Cotton Mather's life was as genetically and environmentally determined as it was for him theologically predestined. The first child of Increase and Maria Cotton Mather, he was born in Boston on 12 February 1663, into a family whose energies and genius were the backbone of New England Puritanism and whose fortunes were inextricably linked with that body. His grandfathers, Richard Mather and John Cotton, dominated the first-generation enthusiasts and imprinted on them that brand of radical Calvinism called Puritanism. Those two great-souled zealots, intoxicated (like Spinoza's Moses) with their God, forged the New England mind. Their actions thundered as loud as their words, and charismatically they imposed a vision and a unity on their community of elect that burned with an unearthly brilliance.

Grandson and heir to these giants, Cotton Mather entered Harvard College in 1675 at the age of twelve, studied there (particularly under Samuel Sewall) with success, received his...