Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/lockelocke00fowlrich
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Transcriber-provided Greek transliterations are enclosed
by square brackets (example: [Greek: elaiophoria]).
English Men of Letters
Edited by John Morley
LOCKE
by
THOMAS FOWLER
Professor of Logic in the University of Oxford
[Illustration]
New York
Harper & Brothers, Publishers
Franklin Square
* * * * * *
ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.
EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.
JOHNSON Leslie Stephen.
GIBBON J. C. Morison.
SCOTT R. H. Hutton.
SHELLEY J. A. Symonds.
HUME T. H. Huxley.
GOLDSMITH William Black.
DEFOE William Minto.
BURNS J. C. Shairp.
SPENSER R. W. Church.
THACKERAY Anthony Trollope.
BURKE John Morley.
MILTON Mark Pattison.
HAWTHORNE Henry James, Jr.
SOUTHEY E. Dowden.
CHAUCER A. W. Ward.
BUNYAN J. A. Froude.
COWPER Goldwin Smith.
POPE Leslie Stephen.
BYRON John Nichol.
LOCKE Thomas Fowler.
WORDSWORTH F. Myers.
DRYDEN G. Saintsbury.
LANDOR Sidney Colvin.
DE QUINCEY David Masson.
LAMB Alfred Ainger.
BENTLEY R. C. Jebb.
DICKENS A. W. Ward.
GRAY E. W. Gosse.
SWIFT Leslie Stephen.
STERNE H. D. Traill.
MACAULAY J. Cotter Morison.
FIELDING Austin Dobson.
SHERIDAN Mrs. Oliphant.
ADDISON W. J. Courthope.
BACON R. W. Church.
COLERIDGE H. D. Traill.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY J. A. Symonds.
12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
_Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any
part of the United States, on receipt of the price._
* * * * * *
NOTE.
In writing the chapters on Locke's Life, I have derived much
information from the biographies of Lord King and Mr. Fox Bourne,
especially from the latter, which contains a large amount of most
interesting documents never before printed. In a work like the present,
where numerous foot-notes would be out of place, I am obliged to
content myself with this general acknowledgment. I may add that I
have also referred to several other authorities, both printed and in
manuscript; and, in some cases, I believe that my account will be found
more precise than that given in the larger biographies.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
LOCKE'S BOYHOOD.--HIS EARLY LIFE IN OXFORD 1
CHAPTER II.
MEDICAL STUDIES.--PUBLIC EMPLOYMENTS.--CONNEXION
WITH SHAFTESBURY 12
CHAPTER III.
RESIDENCE IN FRANCE.--FURTHER RELATIONS WITH
SHAFTESBURY.--EXPULSION FROM CHRIST CHURCH. 28
CHAPTER IV.
RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND.--THE REVOLUTION.--RETURN
TO ENGLAND.--PUBLICATION OF THE "ESSAY" AND
OTHER WORKS 44
CHAPTER V.
LIFE AT OATES.--FRIENDSHIPS.--FURTHER PUBLICATIONS 62
CHAPTER VI.
POLITICAL AFFAIRS.--PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS.--RELATIONS
WITH THE KING 82
CHAPTER VII.
CONTROVERSY WITH STILLINGFLEET.--OTHER LITERARY
OCCUPATIONS.--DOMESTIC LIFE.--PETER KING.--LATTER
YEARS.--DEATH 102
CHAPTER VIII.
ESSAY ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 127
CHAPTER IX.
LOCKE'S OPINIONS ON RELIGION AND MORALS, AND HIS
THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS 152
CHAPTER X.
THE THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION AND THE CONDUCT OF
THE UNDERSTANDING 168
CHAPTER XI.
WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, AND FINANCE 179
CHAPTER XII.
LOCKE'S INFLUENCE ON THOUGHT 194
LOCKE.
CHAPTER I.
LOCKE'S BOYHOOD.--HIS EARLY LIFE IN OXFORD.
John Locke, perhaps the greatest, but certainly the most
characteristic, of English philosophers, was born at Wrington, a
pleasant village in the north of Somersetshire, August 29, 1632. His
family, however, resided in the village of Pensford, and the parish of
Publow, within a few miles of Bristol. It was there, probably, that
Locke spent the greater part of his early life. His mother appears to
have died while he was young. From his father, John Locke (b. 1606),
who seems to have inherited a fair estate, and who practised, with
some success, as a country attorney, he probably derived, if not his
earliest instruction, at least some of his earliest influences and some
of his most sterling characteristics. "From Mr. Locke I have often
heard of his father," says Lady Masham in a MS. letter quoted by Mr.
