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Joseph Glanvill, Anglican Apologist: Old Ideas and New Style in the Restoration

1954; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 69; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1632/460139

1938-1530

Jackson I. Cope,

Scottish History and National Identity

That interesting Devonshire worthy, Joseph Glanvill, has received a large share of attention in recent years because his interests so clearly reflect what he himself first termed his “climate of opinion.” He has been variously considered as a rational latitudinarian, a Cartesian, a spokesman for the “new science” in its Baconian aspect, a religious sceptic, and a revealing case of conformity to the Royal Society's demands for a “plain” style in prose. My aim is to point out that all of Glanvill's ostensibly diverse interests and attitudes fall into focus, and form a unified and consistent pattern, if we see him in the role of a religious and, at times, theological apologist for the Anglican settlement. The facility with which this popularizing writer turns the errors, facts, and philosophies of his age to the service of his particular ideology should remind us once again that ideas set in the continuity of their traditions are one thing; viewed as active participants in the life of a given generation of men they become quite another.