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very little reflection would, at least, serve to show that, in all such conjectures, we are endeavoring to pass the bounds which the Almighty has prescribed to our understanding, and must therefore for ever be baffled in the vain attempt.

imparting thought; which, in reality, would be to imagine so many souls, and to destroy the oneness and individuality of man. For, how could part A obtain cognizance of what part B experienced? There would be an absolute necessity to suppose another intelligence, apart from this cluster of material souls, and essentially one and indivisible, in which might centre, as in a point, the converging rays of intellectual light; or, to speak without a figure, the several trains of ideas transmitted inward by the senses.

It is very different when we reason on the matter of fact. Setting aside, for the present, that portion of the inquiry which relates to the inferior animals, it seems capable of demonstration that the human soul is a monad, indiscerptible, and, as far as our experience extends, unchangeable. All philosophers, we believe, agree that the material Interpose, therefore, as many material apparatus particles or atoms which compose our bodies are in as we please between the external world and the a state of perpetual change, something new being substance that thinks within us, it is but imagining constantly added, while, what previously formed a a circle within a circle; we must at last come to a portion of our system, detaches itself and passes monad, or unity, unextended and indivisible. That away in insensible perspiration; so that in seven which has distinct separate parts can never think. years, according to some calculations, the matter There will always be an absolute necessity, not of which our bodies consist is wholly renewed. In only for a vinculum, or connecting principle, disthis mutation the brain, of course, participates; tinct from the parts themselves,-and what it is consequently, in the man of to-day there remains that binds together the particles of matter has not one particle of the matter of which his body, never been explained, but likewise for something seven years ago, consisted. In this respect he is essentially one, which may take cognizance of the as different from his former self as from Eteocles or movements and operations of the material organe Polynices. Yet, though all the matter in his orga- by which it externally manifests its energies, and nized system be changed, there is something in through which it receives ideas of what exists bethe man which remains unchanged; something yond the circle of its own consciousness. Had this that links him with his youth, with his boyhood, view of the question presented itself to Locke, it is with his infancy, in which memory and conscious- probable he would have discovered its perfect conness inhere, which survives the repeated vicissi-sistency with the phenomena of thought; and have tudes of his frame, and properly constitutes himself. This something cannot be matter, for it has already been shown that, under this supposition, there could be no identity, and consciousness would be impossible. For, allowing, for the sake of argument, that it is the brain which receives from with

thence inferred that, unless it should please God to confer on matter other qualities than it now possesses, that is, to change its nature, it must for ever remain incapable of thinking.

In tracing the connection of the Essay on the out ideas of sensation, and within forms those of limits enable us very imperfectly to accomplish,Human Understanding with religion,-which our reflection by contemplating its own operations; it would be unpardonable to overlook its rigorous the impressions made on it could last no longer demonstration of the existence of a God. It is inthan itself: but it is admitted that the material deed humiliating to our reason that there should particles composing the brain are in a state of con- be individuals whose opinions render such a demonstant flux, and come, in the course of years, to be wholly changed; the material particles which destration necessary. But this is the case,—indeed part would, therefore, were they the depositaries of many ingenious men have amused the world with our ideas, carry away with them all the impressions they had, while in the brain, received; it would in fact be palpably impossible these should remain when the substances on which they had been impressed were detached: but we find that ideas are not thus fleeting; that they continue to exist in the mind forty, fifty, nay, in some men, a hundred years the substance in which our ideas are deposited remains, consequently, the same from youth to age; but the matter of our bodies is perpetually changing; therefore the human soul is not material.

Another view of the question may equally serve to convince us of this truth. If the soul were material, it must, like all other material substances, consist of extended solid parts, and might be divided ad infinitum. Suppose, however, it consisted only of five parts, corresponding with the number of the senses; each part would receive its peculiar ideas; but being separated from its neighbor by the infinite gulf which divides plurality from unity and diversity from identity, it could never communicate what it had received, unless we erect each portion of the soul into a distinct intelligence, endued with separate consciousness, and means of

doubts of their own existence;-and since it is so, we must endeavor to show that nature supplies us with lights the possession of which renders doubt on this subject wholly inexcusable.

