Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/1089

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
TOLEDO
1049

to the famous controversy between Stillingfieet and the philosopher. Toland's next work of importance was his Life of Milton (1698), in which a reference to “the numerous supposititious pieces under the name of Christ and His apostles and other great persons,” provoked the charge that he had called in question the genuineness of the New Testament writings. Toland replied in his Amyntor, or a Defence of Milton's Life (1699), to which he added a remarkable list of what are now called apocryphal New Testament writings. In his remarks he really opened up the great question of the history of the canon. The next year his Amyntor and Christianity not Mysterious were under discussion in both houses of Convocation, and the Upper House declined to proceed against the author. In 1701 Toland spent a few weeks at Hanover as secretary to the embassy of the earl of Macclesfield, and was received with favour by the electress Sophia in acknowledgment of his book Anglia Libera, a defence of the Hanoverian succession. On his return from the Continent he published Vindicius Liberius (1702), a defence of himself and of the bishops for not prosecuting him. In this he apologized for Christianity not Mysterious, as a youthful indiscretion, and declared his conformity to the doctrines of the established Church. The next year he visited Hanover and Berlin, and was again graciously received by the electress and her daughter Sophia Charlotte, queen of Prussia, the “Serena” of the Letters published on his return to England (1704). In two of these (A Letter to a Gentleman in Holland, and Motion essential to Matter), ostensibly an attack on Spinoza, he anticipated some of the speculations of modern materialism. The Account of the Courts of Prussia and Hanover (1705) was used by Carlyle in his Life of Frederick the Great. From 1707 to 1710 Toland lived in varying circumstances on the Continent. In 1709 he published (at the Hague) Adeisidaemon and Origines Judoicae, in which, amongst other things, he maintained that the Jews were originally Egyptians, and that the true Mosaic institutions perished with Moses. After his return to England, he lived chiefly in London and latterly in Putney, subsisting precariously upon the earnings of his pen and the benevolence of his patrons. His literary projects were numerous (see Mosheim's Vita); his warm Irish nature appears in his projected history of the ancient Celtic religion and his chivalrous advocacy of the naturalization of the Jews. The last of his theological works were Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity (1718), and Tetradymus (1720), a collection of essays on various subjects, in the first of which (Hodegus) he set the example, subsequently followed by Reimarus and the rationalistic school in Germany, of interpreting the Old Testament miracles by the naturalistic method, maintaining, for instance, that the pillar of cloud and the fire of Exodus was a transported signal-fire. His last and most offensive book was his Pantheisticon (1720). He died on the 11th of March, 1721-1722, as he had lived, in great poverty, in the midst of his books, with his pen in his hand. just before his death he composed an epitaph on himself, in which he claimed to have been “Veritatis propugnator, libertatis assertor.” The words “Ipse vero aeternum est resurrecturus, at idem futurus Tolandus nunquam” seem to indicate his adherence to the pantheistic creed expounded in the Pantheisticon.

Toland is generally classed with the deists, but at the time when he wrote Christianity not Mysterious he was decidedly opposed to deism. The design of the work was to show, by an appeal mainly to the tribunal of Scripture, that there are no facts or doctrines of the “Gospel,” or the “Scriptures,” or “Christian revelation,” which, when revealed, are not perfectly plain, intelligible and reasonable, being neither contrary to reason nor incomprehensible to it. It was intended to be the first of three discourses, in the second of which he was to attempt a particular and rational explanation of the reputed mysteries of the gospel, and in the third a demonstration of the verity of Divine revelation against atheists and all enemies of revealed religion. After his Christianity not Mysterious and his Amyntor, Toland's Nazarenus was of chief importance, as calling attention to the right of the Ebionites to a place in the early church, though it altogether failed to establish his main argument or to put the question in the true light. His Pantheisticon, sive formula celebrandae sodalitatis socraticae, of which he printed a few copies for private circulation only, gave great offence as a sort of liturgic service made up of passages from heathen authors, in imitation of the Church of En land liturgy. The title also was in those days alarming, and still more so the mystery which the author threw rounddthe question how far such societies of pantheists actually existed.

