In a passage in his Lettres philosophiques ( Philosophical Letters, 1734), translated by Leonard Tancock in Letters from England (1980), Voltaire describes Samuel Clarke as "a man of unswerving virtue and a gentle disposition, more interested in his opinions than excited about making converts, solely concerned with calculations and demonstrations--a real reasoning machine." Clarke was versatile: he was a scrupulous and dedicated clergyman of high moral character in the Church of England, an accomplished classical scholar, an expert in Isaac Newton's natural philosophy, a courtier admired by Princess Caroline, and a gifted theologian, controversialist, and philosopher. His philosophy focuses on a set of metaphysical issues where theology and philosophy converge and where his approach is marked by the discoveries of Newtonian natural philosophy. Central to his thought is his claim that reason can demonstrate God's existence and attributes by a proof so compelling even a dispassionate atheist must accept its premises...