INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. THOUGH it is by no means our design to present the reader, on the present occasion, with a complete biography of Locke, it may perhaps be useful, before we come to a consideration of the reasonableness of Christianity, to glance, in a cursory manner, at the principal circumstances of his life, which was strikingly marked by sudden vicissitudes and mutations of fortune. This distinguished philosopher, the elder of two sons, was born at Wrington, in Somersetshire, on the 29th of August, 1632. He probably imbibed from his earliest years a hatred of arbitrary power, his father having, during the civil wars, been an officer in the republican army; which, on the restoration, caused considerable detriment to his fortunes. Locke, received from the beginning, a very superior education; and, though treated with much strictness while a boy, was gradually, as he grew up, permitted so share the friendship of his father, whom he loved with more than ordinary affection. He was sent, at an early age, to Westminster school; from whence, in 1651, he removed to Christ-church, Oxford, of which the celebrated independent, Dr. Owen, was then dean. The scholastic philosophy, based upon an imperfect interpretation of the works of Aristotle, which, at that period, prevailed in our universities, excited his aversion. He therefore, for some time, directed his studies into a different channel, and employed himself in acquiring that intimate knowledge of classical literature, which afterwards, when he came to write, enabled him to rival the first authors of modern times in the perspicuity and masculine beauties of his style. Contrary to what might have been expected, his university friends were not selected from among those of learned and studious habits; he preferred, it is said, the lively and agreeable; and his early manner of writing is not free from those sallies of affectation, mistaken by the vulgar for wit, which may be supposed best to have pleased such companions; indeed his recent biographer, Lord King, compares the style of his youthful correspondence to that of Voiture. and few equals, among his contemporaries. It was not without reason, therefore, that he valued the approbation bestowed by Locke on his method of cure, which still continues to be regarded as a model; but from this circumstance to infer, as Dugald Stewart has done, that the merit of this method belonged in part to the philosopher, hardly appears to be warranted. On the restoration, in 1660, Locke, then in his twenty-eighth year, wrote a political work, not wholly unimbued with the spirit of the times, which his maturer judgment condemned to oblivion. His merit having now procured him many friends, he was chosen, in 1664, to accompany, as secretary, Sir Walter Vane, envoy to the elector of Brandenburgh; and from Cleves, where he chiefly resided during his stay abroad, amused his friends with lively_descriptions of the Christmas mummeries of the Roman Catholics, of Calvinistic logicians, and Dutch poets; in which he exhibited more vivacity than good taste. Returning to England early in the spring of 1665, he rejected an offer, the accepting of which might have permanently engaged him in the career of diplomacy; nor could an invitation to enter the church, with very flattering prospects made in the following year, by a friend, prevail on him to relinquish his personal freedom and independence, which he regarded as the first of blessings. Emancipated from all professional pursuits, he continued the study of medicine, and entered with his characteristic enthusiasm for knowledge, into a course of experimental philosophy. At this period he would appear to have been sometimes consulted by his friends and others as a physician; and to his knowledge of medicine he owed his introduction to the earl of Shaftesbury, then lord Ashley, with whom, notwithstanding the veering politics of that celebrated man, he maintained a friendship interrupted only by death. Lord Ashley, who was suffering from an abscess in his breast, came to drink the waters of Astrop at Oxford, where Locke then resided. He had written to Dr. Thomas to procure the waters for him on his arrival, but this physician happening to be called away, requested Locke to execute the commission. Through the negligence of the messenger sent to procure them, the waters however were not ready, and Locke waited upon his lordship to explain. Satisfied with the apology, and charmed by his conversation, lord Ashley expressed his desire to improve an acquaintance thus accidentally commenced; and the friendship with which he was honored by Locke, is perhaps the strongest presumptive proof existing that his character contained the elements of many good and excellent qualities. The love of philosophy was at length awakened in his mind by the works of Descartes; but, instead of adopting the ingenious system of that writer, then exceedingly popular among the learned, he betook himself to the assiduous study of the sciences, more