Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758) American philosopher and theologian who
studied at Yale and received his bachelor's degree before his 17th birthday.
Edwards' preaching provoked the explosive beginnings of the "Great
Awakening," a religious revivalist movement in the American Colonies of the
1740s. One of the most innovative of colonial philosophers, he was also most
conscientiously tied to the past; he is often referred to as the last Puritan.
That Material Existence is Merely Ideal (1719) A selection from Edwards'
seventy-two entry work entitled "The Mind," written while the author was a
sixteen-year-old senior at Yale. "The Mind" reveals the intellectual
awakening of the young man who would go on to become one of 18th century
America's greatest minds. This excerpt is one of the few entries in that
work worthy of being called a true essay.
