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TRANSFERREOTO y GF W LIBRARY
General Lil^^ity System J i,':; University c3i.Wisconsin - Madison 728 State Stf^t._j6 Madison, Wl Q^jqba USA ^•'^"
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^■^
THE
LIFE AND LETTERS
JOHN LOCKE,
WITH EXTBACT8 FBOX
ins JOURNALS AND COfflON-PUCE BOOKS.
LORD KING. , . V
NEW EDITION. WITH A GENEEAL' INDEX.
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AND 186. FLEET STREET.
1864.
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K
PREFACE.
AvTEB the death of Locke, his papers, correspondence, and tuanuscripts, came into the possession of Sir Peter King, hi^ near relation and sole executor. They consist of the originals of many of his printed works, and of some which were never published; of his very extensive correspondence with his mends, both in England and abroad ; of a Journal which he kept during his travels in France and Holland ; of his Com- mon-place Books ; and of many miscellaneous papers ; all of whiqji have been preserved in the same scrutoir in which they had been deposited by their author, and which was probably removed to this place in 1710.
The works of Locke are universally known, but the indi- vidual himself is much less so ; I have therefore thought that a more detailed account of his life would contribute to in- crease, if possible, the fame of that truly great and good man. The friends of freedom will excuse the attempt, from the veneration they feel for the man, and for the cause which he defended ; they will be anxious to know more of one who so much promoted the general improvement of mankind ; and they will learn with pleasure that his character was as pure and as exalted as his talents were gredt and useful.
There are, however, others who would fain keep mankind in a state of perpetual pupilage, who, carrying their favourite doctrine of passive obedience into all our spiritual as well as temporal concerns, would willingly deliver us over in absolute subjection, for the one to the rulers of the Church, and for the other to the rulerei of the State. These men cannot be expected to entertain any admiration for the champion of reason and truth, nor from them can I hope for any approba- tion or favour in the present undertaking.
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ly PBEFACl.
It is impossible, after the lapse of one hundred and thirty years, to portray with accuracy those minute features of cha- racter which make biography often so interesting when sketched by the hand of contemporaries and frien£. The most authentic account of Locke, which has hitherto been published, is to be found in the " Bibliotheque Choisie" of 1716, written by Le Clerc, about twelve years after the death of his friend. In the present attempt, the order of events, and in part also the narrative of Le Clerc, has been followed ; and I nave endeavoured, from the letters and memoriab which still remain, to make Mr Locke, as far as possible, his own biographer.
It is necessary to observe, respecting the arrangement of the materials, that in general the letters are inserted accord- ing to their dates, but keeping each correspondence separate ; the Journal is introduced at that period of the author's life when it was written ; it exists in the form of small separate volumes for each year, from 1675 to 1688, and appears to have served the double purpose of a Journal and Common- place Book, during his residence abroad; containing many dissertations evidently written at the moment when the thoughts occurred. The reader will find the two first of these in their original place in the Journal, but as the article on Study was extended to a great length, broken into many parts, and not brought to a conclusion without several inter- ruptions, I thought it better to collect the whole together, and to place that, as well as all the remaining dissertations and opinions, at the end of the Journal.
The extracts from the Common-place Books ; the Miscella- neous Papers ; a small part, as a specimen, of an unpublished work in defence of Nonconformity, and an epitome of his Essay on Human Understanding, drawn up by Locke him- self, wiU be found at the end of the Life. Without presum- ing to express any opinion of the merits of these writings, I may be excused for saying, that the excellent and highly- finished article Ebbob, in the Common-place Book, and that on Stitdt in the Journal, are both worthy of Mr Locke.
It appears from the character of the hand-writing in Mr Locke's original sketches, that, after having well considered his subject, he was able at once, without the least hesitation, to draw upon his own ample resources, and striking out hia
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. PEErAOB. V
work, as it were, at a heat, to write down his thoughts, cur- rente cakmo, without difficulty, hesitation, or impediment. Perhaps this decision of the author, proceeding from his habit of previous reflection, and from his devotion to the cause of truth, gives to his writings that peculiar spirit which dis- tinguishes them. His works intended for publication had, of course, the advantage of revision and correction ; but as many of the following were extemporaneous thoughts com- mitted hastily to paper, and never afterwards corrected, the reader will make allowance for any inaccuracies that he may find in them.
Some persons may think that too many, and others that too few, of the letters have been published ; the great diffi- culty was to make a selection, and to show, vdthout fatiguing the reader, the interest which was felt by Mr Locke on so many different questions, the versatility of his genius, and the variety of his occupations. Of the letters from different correspondents foimd amongst Mr Locke's papers, the whole of those from Sir Isaac Newton, and the greater part of those from Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Peterborough, are now
Printed. Of the remainder, nearly one hundred are from /imborch; perhaps double that number from Monsieur Toinard, containing the scientific news of Paris from 1679 for several years following ; many from Le Clerc ; from M. Q-uenelon, of Amsterdam ; from Lord Ashley, afterwards the third Earl of Shaftesbury ; from Mr Tyrrell and Dr Thomas, Mr Clark of Chipstead, to whom the Thoughts on Education were addressed ; and from A. Collins, &c. &c. ; amounting al- together to some thousands in number. The desire of keep- ing this publication within reasonable bounds, has prevented the publication of more than a very few of these letters.
Ockham, April 2ieh, 1829.
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CONTEN'IS. |
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Life of John Locke .. .... |
rAot 1 |
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Letter from LoUe to his father |
2 |
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His college life . . . • . t |
3 |
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Letter from Locke to a friend . . . • . • |
10 |
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Secretary to Sir Walter Vane |
11 |
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Correspondence ^^-ith Mr John Strachy, Sutton Court, Bristol ' . . |
13 |
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Declines to go to Spain . . . . . . • . |
27 |
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Declines to enter the Church . . . • |
29 |
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Acquaintance with Lord Shaftesbury . . |
31 |
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Residence with Lord Ashley . . |
33 |
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Letters from Lord Shaftesbury to Locke . . # . |
34 |
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Secretary to Lord Shaftesbury . . . . < • • . |
39 |
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Letter of Charles IL to Sir George Downing . . |
41 |
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Locke's impaired health |
43 |
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Residence in France |
45 |
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EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LOCKE. |
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His journal in France |
47 |
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Residence in France |
49 |
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Obligations of Penal Laws |
61 |
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Knowledge, its Extent and Measure . . |
86 |
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Study during a journey |
87 |
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Study |
92 |
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England, 1679 |
133 |
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Directions for a foreigner in England . . |
133 |
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The new Parliament of 1680 |
137 |
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Letter of Lord Shaftesbury . . |
137 |
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Locke takes refuge in Holland |
139 |
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Form of Prayer ordered by the King . . |
141 |
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Devon Session |
144 |
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Declaration of Devon justices |
144 |
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Deprived of his studentship . . |
147 |
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Correspondence between the Earl of Sunderlan^ and the Bishop of |
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Oxford respecting Locke . . |
149 |
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His retreat to Holland |
155 |
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His refusal of a pardon |
157 |
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Letters of the Earl of Pembroke |
157 |
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Locke's residence in Holland |
159 |
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JyCtters from Tyrrell to Locke . . . . ♦ . |
168 |
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Locke's return to England . . |
171 |
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His letter to Lord Mordaunt |
172 |
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Declines appointment as ambassador . . |
173 |
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Petition to liis Majesty . . . . . . . . . . ] 75
Essay on Human Understanding . . . . . . . . 177
Letters of Lord Ashley to Mr Locke . . . . . . 182
Letter of John Wynne to Mr Locke . . . . . . 189
Locke-s answer . . . . . , . . . . 191
Mr Tyrrell to Mr Locke .. .. .. .. ..193
Stillingfieet's attack on the Essay . . . . . . . . 194
His defence of the Essay . . . . . . . . . . 196
Locke to Mr Tyrrell . . . . . . . . . . 198
His obserrations on the Censorship . . . . . . . . 202
A Demonstration that the Planets, by their grayity towards the Sun,
may move in Ellipses . . . . . . . . . . 210
Letters from Sir Isaac Newton . . . . . . . . 217
Locke to Newton . . . . . . . . . . 226
Remarks on Sir Isaac Newton's Three Letters . . . . 229
Lord Keeper Somers to Mr Locke . . . . . . . . 235
The Earl of Monmouth to Mr Locke . . . . . . . 237
The Earl of Peterborough to Mr Locke . . . . . . 241
Depreciation of the coin . . . . . . . . . . 243
Lord Keeper Somers to Mr Locke . .• . . . * . . 243
Letter of Sir William Trumbull . . . . . . . . 245
Locke to Lord Keeper Somers . . . . . . . . 246
Lord Keeper Somers to Mr Locke . . . . . . . . 247
Draft of Mr Locke's answer . . . . . . . . 248
Declines resumption of office . . . . 249
Residence at Gates . . . . ' . . 251
Letter to Mr Cudworth . . . . . . 251
Letters of Mr Locke to P. King, Esq. . . . . . . 254
His death .. .. .. .. ..267
Codicil relating to his works . . . . . . . . 269
Le Clerc*s character of Locke . . . . . . . . 271 ^
Pacific Christians . . . . . . . . . . 276 ^
Idea of a pure Christian community . . . . . . 277 '
EXTRACTS FROU LOCKS's COMMON-PULCB BOOK
On Error Sacerdos
Amor Patriae Scriptura Sacra Electio . .
The Parallel Thus I think Of Ethics in general
282
286 291 293 295
HXSCBLLANBOUS PAPERS.
Judging — Election — Resolution . . . . . . . . 299
On ike difference between civil and ecclesiastical power . . 300
Civil society, or the State Religious society, or the Church
300 300 302 306 308
Supplement to the Mode of acquiring Truth : Enthusiasm — Method 323 Lictter of M , Le Clerc to Mr Locka . . . . . . 326
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via CONTENTS.
Locke's answer . . . . . . . . . . 327
Species .. .. .. .. ..328
Understanding — Arguments positive and negative. 1677 . . 329
Essay concerning Recreation, in answer to D. Gt's desire. 1677 330
Memory— Imagination—Madness . . . . 333
Madness .. .. .. .. ..335
Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Space. 1677 .. , .. .. .. ..336
Relation—Space. 1678 .. . ... ..338
Adversaria Theologica . . . . . . . . 342
Trinitas— Non Trinitas .. .. .. ..342
Christus Deus siipremus — Christus non Deus supremus . . 344
Defence of Nonconformity . . . . 346
Additions intended by the author to have been made to the Essay
on Human Understanding . . . . . . . 359
Abstract of the Essay .. ,. ., ..365
APPENDIX.
Thomas Burnett to Mr Locke . . , . 400
David Thomas to Mr Locke . . . . . . 4i)3
Letters from Limborch to Locke . . . . 4;J4
MOTES ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
Petition of George Lord Murray . . 437
Sir R. Walpole's free discourse on Foreign Affairs 440
Curious proof of early hatred of George II. for his son Frederick 440
Spanish Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Hessian Treaty 445 Strange account given by the Duke of Ripperda of the Secret Treaty
of Vienna . . . . . . 447
The account of the death of George I. received by ministers in Eng- land .. ..448
Legal argument as to the King's taking the Test in Parliament 450
Sir R. Walpole's management at accession of George II. . . 453
Sir Spencer Compton loses his influence, and perceives it , . . 453 Attempts of George II. to encroach on the Chsmcellor's Ecclesiastic
Patronage . . . . . . . . 454
Sensible conversation of Sir R. Walpole . . . * . . 456
Walpole's opinion that no good came of Cabinets . . 456
Negotiation with France to assist the German politics of George II. 458
Unfavourable picture of the Dutch Republic by the Earl of Chesterfield 465 Curious account of parties in Holland, and intrigue to appoint a Stadtholder .. ..466
Mark of jealousy between Walpole and Townshend . . 472
Conversation with Walpole . . . . . . 480
Management of George IL by Queen Caroline and Walpole 481
Secret of the Queen's management of her husband . . 481
General Index . .. . . . . 491
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THE LIFE AND LETTERS
JOHN LOCKE.
John Locke was bom at "Wrington, in Somersetshire, A.. D. 1632; his father, Mr J. Locke, who was descended from the Lockes of Charton Court, in Dorsetshire, possessed a moderate landed property at Pensfold and Belluton, where he lived. He was a Captain in the Parliamentary army during the Civil Wars, and his fortune suffered so consider- ably in those times, that he left a smaller estate to his son than he himself had inherited.
John Locke was the eldest of two sons, and was educated with great care by his father, of whom he always spoke with the greatest respect and affection. In the early part of his life, his father exacted the utmost respect from his son, but gradually treated him with less and less reserve, and, when grown up, lived with him on terms of the most entire friend- ship ; so much so, that Locke mentioned the fact of his father having expressed his regret for giving way to his anger, and striking him once in his childhood, when he did not deserve it. In a letter to a friend, written in the latter part of his life, Lpcke thus expresses himself on the conduct of a father towards his son : " That- which I have often blamed as an in- discreet and dangerous practice in many fathers, viz. to be very indulgent to their children whilst they are little, and as they come to ripe years to lay great restraint upon them, and live with greater reserve towards them, which usually produces an ill understanding between father and son, which
Tnot but be of bad -consequences ; and I think fathers ^ B
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2 LITE AND LETTEE3 OP JOHN "^OCKB. [l651
would generally do better, as their sons grow up, to take them into a nearer familiarity, and live with them with as much freedom and friendship as their age and temper will allow." The following letter from Locke to his father, which is without a date, but must have been written before 1660, shows the feeling of tenderness and affection which subsisted between them. It was probably found by Locke amongst his father's papers, and thus came again into his possession.
Dec. 20. "Most beab and BTEB-LOViNa Pathee,
" I did not doubt but that the noise of a very dangerous sickness here would reach you, but I am alarmed with a more dangerous disease from Pensford, and were I as secure of your health as (I thank G-od) I am of my own, I should not think myself in danger ; but I cannot be safe so long as I hear of your weakness, and that increase of your malady upon you, which I beg that you would, by the timely apph- cation of remedies, endeavour to remove. Dr Meary has more than once put a stop to its encroachment ; the same skill, the same means, the same G-od to bless you, is left still. Do not, I beseech you, by that care you ought to have of yourself, by that tenderness I am sure you have of us, neglect your own and our safety too; do not, by a too pressing care for your children, endanger the only comfort they have left. I cannot distrust that Providence which hath conducted us thus far, and if either your disappointments or necessities shall reduce us to narrower conditions than you could wish, content shall enlarge it; therefore, let not these thoughts distress you. There is nothing that I have which can be so well employed as to his use, from whom I first received it ; and if your convenience can leave me nothing else, I shall have a head, and hands, and industry still left me, which alone have been able to raise sufficient fortunes. Pray, Sir, there- fore, make your life as comfortable and lasting as you can ; let not any consideration of us cast you into the least de- spondency. K I have any reflections on, or desires of, free and competent subsistence, it is more in reference to another (whom you may guess) to whom I am very much obliged, than for myself: but no thoughts, how ijaiportant soever, shall make me forget my duty ; and a^father is more than
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—1664.] HIS COLLEGE LITE. 3
all other relations ; and the greatest satisfaction I can pro- pose to myself in the world, is my hopes that you may yet live to receive the return of some comfort, for all that care and indulgence you have placed in,
" Sir, your most obedient son,
J. L."
It would have been more in the order of time, to have stated that Locke was sent to Westminster School, and from thence to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1651. His friend, Mr IVrrell, the grandson of the celebrated Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, relates that Locke, in the earliest period of his residence at Oxford, was distinguished for his talents and learning, amongst his fellow-students. That he lost much time at Oxford is, however, certain, from his own confession : and if he derived little advantage from the pliace of his edu- cation, it cannot be ascribed to the inaptitude of his mind to make useful acquirements ; the fettdt is to be found in his instructors, and in their system. It appears that he would have thought the method of Des Cartes preferable (though no admirer of his philosophy) to that of the established prac- tice, either because ^*he study of that writer gave him the first taste for philosophy, or because he admired the dis- tinctness of his method ; or, perhaps, he might consider tmy alteration to be an improvement, and any change a change ^T the better.
/ Although he acquired this early reputation at the Univer- sity, yet he was often heard to express his regret that his father had ever sent him to Oxford: aware, from his own experience, that the method of instruction then pursued was \ill calculated to open the understanding, or prepare the way /for any useful knowledge.
What, indeed, could the false philosophy of the schools, and their vain disputation, profit the man who was afterwards to be distinguished above all other men, for his devoted love of truth, of unshackled inquiry, and of philosophy.
