apocalyptic vision wherein the poet imagines the reconciliation
of infinite worlds and time within God's immensity. He is also
attempting to harmonize _Psychathanasia_, where he rejected infinitude,
with its sequel, _Democritus Platonissans_, where he has everywhere been
declaring it; thus we should think of endless worlds as we should think
of Nature and the Phoenix, dying yet ever regenerative, sustained by a
"centrall power/ Of hid spermatick life" which sucks "sweet heavenly
juice" from above (st. 101). More closes his poem on a vision of harmony
and ceaseless energy, a most fit ending for one who dared to believe
that the new philosophy sustained the old, that all coherence had not
gone out of the world, but was always there, only waiting to be
discovered afresh in this latter age.

The University of British Columbia

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[Footnote 1: The quotations from More's Latin autobiography occur in the
_Opera Omnia_ (London, 1675-79), portions of which Richard Ward
translated in _The Life of . . . Henry More_ (London, 1710). Cf. the
modern edition of this work, ed. M. F. Howard (London, 1911), pp. 61,
67-68, the text followed here. There is a recent reprint of the _Opera
Omnia_ in 3 volumes (Hildesheim, 1966) with an introduction by Serge
Hutin. The "Praefatio Generalissima" begins vol. II. 1. One passage in
it which Ward did not translate describes the genesis of _Democritus
Platonissans_. More writes that after finishing _Psychathanasia_, he
felt a change of heart: "Postea vero mutata sententia furore nescio quo
Poetico incitatus supra dictum Poema scripsi, ea potissimum innixus
ratione quod liquido constaret extensionem spacii dari infinitam, nec
majores absurditates pluresve contingere posse in Materia infinita,
infinitaque; Mundi duratione, quam in infinita Extensione spacii"
(p. ix).]

[Footnote 2: Cf. Lee Haring's unpub. diss., "Henry More's
_Psychathanasia_ and _Democritus Platonissans_: A Critical Edition,"
(Columbia Univ., 1961), pp. 33-57.]

[Footnote 3: Marjorie Hope Nicolson's various articles and books which
in part deal with More are important to the discussion that follows, and
especially "The Early Stage of Cartesianism in England," SP, XXVI
(1929), 356-379; _Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory_ (Ithaca, 1959), pp.
113-143, and _The Breaking of the Circle_ (New York, 1960), pp.
158-165.]

[Footnote 4: Cf. _The Meditations and Selections from the Principles of
Rene Descarte