The Bloodless Revolution

by Tristram Stuart

  48 Wotton (1697), pp.94–7, 148–65.

  CHAPTER 7

  1 For Helmont, Locke and the Kabbala, see Coudert (1997), pp.153, 157; Coudert (1999), pp.272–302; Brown, S. (1997), pp.109–10; ‘F.M. van Helmont’, ODNB

  2 More, H. (1662), ‘Immortality’, pp.110–11, 121; More, H. (1712), ‘Atheism’, pp.207, 231n. cp. Cudworth (1678), pp.43–6; cf. 312–14 on the relation between Egyptian, Pythagorean and Indian ‘Brachman’ systems of metempsychosis. See also Cudworth (1678), pp.38–9, which echoes [Rust?] (1661), p.54.

  3 More, H. (1662), ‘Immortality’, pp.113–14.

  4 This is necessarily a hugely simplified scheme of a complex and varied set of beliefs. For Jewish kabbalists on gilgul in humans and its origin, see e.g. Scholem (1987), pp.90, 113, 123, 154, 176, 188–98, 456–60, 467; Scholem (1941), pp.280–4; Scholem (1991), pp.197–9, 205–15 (Scholem thought the most likely source was medieval Gnostic Jewish sects in the Middle East, where Gnostic Christian, Jewish and Islamic groups did – and in Iraq still do – believe in reincarnation, though cf. Eylon (2003), pp.26–7, 30–1+n., 36n.70, 67–9+nn., on a passage which could be interpreted as an allusion to ethicised (i.e. ‘karmic’) reincarnation in midrashic and talmudic literature, though her argument is less than convincing); Giller (2001), pp.35–69; Elior (1995), pp.243, 262+n.82; Dan, ed. (2002), pp.204–5; Rosenroth et al., eds (1684), this is vol. 2; section three in the second pagination sequence pp.243–478 contains the ‘De Revolutionibus Animarum’, attributed here to Luria, whose doctrines it explains; cf. Rosenroth et al., eds (1677), I.236; Part II, e.g. pp.256, 268; Vital (1999), pp.243–4; Wexelman (1999), pp.71–2, 109–12; Fine (2003) (not seen).

  5 On the original Adam out of whom the whole creation ‘fell’, see e.g. Scholem (1991), pp.220–1, 229–33; Scholem (1941), pp.278–82; Coudert (1975), p.638 (Coudert says it is Adam Kadmon, whereas I think this story usually refers to Adam Ha-Rishon, the Adam of the Bible); Anon. (1694c), pp.17, 20, 31–3, 39 (all souls contained in Adam and their hereditary transfer).

  6 Rosenroth et al. (1677), I.ii.294; cf. Scholem (1991), pp.227–8+nn. Coudert (1975), p.642; Scholem (1991), pp.237–8.

  7 The claim that God regulated the killing of beasts to ensure the passage of the soul into a human was formulated in the Temunah (AD c.1300). Gilgul for animals and the corollary of compassion to animals seems to have come to the sixteenth-century kabbalists via Rabbi Joseph of Shushan’s Sefer Ta’amei ha-Mitsvot (c.1300), circulated in Salonica c.1520 by Rabbi Isaac ibn-Fahri. On the role of slaughter and consumption in tikkun, and compassion for animals, see Elior (1995), pp.253+n.51, 257, 259+n.79; Scholem (1987), pp.188–98, 468–9; Scholem (1991), pp.218, 225–6 (Scholem rightly distinguished reincarnation systems which enjoin vegetarianism and care to animals from those, such as kabbalist gilgul, which encourage slaughter of animals. But in fact the Kabbala – like the Vedic system where ritual slaughter was believed not to cause death or suffering – encourages both); Harrison, P. (1993), p.540n; Altmann (1987), pp.29–30; Giller (2001), pp.41–2+nn.; Isaacs (2000), pp.84–5. Compare e.g. Manu (1971), v.40.

  8 Nehora.com (n.d.); Vital (n.d.); Bloch (1928), p.384; Murti (n.d.).

  9 See also Helmont, F.M. (1685), pp.105–9, 145; cf. Blount (1678?), pp.59–60.

  10 Helmont, Anne Conway and the anonymous ‘Helmontians’ did not deny damnation, they just reserved it for sinners who refused to repent over several incarnations. For the role of transmigration in the Christian eternal damnation debate, see Walker (1964), pp.134–41 and Coudert opera cit.

  11 [Helmont, F.M.] (1684), preface.

