One of the most basic questions an ontology can address is: How many things, or substances, are there? A monist will say, ‘just one’. But there are different stripes of monism, and where the borders between these different views lie rests on the question, ‘To what does this “oneness” apply?’ Some monists apply ‘oneness’ to existence. Others apply ‘oneness’ to types. Determining whether a philosopher is a monist and deciphering what this is supposed to mean is no easy task, especially when it comes to those writing in the early modern period because many philosophers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries include God in their ontologies. In The Principles, Anne Finch Conway offers an ontology that is often described as being both ‘vitalist’ and ‘monist’. I take this to mean that, for Conway, all that exists is in some way alive and that if asked ‘How many things, or substances, are there?’ Conway would say, ‘Just one’. But to what does this ‘oneness’ apply? And where does the point of disagreement between Conway and her interlocutors, Hobbes, Spinoza, More, and Descartes lie? In this paper, I argue that determining the answer to this first question turns out to be quite difficult. Nevertheless, we can still make sense of the second.

Synopsis generated from the paper: In this conference address, Ben Kies argues that the Non-European Unity Movement must take the Ten-Point Programme as its real basis of unity, not as a distant ideal or a paper pledge. He reviews how the programme was adopted through the 1943–44 unity conferences, and how it already marked a break with the South African Indian Congress leadership. He answers four misunderstandings: that accepting the programme ends one’s duty; that it licenses immediate adventurism; that it is only a long-term goal needing a separate short-term “bread-and-butter” policy of compromise; and that theory does not matter compared with action. Against these, he insists the programme is both means and end: day-to-day struggles must demand its points as a minimum, and reforms come as by-products of that militant demand. The preamble, he stresses, teaches that Non-European oppression is deliberate ruling-class design, not Christian misunderstanding; that full equal citizenship is the only solution; that segregation must be fought inside Non-European ranks as well as outside; that the movement is anti-segregation, not anti-European, and must keep the door open to white workers as eventual allies; and that the lack of political rights is the root of landlessness, labour colour bars, poor education, and related disabilities, so the political fight for full democratic rights must be central. The ten points themselves are the shared minimum demands of African, Coloured, and Indian oppressed. Accepting the programme in letter and implication is the test of genuine unity and the main way to break racial barriers among Non-Europeans.