Henry Dodwell Jr.'s work was infamous in its time and caused quite a stir. His father was a well known Anglo-Irish minister, who was caught up in the nonjurist schism of the time. It's strange that this work has fallen into such obscurity today as its message is still as relevant as ever. Henry's own brother who had entered the ministry wrote a rebuttal, and even the renowned Jonathan Swift was forced to write a reply not long before his own death. Even as late as 1904 replies were being put forward. That 1904 reply has ...
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Henry Dodwell Jr.'s work was infamous in its time and caused quite a stir. His father was a well known Anglo-Irish minister, who was caught up in the nonjurist schism of the time. It's strange that this work has fallen into such obscurity today as its message is still as relevant as ever. Henry's own brother who had entered the ministry wrote a rebuttal, and even the renowned Jonathan Swift was forced to write a reply not long before his own death. Even as late as 1904 replies were being put forward. That 1904 reply has been included as an appendix at the end of the book. The work is generally regarded as a satire of William Law's The Case of Reason, in the vein of Swift's own A Modest Proposal where Swift advocates cannibalism in order to feed the starving Irish. It would be ironic to the extreme, that if Dodwell's work was satire, that Swift did not see this. But it has to be said that not everyone saw it as satire, especially early on, and as far as we know, it was never put forward by its author as anything other than a serious work. If this be so, then it is up to the reader to make up their own mind. The appendix at the end has been added in order to give our readers maybe a hint at the controversy this book caused at the time and more than 150 years later. Sadly now more than 250 after its initial publication it has fallen into obscurity. It is our hope that this republication makes this forgotten classic known again. If even only among the few.
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