particularly of medicine, in which he made so great a proficiency that, but for the feebleness of his constitution, it is probable he would ultimately have practised as a physician. Sydenham, in physic the greatest name perhaps of modern times, speaks of him, in the dedication prefixed to his "Observations on the History and Cure of Acute Diseases," as his most intimate friend, and as a man who, for genius, penetration, From Oxford, Locke accompanied lord Ashley and exact judgment, had scarcely any superior, to Sunning-hil! Wells, and afterwards resided some time with him at Exeter-house in the Strand, where he occasionally enjoyed the society of the duke of Buckingham, lord Halifax, and other dis tinguished men, who appeared to delight in his superior style of conversation. From an anecdote related by Le Clerc, however, it would seem that those noblemen sometimes took refuge from philosophy in the most frivolous pastimes: for several of their number once meeting at lord Ashley's, sat down somewhat abruptly at the cardtable; upon which Locke, taking out his tablets, began attentively to write, lifting up his eyes, and regarding them from time to time. Observing him thus occupied, one of the party inquired what he was writing? To which Locke replied, that being greatly desirous of profiting by their lordships' discourse, he supposed he could not be better employed than in registering the wise sayings which dropped from persons who were esteemed the greatest wits of the age. And thereupon he read the notes he had been making. Finding they appeared to no great advantage in the philosopher's report, the card-table was abandoned, and the remainder of the evening given up to conversation; an amusement more worthy of rational creatures. but my lord Lauderdale knows it will agree with their present constitution; but surely he was much mistaken when he administered the covenant to England; but we shall see how the tripodes and the holy altar will agree. My lord of Ormond is said to be dying, so that you have Irish and Scotch news; and for English, you make as much at Bristol as in any part of England. Thus recommending you to the protection of the bishop of Bath and Wells, (whose strong beer is the only spiritual thing any Somersetshire gentleman knows,) I rest your very affectionate and assured friend." Locke had from the beginning been afflicted with ill-health; but in 1675, his asthma grew so troublesome, that it was judged necessary he should remove to a warmer and less changeable climate. He therefore crossed over into France; and on the way to Montpellier, which had been fixed on for his residence, kept a journal, in which he very minutely described whatever he considered worthy of notice. Some portions of this journal, after it had lain upwards of a century and a half in obscurity, lord King has communicated to the public; and notwithstanding, nay, perhaps, in consequence of the extraordinary changes which have taken place in France, the interest of these specimens is so great that few, we believe, can fail to regret the not being put in possession of the whole. of an ignorant and bigoted populace, he also inquired with persevering sympathy, and has recorded many curious facts, which ought not to be overlooked in a history of the church. It must at the same time be confessed, that even the Huguenots themselves were not wholly free from the persecuting spirit; for not long before Locke's arrival, an Arian was apprehended, seemingly at their instigation; and had he not, upon his trial at Toulouse, denied the truth of the accusation, and made profession of orthodoxy, would have been burnt alive. Lord Ashley was not without reason attached to his illustrious guest, by whose advice he submitted to the operation-the opening of an abscess in the breast-which saved his life; after which he omitted no occasion of consulting him, From several parts of this journal it is abuneven in the closest and most intimate concerns of dantly apparent, that in all his travels nothing so his family. And in 1672, when, after filling the deeply interested Locke as what concerned relioffice of chancellor of the exchequer, he was cre- gion generally. Into the condition of the Proated earl of Shaftesbury, and declared lord chan-testants in France, exposed to the oppression of a cellor of England, he appointed Locke his secre- persecuting government, and the wanton insults tary for the presentation of benefices; which, with another office in the council of trade, the philosopher resigned in the following year, when his friend, abandoning the court party, placed himself at the head of the opposition. Lord King, whose work, however, contains much fewer original documents than might have been desired, brings forward several letters and other evidences of the intimate friendship that existed between these celebrated individuals. Shaftesbury, it is clear, personally loved the man; this appears from the tone of their correspondence, where we discover, on all occasions, not merely great freedom The early opening of