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100BOOK REVIEWS The Christian Philosopher. By Cotton Mather. Edited with an Introduction and Notes, by Winton U. Solberg. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1994. Pp. cxlii, 488. «49.95. ) This splendid edition of Cotton Mather's ambitious natural theology demonstrates one way Puritanism embraced the Enlightenment in Europe. The argument from design, which buttressed natural theology, depended upon empirical observation of natural processes for its assertion that God existed. Like the 'New Science' in Europe, it presumed that like effects proceeded from like causes, Isaac Newton's second rule of reasoning in the Principia. Yet, in its preoccupation with final cause, the argument from design shared more with the Peripatetics than with the experimental philosophers of the seventeenth century. As both Galileo and Bacon warned, teleology too often became tautology. Still, within the swirling cross-currents of the Enlightenment in Britain and eventually in America as well, the logical structures of natural theology often cut across religious boundaries. Orthodox clerics and heterodox pamphleteers often shared fundamental assumptions. Mather's embrace of arguments also invoked by Deists need not compromise his Puritanism. Mather published The Christian Philosopher in 1 72 1 . As Winton Solberg's excellent introduction details, Mather carefully monitored intellectual developments within the Royal Society in London, and often contributed "Curiosa Americana" to their proceedings. He maintained a huge personal library of British books, which he drew upon extensively when compiling his own natural theology. Indeed, as Solberg demonstrates with stunning thoroughness, little of Mather's book proved original. By Solberg's calculations, almost eighty percent of The Christian Philosopher came directly and sometimes without acknowledgment from thepublished works ofsuch figures asJohn Ray, William Derham, John Harris, George Cheyne, and Nehemiah Grew. Mather's personal contribution to this anthology consisted mainly of introductory essays and connective passages which linked his various sources together. Solberg notes forgivingly that such borrowing was widely tolerated in the eighteenth century . He compliments Mather on his extensive knowledge of arcane sources and rightly credits his subject with disseminating the natural theology of the Enlightenment to the American colonies. He also shows how the book influenced both John Wesley and Christian Wolff. Nevertheless, it may come as a surprise to readers just how much Mather lifted from others. Solberg has edited Mather's work with care. His lengthy introduction and extensive notes place the work within its historical context; the handsomely produced text mirrors the original faithfully; the end matter includes a biographical register, a recapitulation of Mather's sources, a list of biblical references , and a useful index. D. L. Le Mahieu Lake Forest College ...

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