CHAPTER XXII.

THE PHILOSOPHERS AND THEOLOGIANS OF LOCKE'S

TIME.

JOHN LOCKE.

"The most elegant of prose writers."- W. S. Landor.

"All his contemporaries, and, what is better, all the known actions of his life, testify that no one was more sincerely and constantly attached to truth, virtue, and the cause of human liberty."— Victor Cousin.

"He gave the first example in the English language of writing on abstract subjects with a remarkable degree of simplicity and perspicuity."— Thomas Reid.

"Few among the great names in philosophy have met with a harder measure of justice from the present generation than Locke, the unquestioned founder of the analytical philosophy of mind." - John Stuart Mill.

THE freedom achieved in England by the revolutions of the seventeenth century had a profound effect on philosophical writers. Impulse toward freedom and the habit of dealing with subjects on their practical side are characteristics of English thought. Under systems more arbitrary, thinkers confined themselves to logical and speculative processes that involved little contact with ecclesiastical or political government. The process was reversed in England, and systematic thought was used chiefly to solve problems of life.

John Locke (1632-1704) passed his youth amidst the con vulsions of the Commonwealth period. He was educated at Westminster and under the heroic Puritan, John Owen, at Oxford. Scholastic methods were still in vogue, and Locke resented them as Bacon had done before him. He fell under

the influence of Descartes and lingered as a tutor at Oxford, tossed between the two schemes of metaphysical and experimental philosophy. He was always of delicate health, and, in consequence, turned aside from his chosen profession of medicine. He was naturally a philosopher and lived a seques. tered, meditative life. He was in Germany in 1665 and was a contemporary student of Spinoza and Leibnitz, though never their follower. In true English spirit, he sought a philosophical basis for political and ecclesiastical toleration. This motive colored all his reflections. He was always brilliant in conversation and frequent residence on the Continent gave him personal acquaintance with the best thinkers of his day. A chance acquaintance with Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, determined his career. He commended himself to this nobleman by a fortunate exercise of his medical skill, and confirmed his regard by charms of character and of conversation. Locke took up his residence in Shaftesbury's house, conducted the education, first of his son and afterwards of his grandson, and to a great degree became identified with his political fortunes. He filled various offices during Shaftesbury's two seasons of political ascendency, and in 1679 assisted him and others in framing the constitution of the provinces of Carolina, known as "the Grand Model." When, in 1682, Shaftesbury fled to Holland under the accusation of high treason, Locke shared his exile and his disgrace. In the congenial society of distinguished men abroad, he devoted himself with zest to philosophical study. His Letter on Toleration and an abstract of the Essay on the Human Understanding were both published before his return to England in 1689. In 1690 the full edition of his Essay on the Human Understanding attracted general attention. In fourteen years it passed through six editions an unprecedented sale, considering the character of the work.

Locke's Contribution to English Thought. At a meeting of friends assembled to discuss certain theological and social prob

lems, Locke proposed a preliminary inquiry into the capacity of the human mind to discover truth. To its answer he devoted the best seventeen years of his life. He produced An Essay on the Human Understanding, a book of amazing influence on all subsequent European thought. The reason for this influence was the novelty of his method. He was a follower of Bacon, working from experiment. Locke's psychology differs from that of his logical successor, Herbert Spencer, in that he wrought on metaphysical lines, while Spencer has wrought on lines materialistic and evolutionary. For both the secret of the process lies in the analysis of experience.

Conscious experience furnishes the facts for his analysis, and his analysis turns to the support of practical liberty of thought and conduct. He stood at the parting of the ways, and forced the recognition of the parting. From his time the issue between intuitive and experimental philosophies, as ap plied to the mind and to metaphysics, has been the ground of contention between the great schools of thinkers.

In the Essay on the Human Understanding, he travels, with unwearied patience, over the immense field of mental phenomena, describing, analyzing, classifying, with a practical sagacity which is equaled only by the purity of his desire for truth. His work is, as Mr. Hallam justly observes, "the first real chart of the coasts, wherein some may be laid down incorrectly, but the general relations of all are perceived."

