes' in that motion is caused by external contact, but at least Cartesian metaphysics asserted the existence ofa spiritual realm. Hobbes' ideas made him the most famous atheist of the seventeenth century and it was only friends in high places that allowed Hobbes to escape with his head. * David Byrne is a Professor of European History at Santa Monica College and Mt. Saint Mary's College, Los Angeles. He is currently researching the relationship between immaterialism and natural philosophy in 17th- and early- 18thcentury England. Anne Conway, Early Quaker Thought and the New Science 25 A new science was needed which, while consistent with the mechanical philosophy, also included room for a providential God. The notion that God played no active role in the universe—as suggested by materialists— frightened the religiously inclined almost as much as raw atheism. God was not a passive observer or absent landlord, rather He regulates and maintains His creation. Arguably the goal of seventeenth century English natural philosophy was to continue the mechanical philosophy as laid out by Descartes and Hobbes, yet to purge these systems oftheir deist and atheist tendencies by describing the immaterial, active side ofnature. Seeking to eliminate the irreligious thrust of Cartesian and Hobbesian natural philosophy by asserting God's divine providence, the Cambridge Platonists used natural theology as a means to show God's existence in the physical world. Like Descartes, they were never content with pure empiricism ; theyusedreasonto demonstratethe existence ofGod.2 The Cambridge Platonists were essentially metaphysical Cartesians who rejected the materialism his thought inspired. Although part oftheirphilosophy was directed against Descartes, they kept the main principles of his philosophy: the existence ofan immaterial realm, the Cartesian conception offree-will, the infinite extension of matter, his metaphysical, a priori method and his dualism which argued for a strict separation between body and spirit. But whereas Descartes separated mind and matter into two autonomous realms, the Cambridge Platonists—each with their own specific modifications— combined spirit and matter as integrated parts oftheir natural philosophy. Insisting that Descartes carriedhis dualism too far, leading Platonists Henry More and Ralph Cudworth argued that body and spirit are not separate spheres, but work together to form the natural world. Descartes denied the existence of spirit to anything outside the soul—even notoriously to beasts or animals, which he maintained were mere automata, bereft of a rational soul—while More and Cudworth...