author
Anthony Collins
1676–1729
A sharp, argumentative voice in early Enlightenment thought, this English deist and freethinker challenged received ideas about religion, reason, and human freedom. His controversial books sparked fierce replies in his own time and still place him at the center of debates about belief and inquiry.
1 Audiobook
A discourse concerning ridicule and irony in writing (1729)
by Anthony Collins
About the author
Born in 1676, Anthony Collins was an English philosopher, essayist, and one of the early public defenders of deism in Britain. He was educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, and became a close friend and correspondent of John Locke, who admired his love of truth and serious inquiry.
Collins is best remembered for writing on free thought, religious belief, and necessity and liberty. His works argued that people should examine religious claims for themselves and helped make him a prominent—and often controversial—figure in early eighteenth-century intellectual life.
He was also a wealthy landowner active in local affairs in Essex. Collins died in 1729, leaving behind a body of writing that keeps him important to readers interested in the history of philosophy, religion, and the rise of modern critical debate.