  12 Scholem (1991), pp.237–8; cf. Scholem (1987), pp.176, 189–90; Altmann (1995), pp.280–3.

  13 Helmont, F.M. (1685), pp.129–30; cf. Coudert (1999), p.268. On Christians and the salvation of animals and all creation by gilgul, see Coudert (1976), p.178n. Peter Harrison is incorrect to suggest that Helmont did not believe that animal souls worked their way up into humans. Harrison says instead that Lady Anne Conway was alone in adopting fully blown animal-to-human metempsychosis, whereas it is likely that Conway received the doctrine from Helmont. Walker and Kurth-Voigt also omit Helmont’s belief that animal spirits could work their way up to human existence and thence to heaven (Walker (1964), pp.141–2; Kurth-Voigt (1999), pp.36–8; Harrison, P. (1993), pp.533–8, 541). Harrison says that Origen believed that human souls could degenerate into animals, but that seventeenth-century thinkers would not go that far, whereas the reverse is true. Origen, and his seventeenth-century redactor, expressly denied that Origen believed in metempsychosis between humans and animals (see above). On the other hand, a number of seventeenth-century Christians went beyond Origen and did believe that human souls could enter animal bodies, including Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, Lady Anne Conway, Joseph Glanvill (who considered it at any rate) and, in an altered fashion, Thomas Tryon.

  14 [Helmont, F.M.] (1684), p.165.

  15 Coudert (1976), pp.185–6; Coudert (1999), pp.254–8, 276–7); H[all] (1694), pp.15–16, 35.

  16 Woodhouse (1986), pp.54–6, 63, 75, 257, 326–7, 334–5, 355, 357–9; Pletho (1858), pp.30–3, 78–9, 251–9; Anastos (1948), pp.281–9; Masai (1956), pp.136–8. For Pletho’s comments on animals and food, see Woodhouse (1986), p.343; Pletho (1858), pp.13, 81–3.

  17 e.g. Pletho (1689) and Pletho (1754).

  18 For the counterpart to this debate among Jewish kabbalists, see Idel (1987), pp.155–62; Altmann (1987), pp.29–30. Some, like Rabbi Joseph Solomon of Kandia, denied that Pythagorean metempsychosis and kabbalist gilgul were similar.

  19 [Helmont, F.M.] (1684), pp.153–8, 163–4. The authorship of this pamphlet should perhaps be reconsidered in the light of Anon. (1694c), pp.31–3; Tertullian (2004a), ch.48. Coudert (1975), pp.634–5; Coudert (1999), p.73; cf. [Philanthropos] (1690), p.52.

  20 H[all] (1694), pp.15–16, 35–6; cf. Anon. (1692), p.86; Gueullette (1725), p.xxi.

  21 Coudert (1976), pp.180–1.

  22 Coudert (1999), pp.244–9.

  23 [Rust?] (1661), pp.14, 22–3, 37–9, 47–9, 51–3, 68–70, 75, 100–1, 105; Walker (1964), pp.134–5. cf. ch. 5, n.107 above.

  24 [Rust?] (1661), pp.4, 53–4, 84–7; Origen (2005), Bk V, chs. 39, 41, 49; Bk VII, ch.7; Bk VIII, chs. 28–30; cf. Bk I, ch.20; Bk III, ch.75; Bk V, ch.29; Jerome (2005b), § 4, 7, 15.

  25 Huet (1678); Edwards (1693), p.250; Bayle, P. (1734–41), VIII.614 ‘Pythagoras’, Note H; Hazard (1953), pp.45–6; Walker (1972), pp.214–20; cf. Ramsay (1748), pp.[463–4].

  26 Picart (1733–7), IV.ii.159–67; Lockman ed. (1743), II.266, 277.

  27 [Glanvill] (1662), sig.Bv–[B5v], C4v, pp.1–3, 33–4, 48–9, 52–4.

  28 Allison Coudert suggested that Lux Orientalis discussed pre-existence in a non-Kabbalist way (Coudert (1975), p.639); but cf. especially [Glanvill] (1662), p.9.

  29 [Glanvill] (1662), sigs[A8r–v], [B8v]–Cr; pp.4, 5–6, 9, 33–5, 44, 47, 52–6, 59–61, 68–9, 84.

  30 Mullett (1937); cit. Harrison, P. (1993), pp.535–8; cf.also Walker (1964), pp.134–5; [Glanvill] (1662), p.68 may suggest that when writing Lux Orientalis, Glanvill did not think human souls could reincarnate into animals (bodies ‘more squallid and ugly’).

