SOURCE: Hoyles, John. “Introduction: Classicism and the Enlightenment” and “Free Philosophy.” In The Waning of the Renaissance, 1640-1740: Studies in the Thought and Poetry of Henry More, John Norris and Isaac Watts, pp. 143-48; 164-74. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971.

In the following essays, Hoyles argues that Watts's works can be categorized as “the embodiment of both classical aesthetics and the English Enlightenment.” He then examines Watts's philosophical beliefs and argues that he “expresses the spirit of Enlightenment philosophy, and provides an interesting link between the seventeenth-century puritans and the nineteenth-century utilitarians.”

Introduction: Classicism and the Enlightenment

The value of interpreting the work of More and Norris in relation to such problematic terms as Metaphysical, Classical and Romantic on the one hand, and Renaissance, Enlightenment and Modern on the other, depends largely on assigning some meaning to the middle term in each of these series of abstractions. Since the...