John Locke was born August 29, 1632, at Wrington, a village of Somersetshire, about eight miles from Bristol. He was the eldest of two sons of John Locke, a man of some property, who had been bred to the law, but became afterwards a captain under Cromwell. In those turbulent times he met with losses which diminished his fortune, and he left an inconsiderable inheritance to his son. Locke received his education at Westminster School, and Christ Church, Oxford. While an undergraduate he was chosen to write a welcome on the occasion of a visit which Cromwell paid to that University, just after the conclusion of his peace with the Dutch. This he did in a laudatory copy of verses in English and Latin, comparing the great Protector to Julius for warlike, and to Augustus for peaceful, accomplishments. This and some Latin verses, prefixed to a work of Sydenham’s, are Locke’s only poetical attempts. There is little merit in either. He was a great admirer of the meagre verse of Sir Richard Blackmore, which is no great evidence of his poetical taste. Between the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts he was elected Student of his college. From that time he applied himself diligently, for many years, to the study of medicine, without, however, practising it as a matter of gain. The weakness of his health probably gave this turn to his thoughts: his brother died of consumption; and he himself was apprehensive through life of falling a victim to the same disease. In 1664 he went abroad as secretary to Sir W. Swan, envoy to the court of Brandenburg; and on his return to Oxford the year following, he applied himself to the discovery of the effects of the air on the human frame. His first work, published in 1667, was a register of the variations in the atmosphere, determined between certain periods by the common instruments, as a supplement to a work by Boyle.

He was amusing himself with such enquiries, when one of the slight but important accidents of life brought him an acquaintance, whose influence determined his future course. A friend, being obliged to take a journey, desired Locke to make his excuses to Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) for not having procured for him some mineral waters against his arrival in Oxford. When Lord Ashley did arrive, Locke carried this message to him. They were mutually pleased with each other, and this acquaintance speedily grew up into a strict friendship. Locke’s advice determined Lord Ashley to submit to a surgical operation, by which, it is said, the life of the patient was saved; and he was received into the house, and practised his profession in the family and amongst a few private friends of his noble patron. While living in this way, his thoughts were turned into the channel of politics by the advice of his new associates; and, taking up that study earnestly, he was soon able to advise and assist Ashley in all his plans of state, becoming at the same time the referee of his private affairs. This warm friendship is singular, considering the purity of Locke’s life, and the notoriously bad character, public and private, of his noble patron. But the latter was an eloquent orator, and an admirable talker; and it was probably this latter quality which attached Locke so much. He had so great an esteem for good conversation, as to give it a first place in the formation of a man’s mind, calling books the raw material, and social talk, with meditation, the true architects of our mental constructions. In 1668 Locke attended the Earl and Countess of Northumberland to France. But some accident caused him soon to return to his old residence with Shaftesbury, for whom he drew up the fundamental laws of Carolina, which had just been granted to him and other lords. Two of the articles of this settlement gave great offence to the clergy, and were expunged. They are remarkable, and should be mentioned. One was, “That no man that doth not acknowledge a God, and that God publicly worshipped, should be a freeman or inhabitant of Carolina.” The other was a proposition, that any seven persons agreeing in a form of worship should be esteemed a church, and be supported by the state. The Church of England, however, was alone established in that colony. In 1671 Locke began to form his great Essay on the Human Understanding; but his engagements with Shaftesbury prevented its immediate completion. The year following, his patron becoming Chancellor, Locke was made secretary of presentations, which office he speedily lost on the partial disgrace of the Earl, who, still remaining President of the Board of Trade, appointed him secretary to a commission of inquiry into the state of trade, and the colonial plantations. This office he also lost in the same manner, upon Lord Shaftesbury’s total disgrace in 1674.

