ABSTRACT
Anne Finch Conway developed a vitalistic philosophy which in many ways anticipated the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Anne Conway's vitalism was based on the idea of the unity of spirit and matter and was an influential reaction against the ideas of the mechanists. More than any other contemporary philosopher, Peter Loptson has taken Anne Conway seriously as a philosopher in the essentialist tradition. In his edition which contains both the first published Latin treatise and the English re-translation, Loptson has included an introduction to her life and work. The elements of Conway's system were a significant influence in the important period of Leibniz's thought leading up to the writing of his "Monadology". Like other organicists of the period, Conway based her system of creation not on the machine but on the great, hierarchical chain of being, modified to incorporate an evolution or transmutation to higher forms, based on the acquisition of goodness and perfection.
