first thirteen chapters of the fourth book. The remainder of the book
is concerned for the most part with the probabilities on which human
life practically turns, as he and Butler are fond of reminding us. As
regards kinds of knowledge, he finds that "all knowledge we are
capable of" must be assertion or denial of some one of three sorts of
relation among our ideas themselves, or else of relations between our
ideas and reality that exists independently of us and our ideas.
Accordingly, knowledge is concerned either with (a) relations of
identity and difference among ideas, as when we say that "blue is not
yellow"; or (b) with mathematical relations, as that "two triangles
upon equal bases between two parallels must be equal"; or (c) in
assertions that one quality does or does not coexist with another in
the same substance, as that "iron is susceptible of magnetical
impressions, or that ice is not hot"; or (d) with ontological reality,
independent of our perceptions, as that "God exists" or "I exist" or
"the universe exists." The first sort is analytical; mathematical and
ethical knowledge represents the second; physical science forms the
third; real knowledge of self, God and the world constitutes the
fourth.
Intuition and demonstration.
Locke found important differences in the way in which knowledge of any
sort is reached. In some instances the known relation is self-evident,
as when we judge intuitively that a circle cannot be a triangle, or
that three must be more than two. In other cases the known relation is
perceived to be intellectually necessary through the medium of
premisses, as in a mathematical demonstration. All that is strictly
knowledge is reached in these two ways. But there is a third sort,
namely sense-perception, which hardly deserves the name. For "our
perceptions of the particular existence of finite beings without us"
go beyond mere probability, yet they are not purely rational. There is
nothing self-contradictory in the supposition that our perceptions of
things external are illusions, although we are somehow unable to doubt
them. We find ourselves inevitably "conscious of a different sort of
perception," when we actually see the sun by day and when we only
imagine the sun at night.
Locke next inquired to what extent knowledge--in the way either of
intuitive certainty, demonstrative certainty, or sense perception--is
possible, in regard to each of the four (already mentioned) sorts of
knowable relation. There is only one of the four in which our
knowledge is co-extensive with our ideas. It is that of "identity and
diversity": we cannot be conscious at all without distinguishing, and
every affirmation necessarily implies negation. The second sort of
knowable relation is sometimes intuitively and sometimes demonstrably
discernible. Morality, Locke thinks, as well as mathematical quantity,
is capable of being demonstrated. "Where there is no property there is
no injustice," is an example of a proposition "as certain as any
demonstration in Euclid." Only we are more apt to be biassed, and thus
to leave reason in abeyance, in dealing with questions of morality
than in dealing with problems in mathematics.
Turning from abstract mathematical and moral relations to concrete
relations of coexistence and succession among phenomena--the third
sort of knowable relation--Locke finds the light of pure reason
disappear; although these relations form "the greatest and most
important part of what we desire to know." Of these, including as they
do all inductive science, he reports that demonstrable knowledge "is
very short, if indeed we have any at all"; and are not thrown wholly
on presumptions of probability, or else left in ignorance. Man cannot
attain perfect and infallible science of bodies. For natural science
depends, he thinks, on knowledge of the relations between their
secondary qualities on the one hand, and the mathematical qualities of
their atoms on the other, or else "on something yet more remote from
our comprehension." Now, as perception of these atoms and their
relations is beyond us, we must be satisfied with inductive
presumptions, for which "experimental verification" affords, after
all, only conclusions that wider experience may prove to be
inadequate. But this moral venture Locke accepts as "sufficient for
our purposes."
Real existence.