In the different systems of education, there may be that which is pernicious, that which is only useless, and that which is really useful. Perhaps the ancient method may, without injustice, be classed under the first description; and the modem method, as a state of transition between the useless
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4 LIFE A.SD LETTERS OF JOHN LOCKE. [1651
and the useful, far superior to what it once was, but still ca- pable of great improvement.
That Locke regretted his education at Oxford, is stated upon the authority of his friend Le Clerc. Perhaps too much stress has been laid upon some accidental expressions, or ra- ther, that the regrets expressed by Locke ought to have been understood by Le Clerc to apply to the plan of education then generally pursued at English universities ; for to Oxford, even as Oxford was in the days of Locke, he. must have been considerably indebted. The course of study and the philo- sophy, bad as it was, fortunately did not attract much of his attention, and his mind escaped the trammels of the schools, and their endless perplexities and sophistry. If the system of education did not offer assistance, or afford those directions so useful to the young student, the residence at Oxford did, no doubt, confer ease, and leisure, and the opportunity of other studies ; it afforded also the means of intercourse with persons from whose society and conversation, we know, that the idea of his great work first arose.
It may be said, without offence to that ancient University, that Locke, though educated within her walls, was much more indebted to himself than to his instructors, and that he was in himself an instance of that self-teaching, always the most efficient and valuable, which he afterwards so strongly recommends. In answer to a letter from the Earl of Peterborough, who had applied to him to recommend a tutor for his son, he says, " I must beg leave to own that I differ a little from your Lordship in what you propose ; your Lordship would have a thorough scholar, and, I think it not much matter whether he be any great scholar or no ; if he but understand Latin well, and have a general scheme of the sciences, I think that enough : but I would have him well- bred, well-tempered ; a man that, having been conversant with the world and amongst men, would have great applica- tion in observing the humour and genius of my Lord your son; and omit nothing that might help to form his mind, and dispose him to virtue, knowledge, and industry. This I look upon as the great business of a tutor ; this is putting life into his pupil, which when he has got, masters of all kinds are easily to be had ; for when a young gentleman has got a relish of knowledge, the love and credit of doing well spurs
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— 1664.] HIS COLLEGE LITB. 5
him on ; he will, with! or without teachers, make great ad» vances in whatever he has a mind to. 'Mr Newton learned his mathematics only of himself; and another friend of mine, Greek (wherein he is very well skilled) without a master ; though both these studies seem more to require the help of a tutor than almost any other." In a letter to the same person on the same subject,, 1697, he says: "When a man has got an entrance into any of the sciences, it will be time then to depend on himself, and rely upon his own under- standing, and exercise his own faculties, which is the only way to improvement and mastery."
After recommending the study of history, he further says : " The great end of such histories as Livy, is to give an ac- count of the actions of man as embodied in society, and so of the true foundation of politics ; but the flourishings and decays of commonwealths depending not barely on the pre- sent time for what is done within themselves, but most com- monly on remote and precedent constitution and events, and a train of concurrent actions amongst their neighbours as well as themselves ; the order of time is absolutely necessary to a due knowledge and improvement of history, as the order of sentences in an author is necessary to be kept, to make any sense of what he says. With the reading of history, I think the study of morality should be joined ; I mean not the ethics of the schools fitted to dispute, but such as Tully in his Offices, PufFendorf de Officio Hominis et Civis, de Jure Naturali et Gentium, and above all, what the New Testament teaches, wherein a man may learn to live, which is the busi- ness of ethics, and not how to define and dispute about names of virtues and vices. True politics I look on as a part of moral philosophy, which is nothing but the art of conducting men right in society, and supporting a community amongst its neighbours."
To return to Locke's habits and life at Oxford. Le Clerc mentions, that his very early friends and companions were selected from amongst the lively and agreeable, rather than the leame4 of his time ; and that the correspondence with which he/frequently amused himself with them had a resem- blance in style and expression to the French of Voiture, al- though perhaps not so finished and refined as that of the French author. His letters on Toleration, and his replies
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6 LIFE AND LETTEES OF JOHK LOCKE. [leSl
to the Bishop of "Worcester, show his force of argument, and his powers of wit and irony, confined always within the bounds of the most perfect civility and decorum.
The earliest of Locke's printed works is the Essay on Human Understanding : the original copy, in his own hand- writing, dated 1671, is still preserved, and I find the first sketch of that work in his Common-place Book, beginning thus : —
" Sic cogitavit de intellectu humano Johannes Locke an. 1771.
"Intellectus humanus cum cognitionis certitudine et as- sensus firmitate.
" First, I imagine that all knowledge is founded on, and ultimately derives itself from, sense, or something analogous to it, and may be called sensation, which is done by our senses conversant about particular objects, which gives us the simple ideas or images of things, and thus we come to have ideas of heat and light, hard and soft, which are nothing but the reviving again in our minds these imaginations, which those objects, when they affected our senses, caused in us — whether by motion or otherwise, it matters not here to con- sider,— and thus we do, when we conceive heat or light, yellow or blue, sweet or bitter, and therefore I think that those things which we call sensible qualities are the simplest ideas we have, and the first object of our understanding."
The essay must therefore have remained in the author's possession above eighteen years before he gave it to the world, and in that space of tune considerable corrections and alterations had been made. His earliest work, however, was of a political nature, and of a date much anterior, and although evidently intended for publication, was never printed. It was written towards the end of 1660 : the preface to the reader is curious, as the earliest specimen of his style and opinions, and strongly shows the desire of reasonable men of all parties to remove the difficulties which stood in the way or a final and peaceable settlement of affairs in State and Church. One of the first and most necessary measures after the B/Cstoration, and one of the most difficult, was the settlement of the Church. The King, by his Declaration,
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— 1664.] HIS COLLiaX LIFE. 7
had promised that endeavours should be used to effect a comprehension, and that such alteration should be made in the Liturgy, as should make it totally imobjectionable. The tract which Locke wrote was intended to reconcile the Low Church party to an obedience to the civil magistrate in all indifferent things in public worship, not otherwise com- manded by the word of God. It is an answer to a writer who denied the right of the civil magistrate (or supreme power) to interfere in matters of religion ; and in manner and style it resembles his later controversy with Sir Bobert Filmer. It is an important fjEwt in the history of toleration, that Dr Owen, the Independent, was Dean of Christ Church in 1651, when Locke was admitted a member of that college "under a fanatical tutor," as A, Wood says in "AthensB Oxonienses." The charge of fanaticism made against the tutor is either ai\ unfounded assertion of the learned but prejudiced antiquary of Oxford; or, if true, the fanatici,sm of the tutor had not the slightest effect on the mind of the pupil, as the bias in this treatise inclines, perhaps, too de- cidedly towards the side of authority. Great concessions are made in order to avoid the danger of civil discord, and for the sake of religious peace, which the author feared might be endangered by the zealots of the Millennium, and, as he expresses himself, "that the several bands of saints would not want Venners to lead them on in the work of the Lord." The subject of the treatise was this : —
" Question : — Whether the civil magistrate may lawfully impose and determine the use of indifferent things in refer- ence to Beligious Worship ?"
In the preface, the author thus expresses himself: " As for myself^ there is no one can have a greater respect and vener- ation 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 thereK)re cannot but entertain the ap- proaches of a calm with the greatest joy and satisfaction: and this, methinks, obliges me both in duty and gratitude • to endeavour the continuance of such a blessing by disposing men's minds to obedience to that government, which has brought with it the quiet settlement which even our giddy folly had put beyond the reach not only of our contrivance but hopes ; and I would men would be persuaded to be so
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S LIFE i.KD LETTEBS OF JOHN LOCKE. [I66I
kind to their religion, their country, and themselves, as not to hazard again the substantial blessings of peace and settle- ment, in an over-zealous contention about things which they themselves confess to be little, and at most are but indifferent.
***** But since I find that a general freedom is but a general bondage, that the popular assertors of public liberty are the greatest ingrossers of it too, and not unfitly called its keepers, I know not whether experience would not give us some rea- son to think, that were the part of freedom contended for by our author generally indulged in England, it would prove only a liberty for contention, censure, and persecution.
***** I have not therefore the same apprehension of liberty that some have, or can think the benefits of it to consist in a liberty for men, at pleasure, to adopt themselves children of God, and from thence assume a title to inheritances here, and proclaim themselves heirs of the world, nor a liberty for ambitious men to pull down well-framed constitutions, that out of the ruins they may build themselves fortunes ; not a liberty to be Christians so as not to be subjects. All the freedom I can wish my country or myself is, to enjoy the protection of those laws which the prudence and providence of our ancestors established, and the happy return of his Majesty has restored."
it may, perhaps, be thought, that the author, in his desire to avoid the tyranny of the Saints, which he seems no less to have dreaded than that of the men of the sword, had overlooked those other and more lasting evils which have almost always attended the return of exiled monarchs.
The circumstances of the times, and the altered policy of the Government towards the Presbyterian party, prevented the publication of the tract to which the preface belonged from which the above extracts are taken. The High Church pa,rty felt their strength in the new Parliament, and the at- tainment of religious peace by the means of comprehension and concession was no longer the object of the dominant faction. The Church party now, in their turn, determined to exert their power with far greater rigour than had been shown towards them by the Presbyterians when in power, and now resolved, in the fulness of victory, to exclude all
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— 1664.] HIS COLLEGE LITE. 9
those wlio differed from them, whether m things essential or in things indifferent, but at all events to exclude, to pun- ish, and to appropriate.
Whether Locke had, at any time, serious thoughts of engaging in any profession, is uncertain ; his inclinations led him strongly to the study of medicine, which seems very much to have occupied his thoughts to the end of his life, as appears from the frequent memoranda of curious cases that are to be found in his diary ; and from the correspondence of his friends, who occasionally consulted him to a very late period, and from the number of medical books he collected. The praise which Sydenham, the greatest authority of his time, bestows on the medical skill of Locke affords a bril- liant proof of the high estimation which his acquirements in the science of medicine, his penetrating judgment, as well as his many private virtues, procured from all who knew him. In the dedication prefixea to Dr Sydenham's Observations on the History and Cure of Acute Diseases, 1676, he boasts of the approbation bestowed on his method by Mr J. Locke, who (to borrow Sydenham's own words) had examined it to the bottom ; and who, if we consider his genius, and penetra- tion, and exact judgment, has scarce any superior, and few equals now living.* Mr Dugald Stewart, in his admirable dissertation on the progress of Philosophy since the revival of letters in Europe, observes : " The merit of this method, therefore, which still continues to be regarded as a model by the most competent judges, may Tbe presumed to have be- longed in part to Mr Locke, — ^a circumstance which deserves to be noticed, as an additional confirmation of what Bacon has so sagaciously taught, concerning the dependence of aU the sciences, relating to the phenomena either of matter or of mind, on principles and rules derived from the resources of a higher philosophy. On the other hand, no science could have been chosen more happily calculated than medicine to prepare such a mind as that of Locke for the prosecution of
♦ ** NSstri praBterea ^uam kuic mese methodo suffragantem habeam, qui earn intimitia per omnia perspexerat, utrique nostnim conjunctissimiim, dominum Joannem Locke ; quo quidem viro, sive ingenio judicioque acri et subacto, sive etiam antiquis, hoc est, optimis moribus, vix superiorem quen- qoam, inter eos qui nunc sunt homines repertum iri confido, paucissimoa oerte pares."
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10 LIFE AND LETTEES OP JOHN LOCKE. [1664.
those speculations which have immortalized his name ; the complicated and fugitive, and often equivocal phenomena of disease, requiring in the observer a far greater portion of dis- criminating sagacity than those of physics, strictly so called ; resembling in this respect, much more nearly, the phenomena >about which metaphysics, ethics, and politics are conversant." \ In 1664, Locke appears for the first time to have engaged in^*the practical business of life, when he accompanied, as secretary, Sir "Walter Vane, the King's envoy to the Elector of Brandenburgh, during the first Dutch war. One of the following papers is a copy of a letter partly defaced, dated Cleve, December, 1664 ; it will show his observations on the politics and character of the Court which he visited. The other is a long detailed letter written for the amusement of a friend in England, and will give a better idea of the social qualities of the writer, than any which have yet appeared ; it will make us acquainted with him in his most familiar in- tercourse, and show his willingness to contribute to the amusement of those he lived with ; and, what is not unim- portant, his freedom from prejudices in an age of prejudice.
The writer had desired his friend' to " throw the letter by, in a comer of his study ; it will serve us to laugh at :" it was thrown by in the study, and so came again into the possession of its author, with some other letters written to the same friend, and in that way preserved.
COPY OE DBAFT *0P LETTEB FEOM LOCKE.
Cleve, December, 1664. "To MeG. " I HATE, by the post, from time to time, constantly given you my apprehension of things here ; but since Sir Walter thinks he has reason to suspect that some of his despatches have miscarried, and, therefore, has sent an express, I shall by him send you again an account of all I can learn here. I have hitherto been of the mind that their counsels here tend to the preserving a neutrality, and the reasons I had to think so were, that I saw no preparation for war, no levies made, but only talked of; and besides, I was informed that there is a great scarcity of money, that the expenses of the court are great, the debts greater, and the revenue small ; and that the revenues of March and Cleve, which were wont to pay the
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1064.] SBOEBTAET TO BIB IfALTSB VAKE. 11
use of old debts, are now employed in the expenses of the household during the Elector's abode here, and the creditors are to be content now without either use or principal. The business of 150,000 rix-dollars, which the Elector demands of the estates of March and Cleve, moves slowly ; and though at our first coming hither it was told that it would be granted in two or three days, yet I cannot find that the Deputies are yet come to a resolution, or are like to grant it suddenly ; but should the same be presently granted and paid, there are other ways to dispose of it beside armies, some of which I have mentioned to you in my former. The strong party the French^ and Dutch have in the Court (amongst which are two by whose advice the Elector is much swayed) will make it difficult to draw him to the Bishop's* side ; and the con- sideration of religion may, perhaps, a little increase the diffi- culty, since it is generally apprehended here that the war is upon that score ; and, perhaps, the fear of having some of his scattered countries mwested by some of the Bishop's allies will make him a little cautious of declaring for the Dutch. The use you will find in the despatch they make of late news from Ratisbon I cannot think any other than a pretence, since I am told that the Besolution that is taken at the meet- ing there of assisting the Bishop is not so new that the Elector could be ignorant of it tifi now. I believe there is yet a neutrality, and that at least they are not forward or hasty to appear for either side ; and perhaps (since money seems to me to be here, as well as in other places, the great solder of pact and agreements) they delay the bargain to raise the price, and wait for the best chapman. They treat with Holland ; they treat with Erance ; and in what terms they stand with us, you will see by Sir Walter, but I must not mention ; but by the whole, I believe you will find they dally with them all. The Dutch have filled the Elector's towns upon the Bhein with their French soldiers, and they fill them with outrages, which he resents and complains of ; but it still continues the same, and by this procedure the Dutch seem either very confident of his friendship, or care- less of his enmity. It is said the Bishop's army is now march- ing ; if it be upon any feasible design, he seems to have chosen a fit opportunity, whUst the States of Holland are ♦ Munster,
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12 LIFE AND LETTEBS OE JOHN LOCKE. [l664.
questioning their generals for some miscarriages in the last campaign, and things are out of order in Holland. The daughter of the old Princess of Orange is to be married to the Prince of Swerin ; the celebration, which is designed here, at Cleve, before Easter, and at the Elector's charge, and other expenses of the Court, will not leave much for the raising of soldiers. The men of business, who are his coun- sellors, and manage the Sector's affairs, are only three: Baron Swerin, a man nobly born, a learned and experienced man, that well understands the state of the empire, and has most power with the Elector. Next to him is Mr Jeana, a Doctor of Law, formerly professor at Heidelberg : he hath been about six years of the Elector's council, and is, as I am told, a knowing and confident man. The other is Mr Blas- pell, a man of mean extraction, whose great ability lies in the knowledge of the affairs of Holland : he is now there, and at his return, I hope to give you an account of his negotiation, and will endeavour to get a more particular knowledge of his parts, humours, and inclinations. He got into favour and counsel of the Court by means of the Princess Dowager, mother of the Electress, and I believe is much at her devotion. The Baron De Q-oes, envoy of the Emperor, returned hither last night from the Bishop of Munster ; and some of his people, with whoai I talk, told me that the Bishop's forces were about 16,000; that they all wanted money, and the foot, clothes ; but none of them courage, or victuals ; that they were aU old and experienced soldiers, and they seemed all to prefer them much to the Dutch forces. They told me that many of the Prench ran over to the Bishop, being luiwilling to fight against their own religion ; that the Bishop used them kindly, gave them leave to depart, but en- tertained none of them in his service, being sure of soldiers enough whenever he has money. The Bishop is now at Cos- field, a strong place in his own dominions, where they saw some of the chief of the prisoners, taken at the last rencontre, entertained at the Bishop's table. His forces are now dis- persed in several places, and there is like to be no engagement this winter. They all spoke very highly of the Bishop, and more affectionately than I think could be merely to comply with that concernment they might think I had in his affairs. Whether hence anything may be guessed of the inclination of
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1664.] SECEETAET TO SIB WALTEE TAKE. 13
the Germans, of the Baron de Goes, or of the Emperor, I am not able to make any judgment upon so slight a conversation, but I shall endeavour to learn : only before his return, I found the Monks of the Convent where he lodges wholly in- clined to the Bishop. How our affairs stand in the Court, - and what progress is made, you will better understand by Sir Walter's despatches, in which, whatever shall be found, I desire I may be considered only as transcriber."
