Bodies of Thought : Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment

"Examining the development of a secular, purely material conception of human beings in the early Enlightenment, Bodies of Thought provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual culture of this period, and challenges certain influential interpretations of irreligious thought and the 'Radical Enlightenment'. Beginning with the debate on the soul in England, in which political and religious concerns were intertwined, and ending with the eruption of materialism onto the public stage in mid-eighteenth-century France, Ann Thomson looks at attempts to explain how the material brain thinks without the need for an immaterial and immortal soul. She shows how this current of thinking fed into the later eighteenth-century 'Natural History of Man', the earlier roots of which have been overlooked by many scholars. Although much attention has been paid to the atheistic French materialists, their link to the preceding period has been studied only partially, and the current interest in what is called the 'Radical Enlightenment' has served to obscure rather than enlighten this history. By bringing out the importance of both Protestant theological debates and medical thinking in England, and by following the different debates on the soul in Holland and France, this book shows that attempts to find a single coherent strand of radical irreligious thought running through the early Enlightenment, coming to fruition in the second half of the eighteenth century, ignore the multiple channels which composed Enlightenment thinking."--Jacket. Examining the development of a secular, purely material conception of human beings in the early Enlightenment, this book provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual culture of this period, and challenges certain influential interpretations of irreligious thought and the ‘Radical Enlightenment’. Beginning with the debate on the soul in England, in which political and religious concerns were intertwined, and ending with the eruption of materialism onto the public stage in mid 18th‐century France, this book looks at attempts to explain how the material brain thinks without the need for an immaterial and immortal soul. It shows how this current of thinking fed into the later 18th‐century ‘Natural History of Man’, the earlier roots of which have generally been ignored. Although much attention has been paid to the atheistic French materialists, their link to the preceding period has been studied only partially, and the current interest in what is called the ‘Radical Enlightenment’ has helped to obscure rather than enlighten this history. By bringing out the importance of both Protestant theological debates and medical thinking in England, and by following the different debates on the soul in Holland and France, this book shows that attempts to find a single coherent strand of radical irreligious thought running through the early Enlightenment, coming to fruition in the second half of the 18th century, ignore the multiple currents which composed Enlightenment thinking Contents......Page 10 Preface......Page 8 1. Introduction......Page 12 2. ‘The Church in Danger’: Latitudinarians, Socinians, and Hobbists......Page 40 3. Animal Spirits and Living Fibres......Page 76 4. Mortalists and Materialists......Page 108 5. Journalism, Exile, and Clandestinity......Page 146 6. Mid-Eighteenth-Century Materialism......Page 186 7. Epilogue: Some Consequences......Page 228 Bibliography......Page 260 B......Page 294 C......Page 295 D......Page 296 H......Page 297 L......Page 298 M......Page 299 R......Page 301 S......Page 302 W......Page 303 Y......Page 304 Contents 10 Preface 8 1. Introduction 12 2. ‘The Church in Danger’: Latitudinarians, Socinians, and Hobbists 40 3. Animal Spirits and Living Fibres 76 4. Mortalists and Materialists 108 5. Journalism, Exile, and Clandestinity 146 6. Mid-Eighteenth-Century Materialism 186 7. Epilogue: Some Consequences 228 Bibliography 260 Index 294 A 294 B 294 C 295 D 296 E 297 F 297 G 297 H 297 I 298 J 298 K 298 L 298 M 299 N 301 O 301 P 301 Q 301 R 301 S 302 T 303 U 303 V 303 W 303 Y 304