Collins

(Anthony), English Deist, b. Heston, Middle sex, 21 June, 1676. He studied at Cambridge and afterwards at the Temple, and became Justice of the Peace and Treasurer of the County of E ex. He was an intimate friend of Locke, who highly esteemed him and made him his executor. He wrote an E ay on Reason , 1707; Priestcraft in Perfection , 1710; a Vindication of the Divine Attributes , and a Discourse on Freethinking , 1713. This last occasioned a great outcry, as it argued that all belief must be based on free inquiry, and that the use of reason would involve the abandonment of supernatural revelation. In 1719 he published An Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty , a brief, pithy defence of nece itarianism, and in 1729 A Discourse on Liberty and Nece ity . In 1724 appeared his Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion , and this was followed by The Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered , 1726. He was a skilful disputant, and wrote with great ability. He is also credited with A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing . Died at London, 13 Dec. 1729. Collins, says Mr. Leslie Stephen, “appears to have been an amiable and upright man, and to have made all readers welcome to the use of a free library.” Profe or Fraser calls him “a remarkable man,” praises his “love of truth and moral courage,” and allows that in answering Dr. Samuel Clarke on the question of liberty and nece ity he “states the arguments against human freedom with a logical force unsurpa ed by any nece itarian.” A similar testimony to Collins as a thinker and dialectician is borne by Profe or Huxley.