John Norris (1657–1712,) sometimes called John Norris of Bemerton, was an English Anglican theologian, philosopher, and poet. He is remembered as a proponent of Cambridge Platonism, a 17th-century revival of Plato’s ideas, and the sole English follower of the French Cartesian philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715.)
Born at Collingbourne Kingston, Wiltshire, Norris was educated at Winchester School, Exeter College-Oxford, and All Souls College-Oxford. Norris was an early adversary of John Locke, whose An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) he criticized in Christian Blessedness or Discourses upon the Beatitudes (1690;) he also combated Locke’s concepts in his Essay toward the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World (1701–04.) He condemned religious schism in Christian Blessedness and The Charge of Schism, Continued.
Norris’s outstanding theological and philosophical works are Reflections upon a Late Essay Concerning the Human Understanding (1690,) An Idea of Happiness (1683,) Miscellanies (1687,) Theory and Regulation of Love (1688,) and A Discourse concerning the Immortality of the Soul (1708.)
Norris’s most famous work is A Collection of Miscellanies, consisting of Poems, Essays, Discourses, and Letters (1687.) It includes his oft-cited poem “The Resignation.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Norris
I know of but one remedy against the fear of death that is effectual and that will stand the test either of a sick-bed, or of a sound mind—that is, a good life a clear conscience, an honest heart, and a well-ordered conversation; to carry the thoughts of dying men about us and so to live before we die as we shall wish we had when we come to it.
—John Norris
Topics: Death
Let none be rich, and Poverty
Would not be thought so great a Misery.
Our discontent is from comparison;
Were better states unseen, each man would like his own.
—John Norris
Topics: Discontent
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