author
active 19th century Anthony Collins
A bold English freethinker of the early Enlightenment, he challenged accepted religious ideas and argued that reason should guide belief. His works made him one of the best-known deist writers of his time.
1 Audiobook
Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With The Freethinkers."
by Charles Bradlaugh, active 19th century Anthony Collins, John Watts
About the author
Born in 1676, Anthony Collins was an English philosopher and essayist closely associated with early eighteenth-century deism. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, and became known as a friend and correspondent of John Locke.
Collins wrote on reason, religion, liberty, and necessity, and he often stirred controversy by questioning claims based on revelation and tradition. His best-known works include An Essay Concerning the Use of Reason (1707), A Discourse of Free-Thinking (1713), and A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (1717).
Although some later catalogs list an "Anthony Collins, active 19th century," the widely documented writer by this name is the philosopher who died in 1729. He remains important as a clear, provocative voice in the history of freethought and the English Enlightenment.