  31 Coudert (1976), p.179n.; Coudert (1975), pp.639, 645.

  32 [Conway] (1692), pp.48–9, 65–6, 69–70, 153; Daniel 4:31–3. cf. Coudert (1999), p.268. Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1700–60), leader of Hasidism in eastern Europe, said that when an animal or plant was eaten in accordance with the rules of the Torah the spark trapped within it was released to its spiritual origins (Scholem (1991), pp.241–7). Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745–1812), founder of Chabad Hasidism, explained that unclean foods were forbidden (literally, ‘bound’) by the Torah precisely because their shell of matter was impenetrable and the spark could not be released (Chabad.org (2001–6), chs 7 and 8). On medicinal punishment, cf. Brown, S. (1997), p.101.

  33 [Conway] (1692), pp.48–76; cf. Walker (1964), pp.138–42; Harri
son, P. (2001), pp.212–13; Harrison, P. (1993), pp.538–9. Compare [Conway] (1692), pp.69–70 with [Tryon] (1695a), p.72. This force of sympathetic attraction is related to More, H. (1662), ‘Immortality’, pp.118–24, 156; More, H. (1682), pp.16, 123–6, where More says that a soul’s ‘Natural Congruity’ could operate simultaneously with ‘the Spirit of Nature attracting such a soul as is most congruous to the predelineated Matter which it has prepared for her’ (Harrison, P. (2001), p.206+n.; Cohen (1936), p.54). The idea is implicit in Greek myth (Tantalus is an example), and was built into a theodicy by Plato and then Plotinus. It was thence developed by Bruno, Agrippa, Conway and Tryon; Agrippa (1651), III.480. Helmont conceived of a magnetic force which drew particles to the soul in the womb, ensuring that the same material was used for each of a soul’s incarnations (H[all] (1694), pp.26–7). A similar idea occurs in Giordano Bruno (León-Jones (1997), pp.85, 123–4, 155–6). The Turkish Spy and other deist texts developed their own form of the same idea. A similar force was later described by the mystic Charles Hector Marquis St George de Marsay and adapted by George Cheyne to the Newtonian concept of ‘electricity’ (see ch. 9 and 13 below); Berrow (1762), p.38. This carefully directed retribution seemed preferable to the blunter punitive instrument of eternal damnation. John Hall pointed out that such pedantic retaliation would result in infinite repetition of sins and ridiculed the claim that the verse ‘he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword’ (Revelation 13:10) meant that murderers would be born again to suffer the crimes they committed (H[all] (1694), pp.1–4, 20). cf. Agrippa (1651), III.473–4, where Agrippa collates Origen’s gloss of the same verse with ‘the Ethnick Philosophers’’ concept of ‘retaliation’ whereby ‘he which hath polluted his hands with blood, should be compelled to undergo retaliation; he that lived a brutish life, should be precipitated and revolved into a brutish body’ and Plotinus’ belief that ‘those who use sense especially together with wrath, do arise wild beasts’; Field (1685), p.23, satirising Tryon’s application of Revelation 13:10 to bird-murderers; [Tryon] ([1684c]), pp.130–1, 160; [Tryon] (1695a), pp.70–8. Thomas Tryon was harsher than these Helmontians: the retributive suffering and the animal form taken on in the next life was a punishment without end, whereas with the Helmontians it was a purgative step towards salvation (cf. e.g. Tryon (1691c), pp.198–9); and ch. 5 n.107 above. cf. also [Tryon] (1695a), pp.112–13; Lockman, ed. (1743), I.463; Manu (1971), v.33; cf. e.g. Isaacs (2000), pp.84–5. It is interesting that two of the most prominent women philosophers of the seventeenth century – Anne Conway and Margaret Cavendish – both proposed deeply unorthodox and very similar systems of reincarnation (see ch. 5 above). For other similarities between Tryon and the Christian kabbalists, cf. [Conway] (1692), pp.137, 140–2, 142–3; Brown, S. (1997), pp.105–6; cf. also Ramsay (1727), II.ii.135–6. Tryon might have been connected to Conway and the Helmontians through the Quaker George Keith (see pp.68–9). Thomas and Sarah Howkins, who published John Field’s attack on Tryon, also produced the books of Helmont and the anonymous ‘Helmontians’. Tryon shared Helmont’s prelapsarianism and passion for reclaiming the Adamic language and his interest in Jacob Böhme (Coudert (1999), pp.74, 146–7; Coudert (1976), pp.171–2) and Tryon’s use of revelation for medical guidance is also similar to Helmont’s techniques (cf. Coudert (1999), pp.157–8).

