Every point on the circumference, or base of the cone, relates to the single point at the top. The world, More wants to say, has no limits, no center, yet there are bounds in its not having any. More recognizes the contradiction when he fancies “some strong arm’d Archer” at the wide world’s edge (st. 37). Where shall he send his shafts? Into “mere vacuity”? But More hardly seems aware of the inappropriateness of the cone: he uses a geometrical figure to locate space, time, and numberless worlds within the universal sight of God, but matter is infinite, “distinct/ And yet proceeding from the Deitie” (st. 68). Obviously, the archer must forever be sending his arrows through an infinitely expanding surface. Nevertheless, the cone has great value as a metaphor, as a richly suggestive and fascinating conception. More, however, does not want to speak metaphorically; he is attempting to disclose truths, literal and plain, where pretty words and metaphors have no place. Even as he is writing his most effective poetry, we are aware that More is denying his poetic office; for he is pleading a reasoned case where the words crack and strain, where poetic meaning gathers, only to be denied. But these objections momentarily disappear when More forgets himself enough to let us feel his imagination and does not worry that we might miss the proofs of his philosophy. _Democritus Platonissans_ concludes with an apocalyptic vision wherein the poet imagines the reconciliation of infinite worlds and time within God’s immensity. He is also attempting to harmonize _Psychathanasia_, where he rejected infinitude, with its sequel, _Democritus Platonissans_, where he has everywhere been declaring it; thus we should think of endless worlds as we should think of Nature and the Phoenix, dying yet ever regenerative, sustained by a “centrall power/ Of hid spermatick life” which sucks “sweet heavenly juice” from above (st. 101). More closes his poem on a vision of harmony and ceaseless energy, a most fit ending for one who dared to believe that the new philosophy sustained the old, that all coherence had not gone out of the world, but was always there, only waiting to be discovered afresh in this latter age. The University of British Columbia NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION