Coward, William, Md

Coward, William, M.D., was born at Winchester, 1657, and became fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. He settled first at Northampton, and afterwards at London, where he died in 1724. In 1702 he published Second Thoughts concerning the Human Soul, demonstrating that the notion of the human soul, as believed to be a spiritual and immaterial substance united to a human, was an invention of the heathens. This work gave so much offense, by defending the doctrine of materialism, that the House of Commons ordered it to be burned by the hangman. It was answered by Dr. Nichols, in his Conference with a Theist; by Broughton, in his Psychologia; and by Turner. Dr. Coward also published, in 1704, Further Thoughts on Second Thoughts; and The Grand Essay, or a Vindication of Reason and Religion against the Impostures of Philosophy. — Darling, Cyclopaedia Bibliographica , 1:795.