TO MB. JOHN STBACHT, SUTTON COUBT, BBISTOL.
Cleve, 1664. "Deab Sib,
" Are you at leisure for half-an-hour's trouble ? Will you be content I should keep up the custom of writing long letters with little in them ? 'Tis a barren place, and the dull frozen part of the year, and therefore you must not expect great matters. *T is enough, that at Christmas you have empty Christmas tales fit for the chimney-corner. To begin, there- fore, December 15th (here 25th), Christmas-day, about one in the morning, I went a gossipping to our Lady ; think me not profane, for the name is a great deal modester than the service I was at. I shall not describe all the particulars I observed in that church, being the principal of the CathoHca in Cleves ; but only those that were particular to the occa- sion. Near the high altar was a little altar for this day's solemnity ; the scene was a stable, wherein was an ox, an ass, a cradle, the Virgin, the babe, Joseph, shepherds, and angels, dramatis persona : had they but given them motion, it had been a perfect puppet-play, and might have deserved pence a-piece ; for they were of the same size and make that our English puppets are ; and I am confident, these shep- herds and this Joseph are kin to that Judith and Holo- phemes which I have seen at Bartholomew fair. A little without the stable was a flock of sheep, cut out of cards ; and these, as they then stood without their shepherds, ap- 'peared to me the best emblem I had seen a long time, and metbought represented these poor innocent people, who, whilst their shepherds pretend so much to follpw Christ, and pay their devotion to him, are left unregarded in the barren wilderness.
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14 LIFE AND LETTEBS OE JOHF LOCKE. i [l064.
" This was the show : the music to it was all vocal in the quire adjoining, hut such as I never heard. They had strong voices, but so ill-tuned, so ill-managed, that it was their mis- fortune, as well as ours, that they could be heard. He that could not, though he had a cold, make better music with a chevy chace over a pot of smooth ale, deserved well to pay the reckoning, and go away athirst. However, I think they were the honestest singing men I have ever seen, for they endeavoured to deserve their money, and earned it certainly with pains enough ; for what they wanted in skill they made up in loudness and variety : every one had his own tune, and the result of all was like the noise of choosing Parliament- men, where every one endeavours to cry loudest.
" Besides the men, there were a company of little choristers : I thought when I saw them at first, they had danced to the others' music, and that it had been your Q-ray's Inn revels ; for they were jumping up and down, about a good charcoal fire that was in the middle of the quire (this their devotion and their singing was enough, I think, to keep them warm, though it were a very cold night) ; but it was not dancing, but singing they served for ; when it came to their turns, away they ran to their places, and there they made as good harmony as a concert of little pigs would, and they were much about as cleanly. Their part being done, out they sallied again to the nre, where they played till their cue called them, and then back to their places they huddled.
" So negligent and slight are they m their service in a place where the nearness of adversaries might teach them to be more careful ; but I suppose the natural tendency of these outside performances, and these mummeries in religion, would brmg it everywhere to this pass, did not fear and the severity of the magistrate preserve it; which being taken away here, they very easily suffer themselves to slobber over their ceremonies, which in other places are kept up with so much zeal and exactness ; but methinks they are not to be blamed, since the one seems to me as much religion as the other.
" In the afternoon, I went to the Carthusians' church ; they had their little gentry too, but in finer clothes ; and theip angels with surplices on, and singing-books in their hands ; for here is nothmg to be done without books. Hither were
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1664.] SECBETABT TO SIB WALT5B VATHB. 16
crowded a great throng of children to see these pretty babies, and I amongst them, as wise and as devout as they, and for my pains had a good sprinkle of holy water, and now I may defy the devil : thus have I begun the holidays with Christ- mas gambols. But had I understood the langua|;e, I be- lieve, at the Eeformed church, I had found something more serious; for they have two sermons at their church, for Christmas lasts no longer here.
** That which pleased me most was, that at the same Catholic church the next day, I saw our Lady all in white linen, dressed as one that is newly lain in, and on her lap some- thing that, perhaps twenty years since, was designed for a baby, but now it was grown to have a heard ; and methought was not so well used as our country-fellows used to be, who, though they escape all the year, are usually trimmed at Christmas. They must pardon me for being merry, for it is Christmas : but, to be serious with you, the Catholic religion is a diflferent thing from what we believe it in England. I have other thoughts of it than when I was in a place that is filled with prejudices, and things are known only by hearsay, w I have not met with any so gw)d-natured people, or so civil, y{ as the Catholic priests, and I have received many courtesies from them, which I shall always gratefully acknowledge.
" But to leave the good-natured Catholics, and to give you a little account of our brethren the Calvinists, that differ very little from our English Presbyterians. I met lately, accidentally, with a young sucking chvine, that thought him- self no small champion ; who, as if he had been some knight- errant, bound by oath to bid battle to all comers, first ac- costed me in courteous voice; but the customary salute being over, I found myself assaulted most furiously, and heavy loads of arguments fell upon me. I, that expected no such thing, was fain to guard myself under the trusty broad shield of ignorance, and only now and then returned a blow by way of iiiQuiry : and by this Parthian way of flying, de- fended myself till passion and want of breath had made him weary, and so we came to an accommodation ; though, had he had lungs enough, and I no other use of my ears, the combat might have lasted (if that may be called a combat, ubi tu cades ego vapulo tcmttm) as long as the wars of Troy, and the end of all had been Uke that, nothing but some rub-
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16 LIFE AlTD LETTEBS OF JOHK LOCKE. [ltf64.
bish of divinity as useless and incoherent as the ruins the Greeks left behind them.
" This was a probationer in theology, and, I believe (to keep still to my errantry), they are bound to show their prowess with some valiant unknown, before they can be dubbed, and receive the dignity of the order. I cannot imagine why else he should set upon me, a poor innocent wight, who thought nothing of a combat, and desired to be peaceable, and was too far from my own dunghill to be quarrelling ; but it is no matter, there were no wounds made but in Priscian's head, who suffers much in this country. This provocation I have sufficiently revenged upon one of their church, our landlord, who is wont sometimes to Germanize and to be a little too much of the creature. These frailties I threaten him to discover to his pastor, who will be sure to rebuke him (but sparing his name) the next Sunday from the pulpit, and severely chastise the liberty of his cups ; thus I sew up the good man's mouth, because the other gaped too much, and made him as much bear my tongue, as I was punished with the other's. But for all this, he will sometimes drink him- self into a defiance of divines and discipline, and hearken only to Bacchus's inspirations.
" You must not expect anything remarkable from me aU the following week, for I have spent it in getting a pair of gloves, and think, too, I have had a quick despatch : you will per- haps wonder at it, and think I talk like a traveller ; but I will give you the particulars of the business, jfhree days were spent in finding out a glover, for .though I can walk all the town over in less than an hour, yet their shops are so contrived, as if they were designed to conceal, not expose their wares ; and though you may think it strange, yet, me- thinks, it is very well done^ and 't is a becoming modesty to conceal that which they have reason enough to be ashamed of.
" But to proceed ; the two next days were spent in drawing them on, the right-hand glove for, as they call them here, hand shoe), Thursday, and the left hand, Friday, and I '11 promise you this was two good days' workr, and little enough to bring them to fit my hands and to consent to be fellowgi, which, after all, they are so far from, that when they are on, I am always afraid my hands should go to cuffs, one with another, they so disagree : Saturday we concluded on the
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1664.] BECEBTiJlT TO SIB WALTEB VAKB. 17
price, computed, and changed our money, for it requires a great deal of arithmetic and a great deal of brass to par twenty-eight stivers and seven doits ; but, God be thanked, they are dl well fitted with counters for reckoning ; for their money is good for nothing else, and I am poor here with my pockets fidl of it. I wondered at first why the market people Drought their wares in little carts, drawn by one horse, till I found it necessary to carry home the price of them ; for a horse-load of turnips would be two horse-load of money.
" A fair of shoes cannot be got under half a year : I lately saw the cow killed, out of whose hide I hope to hf^ve my next pair. The first thing after they are married here is to be- speak the child's coat, and truly the bridegroom must be a bungler that gets not the child before the mantle be made ; for it is far easier here to have a man made than a suit. To be serious with you, they are the slowest people, and fullest of delays, that ever I have met with, and their money as bad.
" December 22nd, I saw the inscription that entitles the Elector's house here to so much antiquity ; it stands at the tipper end of a large room, which is the first entrance into the house, and is as follows : — * Anno ab urbe Eoman4 con- dit& 698 Julius CsBsar Dictator hisce partibus in ditionem susceptis arcem banc Clivensem fund.' I know not how old the wall was that bore it, but the inscription was certainly much younger than I am, as appears by the characters and other circumstances ; however, I believe the painter rever- enced the antiquity, and did homage to the memory of Csesar, and was not averse to a tradition which the situation and antique mode of building made not improbable. The same time, I had the favour to see the kitchen and the cellar, and though in the middle of the first there was made on the floor a great fire big enough to broil half-a-dozen St Laurences, yet methought the cellar was the better place, and so I made baste to leave it, and have little to say of it, unless you think fit I should tell you how many rummers of Ehenish I drank, and how many biscuits I ate, and that I had there almost learned to speak High Dutch.
** December 24th. — At the Lutherans' church, after a good lusty, rattling High Dutch sermon, the sound whereof would have made one think it had the design of reproof, I had an opportunity to observe the administration of the Sacrament,
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is UTE AKD liETTEBS 01* JOHK LOCKS. [l664
wHch was thus : — ^the sermon being ended, the minister that preached not (for they have two to a church) stood up at a little desk which was upon the communion table, almost at the upper end of the church, and then read a little while, part of which reading I judged to be prayer, but obserrea no action that looked like consecration (I know not what the words were) ; when he had done, he placed himself at the north end of the table, and the other mmister, that preached, at the south end, so that their backs were toward one another ; then there marched up to him on the north side a colhmuni- cant, who, when he came to the minister, made a low bow^ and knelt down, and then the minister put water into his mouth ; which done, he rose, made his obeisance, and went to the other end, where he did the same, and had the wine poured into his mouth, without taking the cup in his hand, and then came back to his place by the south side of the church. Thus did four, one after another, which were all that received that day, and amongst them was a boy, about thir- teen or fourteen years old.
*' They have at this church a sacrament every Sunday morn- ing : in the afternoon, at the Calvinists', I saw a christening. After sermon there came three men and three women (one whereof was the midwife, with a child in her arms, the rest were godfathers and godmothers, of which they allow a greater number than we do, and so wisely get more spoons) — to the table which is just by the pulpit. They taking their places, the minister in the pulpit read a little of the Institution, then read a short prayer ; then another minister, that was below, took the child, and with his hand poured water three times on its forehead, which done, he in the pulpit read another short prayer, and so concluded. All this was not much longer than the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Com- mandments ; for all their service is very short, beside their preaching and singing, and there they allow good measure."
TO THE SAME.
"Deae Sib,
"The old opinion, that every man had his particular genius that ruled and directed his course of life, hath made me sometimes laugh to think what a pleasant thing it would be if we could see little sprites bestride men (as plainly as I see
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here women bestride horses), ride them about, and spur them on in that way which they ignorantly think they choose themselves. And would you not smile to observe that they make use of us as we do of our palfreys, to trot up and down for their pleasure and not our own ?
" To what purpose this from Cleves ? I will tell you : if there be any such thing (as I cannot vouch the contrary), certainly mine is an academic goblin. When I left Oxford, I thought for a while to take leave of all University affairs, and should have least expected to have found anything of that nature here at Cleves of any part of the world. But do what I can, I am still kept in that tract. I no sooner was got here, but I was welcomed with a divinity disputation, which I gave you an account of in my last ; I was no sooner rid of that, but I found myself up to the ears in poetry, and overwhelmed in Helicon. I had almost or rather have been- soused in the Beyne, as frozen as it was, for it could not have been more cold and intolerable than the poetry I met with. The remembrance of it puts me in a chill sweat, and were it not that I am obliged to recount all particulars, being under the laws of an historian, I should find it very difficult to recall to mind this part of my story : but bavins armed myself with a good piece of bag pudding, which bears a mighty antipathy to poetry, and having added thereto half-a- dozen glasses of daring wine, I thus proceed :—
" My invisible master, therefore, having mounted me, rode me out to a place, where I must needs meet a learned bard in a threadbare coat, and a hat, that though in its younger days it had been black, yet it was grown grey with the labour of its master's brains, and his hard study or time had changed the colour of that as well as its master's hair. His breeches had the marks of antiquity upon them, were bom, I believe, in the heroic times, and retamed'stHL the gallantry of that age, and had an antipathy to base pelf. Stockings I know not whether he had anv, but I am sure his two shoes had but one heel, which made his own foot go as uneven as those of hi^ verses. He was so poor, that he had not so much as a rich fisice, nor the promise of a carbuncle in it, so that I must needs say that his outside was poet enough.
" Afber a little discourse, wherein he sprinkled some bays on our British Druid 0 weu; out he drew from under his coat
0 2
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20 LIFE AND LETTEES OF JOHK LOCKS. [1664.
a folio of verses ; and that you may be sure they were excel- lent, I must tell you that they were acrostics upon the name and titles of the Elector of Brandenburg. I could not escape reading of them : when I had done, I endeavoured to play the poet a little in commending them, but in that he outdid me clearly, praised faster than I could, preferred them to Lucan and Virgil, showed me where his muse flew high, squeezed out all the verjuice of all his conceits, and there was not a secret conundrum which he laid not open to me ; and in that little talk I had with him afterwards, he quoted his own verses a dozen times, and gloried in his works. The poem was designed as a present to the Elector, but I being Owen's countryman had the honour to see them before the Elector, which he made me understand was a singular cour- tesy, though I believe one hundred others had been equally favoured.
" I told him the Elector must needs give him a co^- siderable reward ; he seemed angry at the mention of it, and told me he had only a design to show his affection and parts, and spoke as if he thought himself fitter to give than to receive anything from the Elector, and that he was the greater person of the two ; and indeed, what need had he of any gift, who had all Tagus and Pactolus in his possession ? could make himself a Tempe when he pleased, and create as many Elysiums as he had a mind to. I applauded his gene- rosity and great mind, thanked him for the favour he had done me, and at last got out of his hands.
" But my University goblin left me not so ; for the next day, when I thought I had been rode out only to airing, I was had to a foddering of chopped bay or logic forsooth ! Poor materia prima was canvassed cruelly, stripped of all the gay dress of her forms, and shown naked to us, though, I must confess, I had not eyes good enough to see her ; how- ever, the dispute was good sport, and would have made a horse laugh, and truly I was like to have broke my bridle. The young monks (which one would not guess by their looks) are subtile people, and dispute as eagerly for materia prima, as if they were to make their dinner on it, and, perhaps, sometimes it is all their meal, for which others' charity is more to be blamed than their stomachs.
" The professor of philosophy and moderator of the disputa-
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tion was more acute at it than Father Hudibras; he was top-full of distinctions, which he produced with so much gri^vity, and applied with so good a grace, that ignorant I began to admire logic again, and could not have thought that *simpliciter et secundum quid materialiter et formaliter' had been sUch gallant things, which, with the right stroking of his whiskers, the settling of his hood, and his stately walk, made him seem to himself and me something more than Aristotle and Democritus. But he was so hotly charged by one of the seniors of the fraternity that I was afraid some* times what it would produce, and feared there would be no other way to decide the controversy between them but by cuffs ; but a subtile distinction divided the matter between them, and so they parted good friends. The truth is, here hog-shearing is much in its glory, and our disputing in Oxford comes as far short of it as the rhetoric of Carfax does that of Billingsgate. But it behoves the monks to cherish this art of wrangling in its declining age, which they first nursed, and sent abroad into the world, to give it a troublesome, idle employment. I being a brute, that was rode there for an- other's pleasure, profited little by all their reasonings, and was glad when they had done, that I might get home again to my ordinary provender, and leave them their sublime speculations, which certainly their spare diet and private cells inspire abundantly, which such gross feeders as I am are not capable of."