  34 Conway considered all creatures to be connected as parts of one body ‘united with one another, by means of Subtiler Parts, interceding or coming in between, which are the Emanations of one Creature into another, by which also they act one upon another at the greatest distance; and this is the Foundation of all Sympathy and Antipathy’ ([Conway] (1692), pp.29, 55–6). For a similar notion in Hinduism of a universal force like electrical energy or fluid connecting all living things through which karma is transferred, see O’Flaherty, ed. (1980), p.58. Conway’s requirement for the care of domestic animals may have derived directly from one of Luria’s own edicts; cf. Nehora.com (n.d.); Bloch (1928), p.384.

  35 [Conway] (1692), pp.30ff., 55–6, 68.

  36 Anon. (1694b), pp.12–13; cf. Walker (1964), p.141n. (Walker attributes the work to Conway or Rosenroth edited by Helmont); Harrison, P. (2001), pp.210–11.

  CHAPTER 8

  1 McGuire and Rattansi (1966), pp.112, 119–21; [Pemberton] (1728), sig.[a1]r–v.

  2 Stukeley (1936), pp.60–1; Keynes 136, p.7 [Typescript, pp.16–17]; cf. Keynes 136, Mead to Conduitt (7 July 1727); Keynes 135, 14 Feb 1727/8, side 1; More, L.T. (1934), p.206.

  3 Keynes 130.5, sheet 1r [Transcript p.1]; Keynes 130.6, Notebook 4 [f.4v–5r]; cit. Westfall (1980), pp.103–4; Keynes 135, Second Letter (14 Feb 1727/8), side 2–3 [Typescript pp.2–3]. For the reference to Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, cf. [D.F.] (1663), p.16.

  4 Stukeley (1936), pp.66–7; cf. Keynes 130.7 [Transcript pp.15–16].

  5 Keynes 135, 14 Feb 1727/8, side 2–3 [Typescript, p.3].

  6 Newton (1959), II.

  7 Keynes 129A, [pp.23–5]; Westfall (1980), pp.580–1; Brewster (1831), p.320; White (1997), p.132; Fontenelle (1728), pp.22–3, 26; Manuel (1968), pp.382–3. Mead was very cautious in administering vegetable diets (Mead ([1751]), pp.134, 157–9), but cf. Cheyne (1720), pp.13–15; Cheyne (1733), ‘Preface’, pp.vi–vii. On Newton’s bladder surgeon, William Cheselden, cf. Keynes 130.6 Notebook 2, [f.15v]; Cheselden (1723); Cope (1953), p.36; Cheselden (1723), p.109.

  8 Harrison (1978), pp.117–18, 125; cf. Iliffe (1998); cp. Keynes 129A, [p.23]; CUL Add. Ms. 3996, f.43.

  9 See ‘Abbreviations’ for notes on Newton’s Library; Maier (1687) [Tr/NQ 16.88], p.27 (d2s); cf. pp.5–6 (ds); cf. Maier (1617), p.144; Jung (1974), p.273.

  10 Cheyne (1943), p.69; Cheyne (1742), p.81; Westfall (1980), pp.103–4; Shapin (1998), pp.40–1.

  11 Haller, Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani, VI.198, cit. Williams, Howard (1883) and Newton, J.F. (1897), p.33n.; Nicholson (1999), p.40; Falconer (1781), p.240ff; Adair (1787b), pp.268–9.

  12 Combe (1860), p.149.

  13 Keynes 129A, p.18; Westfall (1980), pp.580–1; Shapin (1998), pp.21, 44.

  14 Keynes 129A, p.[23].

  15 Keynes 130.6, Notebook 2, f.15v; cf. Keynes 130.7, f.[3r] [Transcript p.6]; Keynes 130.6, Notebook 1; [Pope] (1729), I.263.

  16 Voltaire (1980–), XV.222–3.

  17 Westfall (1982), p.16; Manuel (1968), pp.349, 377; Manuel (1974), p.49; McGuire and Rattansi (1966), p.108; Force and Popkin, eds (1999), pp.xvi–xvii; cp. Newton (1728), ‘Dedication’, p.vi; Fontenelle (1728), p.22.

