the fleet that brought over the Princess of Orange. He was made a Commissioner of Appeals, with a salary of £200 a year. He now became a prominent defender of civil and religious liberty, in a

fluence. While in Holland he had written in Latin an expansion of an essay (dating from 1667) on toleration; this he addressed to Limborch, by whom it was published at Gouda in 1689, and translations of it were immediately published in Dutch, French, and English. The liberal opinions which it maintained were controverted by an Oxford writer, in reply to whom Locke successively wrote three additional Letters. In 1690 was published the work by which he is best known, An Essay concerning Human Understanding. On this treatise he had been engaged for eighteen years; its origin he explained in the Prefatory Epistle to the Reader: 'Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee that five or six friends meeting at my chamber [at Oxford in 1670-71], and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had a while puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts, that we took a wrong course, and that, before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented.' In proceeding to treat of the subject originally proposed, he found this matter increase upon his hands, and was gradually led into other fields of investigation. In the first book of his Essay Locke treats of innate ideas. He denies altogether the doctrine of innate ideas or conscious principles in the mind: 'God having endued man with those faculties of knowing which he hath, was no more obliged by His good-❘ ness to implant those innate notions in his mind, than that having given him reason, hands, and materials, He should build him bridges or houses.' Knowledge must be a gradual growth dependent on fallible experience. All our ideas, the most complex as well as the simplest, refer to data presented through the senses or to operations of the mind which have been made the objects of reflection. And he argues that the idea or sense of a God is so manifest from the visible marks of wisdom and power in creation, that no rational creature could, on reflection, miss the discovery of a Deity. In the second book Locke follows up this principle or position by tracing the origin of our ideas, simple and complex, which he derives from sensation and reflection. The third book of the Essay is on language and signs as instruments of truth; and the fourth book is intended to determine the nature, validity, and limits of the understanding. In virtue of his Essay Locke ranks as father of the English empirical philosophy, and his

influence was dominant in England till Kant's work became known. He profoundly influenced French thought in the next century; although he would have strenuously repudiated and refuted the French development of sensationalism into materialism. Berkeley and Hume were in different ways continuators of Locke's mode of thought. In 1690 Locke published two Treatises on Civil Government, in defence of the principles of the Revolution against the Tories; or, as he expresses himself, to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William; to make good his title in the consent of the people, which, being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin.' The chief of his other writings are his very suggestive Thoughts concerning Education (1693); an admirable tract On the Conduct of the Understanding, printed after the author's death; The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), and two Vindications of that work, which was held to verge on deism (1696). He conducted a keen controversy with Stillingfleet, who had annoyed him by identifying his theological position with that of Toland and the Deists-to whom, in point of fact, he had decided affinities. For Locke, and many of the best minds of the time, it seemed essential that religion should be rational, regulated by common-sense and the evidences on which it is based; enthusiasm and fanaticism had had their day, and must make way for the age of reason. Locke is a conspicuous representation of the trend of English thought in the second half of the seventeenth century towards common-sense philosophy and scientific research. His name and those of Boyle, Newton, Flamsteed, Halley, Willis, Sydenham, Ray, the vegetable physiologist Grew, and the geologist Woodward show that 'Restoration literature,' specifically so called, was but one form of the reaction against the one-sidedness of the Puritan outlook on life and the world.

Immediately after the Revolution employment in the diplomatic service was offered to Locke, who declined it on the ground of ill-health. In 1695, having aided Government with his advice on the subject of the coinage, he was appointed a member of the new Council of Trade, an office the state of his health also obliged him to resign in 1700. He wrote also on Ireland and the poor-laws; and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society. The last years of his life, from 1691 on, were mainly spent at Oates in Essex, the seat of Sir Francis Masham, who had invited him to make that mansion his home. His friend Lady Masham, a daughter of Dr Cudworth, soothed by her attention the infirmities of his declining years. Locke died 28th October 1704.

