The English Deists:

Studies in Early Enlightenment

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Wayne Hudson

The Enlightenment World

Hudson reinterprets the works of an important group of writers known as ‘the English deists’ including: Charles Blount (1654-1693), John Toland (1670-1722), Anthony Collins (1679-1729), Matthew Tindal (1656-1733), Thomas Woolston (1669-1733), Thomas Morgan (nd-1743), Thomas Chubb (1679-1747) and Peter Annet (1693-1769), as well as the 'father of English deism', Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648). Historians tend to assume that these figures accepted deism as a totalising outlook. Hudson, however, argues that this interpretation reads Romantic conceptions of religious identity into a period in which it was lacking. Adopting a distinctive position with implications for contemporary debates about the Enlightenment, Hudson contextualizes these writers within the early Enlightenment, which was multivocal, plural and in search of self definition.

Sample pages

• The English Deists: introduction
• The English Deists: index

Readership

Eighteenth-Century Studies, Philosophy of Enlightenment and Religious Studies

Contents

1 Who Were the English Deists?
2 Genealogies of Deism
3 Herbert of Cherbury
4 Charles Blount and His Circle
5 Three Writers
Conclusion
Appendix: Herbert’s Philosophical Poems

Reviews

'for readers who appreciate meticulous intellectual histories animated by complex characters adopting various personae as circumstances demand, Mr. Hudson's book will be a pleasure to read'
– James A Herrick, The Scriblerian

Related titles

• Enlightenment and Modernity: The English Deists and Reform
• A Political Biography of John Toland

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