Collier

Collier, ARTHUR, metaphysician, the son of a clergyman, was born in 1680 at Langford Magna, Wiltshire, studied at Oxford, and became rector of the family living at Langford in 1704, remaining there till his death in 1732. At Balliol College, Collier had devoted himself to the study of Descartes and Malebranche; and his notable book, Clavis Universalis, or a New Inquiry after Truth, being a Demonstration of the Non-Existence and Impossibility of the External World (which, though published in 1713, was written ten years before), coincides in a remarkable way with Berkeley's Theory of Vision (published 1709). He was a High-Churchman, and wrote also A Specimen of True Philosophy (1730) and a Logology (1732).