Fox-Bourne in his Life of Locke, "that he was a man of parts. Mr. Locke
never mentioned him but with great respect and affection. His father
used a conduct towards him when young that he often spoke of afterwards
with great approbation. It was the being severe to him by keeping him
in much awe and at a distance when he was a boy, but relaxing, still
by degrees, of that severity as he grew up to be a man, till, he being
become capable of it, he lived perfectly with him as a friend. And I
remember he has told me that his father, after he was a man, solemnly
asked his pardon for having struck him once in a passion when he was a
boy."
Locke's boyhood coincided pretty nearly with the troubles of the Civil
Wars. "I no sooner perceived myself in the world," he wrote in 1660,
"but I found myself in a storm which has lasted almost hitherto."
His father, when Locke was hardly ten years old, publicly announced,
in the parish church of Publow, his assent to the protest of the
Long Parliament, and, a few weeks afterwards, took the field, on the
Parliamentary side, as captain of a troop of horse in a regiment of
volunteers. Though the fortunes of the family undoubtedly suffered
from this step on the part of the young attorney, the political and
religious interests which it created and kept alive in his household
must have contributed, in no small degree, to shape the character and
determine the sympathies of his elder son.
Locke, then, may be regarded as having been fortunate in his early
surroundings. Born in one of the more charming of the rural districts
of England, not far, however, from a city which was then one of
the most important centres of commerce and politics; sprung from
respectable and well-to-do parents, of whom the father, at least,
possessed more than ordinary intelligence; accustomed, from his
earliest boyhood, to watch the progress of great events, and to listen
to the discussion of great and stirring questions; there seems to have
been nothing in his early life to retard or mar the development of his
genius, and much that we may not unreasonably connect with the marked
peculiarities, both moral and intellectual, of his subsequent career.
It was probably in the year 1646 that, through the interest of Colonel
Popham, a friend and client of his father, Locke was admitted at
Westminster School, where, probably in the following year, he was
elected on the foundation. Here he must have remained about six years,
till his election to a Westminster Studentship at Christ Church,
Oxford, in 1652. Of the manner in which Locke spent these years we
have no definite information. The stern disciplinarian, Dr. Busby, had
been head master for about eight years when he entered the school, and
among his schoolfellows, senior to him by about a year, were Dryden
and South. The friends whom he made at Westminster, though highly
respectable in after-life, did not achieve any great reputation. Of
the studies which then constituted the ordinary school curriculum,
his matured opinions are to be found in the "Thoughts concerning
Education," which will be described in a subsequent chapter. To judge
from this book, the impressions left on Locke's mind by our English
public school education were not of a pleasant or favourable kind.
Locke appears to have commenced his residence at Christ Church in the
Michaelmas Term of 1652, soon after he had turned twenty years of age.
His matriculation before the Vice-Chancellor bears date Nov. 27. Since
the outbreak of the Civil Wars, both the University and the College had
undergone many vicissitudes. At the moment when Locke entered, Cromwell
was Chancellor; and Dr. John Owen, who was destined to be for some time
the leading resident, had been recently appointed Dean of Christ Church
and Vice-Chancellor of the University. Owen was an Independent, and,
for a divine of that age, a man of remarkably tolerant and liberal
views. Though, then as now, a dignitary in Owen's position probably had
and could have but little intercourse with the junior members of his
society, it is not improbable that Locke may have derived his first
bias towards those opinions on the question of religious toleration,
for which he afterwards became so famous, from the publications and
the practice of the Puritan Dean of Christ Church. Locke's tutor was a
Mr. Cole, afterwards Principal of St. Mary Hall, but of his relations
with his pupil we hear nothing of any importance. Wood calls him a
"fanatical tutor;" by which, of course, he does not mean more than that
he was a Puritan.
During the Civil Wars the discipline and reputation of the
Universities, however we may apportion the blame, seem to have
suffered most severely. In these troublous times, indeed, it could
hardly be otherwise. There is considerable evidence to show that,
in the Little or Barebones Parliament of 1653, there was a serious
attempt to suppress the Colleges and Universities altogether, and to
apply the proceeds of their estates, as Clarendon tells us, "for the
public service, and to ease the people from the payment of taxes and
contributions." If such an attempt ever had any chance of success--and
from an oration of Dr. Owen we may infer that it had--it must have
spread consternation amongst University circles, and been a frequent
subject of conversation during the early period of Locke's residence
in Oxford. But the Puritan party, which was now in the ascendant, was
determined that, at any rate, no handle should be given to the enemy by
any lack of discipline or by the infrequency of religious exercises.