"Dec. 1664. "Dbab Sib,
"This day our public entertainment upon the Elector's account ended, much to my satisfaction ; for I had no great pleasure in a feast where, amidst a great deal of meat and company, I had little to eat, and less to say. The advantage was, the lusty Germans fed so heartily themselves, that they regarded not much my idleness ; and I might have enjoyed a perfect quiet, and slept out the meal, had not a glass of wine now and then jogged me ; and indeed therein lay the care of their entertainment, and the sincerity too, for the wine was such as might be known, and was not ashamed of itself. But for their meats, they were all so disguised, that I should have guessed they had rather designed a mass than » n^eal, and had a mind rather to pose than feed us. But
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22 Lir£ AND LETTEBS OF JOWS LOOSE. [l664.
the cook made their metamorphosis like Ovid's, where the change is usually into the worse. .
" I had, however, courage to venture upon things unknown ; and I could not often tell whether I ate flesh or fish, or good red herring, so much did they dissemble themselves; onl^ now and then, a dish of good honest fresh-water fish came in, so far from all manner of deceit or cheat, as they hid not so much as their tails in a drop of butter; nor was there any sauce near to disguise them. What think you of a hen and cabbage ? or a piece of powdered beef covered over with preserved quinces ? These are no miracles here. One thing there is that I like very well, which is, that they have good salads all the year, and use them frequently. It is true, the Elector gave his victuals, but the officers that attended ua valued their services, and one of them had ready in his pocket a list of those that expected rewards at such a rate, that the attendance cost more than the meat was worth.
"Dec. 9. — I was invited and dined at a monastery with the Franciscan friars, who had before brought a Latin epistle to us for relief; for they live upon others' charity, or more truly live idly upon others' labours. But to my dinner, for my mouth waters to be at it, and no doubt you will lone for such another entertainment when yo.u know this. After something instead of grace or music, choose you whether, for I could make neither of it ; for though what was sung were Latin, yet the tune was such, that I neither understood the Latin nor the harmony. The beginning of the Lord's Prayer to the first petition, they repeated aloud, but went on silently to *sed libera nos,' &c., and then broke out into a loud chorus, which continued to the end; during their silence, they stooped forwards, and held their heads as if they had been listening to one another's whispers.
"After this preludium, down we sat ; the chief of the monks (I suppose the prior) in the inside of the table, just in the middle, and all his brethren on each side of him ; I was placed just opposite to him, as if I had designed to bid battle to them all. But we were all very quiet, and after some silence, in marched a solemn procession of peas-porridge, every one his dish. I could not tell by the looks what it was, till putting my spoon in for discovery, some few peas in the bottom peeped up. I had pity on them^ and was wiUing
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1664.] SECEETART TO SIB WALTBB VAITE. 28
enough to spare them, but waa forced by good manners, though against mj nature and appetite, to destroy some of them, and so on I fell.
" All this while not a word ; I could not tell whether to impute the silence to the eagerness of their stomachs, which allowed their mouths no other emplojrment but to fill them, or any other reason ; I was confident it was not in admiration of their late music. At last, the oracle of the place spoke, and told them he gave them leave to speak to entertain me. I returned my compliment, and then to discourse we went, helter-skelter, as hard as our bad Latin, and worse pronun- ciation on each side, would let us ; but no matter, we cared not for Priscian, whose head sufiered that day not a little. However, this saved me from the peas-pottage, and the peas- pottage from me ; for now I had something else to do.
" Our next course was, every one his act of fish, and butter to boot ; but wheth^ it were intended for fresh or salt fish I cannot tell, and I believe it is a question as hard as any Thomas ever disputed. Our third service was cheese and butter, and the cheese had this peculiar in it, which I never Baw anywhere else, that it had carrawa;^ seeds in it.
" The prior had upon the table by mm a little bell, which he rang when he wanted anything, and those that waited never brought him anything or took away but they bowed with much reverence, and kissed the table. The prior was a good plump fellow, that hpd more belly than brains; and\ methought was very fit to be reverenced, and not much unlike A Bome head of a college. I liked him well for an entertain- ment ; for if we had had a good dinner, he would not have disturbed me much with his discourse.
" The first that kissed the table did it so leisurely that I thought he had held his head there that the prior, during our silence, might have wrote something on his bald crown, and made it sink that way into his understanding.
" Their beer was pretty good, but their coimtenances be- spoke better : their Dread brown, and their table-linen neat enough. After dinner, we had the second part of the same tune, and after that I departed.
" The truth is, they were very civil and courteous, and seemed good-natured : it was their time of fast in order to Christmas : if I have another feast there, you shall be my
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24 LIFE JLKD LETTEBS OE JOHIT LOCKE. [l664.
guest. Tou will perhaps have reason to think that whatever becomes of the rest, I shall bring home my belly well-im* proved, since all I tell you is of eating and drinking ; but you must know that knight-errants do not choose their ad- ventures, and those who sometimes live pleasantly in brave castles, amidst feasting and ladies, are at other times in bat" ties and wildernesses, and you must take them as they come.
"Dec. 10. — I went to the Lutheran church, and found them all merrily singing with their hats on ; so that by the posture they were in, and the fashion of the building, not altogether unlike a theatre, I was ready to fear that I had mistook the place. I thought they had met only to exercise their voices : for after a long stay they still continued on their melody, and I verily believe they sung the 119th Psalm, nothing else could be so long : that that made it a little toler- able was, that they sung better than we do in our churches, and are assisted by an organ. The music being done, up went the preacher, and prayed ; and then they simg again ; and then, after a little prayer at which they all stood up (and, as I understand since, was the Lord's Prayer), read some of the Bible ; and then, laying by his book, preached to them memoriter. His sermon, I think, was in blank verse ; for by the modulation of his voice, which was not very pleasant, his periods seemed to be all nearly the same length ; but if his matter were no better than his delivery, those that slept had no great loss, and might have snored as harmoniously. After sermon a prayer, and the organ and voice again ; and to con- clude all, up stood another minister at a little desk, above the communion table (for in the Lutheran and Calvinist churches here there are no chancels), gave the benediction, which I was told was the ' Ite in nomme Domini !' crossed himself, and so dismissed them.
" In the church I observed two pictures, one a crucifix, the other I could not well discern ; but in the Calvinist church no picture at all. Here are, besides Catholics, Calvinists and Lutherans (which three are allowed), Jews, Anabaptists, and Quakers. The Quakers, who are about thirty families, and some of them not of the meanest ; and they increase, for as much as I can learn, they agree with ours in other thin^ as well as name, and take no notice of the Elector's prohibiting their meeting.
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1664.] BECBETJlUT TO SIB 'VC^i.LTEB YAITE. 26
** Dec. 11. — ^I had formerly seen the size and arms of the Duke's guards, but to-day I had a sample of their stomachs (I mean to eat, not to fight) ; for if they be able to do as much that way too, no question but imder their guard the Duke is as much in safety as 1 believe his victuals are in danger.
" But to make you the better understand my story, and the decorum which made me take notice of it, I must first describe the place to you. The place where the Elector com- monly eats is a large room, into which you enter at the lower end by an ascent of some few steps ; just without this is a lobby: as this evening I was passing through it into the Qourt, I saw a company of soldiers very close together, and a steam rising from the midst of them. I, as strangers use to be, being a little curious, drew near to these men of mettle, where I found three or four earthen fortifications, wherein were intrenched peas-porridge, and stewed turnips or apples, jnost valiantly stormed by those men of war : they stood just opposite to the Duke's table, and within view of it ; and had the Duke been there at supper, as it was very near his sup- per time, I should have thought they had been set- there to provoke his appetite by example, and serve as the cocks have done in some countries before battle, to fight the soldiers into courage, and certainly these soldiers might eat others into stomachs. Here you might have seen the court and camp drawn near together, there a supper preparing with great ceremony, and just by it a hearty meal made without stool, trencher, table-cloth, or napkins, and for aught 1 could see, without beer, bread, or salt ; but I stayed not long, for taethought 't was a dangerous place, and so I lefb them in the engagement.
" I doubt by that time you come to the end of this course of entertainment, you will be as weary of reading as 1 am of writing, and therefore I shall refer you for the rest of my adventiires (wherein you are not to expect any great matter) to the next chapter of my history.
'* The news here is, that the Dutch have taken Lochem
from the Bishop of Munster, and he, in thanks, has taken
' and killed five or six hundred of their men. The French,
they say, ran away, some home, and some to the Bishop, who
has disposed his men into garrisons, which has given the
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26 LIFE AJSTD LETTEBS OF JOHK LOCKE. [I666.
Dutch an opportunity to besiege another of his towns, but not very considerable : all things here seem to threaten a great deal of stir next summer, but as yet the Elector declares for neither side.
" I sent my uncle a letter of attorney before I left Eng- land, to authorize him to dispose of my affairs there, and order my estate as he should think most convenient : I hope he received it J||Jy|aink it best my tenants should not know- that I am oul^^^^Kland, for perhaps that may make them the more slack^^^^fctheir rents. If he tells you anything that concerns ^^^H^end word to your faithful friend,
" Throw by ^^^^wne comer of your study till I come, and then we ^j^^^|^ together, for it may serve to recall other things tc^^^Kiory, for 'tis like I may have no other .
Locke return ^^JjEngland in February, 1665, and Us at that time undecidOTWIiether or not to continue in the public employment, and accept an offer to go to Spain. In a letter to the same friend, Mr Strachy, after mentioning the latest news —
" That the French fill their towns towards England and Holland with soldiers ; but whatever we apprehend, I scarce believe with a design of landing in England ;" he says, " what private observations I have made will be fitter for our table at Sutton than a letter, and if I have the opportunity to see you shortly, we may possibly laugh together at some German stories ; but of my coming into the country I write doubt- fully to you, for I am now offered a fair opportuniiy of going into Spain with the Ambassador : if I embrace it, I shaU conclude this my wandering year ; if not, you will ere long see me in Somersetshire. If I go, I shall not have above ten days' stay in England : I am pulled both ways by divers considerations, and do yet waver. I intend to-morrow for Oxford, and shall there take my resolution. This town affords little news, and though the return of the Court gives confi- dence to the timorous that kept from it for fear of the infec* tion, yet I find the streets very thin, and methinks the town droops. Yours most faithfully,
JoiLN Locke."
"London, Feb. 22,65."
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1665.]
DEOLDTIS TO CK) TO SPAIN.
27
The resolution was taken, soon after bis arrival at Oxford, not to accept the offer of going to Spain.
«Deab Sib,
*^ I wrote to you from London as soon as I came thither, to let you know you had a servant returned to England, but
Tory likely to leave it again before Lu b. fair offers I had to go to Spain have not whether fate or fondness kept me at •whether I have let slip the minnte tb; bas once in bis life to make himself, I sure, I never trouble myself for the losi bad ; and have the satisfaction that I ' at Sutton Court, a greater rarity afforded me ; for, believe it, one may one meet a friend. Pray write by the pf ^do, and what you can tell of the xour most affectio;
bow jm (
<« Oxford, Feb. 28, 65."
But those d with me : know not ; y every one : this I am hich I never ;ly to see you .travels have g way before let me know srnment of, end, J. Locke."'
The following letter from Locke to his friend Mr Strachy, describing the disaster at Chatham, when the Dutch fleet sailed into the Medway, may not be uninteresting : it was in all probability written during his residence with I^rd Shaftes- bury in London.
"June 16, 67. "Sib,
" I believe report hath increased the ill news we have here ; therefore, to abate what possibly fear may have rumoured, I send you what is vouched here for nearest the truth. The Dutch have burned seven of our ships in Chatham, viz. the Boyal James, Boyal Oak, London, Unity, St Matthias, Charles V., and the Eoyal Charles, which some say they have towed off, others that they have burned. One man of war of theirs was blown up, and three others they say are stuck in J^be sands ; the rest of their fleet is fallen down out of the Medway into the Thames. It was neither excess of courage on their part, nor want of courage in us, that brought this loss upon us ; for when the English had powder and shot, they fought like themselves, and made the Dutch feel them ;
«.
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28 LITE AITD LETTEBS OF JOHK tOCEE. [l665-6.
but whether it were fortune, or fate, or anything else, let time and tongues tell you, for I profess I would not believe what every mouth speaks. It is said this morning the French fleet are seen off the Isle of Wight. I have neither the gift nor heart to prophesy, and since I remember you bought a new cloak in the hot weather, I know you are apt enough to provide against a storm. Should I tell you that I believe but half what men of credit and eye-witnesses report, you would think the world very wicked and foolish, or me very credulous. Things and persons are the same here, and go on at the same rate they did before, and I, among the rest, de* sign to continue
Your faithful friend and servant,
J.L.
" I think the hull of three or four of our great ships are saved, being sunk to prevent their burning totally. We are all quiet here, but raising of forces apace."
This and other letters to Mr Strachy were probably re- turned to Locke, after the death of the friend to whom they had been written.
He had again an offer of an employment abroad in the fol- lowing August, and continued, as late as May, 1666, to receive letters from an agent in Germany, who appears to have been employed to send intelligence for the information bf some member of the Grovemment here. There exist several letters, dated Cleve, from this person to Locke, then at Oxford ; but as they relate to events no longer of any importance, it is unnecessary to give their contents, however amusing the German description of the Coyness and Coquetry of a Ger- man Elector and his Minister, on those truly national and interesting questions, soldier-selling and subsidies.
In 1666 an offer of a different nature was made through a friend in Dublin to procure a considerable preferment in the Church from the Duke of Ormond, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if Locke should be inclined to engage in the clerical profession ; and a draft of his answer has been preserved, •which will show his conscientious scruples, and the objec- tions which determined him to refrise the advantageous offer then held out to him.
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16«6.] SSCLIKES TO XNTEB THE OHUBCH. 29
After expressing how much he felc indebted to the kind- ness of his fidend, he proceeds thus : —
" The proposals, no question, are very considerable ; but consider, a man's affairs and whole course of his life are not to be changed in a moment, and that one is not made fit for a caUing, and that in a day. I believe you think me too
groud to undertake anything wherein I should acquit myself ut unworthily. I am sure I cannot content myself with being undermost, possibly the middlemost of my profession ; and you will allow, on consideration, care is to be taken not to engage in a calling, wherein, if one chance to be a bungler, there is no retreat. A person must needs be very quick or inconsiderate, that can on a sudden resolve te tnmsplant himself from a country, affairs, and study, upon probability, which, though your interest there may make you look on as certain, yet my want of fitness may probably disappoint ; for certainly something is required on my side. It is not enough for such places to be in orders, and I cannot think that pre- ferment of that nature should be thrown upon a man who has never given any proof of himself, nor ever tried the pul- pit. WoTild you not think it a stranger question, if I were to ask you whether I must be first in these places or in orders ; and yet, if you will consider with me, it will not perhaps seem altogether irrational ; for, should I put myself into orders, and, by the meanness of my abilities, grow un- worthy such expectations (for you do not think that divines are now made, as formerly, by inspiration and on a sudden, nor learning caused by laying on of hands), I unavoidably lose all my former study, and put myself into a calling that will not leave me. Were it a profession from whence there were any return — and that, amongst all the occurrences of life, may be very convenient — ^you would find me with as great forwardness to embrace your proposals, as I now ac- knowledge them with gratitude. The same considerations have made me a long time reject very advantageous offers of several very considerable firiends in England. I cannot now be forward to disgrace you, or any one else, by being lifted into a place which perhaps I cannot fill, and fix)m whence there is no descending without tumbling. If any shame or misfortune attend me, it shall be only mine ; and if I am covetous of any good fortune, 't ia that one I love may share
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30 LUFS JlND LSTITEBS OE JOHI? LOOKB. [1666.
it with me. But your great obligation is not the less, be- cause I am not in a condition to receive the effect of it. I return all manner of acknowledgment due to so great a favour, and shall watch all occasions to let you see how sensible I am of it, and to assure you I am," &c. &c.
