Anne Conway: The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy

Abstract

Small •dots• enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis. .. . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported within [brackets] in normal-sized type.-This work was posthumously published in a Latin translation, and the original (English) manuscript was lost; so the Latin is all we have to work with.-The division into chapters and sections is presumably Lady Conway's; the titles of chapters 2-9 are not.

Alchemy and Cultures of Knowledge among Early Modern Women

“…22 These changes involve intermutation not only of such basic elements as earth, water, air, fire, and ether, but of minerals, metals, plants, and of one metal into another. 23 Furthermore, radical transformation occurs in patterns of degeneration and restoration, where creatures intermutate along a hierarchy of being in such a way that a man can become a brute, or a horse a human being. This process is spiritual as well as a physical: degenerating creatures become more solid or corporeal as they decline morally, while the restored creatures transform from a "hardened" more corporeal state to a more subtle composition as they are spiritually purified.…”

Anne Conway and Her Circle on Monads

“…Hence it comes to pass that the Soul of every Man shall remain an entire everlasting Soul, or be of endless duration, that it may receive the proper Fruit of its labour, and that the Universal Law of Justice (which is written on every Thing) doth require, which is as a most strong and indissolvable Band to preserve this Unity." 35 The plurality of spirits that collectively constitute the central governor for the whole person might be-or might eventually become-so firmly united to one another that they will never again be separated. Nevertheless, what unites them will be a bond of sympathy, love, and mutual support, not of essence.…”

“…According to the former, Conway's work was "abruptly and scatterdly, I may add also obscurely, written in a Paper-Book, with a Black-lead Pen, towards the latter end of her long and tedious Pains and Sickness." 47 The latter adds that it was written "in a very dull and small Character; which being found after her Death is partly transcribed (for the rest could scarcely be read) and published in Latin." 48 It has sometimes been suggested that both More and van Helmont were involved in the eventual publication of this work.…”

“…For example, when Conway defines the distinction between body and spirit in terms of their respective degrees of subtlety, her annotator ventures to explain how spirit is "rather defined"-or, as in the Coudert and Corse translation, and here more accurately to the Latin, "better defined [melius definitur]"referring the reader to Knorr's Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae for further details. 53 Or, when Conway claims that there are infinitely many creatures, the annotator cites the Dutch-Marrano kabbalist, Abraham Cohen de Herrera (c. 1570-c. 1635), and observes that "Creatures are rather [i.e. better, melius] termed Indefinite than Infinite."…”

“…But, when it came to 'atoms,' she was explicit in §4 of chapter 7 that, even supposing that such things could exist in the first place-which she had already disproved in chapter 3their very nature as atoms would be such as to exclude them from that scheme: But then, she had insisted in §1 of the same chapter that every creature must at length return unto good. 62 And she elaborated in §2 that an infinitely good God would never produce any dead thing, inconvertible to any degree of life or knowledge. 63 Here, then, was another reason why atoms or physical monads could not exist: God would never permit the existence of any creature that could not aspire to progress towards perfection, but this was something that an atom could never do.…”