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ADVERTISEMENT.

The established character of BAYLE for erudition, acute ness, and philosophical impartiality, while it supersedes the necessity of all remark on that elaborate store house of Fact, Opinion, and illustrative Discussion, the HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL DICTIONARY, it is presumed will sufficiently sanction a judicious selection of its most curious and instructive contents. Happily for the interest of mental freedom and the unfettered exercise of reason, BAYLE arose at a period when the Aristotelian, or scholastic philosophy, in the behalf of which priestcraft and bigotry rallied to the last moment, lay prostrate, but not absolutely defunct, and in consequence, when, to a free and investigative spirit, it was necessary to join an accurate notion of the premises and field of knowledge of the doctrines assailed. In the great work of BAYLE, therefore, much sound information, subtle disquisition, and curious and instructive fact, is encumbered with a quantity of matter which, however valuable in advertence to gone by studies and associations, Time has for the most part thrown away. This remark leads at once to the grounds of the present undertaking, the object of which is to present to the general reader, in a comparatively small and purchasable form, that portion of the Historical and Critical Dictionary of BAYLE, the value of which, in the way of information, is unequivocal, in learning instructive or curious, and in critical and intellectual philosophy universal and permanent.

To some, to whom the HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL DICTIONARY is but cursorily known, the attraction of a selection from it may be doubted, at a period distinguished by an engrossing attachment to the results of practical science and positive and applicable information. It is thought, however, by those to whom the completion of the present work has been intrusted, that the foregoing tendency is united to a great avidity for general knowledge, and especially for a keen exercise of the reasoning faculties in reference to speculative points of all kinds. The acute and discriminating mind of BAYLE deals with many which will be eternally important, at least while extensive superstructures, in a social point of view, are founded upon them. All his comparative and ingenious disquisition on themes

VOL. I.

2

HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL

DICTIONARY,

SELECTED AND ABRIDGED FROM THE GREAT WORK

OF

PETER BAYLE.

WITH A LIFE OF BAYLE.

i

15.

IN FOUR VOLS.-VOL. I.

LONDON, 1826:

PRINTED FOR HUNT AND CLARKE,

TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

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