Three diverse essays on souls in animals, a comparison of Buddhism and Christianity, and individualism in religion. Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, James Freeman Clarke attended the Boston Latin School, graduated from Harvard College in 1829, and Harvard Divinity School in 1833.

Ordained into the Unitarian church he... soon threw himself into the national movement for the abolition of slavery. In 1839 he returned to Boston where he and his friends established (1841) the Church of the Disciples which brought together a body of people to apply the Christian religion to social problems of the day....

Many of Clarke's earlier published writings were addressed to the immediate need of establishing a larger theory of religion than that espoused by people who were still under the influence of Calvinism.... Clarke was an advocate of human rights.... Tempered and moderate in his views of life, he was a reformer and a conciliator.... James Freeman Clarke was one of the very first Americans to explore and write about Eastern religions. These three essays are taken from his book Nineteenth Century Questions (1897). ( Wikipedia and david wales)