spring in the south, where and mutual confidence, but an indication that he experienced considerable warmth even in Jatheir friendship was far stricter and more intimate nuary, seems to have afforded our philosopher than would seem to be implied in their language. very particular pleasure. Picturesque descrip"We long to see you here," says the earl, in tions of external nature were not at that time in 1679," and hope you have almost ended your tra- fashion; but his concise allusion to the beautiful vels. Somersetshire, no doubt, will perfect your orange-groves of Hyeres forcibly reminds us of the breeding; after France and Oxford, you could not far more luxuriant paradises of Rosetta and the go to a more proper place. My wife finds you Land of Goshen, where the banana, the citron, profit much there, for you have recovered your the lime, and the orange, intermingle in charming skill in Chedder cheese, and for a demonstration confusion with the graceful palm and the majestic have sent us one of the best we have seen. I sycamore. "Below the town," says he, "the thank you for your care about my grandchild, but side of the hill is covered with orange-gardens; having wearied myself with consideration every ripe China oranges in incredible plenty, someway, I resolve to have him in my house; I long to speak with you about it. For news we have little, only our government here are so truly zealous for the advancement of the Protestant religion, as it is established in the church of England, that they are sending the common prayerbook the second time into Scotland. No doubt times nine or ten in a bunch. These gardens form the most deligtful wood I had ever seen; there are little rivulets conveyed through it to water the trees in summer, without which there would be but little fruit." Having remained fourteen months in the south of France, Locke proceeded, in March, 1677, to visit Paris, where he was treated with much dis- | 1689; but a short abridgement of the work, in tinction by the learned and the great. Here he French, had appeared in the preceeding year. continued until the July of the following year, Buhle, therefore, who, in his History of Modern when he again returned to the south; but, after a brief stay, finally quitted it for England; having been recalled, it is supposed, by his friend Shaftesbury, then at the head of the administration.However this may be, he arrived in London on the 8th of May, 1679, and for some time resided in Thanet-House, Aldersgate street. Philosophy, states that the first edition of the Essay was published in 1694, is altogether incorrect; the whole of the first impression having been sold, and a second issued as early as 1693. As the philosophical spirit exerted, at that period, an active and extensive influence in Europe, it is by no means remarkable that the Essay should have excited much attention. The philo sophy it contained was bold and novel, and tended to subvert, in a great measure, the fashionable hypotheses; consequently the alarm was sounded on all sides, and the better to refute his positions, But that troublesome complaint which, in 1675, had been the cause of his leaving England, soon compelled him to quit London, and the ensuing winter was spent partly at Oxford, and partly in Somersetshire. Locke now entered deeply into the politics of the times, and being invariably it was attempted to be shown that the most fearranged on the popular side, became exceedingly ful consequences inevitably flow from the princiobnoxious to the court. Liberty, however, was ples he sought to establish. The more charitable unprosperous; and Argyle, Russel, and Sydney were willing to suppose him ignorant of the direct fell victims to their exertions in its cause; but tendencies of his own doctrines; others imagined Shaftesbury, after a very narrow escape, towards themselves to have discovered in the whole scope the close of 1682, took refuge in Holland, where and design of his work, an attempt to advance the shortly after his arrival he died. His body was cause of irreligion by imperceptibly sapping the conveyed back to England, and interred at St. foundations of Christianity, and spreading the mists Giles's in Dorsetshire, "where Locke attended of scepticism over the fountains of all our knowthe funeral of his patron and friend." In the Au- ledge. Even among his intimate friends there gust following, conceiving that he was no longer were those who felt shocked at his denying the safe in Great Britain, he also went into voluntary existence of innate* ideas. Shaftesbury, author of exile in Holland. the "Characteristics," in England, and Leibnitz, By an illegal order of the king, and the servility on the Continent, attacked the new philosophy, of the dean and chapter-for the university itself endeavoring, in different ways, to show its princiseems to stand acquitted-Locke was in 1684 de-ples to be dangerous or untenable. Stillingfleet, prived of his studentship at Christ-church. But the celebrated Bishop of Worcester, likewise this wretched display of