William Wollaston

William Wollaston
Born	26 March 1659 Coton-Clanford, Staffordshire
Died	29 October 1724(1724-10-29) (aged 65) London
Era	18th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Enlightenment Rationalism
Main interests	Ethics, philosophy of religion
Notable ideas	Religion derived from adherence to truth[1]

William Wollaston (/ˈwʊləstən/; 26 March 1659 – 29 October 1724) was a school teacher, Church of England priest, scholar of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, theologian, and a major Enlightenment era English philosopher. He is remembered today for one book, which he completed two years before his death: The Religion of Nature Delineated. He led a cloistered life, but in terms of eighteenth-century philosophy and the concept of natural religion, he is ranked with British Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.

Wollaston's work contributed to the development of two important intellectual schools: British Deism, and "the pursuit of happiness" moral philosophy of American Practical Idealism, a phrase which appears in the United States Declaration of Independence.