Joseph Glanvill
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Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680) was an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman.
Educated at Oxford University (B.A. from Exeter College, M.A. from Lincoln College), Glanvill was made vicar of Frome in 1662, rector of the Abbey Church at Bath in 1666, and prebendary of Worcester in 1678.
His writings display a variety of beliefs that seem deeply contradictory to contemporary people. On the one hand, he was the author of The Vanity of Dogmatising, which attacked scholasticism and religious persecution and pled for religious toleration, the scientific method, and freedom of thought.
On the other hand, he also wrote Sadducismus Triumphatus, which decried scepticism about the existence and supernatural power of witchcraft. Sadducismus Triumphatus contains a valuable collection of seventeenth century folklore about witches. It deeply influenced Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, written to justify the Salem, Massachusetts witchhunt.
In fact neither of his works are particularly contradictory. Glanvill had several coherent points to make. Firstly the world cannot be deduced from Reason alone. Thus issues around witchcraft, ghosts and so on, cannot be solved from first principles. They must be investigated empirically. As a result Glanvill attempted to investigate incidents through interviewing witnesses and going to the site of the events. Secondly like his friend the philosopher Henry More, he thought that the existence of spirits was well documented in the Bible, and that the denial of spirits and demons was the first step towards atheism. Atheism, in his opinion, led to rebellion and social chaos and therefore had to be overcome by science, and the activities of the learned. This was his role as he saw himself, which given his career is not surprising.
Glanvill is a graceful writer and his books are possibly unduly neglected.