It is often objected by the lovers of novelty that the proofs and arguments made use of in this demonstration are hackneyed; and so they are. And if a man should now go about to show that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones; or that ten and three and seven are equal to twenty, what could he say that would not be hackneyed? Truth, and our mode of approaching it through syllogisms, and the circumstances of nature, and the make and powers of one mind, remaining nearly the same, how can we,-if truth be our object, and, we would not, for novelty's sake, embrace error,-do otherwise than repeat, in our own manner indeed, the arguments which have i heretofore been employed by others for the same purpose? Hippias of Eleia, a man celebrated in antiquity for his aversion to old truths, once made himself merry with Socrates upon the monotony of his opinions; and in return was complimented by the philosopher on the wonderful versatility which enabled him constantly to shift the bases of his

thoughts, and to decide, on the self-same question, | right angles, it is impossible he should know any now one way, and now another.*

demonstration in Euclid. If, therefore, we know there is some real being and that non-entity cannot produce any real being, it is an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something; since what was not from eternity had beginning; and what had a beginning must be produced by something else.

Locke in this resembled Socrates, that he felt no aversion to embrace truths because they had been previously embraced by others. He was not desirous of startling, but of instructing mankind. And being persuaded that real knowledge is conducive to real happiness, he dissembled no truths which he appeared to have discovered, and scorned, on all occasions, to dress up popular errors in the guise of eternal verities, either for the purpose of eluding persecution, or acquiring for himself the advantages of power. We may be sure, therefore, that he was most earnest in the pursuit, and most honest in the disclosure of what he conceived to be truth; and, accordingly that, in his de-ing must be also the most powerful. monstrations of the existence of a God, we behold, not the arguments of a cold, subtile metaphysician linked together for display, but the reasoning of a man whose warm conviction gives weight to every proof, and infuses through the whole composition a vigor and vitality not to be found in the unsatisfactory ratiocinations of a sophist.

“Next it is evident, that what had its being and beginning from another, must also have all that which is in, and belongs to its being from another too. All the powers it has must be owing to, and received from, the same source. This eternal source then of all being must also be the source and original of all power; and so this eternal be

“Again, a man finds in himself perception and knowledge. We have then got one step farther, and we are certain now, that there is not only some being, but some knowing intelligent being in the world. There was a time then, when there was no knowing being, and when knowledge began to be; or else there has been also a knowing Did the space requisite for the due considera- being from eternity. If it be said, there was a tion of other topics permit, we would willingly time when no being had any knowledge, when have introduced in this place the whole of the in- that eternal being was void of all understanding; comparably splendid chapter to which we have I reply, that then it was impossible there should been alluding. But all we have room for is an ever have been any knowledge: it being as imextract, which may, however, induce the reader, possible that things wholly void of knowledge, if he should happen not to be already acquainted and operating blindly, and without any perception, with it, to have recourse to the Essay itself. Hav- should produce a knowing being, as it is impossiing observed that, though the evidence of the ex-ble that a triangle should make itself three angles istence of a God be equal to mathematical cer- bigger than two right ones. For it is as repugtainty, it yet requires thought and attention, and nant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should that the mind should apply itself to a regular de- put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge, duction of it from some part of our intuitive as it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle, that it knowledge, he proceeds: "I think it is beyond should put into itself greater angles than two right question that man has a clear idea of his own be- ones. ing; he knows certainly he exists, and that he is something. He that can doubt whether he be any thing or not, I speak not to, no more than I could argue with, pure nothing, or endeavor to convince non-entity that it were something. If any one pretends to be so sceptical, as to deny his own existence, (for really to doubt of it is manifestly impossible,) let him for me enjoy his beloved happiness of being nothing, until hunger, or some other pain, convince him of the contrary. This then, I think, I may take for a truth, which every one's certain knowledge assures him of, beyond the liberty of doubting, viz. that he is something that actually exists.

