Reconciling Theory and Fact: The Problem of ‘Other Faiths’ in Lord Herbert and the Cambridge Platonists

Abstract

According to John Norris’s ‘Preface’ to his Account of Reason and Faith Controversies of Religion […] have been managed of late with that Intemperance of Passion and Indecency of Language, after such a Rude Bear-Garden way, so much more like Duelling or Prizing than Disputing, that the more good Natur’d and better Bred part of the World are grown almost Sick of them and Prejudic’d against them, not being able to see Men Cut and Slash and draw Blood from one another after such an inhuman manner only to vent their own Spleen, and make diversion for the savage and brutaliz’d Rabble, without some troublesom Resentments of Pity and Displacency.