"Frequent preaching in every house," Anthony à Wood tells us, "was
the chief matter aimed at" by the Visitors appointed by Cromwell in
1652. Thus, on June 27, 1653, they ordered that "all Bachelors of
Arts and Undergraduates in Colleges and Halls be required, every
Lord's day, to give an account to some person of known ability and
piety of the sermons they had heard and their attendance on other
religious exercises that day. The Heads also or Deputies of the said
Societies, with all above the Degree of Bachelor, were then ordered
to be personally present at the performance of the said exercise, and
to take care that it be attended with prayer and such other duties of
religion as are proper to such a meeting." In addition to the Sunday
observances, there were also, in most Colleges, if not in all, one or
two sermons or religious meetings in the course of the week. Locke, if
we may judge from his character in later years, must have occasionally
found these tedious, and doubtless lengthy, exercises somewhat
irksome and unprofitable. But we do not meet in his writings with any
definite complaints of them, as we do of the scholastic disputations
and some other parts of the academical course as pursued at that
time. Of the disputations, which then constituted a very important
element in the University curriculum, he expresses an unfavourable,
perhaps too unfavourable an opinion. Writing in 1690, in the "Thoughts
concerning Education," he says: "If the use and end of right
reasoning be to have right notions and a right judgment of things, to
distinguish between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, and to act
accordingly, be sure not to let your son be bred up in the art and
formality of disputing--either practising it himself or admiring it
in others--unless, instead of an able man, you desire to have him an
insignificant wrangler, opiniator in discourse, and priding himself
in contradicting others; or, which is worse, questioning everything,
and thinking there is no such thing as truth to be sought, but only
victory, in disputing. There cannot be anything so disingenuous, so
unbecoming a gentleman, or any one who pretends to be a rational
creature, as not to yield to plain reason and the conviction of clear
arguments. Is there anything more inconsistent with civil conversation,
and the end of all debate, than not to take an answer, though ever so
full and satisfactory?... For this, in short, is the way and perfection
of logical disputes, that the opponent never takes any answer, nor the
respondent ever yields to any argument." With the logic and rhetoric,
the Latin speaking and Latin writing, then in vogue, Locke is almost
equally discontented. In fact, he looked back, in after-life, with
little gratitude on the somewhat dry course of studies which the
University then prescribed to its younger scholars. "I have often heard
him say, in reference to his first years spent in the University," says
Lady Masham, "that he had so small satisfaction there from his studies,
as finding very little light brought thereby to his understanding, that
he became discontented with his manner of life, and wished his father
had rather designed him for anything else than what he was destined to,
apprehending that his no greater progress in knowledge proceeded from
his not being fitted or capacitated to be a scholar." We must, however,
by no means infer that Locke had not derived considerable benefit
from the discipline which he disparages. At any rate, the scholastic
teaching of Oxford had a large share in forming, by reaction, many of
his most characteristic opinions, while the Essay, in almost every
page, bears distinctive marks of his early studies. Notwithstanding
his depreciation, amounting often to ridicule, of the subjects he had
learnt in his youth, we can hardly doubt that, if Locke had been
brought up in an University where logic and philosophy did not form
part of the course, his greatest work would never have been written.
Mr. Fox-Bourne attempts to supply a detailed account of the lectures
which Locke attended, and the course of studies which he pursued,
during his undergraduate and bachelor days. This account, however,
betrays an innocent belief in the rigid enforcement and observance of
University and College statutes which, I am sorry to say, I cannot
share. Minute regulations regarding courses of study and attendance at
lectures are apt very soon to fall into desuetude, and it is impossible
now to reconstruct with any accuracy, from the perusal of merely formal
documents, a plan of the student life of the Commonwealth. It is to be
much regretted that Locke and his contemporaries have not left us more
specific information on the subject. All we can now say is that, if the
authorities duly enforced their statutes and regulations, especially
those relating to professorial lectures, many of which were appointed
to be given at eight o'clock in the morning, the students of those days
had by no means an easier time of it than their successors, even in
these days of competition and examinations.
The stated regulations and prescribed statutes of a seat of learning
have, however, often far less to do with the formation of a student's
mind than the society of the young men of his own age with whom his
residence throws him into contact. Young men often educate one another
far more effectually than they can be educated by their tutors or their
books. The mutual confidences, the lively interchange of repartee, the
free discussion of all manner of subjects in college rooms or during
the afternoon walk, are often far more stimulating and informing to
the intellect than the professorial lecture, however learned, or the
tutorial catechising, however searching. Of this less formal and more
agreeable species of education Locke appears to have enjoyed his full
share. He was not, according to the account which he gave of himself
to Lady Masham, "any very hard student," but "sought the company of
pleasant and witty men, with whom he likewise took great delight in
corresponding by letters; and in conversation and these correspondences
he spent for some years much of his time."
