In ›Soliloquy‹, the last of the essays to be published separately before their joint appearance as ›Characteristicks‹, Shaftesbury discusses the importance of critical self-knowledge. The form of soliloquy or self-communion advocated is more than simply the means by which such self-illumination can be achieved: it must be one of the first principles of the enlightened mind. Writers especially are to adopt the self-discoursive approach and, by demonstrating it without dogmatism in letters, essays, and dialogues, encourage in their readers a free and critical attitude towards themselves and the world. – The two epistolary pieces, ›A Letter concerning Enthusiasm‹ and ›The Adept Ladies‹ (the text of the latter is edited here for the first time in full), were both written with the behaviour of contemporary religious sects in mind; the ›Letter‹ is, more specifically, a response to the disturbing fervour generated in London by the French Prophets or Camisards, a group of Protestants who had fled to England from the Cévennes.

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