  18 Harrison (1978), p.59 (Newton owned at least 46 travelogues).

  19 Locke (1690), Bk I, ch. 3; Carey (2004); cp. Voltaire (1980–), XV.218–23. Yahuda 17.3, f.10–12; cf. Westfall (1958), p.207; Westfall (1982), pp.24–30; Popkin (1998), p.413; Webster (1982), pp.2, 10. Westfall emphasised Newton’s deistic intimations (Yahuda 41, f.7; cf. Bacon (1974), p.201). Newton repeatedly stresses that the original divine knowledge was ‘instituted by God in ye beginning’, though his frequent allusions to the ‘God of Nature’ could suggest a deist subtext (Yahuda 41, f.4r, 8).

  20 Newton (1728), p.187; Yahuda 17.3, f.7–9.

  21 Yahuda 41, f.4r; Newton (1728), p.187. Newton traced the establishment of the holocaust, or burnt sacrifice back to Cain and Abel, but other records of antediluvian religious practice were scanty (Keynes 7, side 1).

  22 Westfall (1982), p.29; Manuel (1963), pp.61–2; Snobelen (1999); Yahuda 1.1, f.1–10; 10.3, f.27v.

  23 Westfall (1982), pp.24–7; Bernal (1987), p.167; Newton (1728), pp.40–1, 174–9, 328; Yahuda 41, f.1r, 6–7; Yahuda 16.1; Yahuda 17.3, f.10–11; Vossius (1641), pp.648–52; Carpini and Rubruquis (1903), pp.109–10; Purchas (1625), III.4.

  24 Yahuda 41, f.3–4, 8; cf. Yahuda 17.3, f.10. Thomas Burnet said of the Brahmins that ‘Tis really a most wonderful thing that a Nation half barbarous should have retained these Opinions from the very times of Noah: for they could not have arrived to a Knowledge of these things any other way, than by Tradition; nor could
this Tradition flow from any other Spring, than Noah, and the Antediluvian Sages’ (Blount, Gildon et al. (1693), p.82).

  25 Yahuda 41, f.4r.

  26 cf. Leviticus 3:17, 17:12.

  27 Manuel (1963), p.112+n.; cf. also McGuire and Rattansi (1966), pp.122–3+n.

  28 Kenyon-Jones (2001), p.85; cf. e.g. Mandeville (1924), Remark P, I.180–1; Spy, III.110–11.

  29 Yahuda 15.5, f.79v; cf. Keynes 3, p.30. cf. [Anon] (1646), p.5; [Delany] (1733), I.14, 132, II.5.

  30 Selden (1725), ‘Gentium’, Bk I, ch.10, col.158, 163–4; Bk VII, ch.12, I.755; cp. Goldish (1998), pp.42, 49–50.

  31 Newton (1728), pp.189–90; Yahuda 26.2, f.37–38. So unusual is Newton’s emphasis that when R.S. Westfall quoted from a scrap of paper, which he did not realise was a draft of this passage, he thought that Newton was discussing the laws of loving God and one’s neighbour, rather than the law of mercy to animals; Westfall (1982), p.28.

  32 Keynes 3 ‘Irenicum, or Ecclesiastical Polyty tending to Peace’ (post–1710), p.5; see ch. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9 above; Tryon (1703), p.61; and cf. Terry (1655), pp.348–9.

  33 Newton’s desire to identify this pattern might explain his decision to maintain the pre-Copernican number of seven planets, and his readiness to categorise the spectrum into the seven ‘primary’ colours even though he could see each merged seamlessly into the other. There may also have been a chemical dimension, cf. Churchill (1967).

  34 Keynes 3, p.35; cf. ch. 13 below.

  35 Newton (1728), ‘Dedication’, p.vii; cf. Maclaurin (1748), pp.13–16.

  36 Clarke (1720), pp.273–6. Clarke used this interpretation of the blood prohibition as part of a counter-vegetarian argument (see ch. 16 below), but it does not seem to have served this purpose for Newton.

  37 Maimonides (1963), pp.585–6 (III.xlvi), 598–600 (III.xlviii); cf. Edwards (1699), I.117–19 (who misrepresents Maimonides). Sune Borkfelt writes (without providing evidence) that Maimonides was a vegetarian (Borkfelt (2000)). Ezra (1988), pp.121–3; cf. p.47 for ibn Ezra on antedeluvian vegetarianism; cf. Keynes 49; Keynes 25, f.1r. Compare Spinoza’s eirenic seven laws, e.g. Betts (1984), p.76.