Locke's character, like his philosophy, was

marked by caution, by adherence to experience and submission to facts, by suspicion alike of abstract speculation and mystical enthusiasm, and by calm reasonableness. His philosophy was sensible and rational rather than profound or original; it does not permanently satisfy the demands of the inquiring spirit; it is a philosophy of compromise, and is not sufficiently compact, systematic, and thorough-going to hold its own against the criticism of the Kantians. The style of the Essay, like the philosophy it expounds, is plain and straightforward, is occasionally colloquial, but on the whole is decidedly monotonous. Locke, who meant his books for general reading, hated scholastic jargon, and wrote in language intelligible to every man of commonsense. 'No one,' says his pupil, Shaftesbury (himself rather a superfine writer), 'has done more towards the recalling of philosophy from barbarity, into the use and practice of the world, and into the company of the better and politer sort, who might well be ashamed of it in its other dress.' In the non-philosophical writings, as in that on education and the political papers, there is more trenchancy, vigour, and variety.

Design of the Essay on the Human Understanding. Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them, it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labour to enquire into. The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance, and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way of this enquiry, whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves, sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our own minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search of other things.

This, therefore, being my purpose, to enquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge; together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent; I shall not at present meddle with the physical consideration of the mind, or trouble myself to examine wherein its essence consists, or by what motions of our spirits or alterations of our bodies we come to have any sensation by our organs, or any ideas in our understandings; and whether those ideas do in their formation, any or all of them, depend on matter or no: these are speculations which, however curious and entertaining, I shall decline as lying out of my way in the design I am now upon. It shall suffice to my present purpose to consider the discerning faculties of a man as they are employed about the objects which they have to do with and I shall imagine I have not wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this occasion, if in this historical, plain method I can give any account of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of things we have, and can set down any measures of the certainty of our knowledge, or the grounds of those persuasions which are to be found amongst men, so various, different, and wholly contradic

tory; and yet asserted somewhere or other with such assurance and confidence, that he that shall take a view of the opinions of mankind, observe their opposition, and at the same time consider the fondness and devotion wherewith they are embraced, the resolution and eagerness wherewith they are maintained, may perhaps have reason to suspect that either there is no such thing as truth at all, or that mankind hath no sufficient means to attain a certain knowledge of it. It is therefore worth while to search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge, and examine by what measures, in things whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent and moderate our persuasions. In order whereunto, I shall pursue this following method.

First, I shall enquire into the original of those ideas, notions, or whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes and is conscious to himself he has in his mind; and the ways whereby the understanding comes to be furnished with them. Secondly, I shall endeavour to shew what knowledge the understanding hath by those ideas; and the certainty, evidence, and extent of it. Thirdly, I shall make some enquiry into the nature and grounds of faith or opinion; whereby I mean that assent which we give to any proposition as true, of whose truth yet we have no certain knowledge and here we shall have occasion to examine the reasons and degrees of

assent.

If by this enquiry into the nature of the understanding I can discover the powers thereof; how far they reach; to what things they are in any degree proportionate; and where they fail us: I suppose it may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which upon examination are found to be beyond the reach of our capacities. We should not then perhaps be so forward, out of an affectation of an universal knowledge, to raise questions and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about things to which our understandings are not suited, and of which we cannot frame in our minds any clear or distinct perceptions, or whereof (as it has perhaps too often happened) we have not any notions at all. If we can find out how far the understanding can extend its view, how far it has faculties to attain certainty, and in what cases it can only judge and guess, we may learn to content ourselves with what is attainable by us in this state. (From the Introduction to the Essay.)

Of Useless Reading.

Books and reading are looked upon to be the great helps of the understanding and instruments of knowledge, as it must be allowed that they are; and yet I beg leave to question whether these do not prove an hindrance to many, and keep several bookish men from attaining to solid and true knowledge. This I think I may be permitted to say, that there is no part wherein the understanding needs a more careful and wary conduct than in the use of books; without which they will prove rather innocent amusements than profitable employments of our time, and bring but small additions to our knowledge.

