About this Item
8vo. [54], 166 pp. Original calf boards, rebacked with calf, new endleaves; small tear to lower corner of p. 165, far from text block. Signed by Alfred Keene, 1839. First English edition. This is one of the first books Norris published. "Norris, John (1657ΓΆΒ Β"1712), Church of England clergyman and philosopher, was born on 2 January 1657 at Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire, the third surviving child of John Norris (bap. 1614, d. 1682) and his wife, Elizabeth (d. 1696). His father was vicar of Collingbourne Kingston under the Commonwealth and he moved to the living of Aldbourne, Wiltshire, in 1660. Norris was educated at Winchester College and entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1676. A keen student at both Winchester and Oxford, he early abandoned his inherited Calvinism and concentrated his reading on Platonist authors. On graduating BA in 1680 he was appointed a fellow of All Souls by Archbishop Sancroft on the recommendation of Thomas Jeames, the warden, during a dispute with the fellows over the filling of the vacancies in the college. Norris always retained a great esteem for All Souls, and the college in turn erected a bust of h His early writings show him to have been at that time a strong tory and high-churchman, but also show that he deliberately turned aside from political involvement. All the writings that he considered to be worth preserving were included in A Collection of Miscellanies, which appeared in 1687. im in the Codrington Library when this was built in the following century. . . . Norris's writings have tended to be neglected by historians of philosophy, partly perhaps because of Locke's dismissive attitude and partly because many of his theories are so close to those of Malebranche that it is difficult to disentangle their influence. He has been better treated by historians of literature, who see his poetry, much of which continues to be republished, as marking especially clearly the transition from the spirit of the Renaissance to that of modern times. Much of Norris's poetry, which has its roots in the metaphysical tradition, is somewhat laboured. At his best, however, he has a lyrical spirit, . . . In private life Norris seems to have been a kindly person, a devoted parish clergyman, and the friend and supporter of several of the learned ladies of his time. In the history of English thought he is a transitional figure. In contrast to the Cambridge Platonists he adopted wholeheartedly the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter. His theory of knowledge was a Cartesian Platonism similar to that of Malebranche, to whose more developed theories he was at times too inclined to defer. In the history of English philosophy, religion, and literature he deserves to be remembered." ΓΆΒ Β" DNB. Lowndes, The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, vol. 3, p. 928. See: W. J. Mander, The Philosophy of John Norris.
Seller Inventory # PW1341
Contact seller
Report this item
