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GLANVILL (or GLANVIL), JOSEPH (1636-1...

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 77 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GLANVILL (or GLANVIL), See also:JOSEPH (1636-168o)  , See also:English philosopher, was See also:born at See also:Plymouth in 1636, and was educated at See also:Exeter and See also:Lincoln colleges, See also:Oxford, where he graduated as M.A. in 1658 . After the Restoration he was successively See also:rector of Wimbush, See also:Essex, See also:vicar of See also:Frome Selwood, See also:Somersetshire, rector of Streat and See also:Walton . In 1666 he was appointed to the See also:abbey See also:church, See also:Bath; in 1678 he became See also:prebendary of See also:Worcester See also:Cathedral, and acted as See also:chaplain in See also:ordinary to See also:Charles II. from 1672 . He died at Bath in See also:November 1680 . See also:Glanvill's first See also:work (a passage in which suggested the theme of See also:Matthew See also:Arnold's See also:Scholar Gipsy), The Vanity of Dogmatizing, or Confidence in Opinions, manifested in a Discourse of the shortness and uncertainty of our Knowledge, and its Causes, with Reflexions on Peripateticism, and an See also:Apology for See also:Philosophy (1661), is interesting as showing one See also:special direction in which the new method of the Cartesian philosophy might be See also:developed . See also:Pascal had already shown how philosophical See also:scepticism might be employed as a See also:bulwark for faith, and Glanvill follows in the same track . The philosophic endeavour to cognize the whole See also:system of things by referring all events to their causes appears to him to be from the outset doomed to failure . For if we inquire into this causal relation we find that though we know isolated facts, we cannot perceive any such connexion between them as that the one should give rise to the other . In the words of See also:Hume, " they seem conjoined but never connected." All causes then are but secondary, i.e. merely the occasions on which the one first cause operates . It is singular enough that Glanvill who had not only shown, but even exaggerated, the infirmity of human See also:reason, himself provided an example of its weakness; for, after having combated scientific dogmatism, he not only yielded to vulgar superstitions, but actually endeavoured to accredit them both in his revised edition of the Vanity of Dogmatizing, published as Scepsis scientifica (1665, ed . Rev . See also:John See also:Owen, 1885), and in his Philosophical Considerations concerning the existence of Sorcerers and Sorcery (1666) .

The latter work appears to have been based on the See also:

story of the See also:drum which was alleged to have been heard every See also:night in a See also:house in See also:Wiltshire (Tedworth, belonging to a Mr Mompesson), a story which made much See also:noise in the See also:year 1663, and which is supposed to have furnished See also:Addison with the See also:idea of his See also:comedy the Drummer . At his See also:death Glanvill See also:left a piece entitled Sadducismus Triumphatus (printed in 1681, reprinted with some additions in 1682, See also:German trans . 1701) . He had there collected twenty-six relations or stories of the same description as that of the drum, in See also:order to establish, by a See also:series of facts, the See also:opinion which he had expressed in his Philosophical Considerations . Glanvill supported a much more See also:honourable cause when he undertook the See also:defence of the Royal Society of See also:London, under the See also:title of _Plus Ultra, or the Progress and See also:Advancement of See also:Science since the See also:time of See also:Aristotle (1668), a work which shows how thoroughly he was imbued with the ideas of the empirical method . Besides the See also:works already noticed, Glanvill wrote Lux orientalis (1662); Philosophia pia (1671); Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and See also:Religion (1676); An See also:Essay concerning See also:Preaching; and Sermons . See C . R6musat, Hist. de la Phil. en Angleterre, bk. iii. ch. xi.; W . E . H . See also:Lecky, See also:Rationalism in See also:Europe (1865), i . 120-128; See also:Hallam's Literature of Europe, iii .

358-362; See also:

Tulloch's Rational See also:Theology, ii .

End of Article: GLANVILL (or GLANVIL), JOSEPH (1636-168o)
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