There is not seldom to be found even amongst those who aim at knowledge, who with an unwearied industry employ their whole time in books, who scarce allow themselves time to eat or sleep, but read, and read, and read on, yet make no great advances in real knowledge,

though there be no defect in their intellectual faculties, to which their little progress can be imputed. The mistake here is, that it is usually supposed that by reading the author's knowledge is transfused into the reader's understanding; and so it is, but not by bare reading, but by reading and understanding what he writ. Whereby I mean not barely comprehending what is affirmed or denied in each proposition (though that great readers do not always think themselves concerned precisely to do), but to see and follow the train of his reasonings, observe the strength and clearness of their connexion, and examine upon what they bottom. Without this a man may read the discourses of a very rational author, writ in a language and in propositions that he very well understands, and yet acquire not one jot of his knowledge; which consisting only in the perceived, certain, or probable connexion of the ideas made use of in his reasonings, the reader's knowledge is no farther increased than he perceives that; so much as he sees of this connexion, so much he knows of the truth or probability of that author's opinions.

All that he relies on without this perception he takes upon trust, upon the author's credit, without any knowledge of it at all. This makes me not at all wonder to see some men so abound in citations, and build so much upon authorities, it being the sole foundation on which they bottom most of their own tenets; so that in effect they have but a second-hand or implicit knowledge; i.e. are in the right, if such an one from whom they borrowed it were in the right in that opinion which they took from him; which indeed is no knowledge at all. Writers of this or former ages may be good witnesses of matter of fact which they deliver, which we may do well to take upon their authority; but their credit can go no farther than this; it cannot at all affect the truth and falsehood of opinions which have no other sort of trial but reason and proof, which they themselves made use of to make themselves knowing, and so must others too that will partake in their knowledge. (From the Conduct of the Understanding.)

On Hardening Children.

Give me leave therefore to advise you not to fence too carefully against the cold of this our climate: there are those in England who wear the same clothes winter and summer, and that without any inconvenience or more sense of cold than others find. But if the mother will needs have an allowance for frost and snow, for fear of harm; and the father, for fear of censure; be sure let not his winter-clothing be too warm: and amongst other things remember that when nature has so well covered his head with hair, and strengthened it with a year or two's age, that he can run about by day without a cap, it is best that by night a child should also lie without one; there being nothing that more exposes to head-ach, colds, catarrhs, coughs, and several other diseases, than keeping the head warm.

I have said "he' here, because the principal aim of my discourse is, how a young gentleman should be brought up from his infancy, which in all things will not so perfectly suit the education of daughters; though where the difference of sex requires different treatment, it will be no hard matter to distinguish.

I would also advise his feet to be washed every day in cold water; and to have his shoes so thin that they might leak and let in water whenever he comes near it.

Here I fear I shall have the mistress, and maids too, against me. One will think it too filthy; and the other, perhaps, too much pains to make clean his stockings. But yet truth will have it that his health is much more worth than all such considerations, and ten times as much more. And he that considers how mischievous and mortal a thing taking wet in the feet is to those who have been bred nicely, will wish he had, with the poor people's children, gone bare-foot; who by that means come to be so reconciled by custom to wet their feet, that they take no more cold or harm by it than if they were wet in their hands. And what is it, I pray, that makes this great difference between the hands and the feet in others, but only custom? I doubt not but if a man from his cradle had been always used to go barefoot, whilst his hands were constantly wrapped up in warm mittins, and covered with handshoes, as the Dutch call gloves; I doubt not, I say, but such a custom would make taking wet in his hands as dangerous to him, as now taking wet in their feet is to a great many others. The way to prevent this is to have his shoes made so as to leak water, and his feet washed constantly every day in cold water. It is recommendable for its cleanliness: but that which I aim at in it is health. And therefore I limit it not precisely to any time of the day. I have known it used every night with very good success, and that all the winter, without the omitting it so much as one night in extreme cold weather: when thick ice covered the water, the child bathed his legs and feet in it, though he was of an age not big enough to rub and wipe them himself, and when he began this custom was puling and very tender. But the great end being to harden those parts by a frequent and familiar use of cold water, and thereby to prevent the mischiefs that usually attend accidental taking wet in the feet in those who are bred otherwise; I think it may be left to the prudence and convenience of the parents to choose either night or morning. The time I deem indifferent, so the thing be effectually done. The health and hardiness procured by it would be a good purchase at a much dearer rate. which if I add the preventing of corns, that to some men would be a very valuable consideration. But begin first in the spring with lukewarm, and so colder and colder every time, till in a few days you come to perfectly cold water, and then continue it so winter and summer. For it is to be observed in this as in all other alterations from our ordinary way of living, the changes must be made by gentle and insensible degrees; and so we may bring our bodies to any thing without pain and without danger. (From Thoughts concerning Education.)

