ABSTRACT
The Spirit of Nature was a concept adumbrated by the Cambridge Platonists, Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, in response to Cartesian mechanical philosophy in the 17th century. This essay outlines the way in which this idea sought to avoid pantheism and materialist vitalism in allowing the indwelling of God in nature. After surveying this influence on natural philosopher John Ray, it argues that imaginative literature, and specifically the poetry of Henry Vaughan, is more successful in this quest, allowing natural forms more agency through liturgical participation and hermetic philosophy. Vaughan's ideas chime with the monism of Ann Conway and enable an analogical participation of nature in God's life. The essay concludes by examining the influence of the Spirit of Nature idea of the Cambridge Platonists on the poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who like Vaughan has recourse to biblical poetics to understand the union of transcendence and immanence in God's presence in natural forms.