Having retained his studentship, Locke then retired to Oxford, partly for his health’s sake, and partly to pursue his old medical studies. He took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine in this year. It appears that he continued to pay some attention to these studies until an advanced age: for in 1697 he communicated to the Royal Society the history of a curious case which he had seen at the great hospital of La CharitÉ, during his residence in Paris. In 1675, in hope of obtaining relief from an asthmatical complaint, he went to Montpellier. There was also another reason for this journey. He had just published an anonymous pamphlet for Shaftesbury, blaming the conduct of the House of Lords in the matter of the Test Act, containing a vehement abuse of the bishops, and of what he called their favourite doctrine, “the divine right” of kings and priests. This pamphlet does not appear in the folio edition of his works; it was anonymous, like most of his other productions. The odium consequent upon it made his absence from England expedient, if not necessary. During his stay abroad Locke kept a journal of what he saw, did, and thought. In it we find the heads of many of his future works, which are very concise and valuable; but the narrative is dry, and the attempts at humour not very successful: he seems however to have been as observant of what relates to the external world, as he was of the intellectual. In 1679, Shaftesbury, on being made President of the Council, summoned Locke to England. But the old statesman’s favour was short lived: he was committed to the Tower in July, 1681, and soon after his release, retired to Holland, where he died in January, 1683. Locke accompanied him, and continued his faithful services until death. For seventeen years he had been Shaftesbury’s constant partizan and adviser; and the odium attached to that nobleman clung to himself, and prevented his return to England for many years. In 1683 he was reported by the English envoy at the Hague to be on terms of intimacy with the malcontents in Holland; upon which the secretary (Sunderland) wrote to Dr. Fell, the Dean of Christ Church, ordering his expulsion from college. This mandate was not immediately complied with: the Dean declared that for many years he had watched the conduct of Locke, and even tried to entrap him into an exposure of his political sentiments, but had always found him too wary. He allowed Locke time to come and defend himself, which he would not do, and then expelled him from his studentship.

On the accession of James II., William Penn, the quaker of Pennsylvania, being in some favour with the King, would have procured a pardon for Locke, but he refused the offer, through a friend, as having been guilty of no crime. In May, 1685, the English ambassador demanded him of the States-General, of the pretext that he was concerned in the unsuccessful expedition of the Duke of Monmouth. It is supposed that he owed this bad turn partly to the malice of the envoy himself, as his name did not appear in the list of those required which was sent from England. He neither liked the person nor the invasion of the duke, and was at Utrecht when the armament of that unfortunate nobleman sailed from the Texel. Locke was not given up, but was obliged to hide himself for about a year in the house of his friend M. Veen, at Amsterdam, receiving assurance from the local authorities that timely warning should be given him of pressing danger. He was obliged to conceal himself so closely as only to take his exercise during the night. It is probable that the real cause of this persecution was his first letter on Toleration, written in Latin about this time, and addressed to his friend Limborch, the sentiments of which were peculiarly offensive to the English court.

Locke had now time to attend to his own affairs, being no longer taken up with those of a patron. He busied himself in the completion of his Essay concerning Human Understanding, which was not, however, printed till 1689. The extracting of passages from various works for reviewal in Le Clerc’s literary journal, the BibliothÈque Universelle, the formation and continuation of a small society for the weekly discussion of all subjects, the members of which were his friends Le Clerc, Limborch, Guenelon, and others, and the abridgment of his Essay, served to fill up his time during the remainder of his stay in Holland. In 1689 he published a second letter on Toleration, and early in the same year returned to his native country in the fleet which conducted the Princess of Orange to the throne of England. The Revolution had completely changed the face of affairs in Locke’s favour; he was considered a martyr to its principles, and was esteemed accordingly by its authors. On his return he immediately petitioned William to cause him to be reinstated in his studentship; but the College refused to restore him, offering at the same time to make him a supernumerary student. This he would not accept; because he felt it not to be a full reparation of the injustice he had suffered. He allowed the matter to drop.

