Controversies About Philosophy

Chapter 12 argues that Harrington’s natural philosophy was fundamental to his political philosophy and underpinned his entire programme. Harrington opposed the mechanical understanding of politics and interventionist account of religion advanced by Oxford mathematicians such as John Wilkins. Instead he emphasized the connections between the individual, the state or body politic, and the universe. All three comprised material and philosophical (human and divine) elements. Harrington’s concerns with the foundations and superstructure of the state and with the military, political, and religious aspects of citizenship were born of this view. Understanding these philosophical foundations, and seeing the parallels that Harrington drew between his own ‘political anatomy’ and William Harvey’s work, helps to make sense of the ideas set out in The Mechanics of Nature and the account of Harrington’s illness offered by Aubrey, as well as underlining the unity and cohesion of his thought.