Our knowledge under Locke's fourth category of relations--real
existence--includes (a) intuitive perceptions of our own existence;
(b) demonstrable certainty of the existence of God; and (c) actual
perception of the existence of surrounding things, as long as, but
only as long as the things are present to sense. "If I doubt all other
things, that very doubt makes me perceive my own existence, and will
not suffer me to doubt of that" (iv. 9. 3). Faith in the existence of
God is virtually with Locke an expression of faith in the principle of
active causality in its ultimate universality. Each person knows that
he now exists, and is convinced that he had a beginning; with not less
intuitive certainty he knows that "_nothing_ can no more produce any
real being than it can be equal to two right angles." His final
conclusion is that there must be eternally "a most powerful and most
knowing Being, in which, as the origin of all, must be contained all
the perfections that can ever after exist," and out of which can come
only what it has already in itself; so that as the cause of my mind,
it must be Mind. There is thus causal necessity for Eternal Mind, or
what we call "God." This is cautiously qualified thus in a letter to
Anthony Collins, written by Locke a few months before he died: "Though
I call the thinking faculty in me 'mind,' yet I cannot, because of
that name, equal it in anything to that infinite and incomprehensible
Being, which, for want of right and distinct conceptions, is called
'Mind' also." But the immanence of God in the things and persons that
compose the universal order, with what this implies, is a conception
foreign to Locke, whose habitual conception was of an extra-mundane
deity, the dominant conception in the 18th century.
Knowledge of the external world.
Turning from our knowledge of Spirit to our knowledge of Matter,
nearly all that one can affirm or deny about "things external is,"
according to Locke, not knowledge but venture or presumptive trust. We
have, strictly speaking, no "knowledge" of real beings beyond our own
self-conscious existence, the existence of God, and the existence of
objects of sense as long as they are actually present to sense. "When
I see an external object at a distance, a man for instance, I cannot
but be satisfied of his existence while I am looking at him. (Locke
might have added that when one only 'sees a man' it is merely his
_visible_ qualities that are perceived; his other qualities are as
little 'actual present sensations' as if he were out of the range of
sense.) But when the man leaves me alone, I cannot be certain that he
still exists." "There is no necessary connexion between his existence
a minute since (when he was present to any sense of sight) and his
existence now (when he is absent from all my senses); by a thousand
ways he may have ceased to be. I have not that certainty of his
continued existence which we call knowledge; though the great
likelihood of it puts it past doubt. But this is but probability and
not knowledge" (chap. 11, § 9). Accordingly, purely rational science
of external Nature is, according to Locke, impossible. All our
"interpretations of nature" are inadequate; only reasonable
probabilities, not final rational certainties. This boundless region
affords at the best probabilities, ultimately grounded on moral faith,
all beyond lies within the veil. Such is Locke's "plain,
matter-of-fact" account of the knowledge of the Real that is open to
man.
The rationale of probability.
We learn little from Locke as to the rationale of the probabilities on
which man thus depends when he deals with the past, the distant or the
future. The concluding chapters of the fourth book contain wise advice
to those whose lives are passed in an ever-changing environment, for
avoiding the frequent risk of error in their conclusions, with or
without the help of syllogism, the office of which, as a means of
discovery, is here critically considered.
Locke and Hume.
Investigation of the foundation of inductive inference was resumed by
Hume where Locke left it. With a still humbler view of human reason
than Locke's, Hume proposed as "a subject worthy of curiosity," to
inquire into "the nature of that evidence which assures us of any real
existence and matter of fact, _beyond_ the present testimony of our
senses and the records of our memory; a part of philosophy that has
been little cultivated either by the ancients or the moderns." Hume
argues that custom is a sufficient practical explanation of this
gradual enlargement of our objective experience, and that no deeper
explanation is open to man. All beyond each present transitory
"impression" and the stores of memory is therefore reached blindly,
through custom or habitual association. Associative tendency,
individual or inherited, has since been the favourite constructive
factor of human experience in Empirical Philosophy. This factor is not
prominent in Locke's _Essay_. A short chapter on "association of
ideas" was added to the second book in the fourth edition. And the
tendency to associate is there presented, not as the fundamental
factor of human knowledge, but as a chief cause of human error.
Locke and Kant.