authority could by no means appease the resentment of his majesty. Shelton, the English envoy at the Hague, was instructed to demand that Locke, with several other refugees, who were described as traitors and miscreants, should be given up to the royal vengeance; so that the author of the Essay on the Human Understanding was by day compelled to conceal himself like a brigand, and only venture forth for air and exercise under the cover of darkness.During this period he was engaged in writing his Letter on Toleration, a subject which had for many years occupied his thoughts. ranged himself among the opponents of Locke, and his death is said to have been hastened by the signal defeat he sustained in the controversy. The same thing is related of Salmasius, against whom Milton directed that vehement burst of eloquence-the Defence of the People of England. But little credit is due to such traditions; and, as a biographer of the poet judiciously ob serves, our great defenders of freedom can very well dispense with such testimonies in their favor. To clear the way for the reception of his system, Locke perceived the necessity of demolishing, from the foundations, the doctrine of innate ideas In the meantime William Penn, and the Earl of Pembroke the same to whom the Essay on By using the term innate in an improper sense, the Human Understanding was afterwards dedi-Hume is led to consider our impressions" innate, cated-exerted their influence to soften the ran- and our ideas not so. He bestows the term imcor of James II., against the friend of Shaftes-pression upon "our more lively perceptions: when bury; but Locke was much too prudent to rely we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, on the seeming forgiveness of a Stuart, and re- or will;" and then he tells us these impressions are mained in Holland until the Revolution of 1688 innate-that is, were born with us, and were, conrendered his return safe. He arrived in England in the same fleet that brought over the Princess of Orange; and was shortly after, by Lord Mordaunt, whom he had known in Holland, (now one of William's ministers,) offered to be employed as envoy to one of the great German courts; but refused the appointment, assigning as a reason the weakness of his health, which would not, he said, permit him to drink to excess a qualification he considered indispensable in an ambassador who would obtain any influence in Germany. He now published his Essay on the Human Understanding, which during eighteen years had formed his principal occupation: the dedication to the Earl of Pembroke is dated May the 24th, sequently, in our minds before we had heard, or seen, or felt, or loved, or hated, or desired, or willed. I must confess I can perceive, in his speculations on the origin of our ideas, none of that subtilty and acuteness for which he has obtained credit; nor can I think him justified in accusing Locke of making use, like the schoolmen, of undefined terms, and drawing out his disputes to a tedious length, without ever touching the point in question. I admit he is sometimes tedious, and who is not?-but cannot discover that he is so without ever touching the point in question. On the contrary, it is by touchng it too frequently, by viewing it again and again, in various lights, that he seems to become tedious; and every conscientious seeker after truth, by his eagerness to carry conviction into the mind of the reader, is liable to lay himself open to this charge. -those koivaι Evvotat, on which philosophers had, panion of those master-minds, which for their until then, been accustomed to build so much of loftiness, and purity, and holiness, may perhaps their hypotheses. The question, besides its na- without impiety be said, during their earthly piltural difficulty and obscurity, had been surrounded grimage, to have walked with God. It has likeby prejudice with a circumvallation of imaginary wise humbled itself and become the inmate of the dangers to religion; and the fears previously, by meanest cottage, and cheered the laborer in his well-meaning but unphilosophical persons, enter- labor, the poor man in his poverty, the sick upon tained, were rather aggravated than diminished, his bed; it has been the friend and the support of when, on reading the Essay, they discovered the the widow and the fatherless, and those who had startling novelty of his theory of conscience, mo- none to help them; it has wiped away the tears rals, virtue and happiness. Besides, from over- from the eyes of affliction; it has comforted the eagerness to establish his views, Locke has too despairing; it has seated itself where all other easily admitted the existence of whole nations of succor would be vain, beside the couch of the atheists; for had he, with his usual accuracy, dying, and smoothed their pillow and mitigated scrutinized the relations of those travellers upon their pangs, and poured the oil of gladness into whose testimony he on these points relied, he their souls, and become their counsellor and adwould have found them filled