Anthony Collins: The Man and His Works (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées)

Cloth hardcover, x + 267 pages. Ex-college library, stamped 'discarded', with external and internal ownership and inventory markings, some cancelled. Pastedowns and endpapers are age-yellowed with some grubby-looking marks from library glue (please see our photos); yellowed frontispiece. Book is free of spotting and foxing. Text pages are clean, untanned, with unmarked text. A couple of faint grubby marks on side page edges externally. Boards show minor indentations, rubbing to tips of corners and edges, a bit of sunning. No dust jacket. -- This monograph offers a critical and historically situated study of Anthony Collins (1676-1729), a significant yet understudied figure of early Enlightenment thought in England. The book reconstructs Collins's intellectual development and public engagement through extensive archival research, examining both published writings and personal correspondence, especially with John Locke and Pierre Desmaizeaux. O'Higgins positions Collins as both a product of his time and a contributor to the emerging rationalist and secularist discourse that shaped eighteenth-century intellectual culture. Early chapters focus on his formative friendships, notably with Locke, John Shute Barrington, and Samuel Bold, and trace Collins's divergence from Locke's moderate empiricism toward a more assertive freethinking posture. The author explores the intellectual function of Collins's library, mapping it as a resource base that informed his writings and theological critique. Subsequent chapters provide detailed analyses of Collins's principal texts: An Essay on the Use of Reason, The Discourse of Freethinking, A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty, and his critiques of prophecy and ecclesiastical authority. The book contextualizes Collins's arguments against contemporary Anglican orthodoxy and their alignment with broader deist and rationalist tendencies. O'Higgins documents Collins's public disputes with Samuel Clarke and William King, focusing on themes such as immaterialism, determinism, and scriptural authority. Particular attention is paid to how Collins adapted Lockean epistemology to challenge traditional claims of theological certainty, especially in regard to prophecy, miracle, and messianic expectation. The book situates Collins within transnational intellectual networks, drawing on Desmaizeaux's role in transmitting Collins's works and ideas across the Channel. The reception of Collins on the Continent, including translations, paraphrases, and critical responses in Dutch and French journals, is traced to demonstrate his relevance to Enlightenment debates in both Protestant and Catholic contexts. The author further examines Collins's role as a magistrate and landowner in Essex, revealing the intersection of his freethinking principles with civic responsibility and local political culture. Thematic concerns of the volume include Collins's engagement with Enlightenment rationalism, his sustained critique of theological orthodoxy, the development of freethought in early 18th-century England, and the transnational circulation of his ideas. These are framed within broader debates on reason and revelation, religious toleration, free will, prophecy, and the authority of ecclesiastical institutions. Collins emerges as a figure deeply engaged with the question of how reason, conscience, and public discourse intersect in the shaping of belief and governance. The book underscores his role in articulating a laicized, non-confessional model of truth-seeking within the emerging secular order. By closely analyzing Collins's use of sources, from early Christian texts to recent European scholarship, the study illuminates the dialogical character of his thought. The work contributes to scholarship on early modern intellectual history, Enlightenment theology, and the genealogy of secularism, highlighting Collins's role in debates on toleration, free inquiry, and doctrinal authority.…