Kant's critical analysis of pure reason is more foreign to Locke than
the attempts of 18th- and 19th-century associationists and
evolutionists to explain experience and science. Kant's aim was to
show the necessary rational constitution of experience. Locke's design
was less profound. It was his distinction to present to the modern
world, in his own "historical plain method," perhaps the largest
assortment ever made by any individual of facts characteristic of
human understanding. Criticism of the presuppositions implied in those
facts--by Kant and his successors, and in Britain more unpretentiously
by Reid, all under the stimulus of Hume's sceptical criticism--has
employed philosophers since the author of the _Essay on Human
Understanding_ collected materials that raised deeper philosophical
problems than he tried to solve. Locke's mission was to initiate
modern criticism of the foundation and limits of our knowledge. Hume
negatively, and the German and Scottish schools constructively,
continued what it was Locke's glory to have begun.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The _Essay concerning Human Understanding_ has passed
through more editions than any classic in modern philosophical
literature. Before the middle of the 18th century it had reached
thirteen, and it has now passed through some forty editions, besides
being translated into Latin, French, Dutch, German and modern Greek.
There are also several abridgments. In addition to those criticisms
which appeared when Locke was alive, among the most important are
Leibnitz's _Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain_--written about
1700 and published in 1765, in which each chapter of the _Essay_ of
Locke is examined in a corresponding chapter by Leibnitz; Cousin's
"École sensualiste: système de Locke," in his _Histoire de la
philosophie au XVIII^e siècle_ (1829); and the criticisms in T. H.
Green's Introduction to the _Philosophical Works of Hume_ (1874). The
_Essay, with Prolegomena, biographical, critical and historical_,
edited by Professor Campbell Fraser and published by the Oxford
Clarendon Press in 1894, is the only annotated edition, unless the
_Nouveaux Essais_ of Leibnitz may be reduced to this category.
The _Letters on Toleration_, _Thoughts on Education_ and _The_
_Reasonableness of Christianity_ have also gone through many editions,
and been translated into different languages.
The first collected edition of Locke's _Works_ was in 1714, in three
folio volumes. The best is that by Bishop Law, in four quartos (1777).
The one most commonly known is in ten volumes (1812).
The _Éloge_ of Jean le Clerc (_Bibliothèque choisie_, 1705) has been
the basis of the memoirs of Locke prefixed to the successive editions
of his _Works_, or contained in biographical dictionaries. In 1829 a
_Life of Locke_ (2nd ed. in two volumes, with considerable additions,
1830), was produced by Peter, 7th Baron King, a descendant of Locke's
cousin, Anne Locke. This adds a good deal to what was previously
known, as Lord King was able to draw from the mass of correspondence,
journals and commonplace books of Locke in his possession. In the same
year Dr Thomas Foster published some interesting letters from Locke to
Benjamin Furly. The most copious account of the life is contained in
the two volumes by H. R. Fox-Bourne (1876), the results of laborious
research among the Shaftesbury Papers, Locke MSS. in the British
Museum, the Public Record Office, the Lambeth, Christ Church and
Bodleian libraries, and in the Remonstrants' library at Amsterdam.
Monographs on Locke by T. H. Fowler in 1880, in "English Men of
Letters," and by Fraser, in 1890, in Blackwood's "Philosophical
Classics" may be mentioned; also addresses by Sir F. Pollock and
Fraser at the bicentenary commemoration by the British Academy of
Locke's death, published in the _Proceedings_ of the Academy (1904).
See also C. Bastide, _John Locke; ses théories politiques et leur
influence en Angleterre_ (Paris, 1907); H. Ollion, _La Philosophie
générale de J. L._ (1909). (A. C. F.)
LOCKE, MATTHEW (c. 1630-1677), English musician, perhaps the earliest
English writer for the stage, was born at Exeter, where he became a
chorister in the cathedral. His music, written with Christopher Gibbons
(son of Orlando Gibbons), for Shirley's masque _Cupid and Death_, was
performed in London in 1653. He wrote some music for Davenant's _Siege
of Rhodes_ in 1656; and in 1661 was appointed composer in ordinary to
Charles II. During the following years he wrote a number of anthems for
the Chapel Royal, and excited some criticism on the score of novelty, to
which he replied with considerable heat (_Modern Church Music;
pre-accused, censured and obstructed in its Performance before His
Majesty, April 1st, 1666, &c._; copies in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, and the Royal College of Music). A good deal of music for the
theatre followed, the most important being for Davenant's productions of
_The Tempest_ (1667) and of _Macbeth_ (1672), but some doubt as to this
latter has arisen, Purcell, Eccles or Leveridge, being also credited
with it. He also composed various songs and instrumental pieces, and
published some curious works on musical theory. He died in August 1677,
an elegy being written by Purcell.
