ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides the introduction by outlining events in Roger North's life, by canvassing reasons for his retirement from public life and by analysing some of his purposes and practices as a writer. It examines North's thoughts on the problem, how to live, beginning with his autobiography, where he represents himself as a Christian sceptic, who seeks to discover from his own experience how to live without the guidance of external rules. The book presents an analysis of North's argument, which also includes a set of objections regarding the dogmata of Thomas Hobbes concerning the language of English politics. Finally, North was the first writer to provide an 'historico-criticall' sketch of the history of music, a sketch that is modern, because based on a naturalistic, not a supematuralistic explanation.