See Mosheim's Vindiciae antiquae christianorum discipline (1722), 'containing the most exhaustive account of Tolands life and writings; a Life of Toland (1722), by “one of his most intimate friends”; “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr John Toland,” by Des Maizeaux, prefixed to The Miscellaneous Works of Mr John Toland (London, 1747); John Leland's View of the Principal Deistical Writers (last ed. 1837); G. V. Lechler's Geschichte des englischen Deisrnus (1841); Isaac Disraeli's Calamities of Authors (new ed., 1881); article on “ The English Freethinkers ” in Theological Review, No. 5 (November, 1864); J. Hunt, in Contemporary Review, No. 6, June 1868, and his Religious Thought in England (1870-1873); Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. (1881), and article in Dictionary of National Biography; J. Cairns's Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century (1881). On Toland's relation to the subsequent Tübingen school, as presented in his Nazarenus, see D. Patrick in Theological Review, No. 59 (October, 1877); and on his relation to materialism, F. A. Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus (Eng. trans. by E. C. Thomas, 1877), and also G. Berthold, John Toland und der Monisrnus der Gegenwart (1876).


TOLEDO, a province of central Spain, formed in 1833 from part of New Castile; bounded on the N. by Avila and Madrid, E. by Cuenca, S. by Ciudad Real and W. by Caceres. Pop. (1900), 376,814; area 5919 sq. m. The surface is throughout lofty, and in a great part of its extent mountainous. Towards the centre there are extensive plains or tablelands, but the whole of the south and east is occupied by the Montes de Toledo, and the hills which separate the waters of the Tagus on the north from those of the Guadiana on the south. These mountains are of no great height; until late in the 19th century they were densely covered with forests. Toledo is well watered by the Tagus (q.v.) and its numerous affluents, including the Guadarrama and Alberche on the north and the Algodor, Torcon, Pusa and Sangrera on the south. The Giguela waters the eastern districts. Gold, silver, lead, iron, quicksilver, copper, tin and other minerals have been discovered, but the mining industry does not prosper and there is little export trade in agricultural products. The number of sheep, goats, asses and mules is large; dairy-farming and the breeding of draught oxen and fighting bulls are also practised. Bees and silkworms are kept in considerable number. Manufactures once flourished, but now silk and woollen cloth, earthenware, soap, oil, chocolates, wine, rough spirit (aguardiente), guitar strings and arms are almost the only articles made. There is also a small trade in charcoal and timber. The province is traversed by three lines of railway—that of Madrid-Seville-Cadiz in the east, Madrid-Toledo-Ciudad Real through the centre, and Madrid-Cáceres-Lisbon in the north.


TOLEDO, the capital of the Spanish province of Toledo and formerly of the whole kingdom, 47 m. by rail S.S.W. of Madrid, on the river Tagus, 2400 ft. above sea-level. Pop (1900), 23,317. Toledo occupies a rugged promontory of granite, washed on all sides except the north by the Tagus, which here flows swiftly through a deep and precipitous gorge. Towards the north the city overlooks the desolate Castilian plateau; beyond the river it is confronted by an amphitheatre of bare mountains, the Montes de Toledo. From a distance it has the aspect of a Vast fortress, built of granite, defended by the river and by a double wall on the north, and dominated by the towers of its cathedral and alcázar. The absence of traffic in its maze of dark and winding alleys creates a silence uncommon in so large a city. There are few plazas, the principal open spaces being the arcaded Zocodover, described by Cervantes in the Novelas ejemplares; and some of the finest monuments of antiquity are hemmed in by meaner structures. The houses, tall, massive and sombre, are entered by huge iron-studded doors, and, owing to the extremes of heat and cold characteristic of the Castilian plateau, most of their windows open on a sheltered inner court (patio), the walls facing the street being often blank, though their monotony is sometimes relieved by carved Gothic or Moorish stonework. Nowhere, even in Spain, have the appearance and atmosphere of a Gothic city been