John Toland 1670 – 1722
John Toland (1670 – 1722) was an Irish philosopher of the Modern era, associated with Empiricism and Early Modern Philosophy.
John Toland was an Irish-born freethinker, political pamphleteer, and one of the most controversial English-language philosophers of the early Enlightenment. Educated at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leiden, and Oxford, he wrote in support of religious tolerance, a free press, and the constitutional achievements of the Glorious Revolution. His Christianity Not Mysterious, published in 1696, argued that there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to reason or above it and provoked one of the great controversies of early Enlightenment religion. His Pantheisticon, written for an imagined philosophical society, popularized the word pantheism in something like its modern sense.
John Toland was born at Ardagh on the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal in November 1670, baptised a Catholic and called in his youth, by his own account, Janus Junius. He converted to Protestantism around the age of sixteen, took the master's degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1690, and studied further at Glasgow, Leiden, and Oxford. He spent the rest of his life as a freelance writer, pamphleteer, and diplomatic agent in the orbit of Whig grandees including Shaftesbury, Harley, and Eugene of Savoy, with extended stays at the Hanoverian and Berlin courts of Sophie and her daughter Sophie Charlotte.
His major works are Christianity not Mysterious (1696), the Life of John Milton (1698), Anglia Libera (1701), Letters to Serena (1704), Adeisidaemon and Origines Judaicae (1709), Nazarenus (1718), Tetradymus (1720), Pantheisticon (1720), and the posthumous Hodegus and other tracts gathered as A Collection of Several Pieces (1726). The Irish Parliament ordered Christianity not Mysterious to be burnt by the common hangman.
Toland coined the words 'pantheist' in 1705 and 'freethinker' in the same period, defended a deist Christianity in which nothing in the gospel is above reason, edited the republican canon of Milton, Harrington, and Sidney for an English audience, and in his late writings pushed toward a Spinozistic conception of God as the immanent cause of matter in motion. He died in poverty at Putney near London in March 1722.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Irish
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Empiricism, Early Modern Philosophy
Selected quotes
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Whatever is contrary to reason can be no part of true religion.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“All matter is essentially active.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Pantheism is the worship of the universe as the only divine.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“A free press is the surest defence of a free people.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Mystery has too often been used to disguise the absence of meaning.”
John Toland by topic
Frequently asked about John Toland
- When did John Toland live?
- John Toland was born in 1670 and died in 1722.
- Where was John Toland from?
- John Toland was an Irish philosopher of the Modern era.
- What philosophical movements is John Toland associated with?
- John Toland was associated with Empiricism and Early Modern Philosophy.
- What was John Toland known for?
- John Toland was an Irish-born freethinker, political pamphleteer, and one of the most controversial English-language philosophers of the early Enlightenment.
- How many quotes are attributed to John Toland?
- There are 15 attributed quotations from John Toland in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.