COL'LINS, ANTHONY (1676-1729). An Eng lish author, a noted free-thinking writer on reli pious questions. Ile was born at Isleworth or at Heston, near Hounslow, in Middlesex, June 21, 1676. lie studied at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge, and in the Temple in London. In 1707 he published his Essay Concerning the Use of Human Reason; and in 1709, Ids Pricsteraft in Perfection, which disturbed the churchmen of that time exceedingly. The controversy excited by this last work induced Collins to sum up sev eral previous pamphlets in his Historical and Critical Essays on the Thirty-nine Articles (1724). lie had published a Defense of the Di rine Attributes (1710), in reply to the Arch bishop of Dublin, who asserted the compatibility of divine predestination and human freedom. Collins was a philosophical necessitarian, and afterwards advocated his opinions more fully in his Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Liberty and Necessity (1715). In 1711 he went to Hol land, where he made the friendship of Le Clerc and other eminent literati. On his return to
England. he published his Discourse of Free thinking (1713 ), the best known and the most im portant of all his works, which Swift assailed in one of his best pieces of irony, while Bentley dis posed of its pretensions to scholarship. In 1718 he was made treasurer for the county of Essex: and in 1724 appeared his Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, which gave occasion to no less than thirty-five replies. He defended himself in his Literal Scheme of Prophecy; and in 1727 published his last work, A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Rogers on. Occasion. of His Eight Ser mons on the Necessity of Revelation and the Truth of Christianity. Collins died December 13, 1729. He was a friend and correspondent of Locke, who declared that Collins had as much love of the truth for the truth's sake as ever be had met in anybody. His character for integ rity and benevolence stood very high.