"Thus from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing being; which whether any one will please to call God, it matters not. The thing is evident, and from this idea duly considered, will easily be deduced all those other attributes, which we ought to ascribe to this eternal being. If, nevertheless, any one should be found so senselessly arrogant as to suppose man alone knowing and wise, but yet the product of mere ignorance and chance; and that all the rest of the universe acted only by that blind haphazard, I shall leave with him that very rational and emphatical rebuke of Tully, to be considered at his leisure: What can be more sillily arrogant and misbecoming, than for a man to think that he has a mind and understanding in him, but yet in all the universe beside there is no It has been well observed by an eminent Chris-such thing? or that those things, which with the tian philosopher of our times, that "in philosophy utmost stretch of his reason he can scarce comequally as in poetry, genius produces the strongest | prehend should be moved and managed without impressions of novelty, while it rescues the stalest any reason at all.'"* and most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission. Truths, of all others the most awful and mysterious, yet being at the same time of universal interest, are too often considered as so true that they lose all the powers of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors."-Friend, vol. i.

"In the next place, man knows by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If a man knows not that non-entity, or the absence of all being, cannot be equal to two

·

* De Legib. lib. ii. Cicero's words are:-" Quid est enim verius, quam neminem esse oportere tam stulte arrogantem, ut in se mentem et rationem putet inesse, in cœlo mundoque non putet? Aut ea quæ vix summa ingenii ratione comprehendat, nulla ratione moveri putet?"

"From what has been said, it is plain to me, who can be delighted with intellectual beauty, we have a more certain knowledge of the exist- render the study of his writings a passion and a ence of a God, than of any thing our senses have luxury. To pretend to discover all these excelnot immediately discovered to us. Nay, I pre- lencies in the style of Locke would be absurd afsume I may say, that we more certainly know fectation. It has, however, great beauties; and that there is a God, than that there is any thing of these not the least is that admirable perspicuielse without us. When I say we know, I mean ty-in Aristotle's opinion the chiefest excellency of there is such a knowledge within our reach, which language-which almost always enables us rapidly we cannot miss, if we will but apply our minds to to seize his meaning, even in those passages where that, as we do to several other inquiries." the nature of the subject might have appeared to Much has, at different times, been written on excuse some degree of obscurity. There is bethe style of the Essay on the Human Understand- sides in most of his compositions, a masculine ing. According to Dugald Stewart, it resembles strength, an earnestness, a warmth,-distinct from that of a well-educated man of the world, rather the warmth of passion,-arising evidently from than of a recluse student, "who had made an ob- the force of his convictions, from the intimate ject of the art of composition;" from which it persuasion that what he advances is based on may be inferred that, with Locke, the art of com- truth; and the combination of these qualities, position had not formed an object of study. But, united with the grandeur and importance of the whoever shall duly consider his remarks on Parti- ideas, rises, in many parts of the Essay, into a cles, in the seventh chapter of the third book, will noble eloquence, still more strikingly perceptible certainly conclude that no recluse student could in the "Conduct of the Understanding," and the ever attach more importance than he did to style. vehement refutations of error in the "Treatise on What his opinion was of the language in use Government." At the same time it must not be among men of the world, he has also taken care, dissembled that the construction of his sentences in many places, to express; more particularly in is often destitute of all grace; and that the prebook the third, chapter the eleventh, where, con- judice against figurative language, which at one tending for the proper use of words he says, time possessed him, led too frequently to the em"This exactness is absolutely necessary in inqui- ployment of a bald unvivified form of expression, ries after philosophical knowledge, and in contro- wholly incommensurate to the magnitude of his versies about truth; and though it would be well, ideas. From this charge Lord Bacon himself,too, if it extended itself to common conversation next to Milton the most figurature prose writer in and the ordinary affairs of life, yet I think that is our language,-is not wholly free, as any one who scarce to be expected." Farther on he observes, reads the History of Henry VII. and several of "that propriety of speech is that which gives our his other works, will perceive. But the defect is thoughts entrance into other men's minds with more apparent in Locke, who from a false theory the greatest ease and advantage ;" and to this he studiously, during many years, labored to deprive is careful to add, that "the proper signification his works of the advantage and charm derived and use of terms is best to be learned from those, from the judicious use of tropes and figures. who, in their writings and discourses, appear to have had the clearest notions, and applied their terms with the exactest choice and fitness.". From which it seems evident that the art of composition commanded no inconsiderable portion of his attention; so that if, after all, his style resemble that of a well-educated man of the world, who had never regarded language with a rhetorician's eyes, it must be concluded that the care and pains he bestowed on this part of his studies was utterly thrown away.

