CHAPTER VIII.

LOCKE.

THE opinions of Hobbes excited no little alarm in England and awoke no little controversy. Some sought to oppose those doctrines in one way and some in another, but everywhere they were the object of attention and discussion. The most distinguished opponents of that system. were Lord Herbert, Richard Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough, and Ralph Cudworth, the well known author of the "Intellectual System of the Universe," a true Platonist in philosophy. While this discussion and conflict were going on, a company of Oxford students met one day at the rooms of one John Locke, of the university. They discussed and wrangled, but to little purpose as regards the elucidation of truth, and the problems which they sought to solve. It occurred to one of them that that were pursuing a wrong method, and that, instead of analyzing things themselves, it were better to begin the search with investigating the mind itself, to know what it can and what it cannot comprehend. From that occurrence dates, the first idea and origin of a work which has awakened more thought, and received more attention probably, than any metaphysical treatise, since the days of Aristotle, viz., the "Essay on the Human Understanding." Its author was by no means, however, a mere metaphysican. He carried his philosophical genius and acumen into the science of government, political economy, and religion. His name and authority, as Cousin has well said, fill the eighteenth century.

John Locke was born at Wrington, not far from Bristol, August 29, 1632. His father took part in the political disturbances of 1640, and served as captain in the

Parliamentary army under Colonel Popham. To this officer young Locke was indebted for an introduction to the College of Westminster, at London, where he stayed till he was nineteen or twenty, and then went to Oxford. It is not improbable that these early family associations had something to do with that devotion to civil and religious liberty which breathes in all the writings and pervaded the spirit of John Locke. Oxford was then, as now, attached to the past; worshipped antiquity, gave itself to the scholastic philosophy; had little sympathy with the age and the busy world. Locke, whose cast of mind was eminently practical, had little sympathy with that spirit and that philosophy, and consequently paid little attention to those studies that were chiefly in vogue there, but sought a more congenial pursuit in the study of medicine and the classics. Feeble health prevented him. from the practice of medicine, nor, indeed did he ever take the title, yet he seems to have attained some distinction in it as a science. The culture of this science, and of the kindred natural sciences, seems to have developed in him a habit and love of close observation, which were in truth the best foundation and training, for those still higher pursuits in which he was chiefly to distinguish himself. He continued at Oxford, it would seem, till 1664, when he accompanied William Swan, as secretary, to the court of Berlin. Returning at the end of a year to Oxford, he met for the first time with one who was to exert an important influence on his future fortunes, Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury. This nobleman was in ill-health, and meeting with Locke as a medical adviser, discovered in him more than ordinary abilities, and formed a strong personal attachment to him. The skill of Locke detected the true nature of his disease, and aided him to regain health. The two remained firm friends ever after. Shaftesbury was not ungrateful. The fortunes of his friend were linked thenceforth with his own.

Nor is it a little to the credit of this ambitious and brilliant man, that in his subsequent political career he remained faithful to his earlier friendship, and that he continued not only to treat Locke with due regard, but that he held so high a place in the esteem and regard of so good and truth-loving a man as John Locke. It was Shaftesbury who first discovered the ability and worth of Locke, drew him forth from his retirement in Oxford, and introduced him to the brilliant circles of literary society in London-to such men as Lord Halifax, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Pembroke, and others. In 1668, Locke was chosen a member of the Royal Society of Sciences. When Shaftesbury became High Chancellor in 1672, he gave Locke an honorable and important office, that of secretary of presentation to benefices. One year, however, sees them both out of office, both in again in 1679, only to see them out again shortly after. Shaftesbury is now banished from England, and dies in Holland, in 1683, whither his faithful friend had followed him. No man had done more than Shaftesbury to bring back Charles II. to the throne, yet he incurred the displeasure of that fickle and ungrateful monarch, and so fully did Locke share that displeasure, that in his retreat in Holland, Charles cuts him off from the list of members of Oxford, and even demands his person as implicated in the Monmouth conspiracy. It was only through the kindness of friends that Locke escaped being given up as a malefactor. It was in Holland that he wrote his first philosophical treatises and finished his greatest work-the Essay on the Human Understanding, although it was not published till after his return to England. The revolution of 1688, which brought in a different dynasty, enabled Locke to return to London, where he was received with every mark of favor. William gave him his confidence, and in turn Locke wrote much and did much to strengthen the hands of the governing power.

He was appointed to a responsible and lucrative office, but was obliged by failing health to resign. He retired to private life and seclusion, passed his remaining years in peaceful retirement in Oates, at the house of his friend Lady Masham, daughter of Dr. Cudworth, where he died, October 28, 1704, aged 72.

In private life and personal character Locke was justly esteemed by all as a man of accomplished manners, strict and unbending integrity, a faithful friend, an upright and amiable man. As an author his fame is coëxtensive with the English language. No writer on philosophical subjects has probably exerted so wide and lasting an influence on the thinking mind, not of England only but of all Europe. His name is justly regarded as one of the brightest ornaments of English literature and science, and of the seventeenth century. His system has been severely assailed; it has become fashionable within the present century to speak lightly and with disparagement of his philosophy; his influence is by no means what it once was; but it will be long ere those who know anything of the history of philosophy, or have any respect for the opinions and great minds of the past, will pronounce with other than profound respect the name of John Locke.

The plan of the Essay on the Human Understanding seems to have been conceived as early as 1670, but it was not until his exile in Holland that he found leisure to write out and complete the work, and it was not published until 1690, after his return. It was written consequently, not in consecutive efforts, but, as he says, "by incoherent parcels, and after long intervals of neglect resumed again as my humor or occasions permitted, and at last in retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it." He further informs us that when he first put pen to paper, he thought all he should have to say on this subject would have been contained in one sheet, but that the further he went the

larger prospect he had, new discoveries still leading him on till his work "" grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in" (Epistle to the Reader. Essay, vol. i. p. 23). This fact will account, perhaps, for the somewhat disconnected character of the several parts of the work; for some inconsistencies which appear in it; for the variation in the use of terms and the different significations with which the same terms are variously employed in different parts of the treatise. He not only wrote at different times, but his views doubtless changed in many respects as he went on. He learned as he wrote. His system did not lie complete in his mind's eye when he first began. Hence he is far from precision and unvarying exactness in the use of terms or even complete consistency. Stewart conjectures with some reason that the fourth and last book was the first in order of composition, as it contains the leading thoughts of the work, as they first presented themselves probably to the author's mind when he began to reflect on the subject, while it refers but seldom to the preceding parts of the Essay. The third book, on language, its nature, use and abuse, seems to have been an afterthought. The chapter on association of ideas and that on Enthusiasm, were not added, indeed, until the fourth edition. The first and second books are of a more abstract nature, and probably, as Stewart suggests, opened gradually on the author's mind as he advanced in his work and in years. Of these books Stewart says that while they are inferior in point of general utility to the two last, "I do not hesitate to consider them as the richest contribution of well observed and well-described facts which was ever bequeathed to this branch of science by a single individual; and as the indisputable (though not always acknowleged) source of some of the most refined conclusions with respect to the intellectual phenomena which have been since brought to light by succeeding inquirers.

The same author very justly remarks with respect to