**HERBERT, EDWARD, lord of Cherbury.** — Statesman, poet, and philosopher, b. at Eyton (Shropshire) on 3 March 1583 (W. Windelband gives the date 1581), d. in London on 20 Aug. 1628. He studied at the University of Oxford, then moved to London in 1600. From 1608 to 1618 he was on the Continent, in Germany, France, and Italy. In 1619 he was ambassador to Paris; in 1624 he was created an Irish peer, and in 1629 an English peer.
He wrote poetry in Latin and English (recent ed. by C. G. Moore Smith, Oxford 1923), an *Autobiography* (ed. S. L. Lee, London 1886, with bibl.), and a *Life of Henry VIII* (1748). His principal work is *De veritate prout distinguitur a revelatione, a verisimili, a possibili et a falso* (Paris 1624). In the 3rd ed. (London 1645), he added a short treatise *De causis errorum*, a dissertation *Religio laici*, and an *Appendix ad sacerdotes*. He believed that if reflective minds were to accept a few principles sanctioned by reason, fanaticism would be disarmed and the possibility of religious wars removed. In 1663 there appeared *De religione gentilium*, perhaps the first systematic attempt at a comparative study of religions, erroneously regarded as mere corruptions of pure and primitive rational worship.
Truth, according to H., is a certain harmony between objects and the analogous faculties of the mind, which is always more or less active, things being merely the occasion for the exercise of this activity.
The mind carries within itself a quantity of general truths, equal in all men and therefore universally recognizable. With regard to faith, man has a natural instinct, from which there develops a series of innate knowledges that form the content of rational religion, such as the existence of God, the duty of worship towards Him through virtue and piety, and the existence of a divine sanction in this or the next life.
A critique of the animism implicit in these propositions is offered by Locke in the first book of his *Essay*.
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