ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the major tenets of vitalism as they appeared in the thought of the philosopher Anne Conway, a woman whose ideas, praised and respected in her own day, have been almost forgotten in ours. It assesses their influence on and convergence with the vitalistic strand of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's thought as it appeared in papers of his later life, the "Monadology" and "The Principles of Nature and of Grace". The elements of Conway's system thus represented a significant input in the important period of Leibniz's thought, leading up to the writing of the 1714 "Monadology". The chapter discusses her philosophy of nature, pointing out congruences with Leibniz's views. The writings of Francis Mercury van Helmont and Anne Conway served to confirm and buttress his vitalistic view of nature and to stimulate the coalescence of his ideas into a "monadology".
