AN ATTEMPT TO OBVIATE THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTIONS MADE AGAINST THE DOCTRINE OF PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY; Occasioned by Philaretus's Reply to Augustus Toplady.

First edition. RARE. ESTC locates only 3 copies.

Hazlitt scholar Stephen Burley in his "A Bibliography of the Writings of William Hazlitt (1737-1820)" attributes authorship of this work to William Hazlitt, Sr. His justification is as follows: "Samuel Bladon published or sold only three works under the pseudonym 'Philalethes'; the first two, The Methodists Vindicated and Letters to Dawson, were certainly written by Hazlitt, Sr., and although I can find no direct external evidence of authorship in this instance, internal and circumstantial evidence suggests that he is the likely author of this pamphlet. Published a year before Priestley's The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity (1777), this pamphlet argues in favor of the key metaphysical doctrine of the Unitarians, philosophical necessity, and rejects the Calvinist idea of election."

William Hazlitt, Sr. (1737-1820) was a Unitarian minister. In the 1770's, during the period of time this pamphlet was published, he was a close friend of Joseph Priestley and shared his views on philosophical necessity. He contributed articles to Priestley's Theological Repository. In addition, he was an outspoken supporter of the American fight for independence. In 1783 he left Ireland for America where he spent three years. While in America he disseminated Unitarian theology and was prominent in converting Boston's King's Chapel to Unitarian forms of worship. There is an interesting entry in his daughter's diary with regard to the newly formed Dickinson College in Carlisle Pennsylvania. She writes that her father "spent some time [in Carlisle] and might have settled, with 300 pounds a year and a prospect of being president of a college that was erecting if he would have subscribed the confession of faith which the Orthodox insisted on; but he told them he would sooner die in a ditch than submit to human authority in matters of religion."