Locke deserves credit for his freedom from passion or prejudice when writing, as he frequently did, upon questions of personal or party interest. Witness the impartial tone of his Letter on Toleration, composed while he himself was under the ban of his university and his government. The same qualities characterize his Treatise on Civil Government. His essay on Education has been hardly less influential than the two preceding works. Locke himself had felt all the disadvantages of the prevailing method of instruction. He makes an impressive plea for a more liberal and practical system,

both in the subject-matter to be taught and in the mode of instruction. This essay did much to bring about that beneficent revolution which the last century has effected in the training of the young. Besides these works there may be mentioned a treatise On the Reasonableness of Christianity, which decisively contradicts those bigots who have accused Locke of irreligious tendencies. After his death a small but admirable little work was published, entitled On the Conduct of the Understanding. It is a manual of reflections upon those natural defects and evil habits of the mind which unfit it for the task of acquiring knowledge, and was designed to form a supplementary chapter to his greater work.*

Isaac Barrow (1630-1677), a preceptor of Newton, a mathematician, and an apologist for the Church of England, was a man of profound attainments. He passed nine years of studious life at Cambridge and four years in travel. At the age of twenty-nine he took Anglican orders, and was made professor of Greek in Cambridge University; and with this appointment he soon combined the professorship of geometry in Gresham College, London. In 1663 he resigned both chairs, to accept the Lucasian professorship of mathematics. In this position he fostered and befriended the rising genius of Newton, to whom he resigned his office in 1669. His Latin treatises on optics, mechanics, and astronomy, established his rank among the best mathematicians of his age.

Barrow was made one of the king's chaplains. In 1672 he was elected Master of Trinity College, the king remarking, as he confirmed the appointment, that he had given the place to the best scholar in England. In 1675 the list of his honors was augmented by the Vice-Chancellorship of the University of Cambridge.

His Pulpit Eloquence. The dignity and grandeur of his sermons have rarely been equaled. There is no English prose writer of that day whose works are more invigorating to the mind or better adapted to the formation of a pure taste. Chatham recommended Barrow to

*For further discussions of this topic, consult Lewes's History of Philosophy, Vol II., and Sir James Mackintosh in the British Essayists. See also Fowler's Locke in the "English Men of Letters Series "(1880), and C. Fraser's Locke in "Philosophical Classics " (1890).

his son as the finest model of eloquence, and the accomplished Landor has not hesitated to place him above the greatest of the ancient thinkers.

The Progress of Physical Science. There are few episodes in the history of human knowledge more surprising than the sudden and dazzling progress made in the physical sciences towards the end of the seventeenth century. This progress is seen in Germany, in Holland, and in France; but in none of these countries more than in England. It was natural that the vivifying effect produced by the writings and the method of Bacon should be peculiarly powerful in his own country. The development of free institutions and open discussions exercised a powerful influence in stimulating research, in promoting a spirit of inquiry, and in literary expression of untrammeled opinion. The renowned Royal Society, incorporated in 1660, played a prominent part in the great movement, especially in the branches of physics and natural history.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and Robert Boyle (1627-1691), though not contributing to the fame of English literature, inspired and guided the thought of contemporary and succeeding men of letters.

Thomas Burnet (1635-1715), Master of the Charter-house, was one of the speculative writers of this period. He was author of the eloquent and poetic declamation, The Sacred Theory of the Earth, a work written in both Latin and English, and giving an hypothetical account of the causes which produced the various irregularities and undulations in the earth's surface. His geological and physical theories are fantastic; but his pictures of the devastation caused by the unbridled powers of Nature are magnificent, and give him a claim to be placed among eloquent and poetical prose-writers of the seventeenth century.

In this chapter we have considered —

The philosophers and theologians of Locke's time.

1. John Locke. 2. Isaac Barrow.-3. The Progress of

Physical Science.