Psychologia: or, an account of the nature of the rational soul. In two parts. The first, being an essay towards establishing the receiv’d doctrine, of an immaterial and consequently immortal substance, united to human body, upon sufficient grounds of reason. The second, a vindication of that receiv’d and establish’d doctrine, against a late book, call’d Second thoughts, &c. wherein all the authors pretended demonstrations to the contrary, as well philosophical and rational, as scriptural, are fully refuted; together with occasional remarks on his way of reasoning. To which is annex’d, a brief confutation of his whole hypothesis

London: W.B. for T. Bennet, 1703. FIRST EDITION. Contemporary Cambridge-style calf, spine labe with title in manuscript; printed on thick leaves. An absolutely fantastic, clean copy with the bookplate of Watkin Williams (1828-1884), a Welsh judge and politician, of the County of Denbigh and the early signature of John Sheppard on the paste-down. First edition. In 1702, William Coward published Second thoughts concerning human soul in which he maintained, partly based on scripture as well as arguments found in Locke’s Essay concerning humane understanding (1690) , that there is no such thing as a separate soul, but that immortal life would be conferred upon the whole man at the resurrection.

The first part of Psychologia demonstates “by rational argument the established doctrine of an immaterial and hence immortal substance united with the human body”; the second part argues for this position, attacking Coward’s position, point by point and accusing him of being an atheist. Broughton traces Coward’s position back to Locke’s Essay in which Locke claimed that God could give matter the capacity to think. Broughton attacked this belief claiming that the concepts of thought and extension were incompatible and that this incompatibility proved the existence of an immaterial substance in humans, i.e. an immortal soul. Anthony Collins, another English philosopher and friend of Locke, described Broughton’s book as “a discourse on nothing, or… on something about which no one knows anything.” Locke, having apparently read a portion of Broughton’s book, in letters to Collins speaks contemptuously both of the Psychologia and of Coward's next work, The Grand Essay; or a Vindication of Reason and Religion against Impostures of Philosophy, to which was appended an Epistolary reply to the Psychologia.

Broughton (c.1674-1720), chaplain to the first Duke of Marlborough, wrote on economics and philosophy, opposing John Locke in the latter and the recently-established Bank of England in the former.