JOSEPH GLANVILL AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
-- CONTENTS -- CHAPTER I BIOGRAPHY . 7 CHAPTER I1 PAQE SCIEPTICISM
. . 23 CHAPTER I11 PLATONISM . . . 36 CHAPTER IV THE ROYAL SOCIETY
. . 48 CHAPTER V CHAPTER V1 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH FACTS AND THEORIES .
78 5, JOSEPH GLANVILL CHAPTER I BIOGRAPHY THERE is no century,
perhaps, in English history that exhibits to our sight so many con-
trasts as does the seventeenth. Every age, no doubt, is a
transition age, and every age ex- hibits change but the seventeenth
century may, in a very special sense, be characterised as a time of
flux. It was an age of fervent religious enthusiasm, as also an age
of licen- tiousness and indifference to religion. It was an age of
gross superstition, as also an age in which the foundations of
modern scientific knowledge were laid. There was war in the
schools, between scholasticism, which for so many centuries had
held sway over mens minds, and the new experimental and inductive
philosophy which owed its origin to Bacon. There was also war in
the land, the mind of the nation oscillating in a choice between
republic- anism and monarchism. We may perhaps look upon this
outward strife and clash of political theories as, in a way, the
manifesta- tion and outcome of an inner and spiritual conflict. But
from the vantage point of time we can avoid the error of imagining
the political conflict as a contest between the powers of darkness
on the one hand and those of light on the other. We can-indeed, we
must- admire the love of moral purity and hatred of hypocrisy in
religion and tyranny in govern- ment which characterised the
Roundhead policy whilst, on the other hand, it is quite obvious to
us that, undera continued Round- head administration, neither the
arts nor the sciences could have flourished culture would have come
to an end, and religion become dry and unbeautiful. The Stuart
regime, on the other hand, even if it was based upon absurd
nonsense concerning the divine right of kings, and even if it did
encourage licentiousness, provided that warm, genial atmosphere in
which alone the cultivation of the liberal arts is possible. The
Cavalier possessed a sense of beauty that the Roundhead lacked he
had either no religion or else a genial and generous one and
whatever may be urged against the Stuarts, we must always remember
that it was Charles I1 who granted the Charter to The Royal
Society-an event of supreme im- portance in the real history of the
nation, even if it is not always recognised as such. Into this
century of turmoil and stress, Joseph Glanvill was born. He was, in
the phraseology of his time, a man of many parts, brilliant,
versatile, broad-minded-in a way peculiarly characteristic of his
age, since in him very many of the diverse streams of thought of
this age seem to meet and combine. He was a staunch Anglican,
distrusting Non- conformity because of the narrowness of its creeds
but he had a tremendous admiration for Baxter. He was a sceptic,
who believed in God. He was a member of The Royal Society, an
experimental philosopher, who believed in witchcraft. These things
sound somewhat like paradoxes, and in fact some of those critics
who have endeavoured to estimate the value of Glanvills work have
found the last of these seeming paradoxes rather too much for them.
As a matter of factl, they are not paradoxes at all, or at any rate
they are paradoxes which Glanvillsucceeded in resolving and we
shall find, as we proceed, that his philosophy-that is to say, the
sum of his views concerning thb world and the next-forms a
consistent whole...
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