MANDEVILLE, Bernard.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness. First edition of the author's forceful argument for the secularization of British politics, his most substantial and wide-ranging political tract. This copy comes from the library of John Wallop, Lord Viscount Lymington (1690-1762), a Whig politician who was an ally of Robert Walpole, and bears his armorial bookplate on the front pastedown. Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) grew up and studied in the Netherlands, before settling in England at some point after the Glorious Revolution. Free Thoughts walks a fine line between advocating religious toleration and criticising the practices of the English priesthood, advocating a Whiggish support of secularized constitutional government. "Despite the objections of the pious, history and a growing segment of influential opinion were on Mandeville's side; and the ensuing years of the eighteenth century were to see an increasing acceptance in practice (if not always in theory) of the secularization of politics he so forcefully advocated in the Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness" (Cook, p. 92). Two variants of the first edition are known. This example contains page xix correctly numbered - no priority has been identified. The book was reissued in 1721 and 1723, with new editions in 1729 and 1731, and was translated into French, Dutch, and German.The shelf label reads "Dr Mandevi Works Vol:1", indicating that this volume originally formed part of a col

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