Το

On Writing and Speaking English Correctly. There can scarce be a greater defect in a gentleman, than not to express himself well, either in writing or speaking. But yet I think I may ask my reader, Whether he doth not know a great many who live upon their estates, and so with the name should have the qualities of gentlemen, who cannot so much as tell a story as they should, much less speak clearly and persuasively in any business? This I think not to be so much their fault, as the fault of their education; for I must without partiality do my countrymen this right, that where they apply themselves, I see none of their neighbours outgo them. They have been taught rhetoric, but yet never taught how to express themselves handsomely with their tongues, or pens, in the language they

are always to use; as if the names of the figures that embellished the discourses of those who understood the art of speaking were the very art and skill of speaking well. This, as all other things of practice, is to be learned not by a few or a great many rules given, but by exercise and application, according to good rules or rather patterns, till habits are got and a facility of doing it well.

Agreeable hereunto, perhaps it might not be amiss to make children, as soon as they are capable of it, often to tell a story of any thing they know; and to correct at first the most remarkable fault they are guilty of in their way of putting it together. When that fault is cured, then to show them the next, and so on, till one after another, all, at least the gross ones, are mended. When they can tell tales pretty well, then it may be time to make them write them. The fables of Esop, the only book almost that I know fit for children, may afford them matter for this exercise of writing English, as well as for reading and translating, to enter them in the Latin tongue. When they are got past the faults of grammar, and can join in a continued coherent discourse the several parts of a story without bald and unhandsome forms of transition (as is usual) often repeated; he that desires to perfect them yet farther in this, which is the first step to speaking well, and needs no invention, may have recourse to Tully; and by putting in practice those rules which that master of eloquence gives in his first book De Inventione, § 20, make them know wherein the skill and graces of an handsome narrative, according to the several subjects and designs of it, lie. Of each of which rules fit examples may be found out, and therein they may be shown how others have practised them. The ancient classic authors afford plenty of such examples, which they should be made not only to translate, but have set before them as patterns for their daily imitation. When they understand how to write English with due connexion, propriety, and order, and are pretty well masters of a tolerable narrative style, they may be advanced to writing of letters; wherein they should not be put upon any strains of wit or compliment, but taught to express their own plain easy sense, without any incoherence, confusion, or roughness. And when they are perfect in this, they may to raise their thoughts have set before them the example of Voiture's, for the entertainment of their friends at a distance, with letters of compliment, mirth, raillery, or diversion; and Tully's epistles, as the best pattern whether for business or conversation. The writing of letters has so much to do in all the occurrences of human life, that no gentleman can avoid showing himself in this kind of writing: occasions will daily force him to make this use of his pen, which, besides the consequences that in his affairs his well or ill managing of it often draws after it, always lays him open to a severer examination of his breeding, sense, and abilities, than oral discourses; whose transient faults, dying for the most part with the sound that gives them life, and so not subject to a strict review, more easily escape observation and censure.

Had the methods of education been directed to their right end, one would have thought this so necessary a part could not have been neglected, whilst themes and verses in Latin, of no use at all, were so constantly every-where pressed, to the racking of children's inventions beyond their strength, and hindering their cheerful progress in learning the tongues, by unnatural difficulties.