Had he accepted this offer of preferment ; had he risen beyond that middlemost station m the Church, which his own modesty made him assign to himself, and to which his virtues must have condemned him ; had he even risen to the highest station in that profession, he might have acquired all the reputation which belongs to a divine of great talents and learning, or the Btill higher distinction of great moderation, candour, and Christian charity, so rare in a high churchman ; but most certainly he would never have attained the name of a great philosopher, who has extended the bounds of human knowledge.
There occurred in the course of Locke's life the choice of three distinct roads to fortune, and perhaps to celebrity, either of which was capable of influencing most powerfully, if not of totally changing, his future destiny. The temptation of considerable preferment ^n the Church, already mentioned, the pract^^<=* yf p^iyaif^ y^a a prnfeaainn. nr the opportunity of engagmg m diplomatic employments, from which last he seems, by his own account, to liave had a narrow escape. It. would liave been unfortunate for his own renown, had he been swayed by the advantages which at different times were held out to him ; it would also have been unfortunate for the progress of knowledge in the world, if he had placed himself imder the influence of circumstances so capable of diverting the current of his thoughts, and changing his labours from their proper and most useful destination ; namely, the lifting of the veil of error ; because an age might have elapsed be- fore the appearance of so bold a searcher after truth.
It appears, from Boyle's General History of the Air, that in 1666 Locke was engaged in experimental philosophy ; as he began a register of the state of the air in the month of June of that year, and continued it, with many interruptions, however, and some of very long continuance, till his final departure from Oxford in 1683. In a letter from Mr Boyle, somewhat earlier than the first printed observations, after praising the industry and curiosi^ of his correspondent, he
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IM6.] ACQVAIl<rTAirCB WITH LOBB SHArTESBUBT. 81
expresses a wish that be should ^ search into the nature of minerals/' and promisf^ to send some sheets of articles of inquiry into mines; fnd it seems that Locke was at that time much engaged iq chemical as well as physical studies.
In the same year, 1666, he first became acquainted with Lord Ashley, afterwards the celebrated Earl of Shaftesbury ; And as accidents are frequently said to haye the greatest in- fluence in determining the course of men's liyes, so, in this instance, the merest accident produced an acquaintance which was aftCTwards ripened into the closest intimacy, and was the cause of turning his attention to political subjects, and thus materially affected the course of his fature life.
Lord Ashley, we are informed, was suffering from an ab- scess in his breast, the consequence of a fall from his horse ; and came to Oxford in order to drink the water of Astrop. He had written to Dr Thomas to procure the waters for him on his arriyal at Oxford, but this physician happening to be called away from that place, desired Locke to execute the commission. By some accident, the waters were not ready when Lord Ashley arriyed ; and Locke waited upon him to apologize for the disappointment occasioned by the fault of the messenger sent to procure them. Lord Ashley received him with great ciyility, and was not only satisfied with his excuse, but was so much pleased with his conversation, that he desired to improve an acquaintance thus begun by acci- dent, and which afterwards grew into a friendslup that con- tinued imchanged to the end of his life.
Lord Ashley, better known as Lord Shaftesbmy, was a man of the greatest penetration and genius, to which he united the most engaging manners and address. We may therefore readily beheve what Le Clerc tells us, that Locke, on his part, was no less anxious to cultivate the acquaintance of so distinguished a person. If the first services which Locke was enabled to render Lord Ashley were derived from his medical science, his sagacity and talent for business of every kind soon led to the most unreserved confidence ; and he continued, during the whole course of his life, through good report and evil report, steadily attached to his patron and his friend ; nor will it be denied, that this steadiness of attachment was alike honourable to both. Mr Fox says, that Locke " was probably caught by the splendid qualities
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8^ LirS Ain) LETTEBS OF JOHK LOCKE. [I666.
of Slmftesbury ; Lis courage, his openness, his party zeal, his eloquence, his fair-dealing with his friends, and his superiority to vulgar corruption; and that his partiality might make him, on the other hand, blind to the i adifFerence with which he (Shaftesbury) espoused either monarchical, arbitrary, or republican principles, as best suited his ambition. The greatest blots in Shaftesbury's character are his sitting on the Trials of the Eegicides, and his persecution of the Papists in the affair of the Popish Plot, merely, as it should seem, because it suited the parties with which he was engaged.'*
In neither of these transactions could Locke have had the least part, as he had resided for more than three years on the Continent, chiefly in France, for the benefit of his healtl^ and remained there during the heat and fury excited by the discovery of the Popish Plot. He had left England in De- cember, 1675, and returned not again before the 10th of May, 1679. It will be remembered, that Bedloe's Narrative, and the trials, if they can so be called, of the Catholics charged with the plot, had taken place in 1678, and were finished in the early part of the following year. There cannot, there- fore, be the slightest reason to suspect that Locke could have assisted in the remotest manner to excite the blind No- Popery rage of those disgraceful times. Even had he been within the atmosphere of the raging epidemic, the love of truth, which at all times so nobly distinguished him, would have preserved him from the national contagion. Although it is impossible to give the same verdict of not guilty in favour of Shaftesbury, yet, when we consider the temper of the age, and the delusions under which men laboured, some allowance must be made for that great party-loader, who, with all his faults, undoubtedly possessed many great quali- ties ; and before passing our final sentence upon him, one thing must never be forgotten, that to Shaftesbury we .owe the Habeas Corpus Act ; a political merit of such magnitude, that, hke the virtue of charity, it may justly be said to cover a multitude of sins.
To return, however, to the early period of the connexion with Lord Ashley, we learn that, from Oxford, Locke ac- companied him to Sunning-hill "Wells, and afterwards re- sided for some time, towarck the end of the year, at Exeter- House, in the Strand. Lord Ashley, also^ by his advice,
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>
16T0-74.] BESIDEFOB WITH LOBD ASHLEY. 33
underwent an operation, wliich saved his life, the opening of an abscess on his breast.
During this residence with Lord Ashley in London, he }iad the opportunity of seeing many of the most distinguished ^ characters of those times, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord ^ Halifax, &c., who, we are told, enjoyea tne style oi Ms VUll- ' versation, which was a happy union of wit and good sense. Le Clerc tells a story, that once, when three or four of these noblemen had met at Lord Ashley's, and, without much pre- lude, sat down to the card-table, Locke, taking out his pocket-book, and looking at the company, began to write, with the appearance of ^reat attention. One of the party, observing hun occupied in this manner, inquired what he was writing ; to which Locke replied, that he was extremely desirous of profiting by their Lordships* conversation, and having waited impatiently for the opportunity of enjoying the society of some of the greatest wits of the age, he thought he could do no better than to take down verbatim what they said, and he began to read the notes that he had made. Of course, it was not necessary to proceed far ; the jest pro- duced the effect, the card-table was deserted, and the re- mainder of the evening was passed in a teore rational and agreeable manner.
"We learn from Le Clerc, that Locke was consulted by Lord Ashley in all his affairs, even in the most interesting concerns of his family. He resided partly at Exeter-House, and partly at Oxford ; at which last place we know that, in 1670, his great work, the Essay on Human Understanding, was first sketched out. It arose from the meeting, as the autV>r says, of five or six friends at his chambers, who finding difficulties in the inquiry and discussion they were engaged in, he was induced to examine what objects our understand- ings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. The hasty thoughts wliich he set down against the next meeting, gave the first entrance to that discourse which, after long intervals, and many interruptions, was at last, during a period of leisure and retirement, brought ifito the order it assumed, when given to the world eighteen y^ears afterwards.
It has been said before, that a copy of the Essay exists with the date of 1671, and it may t^re be added, that the names of two of the friends alluded to>were Tyrrell and Thomas, a
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34 LirB AND LETTEES OF JOHN LOCKE. [l67^
part of whose correspondence, as connected with the public^ ation of the Essay, will appear when we come to that time.
In 1672, Lord Ashley, after filling the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, was created Earl of Shaftesbury, and de- clared Lord Chancellor. He then appointed Locke his Se- cretary for the presentation of benefices, and also to ,some office in the Council of Trade ; both of which he quitted in 1673, when Shaftesbury quarrelled with the Court, and placed himself at the head of the Country party in Parliament.
It was at the opening of the Parliament in 1673, that Shaftesbury made use of that extraordinary expression, in reference to the war with Holland, " delenda est Carthago ;" not, it must be observed, in his speech as a peer, expressing his own individual opinion, but in what may be called a supplemental speech made by the Lord Chancellor (according to the practice of the time) to that delivered by the King in person, and previously determined upon by the King in Coun- cil. Shaftesbury expressed to Locke the vexation he felt at being made the organ of such sentiments ; and practised as he was as a speaker and politician, and possessing as he did the greatest presence of mind on all occasions, yet on this he desired Locke to stand near him with a copy of the speech in his hand, that he might be readv to assist bis memory, in case he should require it, in the painful task of delivering an official speech containing opinions so contrary to his own.
During this administration, that unprincipled measure, the shutting of the Exchequer, had been perpetrated. Clif- ford is now known to have been the author and adviser, but as it has often been attributed to Shaftesbury, it is due to him to give his own refutation of that charge in a letter which he wrote to Locke.
A second letter from Shaftesbury, unconnected with the question, and of « later date, has been added as a specimen of his light and playful style of correspondence.
" THESE POB HIS MUCH-ESTEEMED FBIEUD, JOHW LOCKE, ESQ.
"StGiles, Nov. 23, 1674.
" Mr Look:e,
" I write only to you, and not to Mr Stringer, because you write me word he is ill, for which I am exceedingly Borrji
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i
M74.] LETTER OF LOBD SHATTESBUET. 35
and pray heartily for his recovery, as being very much con- cerned both in friendship and interest.
" As for Captain Halstead's affair, I have this day received the enclosed letter from him, which, when you have read, you will believe I have reason to desire to be freed from his clamour ; therefore, pray speak with him again, and tell him that, Mr Stringer being sick, I have desired you to appear for me before the referees ; and that whatever they shall award, I have given orders to pay my proportion ; and that, according to his desire, I have written as effectually as I can to the other Lords, that they would do the same. Pray keep his letter, and let me have itv again. I have herewith sent an answer to the Lord Craven, and the rest of the Lords' letters, which I have not sealed, that you may read it ; when you have read it, you may seal it, if you please.
" Pray speak to South at the Custom-House, that he would buy me one bushel of the best sort of chestnuts ; it is for planting ; and send them down by the carrier.
" You guess very right at the design of the pamphlet you sent me ; it is certainly designed to throw dirt at me, but is like the great promoters of it, foolish as well as false : it la- bours only to asperse the original author of the Counsel, which it will have to be one person, and therefore seems to know, and never considers that it is impossible that any statesman should be so mad as to give a counsel of that con- sequence to a junto or number of men, or to any but the Kiiag himself ; who, it is not to be imagined, will ever become a witness against any man in such a case, especially when he hath approved the Counsel so far as to continue the stop ever since by a new great seal every year. Besides, I am very well armed to clear myself, for it is not impossible for me to prove what my opinion was of it, when it was first proposed to the Counsel. And if any man consider the circumstance of time when it was done, that it was the prologue of making the Lord Clifford Lord Treasurer, he will not suspect me of the Counsel for that business, unless he thinks me at the same time out of my wits. Besides, if any of the bankers do inquire of the clerks of the Treasury, with whom they are well acquainted, they vnll find that Sur John Duncome and I were so little satisfied with that way of proceeding, as, from the time of the stop, we instantly quitted all paying
D 2
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.13 LTFE AND lETTEBS OF JOHW lOCKE. [l674.
aud borrowing of money, and the whole transaction of that part of the affair, to the Lord Clifford, by whom from that time forward it was only managed. I shall not deny but that I knew earlier of the Counsel, and foresaw what neces- sarily must produce it sooner than other men, having the advantage of being more versed; in the King's secret affairs ; but I hope it will not be expected by any that do in the least know me, that I should have discovered the King's secret, or betrayed his business, whatever my thoughts were of it. This worthy scribbler, if his law be true, or his quotation to the purpose, should have taken notice of the combination of the bankers, who take the protection of the Court, and do not take the remedy of the law against those upon whom they had assignments, by which they might have been enabled to pay their creditors ; for it is not to be thought that the King will put a stop to their legal proceedings in a court of justice. Besides, if the writer had been really concerned for the bankers, he would have spoken a little freelier against the continuing of the stop in a time of peace, as well as against the first making of it in a time of war ; for, as I re- member, there were some reasons offered for the first that had their weight, namely, that the bankers were grown de- structive to the nation, especially to the country gentlemen and farmers, and their interest: that under the pretence, and by the advantage of lending the King money upon very great use, th^y got all the ready money of the kingdom into their hands ; . so that no gentleman, farmer, or merchant, could, without great difficulty, compass money for their oc- casions, unless at almost double the rate the law allowed to be taken. That, as to the King's affairs, they were grown to that pass, that twelve in the hundred did not content them ; but they bought up all the King's assignment at twenty or thirty per cent, profit, so that the King was at a fifth part loss in all the issue of his whole revenue. Besides, in support of the Counsel, I remember it was alleged by them that favoured it without doors — for I speak only of them — that the King might, without any damage to the subject, or unreasonable oppression upon the bankers, pay them six in the hundred interest during the war, and £300,000 each year of their principal, as soon as there was peace; which, why it is not now done, the learned writer, I believe,
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1680.] LETTEBS OF LOBD SHATTESBUBT. 87
hath friends can best tell him. This I write, that you may show my friends or anybody else. The messenger staying for me, I have written it in haste, and not kept a copy ; therefore, I pray, lose not the letter.
" I am sorry you are like to fare so ill in your place, but you know where your company is ever most desirable and acceptable. Pray let me see you speedily, and I shall be ready to accommodate you in your annuity at seven years' purchase, if you get not elsewhere a better bargain ; for I would leave you free from care, and think of living long and at ease. This from,
Dear Sir, Tour truly affectionate friend and servant,
Shaftesburt."
" London, March 20, J J. "Mb. Locke,
" "We long to see you here, and hope you have almost ended your travels. Somersetshire, no doubt, will perfect your breeding ; after Prance and Oxford, you could not go to a more proper place. My wife finds you profit much there, for you nave recovered your skill in Chedder cheese, and for a demonstration have sent us one of the best we have seen. I thank you for your care about my grandchild, but, having wearied myself with consideration every way, 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 80 truly zealous for the advancement of the Protestant re- ligion, as it is established in the Church of England, that they are sending the Common Prayer-book the second time into Scotland. No doubt but my Lord Lauderdale knows it will agree with their present constitution ; but surely he was much mistaken when he administered the Covenant to Eng- land ; 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 the kingdom. Thus recom- mending you to the protection of the Bishop of Bath and
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38 LITE AlTD LETTEBS OP J0H2T LOCKE. [i680.
"Wells (whose strong beer is tlie only spiritual thing any Somersetshire gentleman knows), I rest,
Your affectionate and assured friend,
Shattesbttet.'* *
* There are many letters from Mr Stringer to Locke, during his absence in France. A few extracts relative to Shaftesbury, &c., are here mven. Mr Stringer was Shaftesbury's attorney and secretary, and lived with him at Exeter or Thanet House. On this account he fell under suspicion, was arrested, and carried before the Privy Council, with all his papers, amongst which was the original draft of the Exclusion bill against the Duke of York, with alterations and corrections in the handwriting of an aspiring lawyer, who now by opposite manoeuvres had become the King's attorney-general, and was officially present at poor Stringer's examination. Mr Attorney, glancing over the papers as they were turned out of the green bag on the council-board, perceived the well-known draft and the work of his own hand, which had been employed in giving the last polish to that bill. Aware of the danger he himself incurred, with great presence of mind he sug- gested to the King, that this great mass of papers could be much more care- fully and properly examined by dividing the labour amongst different mem- bers of the coimcil, and adroitly contrived to include the dreaded draft amongst those papers which he so willingly undertook the task of perusing.
Mb Stbingeb to Locke.— Extracts. , " Dear Sib, London, April 9, 1677
" I received your letter from Tolouse, and am glad to hear you are so far on your journey towards us. I should be mighty glad all things would so far concur, that we might be so happy to see you perfectly well in Eng- land this summer. My Lord is yet m the Tower, with the other three to accompany him ; but we expect this week a prorogation, and then the pri- soners will be enlarged. There have been great endeavours against our little friend ; but th^ air is now grown very clear, and the season toward the end of a stormy winter puts us in expectation of fair weather at hand. "We hear of no other discourses concerning your two other friends, Mr H. and S., but that the fine month of April, that ^ves life and freshness to all other things, will send them out of a dirty stmking air, from ill-meaning, base, and despicable company, into the sweet and pleasant country." * ♦
" Our old friend is still in limbo, and now closer confined than ever. Mr Hoskins, myself, and all but two or three that are necessary to his person, are excluded from seeing him, and for what reason we know not.