If Locke had been ambitious, his path to political advancement was now open. William offered him the ambassadorship to the Imperial Court, or to that of Brandenburg. He refused both these high appointments; but accepted a Commissionership of Appeals from his friend Lord Mordaunt, afterwards Earl of Peterborough. This office was worth only £200 a year. His friends Sir Francis and Lady Masham (a daughter of the celebrated Cudworth) prevailed on him to take apartments in their house at Oates in Essex; between which place and his office in London he spent the remainder of his life. In 1690 Locke published his Treatise on Civil Government. The folio edition of his Essay, and a Letter on Education, appeared in the latter part of the same year. In 1692 he produced a third Letter on Toleration. The state of the coinage being a subject of great importance at that time, he took it into consideration, and published ‘Certain Thoughts on the State of English Silver Money, &c.,’ in a letter to a member of parliament. This treatise was thought so good, that when the matter was inquired into by the government, Locke was consulted, and his advice taken with respect to the new coinage. In consequence of this important assistance, he received from William III. a Commissionership of Foreign Trade and Plantations, the value of which was £1000 a year. The King was exceedingly desirous of a comprehension with the dissenters, and to forward his views Locke wrote his ‘Reasonableness of Christianity.’ This book involved him in a religious controversy with Dr. Edwards, who attacked its opinions in his ‘Socinian Unmasked,’ to which Locke replied by two vindications, each of them longer than the original work. No sooner had he finished this labour than he was called upon to encounter a fresh and more able antagonist. Toland and some other Unitarians having turned to their own use some of the arguments in Locke’s Essay, Dr. Stillingfleet, the learned Bishop of Worcester, confounded Locke with that party. In his defence of the doctrine of the Trinity the Bishop severely censured various passages of Locke’s great work, as tending to subvert some of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity; Locke replied, and there was an alternation of answers between them till the Bishop’s death. That event took place soon after Locke’s third answer, which was the last thing he ever published. These replies of Locke are reputed to be most finished specimens of a grave and subtle irony, too refined perhaps to be generally perceived by the uninitiated eye.

In 1700 Locke’s weak state of health induced him to retire from public life. He resigned his situation in a personal interview with the King, giving no previous notice of his intention to the conductors of the government, and refusing the pension which his master wished him to accept. He took up his residence at Oates, where he passed the remainder of his life in reading and contemplating the Scriptures. He often regretted that he had not more occupied himself in this study. The piety of his latter years was without formality or ostentation, not arising from that sense of disappointment, or irksomeness for want of employment, which often leads men to seek refuge in a late devotion. Neither Locke’s mental nor bodily senses failed him to his last moments, though the year before his death was passed in extreme weakness. On taking the sacrament he declared “that he was in peace with all men, and in sincere union with the Church of Christ, by whatever name distinguished.” The affectionate attentions of Lady Masham softened the pain of his last illness, and he died gently in his chair while she was reading to him one of the Psalms of David, October 28, 1704, in his seventy-third year. He died, unmarried, from the natural decay of an originally weak constitution. He was buried in the churchyard at High Laver, near Oates, under a decent monument. His epitaph had been written some years before, by himself, in Latin^[3]. He left behind him many unpublished works, among which his ‘Conduct of the Understanding’ stands highest. ‘An Examination of Malebranche’s opinion of seeing all things in God; ‘A Discourse of Miracles;’ part of a fourth letter on the subject of Toleration; some imperfect memorial sketches of the life of the Earl of Shaftesbury; a new method for a commonplace-book; and paraphrases of several of the epistles of St. Paul, make up the list of his posthumous works, almost all of which were translated into French by Le Clerc and others, and appeared (together with those published by himself) in three folio volumes, not many years after his death. A great many of his letters to his friends Molyneux and Limborch are also published in this edition. There remain many more which have been given to the world by various hands, addressed to the Earl of Peterborough, Dr. Mapletoft, &c., and to Newton. In Lord King’s life of Locke his correspondence with the latter is given at full length, and is very curious,—chiefly relating to subjects they were both engaged in, the prophecies and miracles.

That which has assured to Locke imperishable fame is the ‘Essay concerning Human Understanding.’ This great work, however, met with considerable obloquy at first: the heads of colleges at Oxford even endeavoured to prevent its being read in their University. The Essay is in the hands of all; the writings of its opponents, comparatively speaking, are forgotten. It will be generally admitted, that in it Locke laid the foundation of modern metaphysical philosophy.