Walter Savage Landor, himself a writer remarkable for the vigor and originality of his language, runs, in speaking of Locke, into the opposite extreme, giving his style the preference in comparison with that of Plato. But this decision is still more paradoxical than Dugald Stewart's. Of all prose authors, Plato is perhaps the one who has most excelled in the management of language, which he has invested with every beauty, of which it appears to be susceptible in unmetrical composition; his style successively adapting itself with equal facility to the highest flights of the imagination, the most abstruse inquiries in metaphysics and the liveliest and homeliest sallies of familiar badinage. If we can conceive Shakespeare's language applied to philosophical investigations in all its poetical fervor, power, and flexibility, but divested of its quaintness, it might give us some idea, though still but a faint one, of the splendor and inexhaustible variety of Plato, which to those

To proceed, however, with our outline of his life. "The occupations which now engaged the attention of this great man," says Lord King,"were of the most varied and opposite description. He was at the same time a practical politician, and a profound speculative philosopher; a man of the world, engaged in the business of the world, yet combining with all those avocations the purity and simplicity of a primitive Christian. He pursued every subject with incredible activity and diligence; always regulating his numerous inquiries by the love of truth, and directing them to the improvement and benefit of his country and of mankind."

He now, in defence of the rights of the people, published his work on Government; and in the following year, 1690, a Second Letter on Toleration, in which he further developed the principles of religious liberty. About this time, it is supposed, he became acquainted with Newton, Sir John Somers, and the celebrated Earl of Peterborough, with whom, when either happened to be absent from London, he kept up a regular correspondence. With Newton also he occasionally corresponded; and there have been preserved and published several letters of this great man, partly relating to his "Account of the Corruptions of Scripture," which prove at once the irritability, goodness of heart, ingenuousness, and constitutional timidity of that Lux altera gentis.

In 1691 Locke published his "Considerations

on the Lowering of Interest," to which, in 1695, further considerations, forming a second part, were added. His object, in this work, was to demonstrate the injustice of raising the denomination and lowering the standard of the currency; and in the great recoinage of 1695 his advice was followed, and the current money of the realm restored to the full legal standard. He at the same time anticipated the conclusion, if not the arguments, of Bentham, in his "Defence of Usury;" showing that all attempts at regulating the rate of interest increase the difficulty of borrowing, while they prejudice none but those who need assistance. He was in this year, rather as a compliment than as a reward for his labors, nominated a member of the Council of Trade; an honor which, on account of his increasing infirmities, he during the following year resigned.

Though the feebleness of his constítution was incompatible with that continued residence in London, which the duties of a public office might have required, it seems by no means to have interfered with his literary labors; for in 1695 appeared his "Reasonableness of Christianity;" and in the following year, his first and second Vindications of this work, together with his then celebrated letters to Stillingfleet, in defence of the Essay on the Human Understanding. Locke now resided with Sir F. and Lady Masham, at Oates, near Ongar, in Essex; where he enjoyed, what he appears always to have highly valued, the society of an intellectual and fascinating woman. Lady Masham was the daughter of Cudworth, author of the "Eternal Principles of Morality;" and there had subsisted for many years an intimacy between the philosopher and this amiable family, as appears from a letter addressed, in 1683, to her Ladyship's brother in Hindoostan. Locke's fondness for voyages and travels is well known. He in fact preferred them to almost every other kind of books; and, in this letter, we find him inquiring curiously about the tricks of the Indian jugglers, "which," says he, "must needs be beyond legerdemain ;" the notions of the Brahmins, concerning spirits and apparitions; and their religious opinions and ceremonies, of which he had obtained a tolerably correct idea from Bernier, with whom he was personally acquainted. He also desired to learn whether any copies of the Old or New Testament, in any language, existed among the oriental nations previous to their communications with Europeans, consequent upon the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope.

