EXCERPT Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was more than a poet. He was also a deep-thinking, ambitious philosopher. Throughout his life he was obsessed with ‘the secret recesses, the sacred adyta of organic life’,1 and following this guiding thread ultimately led him deep into ‘the dark groundwork of our nature’. Plagued by personal demons—many resulting directly from his philosophical investigations—he never quite successfully transmitted this into print, however. His systematic vision, what there is of it, remains fragmented throughout his voluminous private notebooks. Nonetheless, he was an astute, syncretic, yet wildly idiosyncratic thinker.…