" Your affectionate and humble servant,
nth July, 1677. T. Stringbb."
" Dear Sib, Thanet Home, Aug. 16, 1677.
" I thank God our friends at the Tower and here are in very good health ; they want nothing but liberty, and that is not like to be had until the next
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1875.] 8ECBETAET TO LOBD SHATTESBTJBT. 30
Anthony Collins gives the following account of that inter- esting paper, which details the whole proceedings in the House of Lords during the long-contested bill for imposing what was caUed the Bishops' test. It is published in Locke's works under the title of " A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country." By that bill, entitled " An Act to prevent the dangers which may arise from persons disaffected to the Grovemment," brought in by the Court party in April and May, 1675, aU such as enjoyed any bene- ficial office or employment, civil or military, to which was
prorogation. His Lordsnip desires you will get him the best maps of Cham- paigne and Loraigne, Luxemburgh, and the country between the riyer Sam- bre and Luxemburgh, because the war in all probability will come there again ; and likewise he desires you will inquire and let him know what books the Dolphin was first initiated in to learn Latin. He apprehends there are some books both Latin and French, and other Janua unguarum or Colloquies, and also he desires to know what grammars ; this ne con- ceives may be best learnt from those two printers that printed the Dolphin's books. Having your order, I opened the box of things, and have furnished kirn with those books you sent over. He has engaged to be very careftil in restoring them ; and in order thereunto, hath got a box to keep them in, apart from all other things ; and it proves a very good entertainment, in this time of close confinement, when his friends are not permitted to see him without particular order under the hand of one of the Secretaries, who are generally very kind, and deny none that ask for leave, as I do hear of. Amongst those books his Lordship finds a printed paper of all the general officers of the King of France, for the year 1675 : if there are any such papers printed for the years 1676, 1677, he desires you will give yourself the trouble of sending them unto him.
" Your most affectionate faithfiu servant,
J. Stbinger.'*
" I have lately had a multitude of business, occasioned by our removal from Exeter House ; and the gentleman who has taken it is coming to pull it down and rebuild it all into small tenements. My Lord Ashley and his Lady, with their two youngest sons, are ^one to Haddon, to spend the re- mainder of this summer and ensuing winter there, to save charges and gather a good stock, that the next spring they may begin housekeeping at
. St Giles bein^ empty, my Lord of Shaftesbury and his Countess
are gone thither to visit Mrs Antnony, who is left to their care and tuition, and a little after Michaelmas they resolve again to come to London.
" My Lord begs the kindness that you wul deliver the enclosed, wherein is the copy of his note for trees. That which his Lordship desires is, that you will pay for them and get them packed up and sent to some merchant nere in London ; and to send me word where it is that you think fit to di- rect them unto, and also to settle a correspondence with some person there, that my Lord upon any occasion may write to him for more/'
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40 LTr£ AI<rD LETTSBS O? JOHN LOOSE. [l675.
afterwards added Privy Counsellors, Justices of the Peace, and Members of Parliament, were under a penalty to take the oath and make the declaration and abhorrence following :
" I, A. B^ do declare that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatever, to take up arms against the King ; and that I do abhor the traitorous position of taking up arms by his au- thority, against his person, or against those that are com- missioned by him ; and I do swear that I will not at anytime endeavour the alteration of the Q-overnment either in Church or State. So help me Grod."
Such of the Lords as had no dependence iipon the Court, and were distinguished by the name of the Country Lords, looked upon this bill as a step the C'Ourt was making to in- troduce arbitrary power, and they opposed it so vigorously, that the debate lasted five several days before it was com- mitted to a Committee of the whole House, and afterwards it took up sixteen or seventeen whole days, the House sitting many times till eight or niue of the clock at night, and sometimes till midnight. However, after several altera- tions, which they were forced to make, it passed the Com- mittee, but, a contest arising between the two Houses con- cerning their privileges, they were so inflamed against each other, that the King thought it advisable to prorogue the Parliament, so the bill was never reported from the Com- mittee to the House.
The debates occasioned by that bill failed not to make a great noise tl^oughout the whole kingdom ; and because there were very few persons duly apprized thereof, and every- body spoke of it as they stood affected, my Lord Shaftesbury, who was at the head of the Country party, thought it neces- sary to publish an account of evervthing that had passed upon that occasion, in order not only to open the people's eyes upon the secret views of the Court, but to do justice to the Country Lords, and thereby to secure to them the con- tinuance of the affection and attachment of such as were of the same opinion with themselves, which was the most con- siderable part of the nation. But though this Lord had all the faculties of an orator, yet not having time to exercise himself in the art of writing, he desired Mr Locke to draw up the relation, which he did under his Lordship's inspection, and only committed to writing what my Lord Shaftesbury
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1676.] 810BJIITABT TO LOBD SHATTSSBITBT. 41
did in a manner dictate to him : accordingly, you will find in it a great many strokes which could proceed from nobody but my Lord Shaftesbury himself ; and amongst others, the characters and eulogiums of such Lords as had signalized themselves in the cause of public liberty.
The letter was privately printed soon afterwards ; and the Court was so incensed at it, that at the next meeting of Parliament, towards the end of the year 1675, the Court party, who still kept the ascendant in the House of Lords, ordered it to be burned by the common hangman. " The
Particular relation of the debate," says the mgenious Mr larvel, " which lasted many days with great eagerness on both sides, and the reasons but on one, was, in the next ses- sions, burnt by order of the Lords, but the sparks of it will eternally fly in their adversaries' faces."
The following letter, in Locke's handwriting, indorsed Charles II. to Sir George Downing, was probably procured from Lord Shaftesbury.
"Whitehall, Jan. 16, 0. S. 1671. "SiB Geoeob Dowktnq,
" I have seen all the letters to my Lord Arlington since your arrival in Holland, and because I find you sometimes divided in your opinion betwixt what seems good to you for my affairs in the various emergencies and appearances there, and what my instructions direct you, that you may not err in the future, I have thought fit to send you my last mind upon the hinge of the whole negotiation, ana in my own hand, that you may likewise know it is your part to obey punctually my orders, instead of putting yourself to the trouble of finding reasons why you do not do so, as I find in your last of the 12th current. And first you must know I am entirely secure that Prance will join with me against Holland, and not separ- ate from me for any offers HoUand can make to them ; next, I do allow of your transmitting to me the States' answer to your Memorial concerning the flags, and that you stay there expecting my last resolution upon it, declaring that you can- not proceed to any new matter till you receive it ; but upon the whole. matter, you must always know my mind and reso- lution is, not only to insist upon the having my flag saluted even on their very fihores (as it was always practised), but
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42 LIFE AND LETTEES 01" JOHN LOCKE. [ie7i:
in having mj dominion of the seas asserted, and Van G-ueni exemplarily punished. Notwithstanding all this, I would have you use your skill so to amuse them that they may not finally despair of me, and thereby give me time to make my- self more ready, and leave them more remiss in their prepar- ations. In the last place, I must again enjoin you to spare no cost in informing yourself exactly how ready their ships of war are in all their ports, how soon they are like to put to sea, and to send what you learn of this kind hither with all speed. I am, your loving friend,
C'HAELES R."
It appears that the asthmatic complaint with which Locke was afflicted during nearly the last thirty years of his life, began to show itself at least as early as 1671. We find from the following letter to Dr Mappletoft, that a residence in the South of France was at that time in contemplation ; but whether Locke actually went to reside in Prance for the benefit of his health before 1675 is uncertain. Monsieur Le Clerc says, that he attended the Earl of Northumberland to Paris in 1668, and returned after a short time in consequence of the Earl's death.
LOCKE TO DE MAPPLETOFT.
" Sutton, Oct. 7, 71. " Deab Sib,
" Though before the receipt of your last letter (which, by my slow progress hither, I overtook not till this night) I was very weU assured of your friendship, yet the concern- ment you express for my health, and the kindness wherewith you press my journey iuto France, give me fresh and obliging testimonies of it. This is so far from an offence against de- corum, or needing an apology on that score, that I think the harder you ask for it is the only thing I ought to take amiss from you, if I could take amiss anything from one who treats me with so much kindness and so much sincerity. I am now making haste back again to London, to return you my thanks for this and several other favours ; and then having made you judge of my state of health, desire your advice what you think best to be done ; wherein you are to deal vdth me with the same freedom, since nothing will be able to make me leave those friends I have in England but the positive direc-
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1677.] HIS IMPAIEED HEALTH. 43
tion of some of those friends for my going. But however I dispose of myself, I shall dwell amidst the marks of your kindness, and shall enjoy the air of Hampstead Heath or Montpellier as that wherein your care and friendship hath placed me, and my health will not be less welcome to me when it comes by your advice, and brings with it the hopes that I may have longer time in the world to assure you with what affection and sincerity I am.
Sir, your most humble servant.
And faithful friend,
J. Locke."
" To his much-honoured friend, Br John Mappletoft, at Mr Trimmer's, over against the George, Lombard Street, London."
TO THE' SAME.
" Paris, 22nd June, 77. " I ABBiTED here about the beginning of the month with the remains of a very untoward ague upon me, which seized and kept me awhile upon the way, but I thank G-od have now pretty well recovered my strength, so that if you have any commands for me here, I might hope to execute them ; but I have little expectation of any from you, that when you were here yourself and breathed the air of this place, which seems to me not very much to favour the severer sects of philoso- phers, were yet so great a one as to provide for aU your necessities with only a crown or two, will not, I guess, now that you are out of the sight of all our gaudy fashionable temptations, have much employment for a factor here ; but yet if either absence (which sometimes increases our desires) or love (which we see every day produces strange effects in the world) have softened you, or disposed you towards any liking of any of our fine new things, 't is but sajring so, and I am ready to furnish you, and shoujd be sorry not to be employed. Were I to advise, perhaps I should say to you, that the lodging at Gresham College were a very quiet and comfortable habitation. I know not how I am got into this chapter of love, unless the genius of the place inspires me with it, for I do not find that my ague has much inclined me to the thought of it. My health, which you are so kind to in your wishes, is the only mistress I have a long time courted, and is so coy a one, that I think it will take up the remainder
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44 LITE XVD LETT2BS OF JOHK LOCKE. [^678^^
of my days to obtain her good graces and keep her in good humour. She has of late been very wayward, out I hope is now coming about again. I shall be glad that my constant addresses should at last prevail with her, that I might be in a better condition and enjoy and serve you. Being with all sincerity, Dear Sir,
Your most humble servant,
J. LOOKB."
"My service, I beseech you, to all my friends in your walks, particularly Dr Sydenham : the spell held till I had left MontpeUier, for by all the art and industry I could use, I could not ^et a book of his to MontpeUier till the week after I had left it. I shall be glad to hear that it every day gains ground, though that be not always the fate of useful truth, especially at first setting out. I shall perhaps be able to give him an account of what some ingenious men think of it here : though I imagine he is too well satisfied with the truth in it^ and the design that made him publish it, that^ he matters not much what men think, yet there is usually a very great and allowable pleasure to see the tree take and thrive in our time which we ourselves have planted."
TO THE SAME.
" Lyon, 8 November, 78. "Deab Sib,
" If all the world should go to Eome, I think I should never, having been twice firmly bent upon it, the time set, the company agreed, and as many times defeated. I came hither in all haste from MontpeUier (from whence I write to you) with the same design ; but old Father Winter, armed with aU his snow and icicles, keeps guard on Mount Cenis, and wUl not let me pass. But smce I cannot get over the hiU, I desire your letters may not : they may now keep their old road to M. Charas's, where I hope in a few days to see and be acquainted with your friend Dr Badgen ; and so having seen the winter over at Paris, return to you early in the spring. "Were I not accustomed to have Fortune to dispose of me con- trary to my design and expectation, I should be very angry to be thus turned out of my way, when I imagined myself al- most at the suburbs of Bome, and made sure in a few days to mount the Capitol and trace the footsteps of the Scipios and
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1675.] BESIDEIirCE IN FBi.TrOX. 45
the Caesars ; but I am made to know that 't is a bold thing to be projecting of things for to-morrow, and that it is fit such a slight bubble as I am should let itself be carried at the fancy of wind and tide, without pretending to direct its own motion. I think I shall learn to do so hereafter,*— this is the surest way to be at ease. But hold, I forget vou have quitted Ghilen for Plutarch, and 't is- a little too confident to talk philosophy to one who converses daily with Xenophon.
" I cannot tell how to blame your design, but I must con- fess to you I like our calling the worse since you have quitted it : yet I bope it is not to make way for another with more indissoluble chains, with greater cares and solicitudes accom- panying it. If it be so, you need be well prepared with philosophy, and may find it necessary sometime to take a dram of Tully de consolations, I cannot forbear to touch, en passant, the chapter of matrimony, which methinks you are still haiakering after ; but if ever you should chance so to be given up as to marry, and, like other loving husbands, tell your wife who has dissuaded you, what a case shall I be in ! All my comfort is that 't is no personal malice to the woman, and I am sure I have nothing but friendship for you, for I am with sincerity,
Your most affectionate humble servant,
J. Locke." ** To Dr John Mappletoft."
In 1675, Locke went to reside in France for the benefit of his health, and, from the time of his landing at Calais,* he kept a daily Journal, from which the following extracts have been made. The ori^nal contains a description of the country, and of such thmgs as were best worth seeing in the different towns of France. It describes with much minute- ness and accuracy the cultivation of the vine and olive country, the different processes of the fermentation of wine, and of preparing the oils, and the different sorts of fruit there in Whest estimation. It gives an account of mechanical and other contrivances, and objects of use and convenience, then more common in France than in England. There are also many medical observations, many notes and references to books, which it has been thought proper for the sake of bre» vity to omit.
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46 LIFE Ain) LETTEES OF JOHIT LOCKE. [l676.
Por the same reason, the first part only of the Journal has heen printed verbatim: it has afterwards been much curtailed, and the notes and dissertations on difierent subjects, interspersed in different parts, are collected together in a connected form at the end of these extracts.
In general, the particulars which have been selected from the Journal are such as are either curious and interesting, as records of former times, or as they afibrd a contrast be- tween the present prosperous state of France and its former condition ; where the extremes of splendour and misery marked the nature of the old and despotic Government, the paradise of monarchs and courtiers, out the purgatory of honest and industrious citizens and peasants, whom ^French lawyers were pleased to describe, and French nobles to treat, as " tailleable et corv^able" animals, who lived, and moved, and had their beings only fpr the benefit of the privileged orders.
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL.
Nov. 30, 1675. The way from Boulogne is made up of hills and plains, covered with com or woods ; in the latter we looked out for our friends of St Omer's, but the Dons were afraid of the French or of us (I do not imagine they had any aversion to our money), and so we saw no more whiskers. After this, those that had money thought it their own, and believed their clothes might last them to Paris, where the tailors lie in wait : and I know not whether they with their yards and shears, or the trooper with his sword and pistol, be the more dangerous creature. We marched on merrily the remainder of the day^to Montreuil ; supper was ready before our boots were off, and, being fish, as soon digested.
Dec. 1. Early on a frosty morning we were, with all the train, on our march to Abbeville, ten leagues ; it is a large town on the Amiens river: here his Excellency dismissed his St Omer's trumpeter.
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1675.] EXTRACTS TEOM HIS JOTJEKAJi XS FEANCE. 47
2nd. The Ambassador resolving to go by Amiens, cup governor, the messenger, resolved to take the ordinary road by Poy, which we, who went to seek adventure beyond Paris, easily consented to. "We therefore plodded on nine leagues to Poy ; we were no sooner got into our chambers, but we thought we were come there too soon, as the highway seemed the cleaner and more desirable place. It being decreed we must stay there all night, I called, entreated, and swaggered a good while for a pair of slippers : at last they brought them, and I sat me down on the only seat we had in our apartment, which at present was a form, but had formerly been a wood- en-horse : I thought to ease myself by standing, but with no very good success, I assure you ; for the soles of my pantofles, being sturdy timber, had very little compliance for my feet, and so made it somewhat uncomfortable to keep myself, as the French call it, on one end.
