"This is a very thoughtful and intelligent book. It offers fresh and important insights, not just into the mind of Sir Matthew Hale but into the intellectual world he inhabited." American Historical Review

• Introduction: a summary life; Part I. Law: 1. Coke: the appeal to reason; 2. Selden: the appeal to contract; 3. The rights of the Crown; 4. Interregnum; 5. Protectorate; 6. Restoration: 'the nature of laws'; 7. Restoration: constitutional theory; 8. Restoration: legal practice; Part II. Religion: 9. Hales's 'puritanism'; 10. Hale's 'latitudinarianism'; 11. Hale and religious dissent; Part III. Natural Philosophy: 12. Natural motions; 13. The Torricellian experiment; 14. The soul; Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography.

"This is a very thoughtful and intelligent book. It offers fresh and important insights, not just into the mind of Sir Matthew Hale but into the intellectual world he inhabited." American Historical Review

• Introduction: a summary life; Part I. Law: 1. Coke: the appeal to reason; 2. Selden: the appeal to contract; 3. The rights of the Crown; 4. Interregnum; 5. Protectorate; 6. Restoration: 'the nature of laws'; 7. Restoration: constitutional theory; 8. Restoration: legal practice; Part II. Religion: 9. Hales's 'puritanism'; 10. Hale's 'latitudinarianism'; 11. Hale and religious dissent; Part III. Natural Philosophy: 12. Natural motions; 13. The Torricellian experiment; 14. The soul; Conclusion; Appendix; Bibliography.