John Toland was born Nov. 30, 1670, at Londonderry, but was educated in Scotland. He died 1722. His publications were all about the close of the seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and the ability of his contributions to popular instruction may be judged by the abusive epithets heaped upon him by his opponents. While severely attacking the bulk of the clergy as misleaders of the people, and while also assailing some of the chief orthodox notions, he yet, either in order to escape the law, or from the effect of his religious education, professed a respect for what he was pleased to call true Christianity, but which we should be inclined to consider, at the least, somewhat advanced Unitarianism. At last, however, his works were ordered to be burned by the common hangman, and to escape arrest and prosecution he had to flee to the Continent. Dr. J. Pye Smith describes Toland as a Pantheist, and calls his Pantheisticon “an Atheistic Liturgy.” In one of Toland’s essays he laments “how hard it is to come to a truth yourself, and how dangerous a thing to publish to others.” The publications of Toland were none of them very bulky although numerous, and as most of them were fiercely assailed by the orthodox clergy, they helped to excite popular interest in England in the critical examination of the Scriptures and the doctrines therein taught. Besides the few authors to whom attention is here drawn, there were numerous men who—each for a little while, and often coming out from the lower ranks of the people themselves—stirred the hitherto almost stagnant pool of popular thought with some daring utterance or extravagant statement. Fanatics some, mystics some, alchemists some, materialists some, but all crude and imperfect in their grasp of the subject they advocated, they nevertheless all helped to agitate the human mind, to render it more restless and inquiring, and thus they all promoted the march of heresy. One feature of the history of the seventeenth century shows how much philosophy had gained ground, and how deep its roots were striking throughout the European world—viz., that nearly all the writers wrote in the vulgar tongue of their country, or there were published editions of their works in that tongue. A century earlier, and but few escaped from the narrow bonds of learned Latin: two centuries before, and none got outside the Latin folios; but in this century theology, metaphysics, philosophy, and politics are discussed in French, German, English, and Italian. The commonest reader may peruse the most learned author, for the writing is in a language which he cannot help knowing.