This small taste of sabot gaA^e me a surfeit of them, and I should not make choice of a country to pass my pilgrimage in where they are in fsishion : as we had but two pair between three of us, there could not be a nicer case in breeding than to know whether to take, offer, or refuse their use. Many compliments, I assure you, passed on the occasion ; we shuf- fled favour, obligation, ana honour, and many such words (very useful in travelling), forward and backward until sup- per came : here we thought to divert our pain, but we quickly found a supper of ill meat, and worse cooking : soup and ra- gout, and such other words of good savour, lost here their relish quite, and out of five or six dishes, we patched up a Very uncomfortable supper. But be it as rascally as it was, it must not fail to be fashionable ; we had the ceremony of first and second course, and a dessert at the close : whatever the fare, the treat must be in all its formality, with some haws, if no better, under the fine name of Pomet de Paradise.
After supper, we retreated to the place that usually gives relief to aU moderate calamities, but our beds were antidotes to sleep : I do not complain of the hardness, but the tangible quality of what was next me, and the savour of all about made me quite forget both slippers and supper. As we had a long journey of twelve leagues to go next day, our stay was for- tunately short here : we were roused before day, and all were glad to be released from the prison ; we willingly left it to
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48 LIFE IA-ND LETTEES of JOHN LOCKE. [l675.
the miserable souls who were to succeed us. If Paris be heaven (for the French, with their usual justice, extol it above all things on earth), Poy certainly is Purgatory in the way to it.
3rd. We dined at Beauvais, where I saw nothing re- markable except the quire of a church, very high and stately, built, as they say, by the English, who, it seems, had not time to complete the whole, and the French have never thought fit to finish it. If the nave of the church were added, it would be a magnificent structure. As far as I have observed of the churches of both countries, to make them in every way exact, we ought to build, and they to adorn them. Hence, we went three leagues to Tilliard to bed. Good mutton, and a good supper, clean linen of the country, and a pretty girl to lay it (who was an angel compared with the fiends at Poy), made us some amends for the past night's suffering. Do not wonder that a man of my constitution and gravity mentions to you a handsome face amongst his remarks, for I imagine that a traveller, though he carry a cough with him, goes not out of his way when he takes no- tice of strange and extraordinary things.*
4th. We dined at Beaumont. This being the last as- sembly we were like to have of our company, 't was thought convenient here to even some small account had happened upon the road. One of the Frenchmen, who had disbursed for our troop, was, by the natural quickness of his temper, carried beyond the mark, and demanded for our shares more than we thought due. Whereupon, one of the English de- sired an account of particulars, not that the whole was so considerable, but to keep a certain custom we had in England not to pay money without knowing for what. Monsieur answered briskly, he woidd give no account; the other as briskly, that he would have it : this produced a reckoning of the several disbursements, and an abatement of one-fourth of the demand, and a great demonstration of good nature. Monsieur steward showed afterwards more civility and good nature, after the little contest, than he had done all the I'oumey before.
*****
Thus, in seven days, we came from Paris to Lyons, 100 leagues; the passage to Chalons was troublesome; from
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1675.] EESIDENCE IN FBAKCE. 49
Chalons by water was very easy and convenient, and the river quiet.
21st. Lyons. — We visited Mr Charleton, who treated us extreme civilly. They showed us, upon the top of the hill, a church, now dedicated to the Virgin, which was formerly a Temple of Yenus : near it dwelt Thomas Becket, when banished from England.
22nd. We saw the Jesuits' College ; a large quadrangle, surrounded by high buildings, having the waUs covered with pretty well-painted figures. The library is the best that ever I saw, except Oidbrd, being one very high oblong square, with a gallery round to come at the books ; it is yet but mode- rately furnished with books, being made, as they told us, not above a year. The College is pleasantly situated on the banks of the Rhone, and hath a very excellent prospect. Saw M. Servis's museum of pumps, clocks, and curiosities.
23rd. Saw St John's Church, the cathedral, a very plain, ordinary building, nothing very observable but the clock, which they say cost 20,0(K) livres : at every hour, the image of an old man, designed for the Father, shakes his hand ; this is what is most looked at, but of least moment, there being other things far more considerable ; as the place of the sun, dominical letter, Epact, moveable feasts, and other things of an almanack, for almost a hundred years to come,
24th. I saw a little castle, called Pierre en Cise, upon the river Soane, at the entrance into the town. It is a place used to keep prisoners ; indeed, it is much better fitted to keep criminals in, than enemies out. It is a little, irregular fortifica- tion on a rock, which hath a precipice on all sides, and is high towards the river and two other sides, but commanded by hills much higher ; here Eouquet was once prisoner. Here the hill on the left hand turns short towards the Ehone, and leaves a long plain neck of land between the two rivers, on which the greatest part of Lyons is built, in narrow, irregu- lar streets ; stone houses, flat-roofed, covered with pantiles, and some turrets, and the angle of the roofs with tin. A good part of the town lies also on the right hand of the Soane ; and the sides of the hills are covered with houses, gardens, and vineyards, so that it is a pleasant place. The town-house is a stately building.
25th. Saw a fine fair prospect of the town from the hills
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on the north side. The Hotel Dieu, a fair large hospital, containing, as they told me, five hundred sick persons : they lie in a room which is a large cross, and three rows of beds in each : two of the arms of the cross have men, and two women ; in the centre is an altar.
26th. I saw the Charity, consisting of nine square courts, and there are in them 1500, as I am told, maintained and lodged here. They receive bastards, and, as soon as they are able, employ them in winding silk, the manner whereof, it being holiday, we could not see: The mo*st considerable thing we saw was their granary, one hundred steps long and thirty-six broad, windows open all round: there are con- stantly in it 6000 asnees of wheat, — one asnee is an ass-load of six bushels. They turn the corn every day, about which seven men are employed ; when the boys are grown .up, they bind them out to traders. It is a noble foundation, and has a large revenue.
27th. By the old town of Vienne to St Yallier, through a pleasant valley of the Rhone, with mulberry and walnut trees set in exact quincunx at the distance of our apple trees in England.
28th. To Valence, seven leagues. Pretty large town, ill- built ; the cathedral the plainest I had anywhere seen. The Scola Juris et Medicinae here very mean. As we came along, we passed by the Hermitage, the place so famous for wine ; it is on the side of a hill open to the south and a little west, about a mile long, beginning just at Thuin. We also saw the citadel, which we got into with some difficulty; and there was some reason for the caution, we being four, and there being a garrison in it of but one man and one great gun, which was left behind (when the King lately took away all the rest for his ships) for a fault very frequent in this country, viz. in the touch-hole,
29th. Montelimart. Streets broad and buildings better, though not altogether so big as Valence.
30th. To Pont St Esprit, five leagues. To this place we had the Rhone on our right hand, and the high barren hills of Dauphine on the left. The valley is in some places a league or two broad ; in some broader, and in some very nar- row. In great part of the journey from Lyons, the soil was covered with great round pebbles, in some places so thick
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that no earth was seen, and yet all along the com was sown. In many places the mulberry trees and almonds, set in quin- cunx, covered the corn as thick as apple trees in an orchard in England. "We saw several digging the ground, and some ploughing, with a very little light plough with one handle, drawn by a pair of cows, steers, or asses. The soil very light and sandy ; they turn it up not above two or three inches deep. In this valley we crossed many rivers and rivulets ; one by ferry, some by bridges and fords, and the channels of some quite dry ; but all appeared to be sometimes great and swift torrents, when either rain or melted snow is poured down into them from the high hills of Dauphine.
About half a league from St Vallier, we saw a house,' a little out of the way, where they say Pilate lived in banish- ment. "We met with the owner, who seemed to doubt the truth of the story ; but told us there was mosaic work very ancient in one of the floors.
At Chateau Neuf, we got up a hiU which runs directly to the Rhone, and the Rhone through it, as the Avon at the Hot Wells. Much box and lavender : a prospect of a large valley much broader than any part between Vienne and Cha- teau Neuf. Three leagues to Pallu, a little town belonging to the Pope.
One league from hence, we came to Pont St Esprit, a bridge over the Rhone, on eighteen great arches, 1100 of my steps ; the ascent to the top one hundred and twenty steps, over six lesser arches on the east side : they reckon twenty- seven arches in all, besides a little one between each of the eighteen great arches. The bridge is very narrow, paved with little square stones very regularly placed ; at the end of it, on the west side, is the town of St Esprit, and a citadel ; in it we saw some soldiers, and a few unmounted small brass guns. The bridge is not exactly straight, but about the middle makes an obtuse angle towards the current of the river.
Three leagues from Pont St Esprit, we came to Orange, a little town within a square wall, less than Bath within the walls. The half-moons at the entrance of the gate are demolished by the King of France, and the castles, which were upon a rocky hill just over it. Here we also saw Marius's triumphal arch, a piece of very handsome building with trophies and
b2
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Marius's old sibyl on it. There remains also a very stately piece of Roman building, very high, and one hundred and seventy-six of my steps in front, on seventeen arches : ihey call it an amphitheatre ; but the figure of it seems not at
all to favour that opinion, being thus c 3 as it now
stands. There is also in the floor of a little house mosaic work very perfect ; there was but one figure, which was of a cat. Here I also saw the way of winding silk by an engine, that turns at once one hundred and thirty-four bobbius ; it is too intricate to be described on so short a view ; but all these were turned by one woman, and they both twisted and wound off the silk at once. The proportion of population of the town, are twelve ^Protestants to nine Papists ; two Pro- testant and two Papist consuls ; two Protestant churches in the town ; one we were in is a pretty sort of building, one stone arch, like a bridge, running the whole length of the church, and supporting the rafters, like the main beam of the building ; a new but not incommodious way for such a room.
31st. Avignon, four leagues, situated in a large valley on the banks of the Ehone, which goes about half round it ; the walla are all entire, and no house near them; battlements and towers at little distances, after the old way of fortification : the streets wider and the town better built than any between this and Lyons. The Pope's palace, a large old building with high towers ; we saw, besides the hall, three or four rooms hung with damask, and in another part of the palace a large handsome room, where the conclave formerly was kept when the Pope resided here.
Jan. 1st, 1676. The quire of St Peter's church very rich in gilding and painting, as is the altar of the Celestins ; their convent, a very large one, kept very clean. The Vice-Legate went to the Jesuits' church with a guard of about twelve Swiss. The Jews have a quarter to themselves, where they have a synagogue ; they wear yellow hats for distinction. Here are some arches standing of a bridge, much after the fashion of Pont St Esprit ; it fell down some years since, and to encourage the rebuilding of it, they have the last year set up the statue of one St Benedict, a shepherd, who built the former bridge. The Rhone, in November, 1674, rose, fifteen feet higher than the top of the water as it now is ; we sAw
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marks of the inundation far from cae river. Avimon is governed by a Yice-Legate ; the employment is worth about £5000 sterling. There is no tax laid upon the country, which is long and broad ; the greatest part of the trade is silk, and the people look comfortable and thriving. We paid one livre per meal for each of us, and one livre per night per horse.
2nd. We passed the Ehone partly by the trill, a way of ferry usual in these parts, and partly by the remains of the bridge. Our portmanteaus were not searched as we ex- pected ; our voiturin made us pass for Swiss. Hence we went to Pont du Gard, an admirable structure ; some of the arches of the second row were thirty steps wide. Saw them preparing vines ; somepruned.
8rd. To Nismes. Here we saw the amphitheatre, an ad- mirable structure of very large stones, built apparently with- out mortar: at the entrance, which is under an arch, the wall is seventeen paces thick ; ascending the stairs, we come to a walk, in which there are towards the outside sixty arches in the whole circumference, the space of each arch being eleven of my paces, 660 of my steps in a circle two or three yards inside the outmost bounds oi it. In all those arches, to support the walls over the passage where you go round, there is a stone laid, about twenty inches or two feet square, and about six times the length of my sword, which was near about a philosophical yard long; upon which were turned other arches contrary to those by which the light entered ; most of these stones I observed to be cracked, which I sup- pose might be the effect of the fire which Deyron tells us, m nis " Antiquit^s de Nismes," the Christians heretofore ap- plied, with design to destroy this amphitheatre. It would hold 20,000 persons, and was built by Antoninus Pius, of great squared stones, almost as hard as grey marble. Thus stands, almost entire yet, this wonderful structure, in spite of the force of 1500 years, and the attempts of the nrst Christians, who, both by fire and with tools, endeavoured to ruin it.
There are many other antiquities in this town. For the use of Nismes, the Pont du Gard was built over the river Gordon, on three rows of arches, one over the other; it carried the water of the fountain d'Aure to Nismes, from
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whence it is three leagues; but the aqueduct, sometimes carried on arches, sometimes cut through rocks, is four leagues long.
The Protestants at Nismes have now but one temple, the other being pulled down by the King's order about four years since. Two of their consuls are Papists, and two Pro- testants, but are not permitted to receive the sacrament in their robes as formerly. The Protestants had built them- selves an hospital for their sick, but that is taken from them : a chamber in it is left for their sick, but never used, because the priests trouble them when there ; but notwithstanding their discouragement, I do not find that many of them go over : one of them told me, when I asked him the question, that the Papists did nothing but by force or money.
4th. We arrived at Montpellier late in the night, having dined at a Protestant inn, at Lunel, three leagues from Montpellier, where we were well used. We paid our voiturin twelve crowns a-piece from Lyons hither ; when we went out of the way, we were to pay for our own and the horses' meat, fifteen sous dinner, twenty-five supper (for all the company eat together), and fifteen sous horse-meat a night.
8th. I walked, and found thein gathering of olives, a black fruit, the bigness of an acorn, with which the trees were thick hung.
All the highways are filled with gamesters at mall, so that walkers are in some danger of knocks.
9th. I walked to a fine garden, a little mile from the town ; the walks were bays and some others, cypress trees of great height and some pine trees : at the entrance there is a fair large pond, where it is said the ladies bathe in summer, and, if the weather of midsummer answer the warmth of this day, the ladies will certainly need a cooler. Furniture of the kitchens, some pewter, some brass, and abundance of pip- kins. All the world at mall, and the mountebank's tricks.
13th. Several asses and mules laden with green brush- wood, of evergreen oak and bays, brought to town for fuel ; most of their labour done by mules and asses. Between Lyons and Vienne we met people riding post on asses ; and on the road we met several mules, some whereof we were told had 800 weight upon them, and several women riding astride, some with caps and feathers : we met more people
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travelling between Lyons and Montpellier by much than between Paris and Lyons, where were very few.
14th. The women carrying earth in little baskets on their heads, running in their sabots as they returned for new burthens. Wages for men twelve sous, for women five sous, at this time ; in summer, about harvest, eighteen for men, and seven for women.
18th. About nine in the morning, I went to the town- house, where the States of Languedoc, which were then as- sembled in the town, used to sit every day. The room is a fair room ; at the upper end, in the middle, is a seat, higher somewhat than the rest, where the Due de Yemule, governor of the Province, sits, when he comes to the assembly, which is but seldom, and only upon occasions of proposing some- thing to them. At other times, Cardinal Bonzi, who is Archbishop of Narbonne, takes that seat which is under the canopy ; on the right hand sit the bishops, twenty-two, and the barons, twenty-five; the deputies of the town about forty-four. About ten they began to drop into the room, where the bishops put on their habits, richly laced ; cardinal in scarlet : v^hen he arrives, away they ^o to mass at N6tre Dame, a church just by, and so about eleven they return and begin to sit, and rise again at twelve, seldom sitting in the afternoon, but upon extraordinary occasions : they are con- stantly assembled four months in the year, beginning in October, and ending in Pebruary.
19th. The Physic garden, well contrived for plants of all sorts, open and shady and boggy, set most in high beds, as it were in long stone troughs, vdth walks between, and numbers in order engraved on the stone, to direct the student to the plant.
[Then follows a long description of the management of a vineyard, which is omitted ; description and process of making yerdigrise, omitted ; description of olive harvest and oil press- ing, ^ of which are omitted.]
ITzes, a tovim in the province, not far from Nismes, was wont to send every year a Protestant Deputy to the Assem- bly of the States at Montpellier, the greatest part being Protestant; but they were forbid to do it this year; and this week the Protestants have an order from the King to choose no more consuls of the town of their religion, and
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56 LIFE JlSD letters OP JOHK LOCKE. [l676.
their temple is ordered to be pulled down, the only one they have left there, though three quarters of the town be Pro- testants. The pretence given is, that their temple being too near the Papist church, their singing of psalms disturbed the service.
Feb. 1st. Here was in the street a bustle ; the cause this, some that were listing soldiers slid money into a country- man's pocket, and then would force him to go with them, having, as they said, received the King's money ; he refused to go, and the women, by crowding and force, redeemed him. These artifices are employed where pressing is not allowed ; it is a usual trick, if any one drink the King's health, to give him press money, and force him to go a soldier, pretending that, having drunk his health, he is bound to fight for him.
