CLARKE, SAMUEL (1675-1729). An Eng lish clergyman, born at Norwich, and educated at Cam/is College, Cambridge. He was a disciple of Newton, and attempted to modify the theo ries of Descartes. In 1698 he became chaplain to Bishop Moore, of Norwich, and undertook the study of divinity. publishing, in 1699 Three Practical Essays on Baptism, Confirmation, and Repentance. In 1704-05 Clarke delivered the Boyle Lectures, out of which was developed his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God; and after the death of Locke. in 1704, he was considered as at the head of English metaphysicians. Queen Anne made him one of her chaplains, and presented him to the rectory of Saint James, Westminster. In 1708 he pub lished A Discourse Concerning the rnalterable Obligations of Natural Religion and the Truth and Certainty of Christian. Revelation, and in 1712 Ti:'• Se•ipture Doctrine of the Trinity, in which his denial of the belief of the primitive Church in the Trinity brought upon him the attacks of theologians. In 1714 the Lower House of Convocation complained of his teachings and sent the matter to the Upper House. Clarke evaded the difficulty, and promised to he silent on the subject of the Trinity. His view's were considered to be semi-Arian (see Ann's), and in volved him not only with authorities of the Established Church. but. with the freethinkers of his time. In 1715 appeared his Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Ullman. Liberty. Tle: Prim
CeSS of \Vales, afterwards Queen Caroline, re quested hint to discuss with Leibnitz the ques tions of time and space and their relations to Clod. The correspondence to which this gave rise is to he found in the collection of pa iwN which passed between Clarke and Leibnitz (1717). Leibnitz claimed that time and space are confused perceptions; Clarke endows them with real existewee. as a necessary consequence of the external existence of God. His works include an edition of Czesar (1712) ; Homer's Iliad. in (3,reek and Latin (1729) ; Exposition of the Church Catechism (1729). His most important work was done in the sphere of ethics, where he maintained that morality is "incumbent on men, from the very nature and reason of things themselves." "The fitness of things" requires that every object be treated according to its own nature, and therefore that man be treated by man with due respect to his freedom of choice. The laws of morality are as reasonable as those of mathematics, and are independent of the consequences of moral acts; lett God has so constituted the world that morality is finally rewarded. See his Life, by his friend lIondly, prefixed to his collected works, published in 1738; and consult L. Stephen. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1876).