But custom has so ordained it, and who dares disobey? And would it not be very unreasonable to require of a learned country school-master (who has all the tropes and figures in Farnaby's rhetoric at his fingers ends) to teach his scholar to express himself handsomely in English, when it appears to be so little his business or thought, that the boy's mother (despised, it is like, as illiterate, for not having read a system of logic and rhetoric) outdoes him in it?

To write and speak correctly gives a grace, and gains a favourable attention to what one has to say: and since it is English that an English gentleman will have constant use of, that is the language he should chiefly cultivate, and wherein most care should be taken to polish and perfect his style. To speak or write better Latin than English may make a man be talked of; but he would find it more to his purpose to express himself well in his own tongue, that he uses every moment, than to have the vain commendation of others for a very insignificant quality. This I find universally neglected, and no care taken any-where to improve young men in their own language, that they may thoroughly understand and be masters of it. If any one among us have a facility or purity more than ordinary in his mother tongue, it is owing to chance, or his genius, or any thing rather than to his education, or any care of his teacher. To mind what English his pupil speaks or writes is below the dignity of one bred up amongst Greek and Latin, though he have but little of them himself. These are the learned languages, fit only for learned men to meddle with and teach; English is the language of the illiterate vulgar; though yet we see the policy of some of our neighbours hath not thought it beneath the public care to promote and reward the improvement of their own language.. Polishing and enriching their tongue is no small business amongst them: it hath colleges and stipends appointed it, and there is raised amongst them a great ambition and emulation of writing correctly: and we see what they are come to by it, and how far they have spread one of the worst languages, possibly, in this part of the world, if we look upon it as it was in some few reigns backwards, whatever it be now. The great men amongst the Romans were daily exercising themselves in their own language; and we find yet upon record the names of orators who taught some of their emperors Latin, though it were their mother-tongue.

It is plain the Greeks were yet more nice in theirs ; all other speech was barbarous to them but their own, and no foreign language appears to have been studied or valued amongst that learned and acute people; though it be past doubt that they borrowed their learning and philosophy from abroad.

I am not here speaking against Greek and Latin; I think they ought to be studied, and the Latin, at least, understood well, by every gentleman. But whatever foreign languages a young man meddles with (and the more he knows the better), that which he should critically study and labour to get a facility, clearness, and elegancy to express himself in, should be his own, and to this purpose he should daily be exercised in it. (From Thoughts Concerning Education.)

Of History.

The stories of Alexander and Cæsar, further than they instruct us in the art of living well, and furnish us with observations of wisdom and prudence, are not one jot to

be preferred to the history of Robin Hood, or the Seven Wise Masters. I do not deny but history is very useful, and very instructive of human life; but if it be studied only for the reputation of being a historian, it is a very empty thing; and he that can tell all the particulars of Herodotus and Plutarch, Curtius and Livy, without making any other use of them, may be an ignorant man with a good memory, and with all his pains hath only filled his head with Christmas tales. And, which is worse, the greatest part of the history being made up of wars and conquests, and their style, especially the Romans, speaking of valour as the chief if not the only virtue, we are in danger to be misled by the general current and business of history; and, looking on Alexander and Cæsar, and such-like heroes, as the highest instances of human greatness, because they each of them caused the death of 100,000 men, and the ruin of a much greater number, overran a great part of the earth, and killed the inhabitants to possess themselves of their countries-we are apt to make butchery and rapine the chief marks and very essence of human greatness. And if civil history be a great dealer of it, and to many readers thus useless, curious and difficult inquirings in antiquity are much more so; and the exact dimensions of the Colossus, or figure of the Capitol, the ceremonies of the Greek and Roman marriages, or who it was that first coined money; these, I confess, set a man well off in the world, especially amongst the learned, but set him very little on in his way.

