ig6 History of Ideas

with religion rather than history or society. Pineas has analysed
Thomas More's polemical methods against heretics; he brings
few surprises but also no comfort to those who worship More
the plaster-saint.1235 How very confused the spiritual state of
men was round about 1600, as new knowledge 'called all in
doubt', is brought out by Harris in a book which uses another
quotation from the same hackneyed poem for its title; it must
be said that this is a literary critic's production which knows
too little of historical method or concerns.1236 How well the
theme, on the other hand, deserves serious study is shown also
in Walzer's demonstration that a serious collapse of social
philosophy lay behind at least some forms of puritan apocalyp-
tic thinking (n. 372). Mosse, who like Hall has made a some-
what desperate attempt to find an accurate definition for the
term 'puritan',1237 has also very interestingly described the
protestant casuistry which resulted among some more active
puritans from the attempt to bring reason of state in accord
\vith Christian principles.1238 Orr discusses the ideas of one
of Hooker's disciples \vho in the end could see no reason for
rejecting Rome.1239 Anti-puritan ideas are also investigated in
a study of some intellectual contacts between England and
Holland in the early seventeenth century,1240 As fanaticism
weakened and the speculations of natural science clamoured
to be heard, a new state of uncertainty developed once more
which induced in the characteristic members of the Church

1485 Rainer Pineas, Thomas More and Tudor Polemics. Bloomington:
Indiana UP: 1968. Pp. xi, 262. Rev: Hist 54, 42 if.

use Victor L Harris, All Coherence Gone. Chicago: U of Chicago P:
1949. Pp. x, 255- Rev: AHR 55, 354^

12at George L. Mosse, 'Puritanism reconsidered', Archiv Jwr Refor-
mationsgeschichte, 55 (1964), 37-48. -Basil Hall, 'Puritanism: the
problem of definition', Studies in Church History 2 (1965), 283-96.

"s* George L, Mosse, The Holy Pretence: a study of Christianity and
reason of state from William Perkins to John Winthrop. O: Blackwell:

1957- Pp- *59-

"s* Robert R. Orr, Reason and Authority: the thought of William
ChiHingworth. O: Clarendon: 1967. Pp. xi, 217. Rev: EHR 84,

393*

124fi Rosalie L. Colic, Light and Enlightenment: a study of the Cambridge
Platonists and the Dutch Armnians. CUP: 1957, Pp. xiii, 162.