Dynamics and Statics

Abstract

Chapter 2 continues and diversifies the argument of its predecessor by focusing on debates over Newtonian axioms concerning motion, particularly the rival visions of Spinoza’s conatus and Newton’s vis inertiae. It examines how they inform Shelley’s essay draft of 1818, ‘A Future State’, in which Shelley advances an implied critique of conatus. In this the idea that thought might be some ‘peculiar substance’ is clearly articulated, a view with which Shelley remained fascinated as a creative possibility, without giving it his intellectual assent.