It should be noticed that in the year 1654 Owen published a volume of
congratulatory verses addressed to Cromwell on the treaty recently
concluded with the Dutch, entitled "Musarum Oxoniensium ἐλαιοφορία
[Greek: elaiophoria]." Among the many contributors to this volume,
young and old, was Locke, who wrote a short copy of Latin, and a
longer copy of English verses. These compositions do not rise much
above, or sink much below, the ordinary level of such exercises; but
what is curious is that Locke's first published efforts in literature
should have been in verse, especially when we bear in mind his strong
and somewhat perverse judgment on verse-writing in § 174 of the
"Thoughts concerning Education." The fact of his having been invited to
contribute to the volume shows that he was regarded as one of the more
promising young students of his time.
To the period of Locke's life covered by this chapter probably belong
some interesting notes on philosophy and its divisions, found in his
father's memorandum-book. These reflections afford evidence that he had
already begun to think for himself, independently of the scholastic
traditions. I append one or two characteristic extracts:
"Dialectic, that is Logic, is to make reasons to grow, and improve
both Physic and also Ethic, which is Moral Philosophy."
"Moral Philosophy is the knowledge of precepts of all honest manners
which reason acknowledgeth to belong and appertain to man's nature,
as the things in which we differ from beasts. It is also necessary
for the comely government of man's life."
"Necessity was the first finder-out of Moral Philosophy, and
experience (which is a trusty teacher) was the first master thereof."
Locke took his B.A. degree on the 14th of February, 1655-56, and his
M.A. degree on the 29th of June, 1658, the latter on the same day
with Nathaniel Crewe, afterwards Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and
Joseph Glanvill, the celebrated writer on witchcraft, and author of
_Scepsis Scientifica_. The statutable time of taking both degrees was
anticipated, but irregularities of this kind were not then infrequent.
On the 24th of December, 1660, he was appointed Greek Lecturer at
Christ Church for the ensuing year, thus taking his place among the
authorized teachers of his college, and so entering on a new phase of
university life. Very shortly after this date, namely, on February 13,
1660-61, the elder Locke died, æt. fifty-four. Locke's only brother,
Thomas, who was some years younger than himself, died of consumption
shortly after his father. By the time, therefore, that Locke had fairly
entered on his duties as an officer of his college, he was left alone
of all his family.
* * * * *
Though it was not till a much later period of his life that Locke
published any works, his pen was at this time by no means idle. In 1661
he began a series of commonplace books, often containing long articles
on the subjects which were occupying his thoughts at the time. It is,
moreover, to the period immediately preceding or immediately following
the Restoration, that Mr. Fox-Bourne attributes an unpublished and
till recently unknown Essay, entitled "Reflections upon the Roman
Commonwealth." Many of the remarks in this Essay already show what we
should call liberal opinions in religion and politics, and anticipate
views long afterwards propounded in the works on government and
toleration. The religion instituted by Numa is idealized, as having
insisted on only two articles of faith, the goodness of the gods, and
the necessity of worshipping them, "in which worship the chief of all
was to be innocent, good, and just." Thus it avoided "creating heresies
and schisms," and "narrowing the bottom of religion by clogging it
with creeds and catechisms and endless niceties about the essences,
properties, and attributes of God."
Of more interest, perhaps, is another unpublished treatise, written
just after the Restoration, in which Locke asks, and answers in the
affirmative, the following question: Whether the civil magistrate
may lawfully impose and determine the use of indifferent things in
reference to religious worship. This tract seems to have been intended
as a remonstrance with those of the author's own party who questioned
any right in the civil magistrate to interfere in religious matters,
and who, therefore, were ready to reject with disdain the assurances
of compromise and moderation contained in the king's declaration on
ecclesiastical affairs, issued at the beginning of his reign. Locke
at that time, like many other moderate men, seems to have entertained
the most sanguine hopes of pacification and good government under the
rule of the new monarch. "As for myself," he writes, "there is no one
can have a greater respect and veneration for authority than I. I no
sooner perceived myself in the world, but I found myself in a storm,
which has lasted almost hitherto, and therefore cannot but entertain
the approaches of a calm with the greatest joy and satisfaction." "I
find that a general freedom is but a general bondage, that the popular
asserters of public liberty are the greatest ingrossers of it too, and
not unfitly called its keepers." This reaction, however, against the
past, and these sanguine expectations of the future, can have lasted
but a short time. The tendencies of the new government were soon
apparent, and the pamphlet was never published.