I shall only add one word and then conclude; and that, is that whereas in the beginning I cut off history from our study as a useless part, as certainly it is where it is read only as a tale that is told; here, on the other side, I recommend it to one who hath well settled in his mind the principles of morality, and knows how to make a judgment on the actions of men, as one of the most useful studies he can apply himself to. There he shall see a picture of the world and the nature of mankind, and so learn to think of men as they are. There he shall see the rise of opinions, and find from what slight and sometimes shameful occasions some of them have taken their rise, which yet afterwards have had great authority, and passed almost for sacred in the world, and borne down all before them. There also one may learn great and useful instructions of prudence, and be warned against the cheats and rogueries of the world, with many more advantages which I shall not here (From Locke's Journal.)

enumerate.

Christmas at Cleves.

DEAR SIR,-Are you at leisure for half an hour's trouble? Will you be content I should keep up the custom of writing long letters with little in them? 'Tis a barren place, and the dull frozen part of the year, and therefore you must not expect great matters. 'Tis enough that at Christmas you have empty Christmas tales fit for the chimney corner. To begin therefore; December 15th (here 25th) Christmas day, about one in the morning I went a-gossipping to our Lady; think me not profane, for the name is a great deal modester than the service I was at. I shall not describe all the particulars I observed in that church, being the principal of the Catholics in Cleves; but only those that were particular to the occasion. Near the high-altar was a little altar for this day's solemnity; the scene was a stable, wherein was an ox, an ass, a cradle, the Virgin, the babe,

Joseph, shepherds, and angels, dramatis personæ. Had they but given them motion, it had been a perfect puppetplay, and might have deserved pence apiece; for they were of the same size and make that our English puppets are; and I am confident these shepherds and this Joseph are kin to that Judith and Holophernes which I have seen at Bartholomew Fair. A little without the stable was a flock of sheep, cut out of cards; and these, as they then stood without their shepherds, appeared to me the best emblem I had seen a long time, and methought represented these poor innocent people, who, whilst their shepherds pretend so much to follow Christ and pay their devotion to him, are left unregarded in the barren wilderness. This was the show: the music to it was all vocal in the quire adjoining, but such as I never heard. They had strong voices, but so ill-tuned, so ill-managed, that it was their misfortune, as well as ours, that they could be heard. He that could not, though he had a cold, make better music with a Chevy Chace [apparently a tune to which the ballad was then sung] over a pot of smooth ale, deserved well to pay the reckoning, and go away athirst. However, I think they were the honestest singing-men I have ever seen, for they endeavoured to deserve their money, and earned it certainly with pains enough; for what they wanted in skill, they made up in loudness and variety. Every one had his own tune, and the result of all was like the noise of choosing parliamentmen, where every one endeavours to cry loudest. Besides the men, there were a company of little choristers. I thought, when I saw them at first, they had danced to the others' music, and that it had been your Gray's Inn revels; for they were jumping up and down about a good charcoal-fire that was in the middle of the quire (this their devotion and their singing was enough, I think, to keep them warm, though it were a very cold night), but it was not dancing, but singing they served for; for when it came to their turns, away they ran to their places, and there they made as good harmony as a concert of little pigs would, and they were much about as cleanly. Their part being done, out they sallied again to the fire, where they played till their cue called them, and then back to their places they huddled. So negligent and slight are they in their service in a place where the nearness of adversaries might teach them to be more careful. . . .

A Letter to Anthony Collins.

OATES, January 24, 1703-4. SIR,-Till your confidence in my friendship and freedom with me can preserve you from thinking you have need to make apologies for your silence whenever you omit a post or two, when in your kind way of reckoning you judge a letter to be due, you know me not so well as I could wish; nor am I so little burthensome to you as I desire. I could be pleased to hear from you every day; because the very thoughts of you every day afford me pleasure and satisfaction. But I beseech you to believe that I measure not your kindness by your opportunities of writing; nor do suspect that your friendship flattens, whenever your pen lies a little still. The sincerity you profess and I am convinced of has charms in it against all the little phantoms of ceremony. If it be not so that true friendship sets one free from a scrupulous observance of all those little circumstances, I shall be able to give but a very ill account of myself