In this agreeable retirement he spent the last four years of his life, engaged in the study of St. Paul's Epistles, on which he composed a commentary, published among his posthumous works. Though struggling with an incurable disease, his temper continued calm and unruffled. His interest in the welfare of his friends was unabated. Cheerful, but resigned to his fate, he saw death approach without perturbation: he had lived like a Christian, and hoped to meet, in another world, with a Christian's reward. In the month of October, 1704, it became evident that his dissolution was at hand; and on the 27th, Lady Masham, not meeting with him in his study, went to his bedside, where she found him worn down and

exhausted, and never expecting to rise again. He told her his earthly career was now terminated, and that in comparatively few hours he should be no more. To those present he wished all felicity; and to Lady Masham, who lingered in his chamber longer than the rest, he expressed his gratitude to God for the great happiness he had tasted in his life; but added that he now found all here below was vanity; exhorting her to consider this world only as a state of preparation for a better. He overruled her desire to sit up with him, observing, that he might perhaps be able to sleep, and would send for her, if any change should happen. Continuing awake all night, however, he in the morning was removed into his study, where he enjoyed a short sleep in his chair. He then desired to be dressed, and Lady Masham again coming to him he heard her, with great attention, read a portion of the Psalms; but feeling the near approach of death, stopped her, and a few minutes afterwards breathed his last, about three o'clock of the 28th of October, aged seventy-two years and two months.

Le Clerc, who, in the French manner, composed the eloge of Locke, concludes it with the character of the philosopher, derived from a person who knew him well, probably Lady Masham herself. This, with Lord King, we adopt as a judicious and excellent portraiture of the man :-" He was," says she, (and I can confirm her testimony in great measure, by what I have myself seen here,) "a profound philosopher, and a man fit for the most important affairs. He had much knowledge of belles lettres, and his manners were very polite and particularly engaging. He knew something of almost every thing which can be useful to mankind, and was thoroughly master of all that he had studied; but he showed his superiority by not appearing to value himself in any way on account of his great attainments. Nobody assumed less the airs of a master, or was less dogmatical; and he was never offended when any one did not agree with his opinion. There are, nevertheless, a species of disputants who, after having been refuted several times, always return to the charge, and only repeat the same argument. These he could not endure, and he sometimes talked of them with impatience; but he was the first to acknowledge that he had been too hasty. In the most trifling circumstances of life, as well as in speculative opinions, he was always ready to be convinced by reason, let the information come from whomsoever it might. He was the most faithful follower, or indeed the slave of truth, which he never abandoned on any account, and which he loved for its own sake.

He accommodated himself to the level of the most moderate understandings; and in disputing with them, he did not diminish the force of their arguments against himself, although they were not well expressed by those who had used them. He felt pleasure in conversing with all sorts of people, and tried to profit by their information; which arose not only from the good education he had received, but from the opinion he entertained, that there was nobody from whom something useful could not be got. And indeed by this means he had learned so many things, concerning the arts and trade, that he seemed to have made them his

particular study; insomuch that those whose profession they were, often profited by his information, and consulted him with advantage. Bad manners particularly annoyed and disgusted him, when he saw they proceeded not from ignorance of the world, but from pride, from haughtiness, from illnature, from brutal stupidity, and other similar vices; otherwise, he was far from despising whomever it might be for having a disagreeable appearance. He considered civility not only as something agreeable and proper to gain people's hearts, but as a duty of Christianity, which ought to be more insisted on than it commonly is. He recommended, with reference to this, a tract of Messrs. de Port Royal, "Sur les Moyens de conserver la Paix avec les Hommes;" and he much approved the sermons he had heard from Mr. Whichcote, a doctor of divinity, on this subject, and which have since been printed.

