 Evidently, More saw this as sufficient to refute atheistic materialism, declaring in the same letter that although a body can neither feel nor think, “it constitutes the last and faintest shadow and image of the divine essence, which I take to be the most perfect life” (Descartes 1966, V: 383). It soon became apparent to More, however, that the shortcomings of the mechanical philosophy might be avoided simply by supposing that matter was alive and therefore capable of self-movement. This might be assumed without recourse to God, and would lead to what More called hylozoic atheism (Reid 2018). More quickly dropped all traces of vitalism from his concept of body, therefore, and insisted ever afterwards on the strict dichotomy between inactive matter, and active immaterial spirit. Subsequently, when he discerned hylozoism in later thinkers, such as Spinoza and Francis Glisson (about which more later), he opposed them as vigorously as he did mechanistic materialists, such as Thomas Hobbes and the Cartesians (Henry 1987, Sytsma 2017). It is important to note, therefore, that there are clear signs of development in More’s works, from vaguely formed starting points to more carefully wrought and internally consistent mature positions (Reid 2003, 2007). 