Note 92 — Chapter XV · FRENCH AND DUTCH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

See the account of his book by Mr. Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, i, 295–97. Rejecting as he did the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, he ranks with Hobbes and Spinoza among the pioneers of true criticism. Indeed, as his book seems to have been in MS. in 1645, he may precede Hobbes. Patin had heard of Peyrère’s Præadamitæ as ready for printing in 1643. Let. 169, ed. cited, i, 297. ↑