Contemporary panelled calf. 4to. 218 pages; 26 cm. In English with bibliographical footnotes in English, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Mottoes on title page in Greek by Plutarch and Plato. William Wollaston was a school teacher, a Church of England priest, a scholar of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, a theologian, and a major Enlightenment era English philosopher. He is remembered today for one book, which he completed only two years before his death: The Religion of Nature Delineated. Yet despite his cloistered life and his single book, due to his influence on eighteenth-century philosophy and his promotion of a Natural Religion, he may be considered one of the great British Enlightenment philosophers, along with Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. His work contributed to the development of two important intellectual schools: British Deism, and the pursuit of happiness moral philosophy of American Practical Idealism, which appears notably in the United States Declaration of Independence (Wikipedia 2017) . Benjamin Franklin wrote that he worked as a compositor on this book, which prompted him to publish his pamphlet, 'A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. The Library of Congress keeps their copy in their Benjamin Franklin collection. SUBJECT(S) : Natural theology, Early works to 1800, Philosophy. Moderate pencil markings that affect parts of text. Decaying of leather. Some dampstaining and slight toning. Minimal edgewear. Good condition. (BR-12-5)