LOCKERBIE, a municipal and police burgh of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in
the district of Annandale, 14½ m. E.N.E. of Dumfries by the Caledonian
railway. Pop. (1901) 2358. It has long been famous for its cattle and
sheep sales, but more particularly for the great August lamb fair, the
largest in Scotland, at which as many as 126,000 lambs have been sold.
The town hall and Easton institute are in the Scottish Baronial style.
The police station is partly accommodated in an ancient square tower,
once the stronghold of the Johnstones, for a long period the ruling
family under whose protection the town gradually grew up. At Dryfe
Sands, about 2 m. to the W., a bloody encounter took place in 1593
between the Johnstones and Maxwells. The Maxwells were pursued into
Lockerbie and almost exterminated; hence "Lockerbie Lick" became a
proverbial expression, signifying an overwhelming defeat.
LOCKER-LAMPSON, FREDERICK (1821-1895), English man of letters, was born,
on the 29th of May 1821, at Greenwich Hospital. His father, who was
Civil Commissioner of the Hospital, was Edward Hawke Locker, youngest
son of that Captain William Locker who gave Nelson the memorable advice
"to lay a Frenchman close, and beat him." His mother, Eleanor Mary
Elizabeth Boucher, was a daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, vicar of
Epsom and friend of George Washington. After a desultory education,
Frederick Locker began life in a colonial broker's office. Soon
deserting this uncongenial calling, he obtained a clerkship in Somerset
House, whence he was transferred to Lord Haddington's private office at
the Admiralty. Here he became deputy-reader and _précis_ writer. In 1850
he married Lady Charlotte Bruce, daughter of the Lord Elgin who brought
the famous marbles to England, and sister of Lady Augusta Stanley. After
his marriage he left the Civil Service, in consequence of ill-health. In
1857 he published _London Lyrics_, a slender volume of 90 pages, which,
with subsequent extensions, constitutes his poetical legacy. _Lyra
Elegantiarum_ (1867), an anthology of light and familiar verse, and
_Patchwork_ (1879), a book of extracts, were his only other
publications. In 1872 Lady Charlotte Locker died. Two years later Locker
married Miss Hannah Jane Lampson, the only daughter of Sir Curtis
Miranda Lampson, Bart., of Rowfant, Sussex, and in 1885 took his wife's
surname. At Rowfant he died on the 30th of May 1895. Chronic ill-health
debarred Locker from any active part in life, but it did not prevent his
delighting a wide circle of friends by his gifts as a host and
_raconteur_, and from accumulating many treasures as a connoisseur. His
books are catalogued in the volume called the _Rowfant Library_ (1886),
to which an appendix (1900) was added, after his death, under the
superintendence of his eldest son. As a poet, Locker belongs to the
choir who deal with the gay rather than the grave in verse--with the
polished and witty rather than the lofty or emotional. His good taste
kept him as far from the broadly comic on the one side as his kind heart
saved him from the purely cynical on the other. To something of Prior,
of Praed and of Hood he added qualities of his own which lent his work
distinction--a distinction in no wise diminished by his unwearied
endeavour after directness and simplicity.
A posthumous volume of Memoirs, entitled _My Confidences_ (1896), and
edited by his son-in-law, Mr Augustine Birrell, gives an interesting
idea of his personality and a too modest estimate of his gifts as a
poet. (A. D.)