with mistakes, aris-vocate and surety with God. And shall we fear ing from the grossest ignorance of the people whose for religion? Shall we entertain apprehensions indistinct and uncertain opinions on the most ab- for that which can never cease but with the total truse questions of theology they had undertaken extinction of all finite, or at least of all rational and to explain. intelligent creatures, which must leave the Deity However, if in developing his system he some-alone in the immeasurable universe? times inadvertently availed himself of the support But not only was Locke under the influence of of doubtful or imaginary facts, nothing can be the religious spirit, he embraced precisely that more certain than that he completely succeeded modification of it which constitutes Christianity; in overthrowing the hypotheses which he com- and every where, in the midst of the profoundest bated. Leibnitz, indeed, whose whole life was speculations, suffers to appear manifest indications spent in patching up and contending for extrava- that he possessed a soul in pious humility, and gant and exploded systems, undertook, as has above all knowledge prized that which has been already been said, the defence of innate ideas; through Jesus Christ revealed to mankind. Indeed, but this did not hinder mankind from perceiving the Essay on the Human Understanding may be the truths advanced by Locke, though fears were regarded as a religious book. Throughout, togestill entertained that many evils of unknown mag-ther with an ardent love of truth, we find the most nitude might thence ensue. Many seemed, in fact, to apprehend that he meditated nothing less than the total subversion of virtue and religion; for ignorance had long identified with the cause of the altar the errors which he labored to remove. To obviate, therefore, the prejudices that might arise from this supposition, he was careful to manifest, at every step of the inquiry, his unfeigned, deep-rooted reverence for the things of God; and this feeling, in him, was so habitual, so much a part of the character and constitution of his mind, so indissolubly linked with his earliest and most cherished associations, that he would have found it far more difficult to conceal than to display it. Accordingly, it may with the strictest veracity be said that no philosopher, not even Plato himself, who placed all true happiness in the knowledge of God, was ever more intimately convinced of the truths of religion, or more thoroughly imbued with its divine spirit, than the author of the Essay on the Human Understanding. But, had it been otherwise, had he marshalled all the powers of his splendid intellect against Christianity, what other destiny could have awaited him than that which has overtaken so many others? How unworthy, and weak, and vain, are the fears which good men sometimes entertain for their religion! Certain exceptions, indeed, appear to forbid the universal application of what follows; but, upon the whole, it is most true that the religious feeling is as much a part of human nature as reason or imagination. Religion began with the beginning of man in Eden; it has survived the successive revolutions of many thousand years; it has defied persecution; it has triumphed over despotism; it has, in all ages, been the com earnest inculcation of contentment and holiness of life. Our faculties, feeble and limited as he shows them to be, are always represented sufficiently powerful to discover the track of duty which he believes us able and free to follow; and no one, perhaps, ever perused attentively the chapter on infinity without being smitten with involuntary awe; without intimately experiencing the truth uttered by the apostle, that in God we live, and move, and have our being; without feeling himself borne beyond the utmost limits of the universe, into those immeasurable realms of space, where the Spirit of God still appears to brood o'er the vast abyss and make it pregnant. Passing from this sublime subject to the consideration of power, of which the human mind seems incapable of conceiving any other than a very dim and obscure idea, he demonstrates that our notion of spirit is certainly not less if it be not more clear than our notion of body; and in a brief passage, not perhaps wholly free from inconsistency, drops the first hint of Berkeley's theory, according to which nothing exists for us but as it is perceived. Nevertheless, not being able to deny that irrational animals think; and being unwilling to suppose in them a spiritual soul, or impiously to conceive a limit to the power of God, he expresses his belief that the Almighty might confer on matter the faculty of thinking. Hence the cry of irreligion which was raised against him in his own times, and has, among certain persons, been kept up to the present day. But, in pretending to decide what God can or cannot do, we make very free, as Butler observes, with the Deity; and, perhaps, in pushing our inquiries into these awful questions, are not altogether free from impiety; |