Anthony Collins 1676 – 1729

Anthony Collins was an English freethinker, philosopher, and friend and disciple of John Locke in his last years. Independently wealthy and educated at Cambridge, he wrote a series of controversial works that shaped the early Enlightenment debate on religion, miracles, and free will. His Discourse of Free-Thinking defended the right of unrestricted inquiry into religious doctrine, his Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion challenged the apologetic use of Old Testament prophecy, and his Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty argued for a necessitarian compatibilism. He was a serious and civil polemicist whose works provoked replies from Bentley, Clarke, and many others.