Two of Locke’s chief works, the ‘Treatise on Civil Government,’ and ‘Essay on Education,’ are more capable of a short analysis. The former may be taken as an expression of his own opinions in defence of the Revolution. It is divided into two parts. The first contains an exposure of the fallacies of Sir Robert Filmer’s ‘Patriarcha,’ arguing that Adam had not such natural or gifted right of dominion as Filmer pretends; that if he had, his heirs had not; that if they had, yet there is no general law, divine or human, which determines the right of succession, much less of bearing rule; lastly, that if such right had been determined, yet the eldest line from Adam being unknown, no man can pretend more than another to that right of inheritance; consequently, that some other source of political power must be found than “Adam’s private dominion and paternal jurisdiction.” Locke proceeds in the second part to declare his opinion as to what this other source may be. He argues, that originally the executive power was in the hands of each individual; but, by mutual consent, for mutual benefit, as men grew into societies, political power was created, and given to persons chosen from the whole body by the major part of such societies. He protests against absolute power, as not expressing the will of the majority; but defends prerogative, as a discretionary power lodged in the hands of the executive government. He maintains that this compact must be held sacred, but reverts to the society if its duration was declared temporary, or upon the misconduct of rulers or delegates. When forfeited, the will of the society may create new forms of government; or, under the old form, continue it in other hands.

The Essay on Education is expressly for the use of gentlemen, since “if that class be properly tended the rest will follow of course.” The child, he says, should have much air and exercise, should be accustomed to little sleep and early habits. That superstitious terrors, and the frequent use of the rod should be carefully avoided; that the boy should be used to suffer pain gradually, to harden him, but not as a punishment; that the parents’ authority should be perfect over the child, and be gradually taken off, till the relation between them becomes a confiding friendship; that particular attention be paid to his manners, so that his courage, learning, wit, plainness, and good-nature, do not turn to brutality, pedantry, buffoonery, rusticity, and fawning. He says, that the child’s curiosity should be encouraged; that he should learn by games, and his attainments never be forced; that he should not be left to flounder in difficulties, but helped through them. Locke prefers a careful tutor to a public school: he says that a boy stands a better chance of being both virtuous and well-bred under the care of the former. What he should know is Latin, Greek, a little mathematics, how to keep accounts; the less of logic the better; he should write a good hand; and a virtuous youth so bred, “one may turn loose into the world with great assurance that he will find employment and esteem everywhere.” He further recommends that the boy should travel between the ages of eight and sixteen, rather than between sixteen and twenty one; and that when he comes of age he had better not marry according to the usual custom, but wait some years, that his children “may not tread too closely on his heels.”

The habit of Locke’s mind was perhaps originally severe; but from constant social intercourse with men of all characters and opinions, was rendered mild and equable. Nothing seems to have provoked him into a loss of temper so much as being forced into argument with professed logicians. He calls the logical method taught at Oxford an ill, if not the worst way of acquiring knowledge and seeking truth. He was fond of the society of children, and would enter into the enjoyments of riper youth with facility. He was entrusted by his patron with the education and marriage of his son, who was the father of the author of the ‘Characteristics.’ The latter nobleman (the third Earl of Shaftesbury) owed much to Locke’s care, and was his eulogist.

Locke was of a cautious if not timid disposition. This appears from many of his letters, and may be inferred from the anonymous publication of most of his writings. His weak health, the political persecution to which he was exposed during great part of his life, and the discipline to which he was subjected in childhood, which was strict and severe, in some measure account for this failing. His friendships were very steady; witness his close adherence to his patron Shaftesbury. Sydenham’s contemporary and friendly character of Locke is remarkable: he says, in a prefatory letter to one of his works, that “if we consider his genius, his penetrating and exact judgment, and the strictness of his morals, he has scarcely any superior, and few equals now living.”