Note 52 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

One mistranslation which appears to have been a printer’s error, and one mis-spelling of a Greek name, are the only heads on which Bentley confutes his author. He had, in fact, neither the kind of knowledge nor the candour that could fit him to handle the problems raised. It was Bentley’s cue to represent Collins as an atheist, though he was a very pronounced deist;52 and in the first uproar Collins thought it well to fly to Holland to avoid arrest.53 But deism was too general to permit of such a representative being exiled; and he returned to study quietly, leaving Bentley’s vituperation and prevarication unanswered, with the other attacks made upon him. In 1715 he published his brief but masterly Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty—anonymous, like all his works—which remains unsurpassed as a statement of the case for Determinism.54