LOCKHART, GEORGE (1673-1731), of Carnwath, Scottish writer and
politician, was a member of a Lanarkshire family tracing descent from
Sir Simon Locard (the name being originally territorial, de Loch Ard),
who is said to have accompanied Sir James Douglas on his expedition to
the East with the heart of Bruce, which relic, according to Froissart,
Locard brought home from Spain when Douglas fell in battle against the
Moors, and buried in Melrose Abbey; this incident was the origin of the
"man's heart within a fetterlock" borne on the Lockhart shield, which in
turn perhaps led to the altered spelling of the surname. George
Lockhart's grandfather was Sir James Lockhart of Lee (d. 1674), a lord
of the court of session with the title of Lord Lee, who commanded a
regiment at the battle of Preston. Lord Lee's eldest son, Sir William
Lockhart of Lee (1621-1675), after fighting on the king's side in the
Civil War, attached himself to Oliver Cromwell, whose niece he married,
and by whom he was appointed commissioner for the administration of
justice in Scotland in 1652, and English ambassador at the French court
in 1656, where he greatly distinguished himself by his successful
diplomacy. Lord Lee's second son, Sir George Lockhart (c. 1630-1689),
was lord-advocate in Cromwell's time, and was celebrated for his
persuasive eloquence; in 1674, when he was disbarred for alleged
disrespect to the court of session in advising an appeal to parliament,
fifty barristers showed their sympathy for him by withdrawing from
practice. Lockhart was readmitted in 1676, and became the leading
advocate in political trials, in which he usually appeared for the
defence. He was appointed lord-president of the court of session in
1685; and was shot in the streets of Edinburgh on the 31st of March 1689
by John Chiesley, against whom the lord-president had adjudicated a
cause. Sir George Lockhart purchased the extensive estates of the earls
of Carnwath in Lanarkshire, which were inherited by his eldest son,
George, whose mother was Philadelphia, daughter of Lord Wharton.
George Lockhart, who was member for the city of Edinburgh in the
Scottish parliament, was appointed a commissioner for arranging the
union with England in 1705. After the union he continued to represent
Edinburgh, and later the Wigton burghs. His sympathies were with the
Jacobites, whom he kept informed of all the negotiations for the union;
in 1713 he took part in an abortive movement aiming at the repeal of the
union. He was deeply implicated in the rising of 1715, the preparations
for which he assisted at Carnwath and at Dryden, his Edinburgh
residence. He was imprisoned in Edinburgh castle, but probably, through
the favour of the duke of Argyll, he was released without being brought
to trial; but his brother Philip was taken prisoner at the battle of
Preston and condemned to be shot, the sentence being executed on the 2nd
of December 1715. After his liberation Lockhart became a secret agent of
the Pretender; but his correspondence with the prince fell into the
hands of the government in 1727, compelling him to go into concealment
at Durham until he was able to escape abroad. Argyll's influence was
again exerted in Lockhart's behalf, and in 1728 he was permitted to
return to Scotland, where he lived in retirement till his death in a
duel on the 17th of December 1731. Lockhart was the author of _Memoirs
of the Affairs of Scotland_, dealing with the reign of Queen Anne till
the union with England, first published in 1714. These _Memoirs_,
together with Lockhart's correspondence with the Pretender, and one or
two papers of minor importance, were published in two volumes in 1817,
forming the well-known "Lockhart Papers," which are a valuable authority
for the history of the Jacobites.
Lockhart married Eupheme Montgomerie, daughter of Alexander, 9th earl of
Eglinton, by whom he had a large family. His grandson James, who assumed
his mother's name of Wishart in addition to that of Lockhart, was in the
Austrian service during the Seven Years' War, and was created a baron
and count of the Holy Roman Empire. He succeeded to the estates of Lee
as well as of Carnwath, both of which properties passed, on the death of
his son Charles without issue in 1802, to his nephew Alexander, who was
created a baronet in 1806.
See _The Lockhart Papers_ (2 vols., London, 1817); Andrew Lang,
_History of Scotland_ (4 vols., London, 1900). For the story of Sir
Simon Lockhart's adventures with the heart of the Bruce, see Sir
Walter Scott's _The Talisman_. (R. J. M.)