reason, and it was very seldom that it did him or any one else any harm. He often described the ridicule of it; and said that it availed nothing in the education of children, nor in keeping servants in order, and that it only lessened the authority which one had over them. He was kind to his servants, and showed them, with gentleness, how he wished to be served. He not only kept strictly a secret which had been confided to him, but he never mentioned any thing which could prove injurious, although he had not been enjoined secrecy; nor could he ever wrong a friend by any sort of indiscretion or inadvertency. He was an exact observer of his word, and what he promised was sacred. He was scrupulous about recommending people whom he did not know, and he could not bring himself to praise those whom he did not think worthy. If he was told that his recommendations had not produced the effect which was expected, he said, that it arose from his never having deceived any body by saying more than he knew, that what he answered for might be found as he stated it; and that, if he acted otherwise, his recommendations would have no weight.

"His greatest amusement was to talk with sen

He possessed all the requisite qualities for keeping up an agreeable and friendly intercourse. He only played at cards to please others, although from having often found himself among people who did, he played well enough, when he set about it; but he never proposed it, and said it was only an amusement for those who had no conversation.

"His conversation was very agreeable to all sorts of people, and even to ladies; and nobody was better received than he was among people of the highest rank. He was by no means austere; and as the conversation of well-bred people is usually more easy, and less studied and formal, if Mr. Locke had not naturally these talents, he had ac-sible people, and he courted their conversation. quired them by intercourse with the world: and what made him so much the more agreeable was, that those who were not acquainted with him, did not expect to find such manners in a man so much devoted to study. Those who courted the acquaintance of Mr. Locke, to collect what might be learnt from a man of his understanding, and who approached him with respect, were surprised to find in him not only the manners of a well-bred man, but also all the attention which they could expect. He often spoke against raillery, which is the most hazardous part of conversation if not managed with address; and though he excelled in it himself, he never said any thing which could shock or injure any body. He knew how to soften every thing he said, and to give it an agreeable turn. If he joked his friends, it was about a trifling fault, or about something which it was advantageous for them to know. As he was particularly civil, even when he began to joke, people were satisfied that he would end by saying something obliging. He never ridiculed a misfortune or any natural defect. "He was very charitable to the poor, provided they were not the idle or the profligate, who did not frequent any church, or who spent their Sundays in an ale-house. He felt, above all, compassion for those who, after having worked hard in their youth, sunk into poverty in their old age. He said, that it was not sufficient to keep them from starving, but that they ought to be enabled to live with some comfort. He sought opportunities of doing good to deserving objects; and often in his walks he visited the poor of the neighborhood, and gave them wherewithal to relieve their wants, or to buy the medicines he prescribed for them if they were sick, and had no medical aid.

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"In his habits he was clean, without affectation or singularity: he was naturally very active, and occupied himself as much as his health would admit of. Sometimes he took pleasure in working in a garden, which he understood perfectly. He liked exercise, but the complaint on his chest not allowing him to walk much, he used to ride after dinner: when he could no longer bear the motion of a horse, he used to go out in a wheel-chair; and he always wished for a companion, even if it were only a child, for he felt pleasure in talking with well-bred children. The weak state of his health was an inconvenience to himself alone, and occasioned no unpleasant sensation to any one, beyond that of seeing him suffer. His diet was the same as other people's, except that he usually drank nothing but water; and he thought his abstinence in this respect had preserved his life so long, although his constitution was so weak. He attributed to the same cause the preservation of his sight, which was not much impaired at the end of his life; for he could read by candle-light all sorts of books, unless the print was very small, and he never made use of spectacles. He had no other infirmity but his asthma, except that four years before his death he became very deaf, during a period of about six months. Finding himself thus deprived of the pleasure of conversation, he doubted whether blindness was not preferable to deafness, as he wrote to one of his friends; otherwise he bore his infirmities very patiently." "This," as Le Clerc says, "is an accurate, and by no means a flattered description of this great man.'

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