Born in 1660 at Coton-Clanford in Staffordshire, England, William Wollaston entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1674 as a pensioner. After receiving his MA in 1681, he took up the post of assistant master of Birmingham Grammar School. In his late twenties he unexpectedly came into a large inheritance and subsequently married a wealthy heiress with whom he had eleven children. Retiring to a life devoted to domestic matters, he began writing treatises on philosophical and ecclesiastical questions. In 1691 his The Design of Part of the Book of Ecclesiastes was published. His one important philosophical work, The Religion of Nature Delineated, was first published in 1724, with eight more editions following by 1759. Although he wrote many other treatises, he burned most of them toward the end of his life. He died in 1724, wealthy and esteemed. Queen Caroline had a bust of him placed along with those of Isaac...