Tom Dixon never drafted a conclusion to his book – at least not in any of the versions we found. Neatly and succinctly revisiting what he had already written about the period between 1650 and 1750 seems not to have been a priority. Instead of penning a conventional synopsis, he was more interested in looking forward to the next century, focusing chiefly on Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In particular, he had increasingly come to realise just how much Coleridge's quintessentially Romantic thinking about music and divinity echoed that of his own four protagonists. As noted in the Foreword, he had discerned some striking resemblances between the poet's views on divine harmony and universal salvation and theirs.

Some Provisional Conclusions

The chapters we have presented here have depicted Sterry, Roach, Stukeley and Hartley as distinct early modern partakers in a tradition where divine har-mony was more than bookish abstraction. As seems to have been the case for Coleridge, it was a vibrant part of their daily lives, whether they corresponded enthusiastically or practised instruments, whether it inspired impassioned preaching or novel physiological work. Moreover, the mystical approach they shared reflected an inclusive view of humanity. Their shared belief in truly uni-versal salvation was articulated through a language redolent of music, one that implied a feminising influence that set these male individuals apart from con-temporaries who often strictly emphasised the rational – i.e. the supposedly masculine – aspects of religion. Dixon has shown that for his four thinkers, who shared similar views on the triumph of God's all-encompassing love as a mani-festation of divine harmony, the impact of music on their thinking transcended contextual differences.

This book also uncovers the centrality of music to the ancient theological tradition, notably as this played out in the context of Newton's work and in that of his followers. It is generally acknowledged that most Newtonians were engrossed in the history of ancient religions and their relationship to Christianity as it developed through the ages. Only Dixon, however, has shown the real extent to which musical ideas and practices were constitutive of this constantly evolving tradition, at least as it unfolded in England. Sterry and Stukeley, for instance, understood the British Druids to have been teachers of Pythagoras’ thought; these ancient lawgivers combined the roles of bard and seer and communicated fundamental truths about nature through voice and instrument.