Sir Kenelm Digby(1603–1665)

English courtier, Catholic intellectual, and natural philosopher whose life moved between diplomacy, experiment, and metaphysical speculation. He wrote on the nature of bodies and the soul, combining emerging mechanical philosophy with older scholastic and spiritual concerns.

Read by Emerson (see Emerson's Library) & Alcott (see Alcott's Library)

1 title in the Cabinet

on the Nature of Bodies; and Man's Soule

Full title[show]

Two treatises : in the one of which the nature of bodies; in the other, the nature of mans soule, is looked into: in way of discovery of the immortality of reasonable soules

The Dial's edition: London, 1645

A Restoration-era synthesis of experimental natural philosophy with metaphysical anthropology: matter and motion on one side, and arguments about soul, intellect, and immortality on the other.

Full textSurvives at Houghton Library

Read by Alcott (see Alcott's Library)