John Norris

John Norris (1657 to 1712), sometimes called John Norris of Bemerton, was an English theologian, philosopher and poet associated with the Cambridge Platonists. Born at Collingbourne Kingston in Wiltshire, he was educated at Winchester and at Exeter College, Oxford, became a fellow of All Souls, and from 1692 lived quietly as a country parson at Bemerton until his death. In philosophy he was a Platonist and mystic, influenced by Malebranche in his approach to Platonism, and he was an early opponent of John Locke, attacking the Essay Concerning Human Understanding in Christian Blessedness and again in his Essay toward the Theory of the Ideal or Intelligible World. He also wrote against religious schism, produced about twenty-three works, and was widely read as a poet, above all for The Resignation.