Interest by law here is 6^ per cent., but those who have good credit may borrow at ^ye.
The King has made an edict, that those who merchandize, but do not use the yard, shall not lose their gentility.
Drums beat for soldiers, and five Luis d'or offered to any one that would list himself. Their coin is thus : —
1 pistol Luis d'or, 11 livres.
1 ecu, 3 livres.
1 livre, 20 sous.
5th. Sunbeams rather troublesome. A little out of Mont- pellier, westward, is a bed of oyster-shells, in a hollow way, m some places two yards under the ground ; it appeared all along, for a good way ; some of the shells perfectly fit one to the other, and dirt in the place where the oysters lay ; the place where they lie is much higher than the present level of the sea.
Q. — Have not these been left there by the sea, since re- treated ?
The Protestants have here common iustice generally, un- less it be against a new convert, whom they will favour ; they pay no more taxes than their neighbours, but are incapable of public charges and oflSLces. They have had, within these ten years at least, 160 churches pulled down. They and the Papist laity live together friendly enough in these parts; they sometimes get, and sometimes lose, proselytes. There is nothing done against those that come over to the reformed
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religion, imless tbey be such as have before tamed Papists, and relapsed ; tbese sometimes they prosecute. The number of Protestants in these latter years neither increases nor de- creases much ; those that go over to the Church of Rome are usually drawn away by fair promises, which most commonly fail them : the Protestant live not better than the Papist.
Sent several sorts of vines to England, Muscat, Cforinth, Marokin, St John's, Claret.
They seldom make red wine without the mixture of some sorts of white grapes, else it would be too thick and deep- coloured.
The States every morning go to N6tre Dame to prayers, where mass is sung ; while the priest is at the altar saying the mass, you cannot hear him a word ; indeed the music is the pleasanter of the two. The Cardinal and the bishops are all on the right hand of the quire, that is, standing at the altar and loolnng to the west end of the church ; and all the lay barons to the left, or south side : the Cardinal sat nearest the altar, and had a velvet cushion richly laced, the bishops had none : the Cardinal repeated part of the office with an imconcemed look, talking every now and then, and laughing with the bishops next him.
8th. This day the Assembly of the States was dissolved : they have all the solemnity and outward appearance of a Parliament : the King proposes, and they debate and resolve ; here is aU the difference, that they never do, and some say, dare not, refuse whatever the King demands ; they gave the King this year, 2,100,000 livres, and for their liberality are promised no soldiers shall quarter in this country, which nevertheless sometimes happens. When soldiers are sent to quarter in Montpellier, as some Switz did here, that were going towards Catalonia, the magistrates of the town give them billets, and take care according to the billet that their landlords be paid eight sous per diem for each foot soldier, which is paid by the town. Reside the 2,100,000 given the King for this year, they gave him also for the canal 300,000 livres; and besides all this, they maintain 11,000 men in . Catalonia raised and paid by this province. These taxes and all public charges come sometimes to eight, sometimes to twelve per cent, of the yearly value of estates.
The States being to break up to-day, the ceremony was
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this : Te Deum was sung in the State-house ; and that being done, the Cardinal, with a very good grace, gave the bene- diction, first putting on his cap ; and at the latter end of the benediction he pulled off his cap, made a cross first towards the bishops, then towards the nobility, then straight forward towards the people, who were on their knees*
Mr Herbert's man enticed into a shop, and there fallen upon by three or .four : a man shot dead by another in the street : the same happened at Lyons when I was there.
11th. At the Carmes' church this day was an end of theii* octave of open house, as one may say, upon the occasion of the canonization of St John de Croix, one of their Order lately canonized at Eome, dead eighty years ago. Daring the eight days of the celebration, there was plenary indulgence over the door, and a pavilion with emblems, and his picture in the middle ; this bemg the close of the solemnity, there was a sermon, which was the recital of his life, virtues, and mira- cles he did : as preserving his baptismal grace and innocence to the end of his life, his driving out evil spirits of the pos- sessed, &c. Music at the vespers; the Due de Vernules present ; the Duchess and her guard of musketeers with her.
The usual rate of good oil here, is three to four livres a quartal of eight pots.
12th. I visited Mr Birto. The Protestants have not had a general synod these ten years : a provincial synod of Lan- guedoc they have of course every year, but not without leave from the King, wherein they make ecclesiastical laws for this province, but suitable still to the laws made by the national synod. Their synod consists of about fifty pastors, and as many deacons or elders ; they have power to reprehend or wholly displace any scandalous pastor ; they also admit peo- ple to ordination, and to be pastors in certain churches, no- body being by them admitted into orders that hath not a place. The manner is this : when any church wants a pastor, as for example, Montpellier, if any of their four pastors is dead or gone, the candidates apply themselves to the consis- tory of that church : whom they like best, they appoint to preach before the congregation ; if they approve, he presents himself at the next synod, and they appomt four pastors to examine him in the tongues, university learning, and divinity ; especially he is to produce the testimonials of the university
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where lie studied, of his life and learning: he preaches a French and Latin sermon, and if all these are passable, they appoint two pastors to ordain him, who, after a sermon on the duties of a minister, come out of the pulpit and read several chapters to him out of the Epistles, wherein the min- ister's duty is considered ; and then, after a prayer, they lay their hands upon him and make a declaration, that by authority of the synod, he has power to preach, to forgive sins, to bless marriages, and to administer the sacrament ; after this, he is minister of the place. His allowance depends on the Consistory.
If any one hold tenets here contrary to their articles of faith, the King punishes him ; so that you must here be either of the Romish or of their church, 'riot long since, it happened to one here, who was inclining to, and vented some Arian doctrines, the Q-ovemor complaiaed to the King ; he sent order that he should be tried, and so was sent to Thou- lose, where, upon trial, he denying it utterly, he was permitted to escape out of prison ; but had he owned it, he had been burnt as an heretic.
The State have given 400,000 livres for each of the next four years, having given 300,000 for the last six years, in all 3,400,000 for carrying on the canal, besides other taxes to- wards the war. Montpellier has 30,000 people in it, of whom there are 8000 communicants of the Protestant church. They tell me the number of Protestants within the last twenly Or thirty years has manifestly increased here, and does daily, notwithstanding their loss every day of some pri- vilege or other. Their consistories had power formerly to examine witnesses upon oath, which within these ten years has been taken from them.
Parasols, a pretty sort of cover for women riding in the sun, made of straw, something like the fashion of tin coyers for dishes.
The Deputies of the State are all paid by their respective towns and countries fifty ecus per month, but the Bishops and Barons receive it not: of the tweniy-two Bishops, seventeen have revenues, about £3000 sterling; the other five much more.
15th. Bought of a Genoese twelve orange and citron trees, at one Hvre a-piece.
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All the power of church discipline is in the Consistory ; that of Montpellier consists of their four pastors, and twenty -four ancients ; these, by a majority of votes, order all the church affairs, public stock, censures, &c. ; the majority of votes determines the matter, though there be no one of. the pastors of that side. If there is any controversy of law amongst them, they refer it to some of the sober gentry of the town and lawyers that are Protestants ; they have still six counsellors of their religion, and the advocates may be of what religion they please
The Church censures are managed thus : if any one live scandalously,, they first reprove him in private ; if he mends not, he is called before the Consistory, and admonished ; if that works not, the same is done in the public congregation ; if after all he stands incorrigible, he is excluded from the Eucharist.
18th. Shrove-day, the height and consummation of the Carnival : the town filled with masquerades for the last week ; dancing in the streets in all manner of habits and disguises, to all sorts of music, brass kettles and frying-pans not ex- cepted.
Grana kermes grow on a shrub of the size of the chene vert, called ilex coccifera, are a sort of oak apples with little insects in them.
Sent by Mr Waldo seeds for England.
19th. Ash Wednesday. Public admonitions happen sel- dom : the last instances were, one for striking a cuff on the ear in the church, on a communion-day, for which he was hindered from receiving ; the other for marrying his daughter to a Papist, for which he stood excommunicated six months. It reaches no further than exclusion from the Eucharist, not from church or sermons.
[Here follow accurate notes of weights and measures. A detailed account of the Church of France, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbes, &c. Their revenue is estimated in toto at twenty-four millions sterling.]
21st. The King has made a law that persons of different religion shall not marry, which often causes the change of religion, especially sequioris seams.
At churcn to-day abundance of coughing.
24th. The Province of Languedoc is thus governed : the
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Duke of Yemule, the Q-ovemor, commands over the whole Province, and has a power somewhat like the King's, though he he more properly Lord-Lieutenant. I do not hear that he meddles at all injudicial causes, either civil or criminal : in his absence, the Province is divided into three districts, 6ach having a Deputy-governor with the same power ; every city also has its governor, whose power is much like the go- vernor of a garrison. Montpellier has six Consuls, who have the government of the police of the town, look after weights and measures, determine causes under five livres ; they had formerly a considerable authority, but now they are little more than servants of the governor of the town ; they were formerly three Protestants and three Papists, but the Pro- testants are excluded the last year.
The civil causes are judged by the Court of Aides ; the premier president, and eight presidents, and thirty counsel- tors ; the cause determined by plurality of votes.
[Then follows an account of the several criminal courts, and of the taxes.]
From these taxes are exempted all noble land, which is to pay a year's value to the King every twenty years ; but as they order the matter, they pay not above three-quarters of a year's value. All ancient privileged land of the Church is also exempt, but if any is given to the Church that hath been used to pay taxes, it pays it after the donation : besides this, excise is paid on several commodities.
25th. Very high wind.
^OBLIGATION OP PENAL LAWS.
There are virtues and vices antecedent to, and abstract from, society, as love of God, unnatural lust : other virtues and vices there are which suppose society and laws, as obedi- ence to magistrates, or dispossessing a man of his heritage ; in both these the rule and obligation is antecedent to human laws, though the matter about which that rule is, may be con- sequent to them, as property in land, distinction, and power of persons. All things not commanded, or forbidden by the law of Q-od, are indifferent, nor is it in the power of man to dter their nature ; and so no human law can lay any obliga- ion on the conscience, and therefore all human laws are rarely penal, i. e. have no other obligation but to make the
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62 LIEB AJSTD LETTEES OP JOHS LOCKE. [l676.
transgressors liable to punishment in this life. All Divine laws oblige the conscience, i. e. render the transgressors liable to answer at Q-od's tribunal, and receive punishment at his hands ; but because very frequently both these obliga- tions concur, the same action comes to be commanded or for- bidden by both laws together, and so in these cases men's consciences are obliged. Men have thought that civil laws oblige their consciences to entire obedience ; whereas, in things in their own nature indifferent, the conscience is obliged only to active or passive obedience, and that not by virtue of that human law which the man either practises oris punished by, but by that law of G-od which forbids disturb- ance or dissolution of governments. The Gospel alters not in the least civil affairs, but leaves husband and wife, master and servant, magistrate and subject, every one of them, with the same power and privileges that it found them, neither more nor less ; and therefore, when the New Testament says, obey your superiors in all things, it cannot be thought that it laid any new obligation upon the Christians after their conversion, other than what they were under before ; nor that the magistrate had anyotherextent of jurisdiction over them than over his heathen subjects : so that the magistrate has the same power still over his Christian as he had over his heathen subjects ; so that, where he had power to command, they had stUl, notwithstanding the liberty and privileges of the Gospel, obligations to obey.
Now, amongst heathen politics (which cannot be supposed to be instituted by G-od for the preservation and propagation of true religion) there can be no other end assigned, but the preservation of the members of that society in peace and safety together: this being found to be the end,' will give us the rule of civil obedience. For if the end of civil society be civil peace, the immediate obligation of every subject must be to preserve that society or government which was ordained to produce it ; and no member of any society can possibly have any obligation of conscience beyond this. So that he that obeys the magistrate to the degree, as not to endanger or dis- turb the government, under what ibrm of government soever he live, fulfilling all the law of God concerning government, i. e. obeys to the utmost that the magistrate or society can oblige his conscience, which can be supposed to have no other
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rule set it bj God but this. The end of the institution being always the measure of the obligation of conscience then upon every subject, being to preserve the government, 'tis plain, that where any law is made with a penalty, is submitted to, i. e. the penally is quietly undergone, the government cannot be disturbed or endangered ; for whilst the magistrate has power to increase the penal^, even to the loss of life, and the subject submits patiently to the penalty, which he is in conscience obliged to do, the government can never be in danger, nor can the public want active obedience in any case where it hath power to require it under pain of death ; for no man can be supposed to refuse his active obedience in a lawful or indifferent thing, when the refusal will cost him his life, and lose all his civil rights at once, for want of per- forming one civil action ; for civil laws have only to do with civil actions.
This, thus stated, clears a man from that infinite number of sins that otherwise he must unavoidably be guilty of, if all penal laws oblige the conscience further than this. One thing further is to be considered, that all human laws are penal, for where the penalty is npt expressed, it is by the judge to be proportioned to the consequence and circumstance of the fault. See the practice of the King's Bench. Penal- ties are so necessary to civil laws, that Q-od found it neces sary to annex them even to the civil laws he gave the Jews.
29th. The goodness of Muscat wine to drmk depends on two causes, besides the pressing and ordering the fermenta- tion ; one is the soil they plant in, on which very much de- pends the goodness of the wine ; and it is a constant rule, setting aside all other quialities of the soil, that the vineyards must nave an opening towards the east or south, or else no good is to be expected. The other is a mingling of good sorts of vines in their vineyards. [Then follow description of plant- ing vineyards, manuring them : the same then of olives.]
Mar. 3rd. At the physical school, a scholar answering the first time, a professor moderating, six other professors oppose, with great violence of Latin, French, grimace, and hand.
5th. To Erontignan, thence to port Cette. The mole at Cette is a mighty work, and far advanced ; but the sand in the port now, and the breach made in the mole last winter, show how hard one defends a place against Neptune, which
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he attacks with great and small shot too. To the hot-batbs at Balaruc. Betum to Montpellier.
18th. The manner of making a doctor of physic was this : the procession, in scarlet robes and black caps ; the professor took his seat, and, after a company of fiddlers had played a certain time, he made them a sign to hold, that he might have an opportunity to entertain the company, which he did with a speech against innovation ; the musicians then took their turn. The inceptor then began his speech, wherein I found little edification, being designed to compliment the chancellor and professors who were present ; the doctor then put on his head the cap, that had marched in on the beadle's staff, in sign of his doctorship, put a ring on his finger, girt himself about the loins with a gold chain, made him sit down by him ; that, having taken pains, he might now take ease, and kissed and embraced him, in token of the friendship that ought to be amongst them.
Monsieur Eenaie, a gentleman of the town, in whose house Sir J. Eushworth lay, about four years ago, sacrificed a child to the devil — a child of a servant of his own, upon a design to get the devil to be his friend, and help him to get some money. Several murders committed here since I came, and more attempted ; one by a brother on his sister, in the house where I lay.
22nd. The new philosophy of Des Cartes prohibited to be taught in universities, schools, and academies.
24th. Dined at Lunel. To Aigues Mortes. The sea for- merly washed the walls, but is now removed a league from the town ; there remains only a little 6tang navigable for very little boats. In the walls on the south side the gates are walled up ; there are some iron rings yet remaining, and the sign of others that were fastened in the walls to secure *the vessels to. The town, said to have been built by St Louis, laid out very regularlv ; the Constance's Tower more ancient. The country roimd, a great plain for many leagues about, very much covered with water. Nigh the town is the Marquis de Yard's house, who is governor of the town and country about half a league about, as far as the tower la Carbonier. Passing between la Carbonier and the town, we saw abundance of partridges, hares, and other game, pre- served there by the smct order and seventy of the Maquis
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de Yard, who not long since clapped a townsman up in a little hole in Constance Tower, where he had just room to stand upright, but could not sit nor lie down, and kept him there three days, for committing some small t^respass on his game. The hedges in this country are all tamerisk.
At Picais is made all the salt that is used in this part of France: the manner is this; a great square pond, divided into squares by little banks, with channels between each to bring in the salt water, which is raised from the 6tang by wheels, with wooden buckets. They cover the squares or tables, as they call them, five or six inches deep ; and when the sun has«ezhaled almost all the moisture, they supply it with more sait-water, and so continue all the heat of the jrear : at the latter end, they have a cake of salt four or five inches thick, according to the heat and drought of the year. They that are owners of the soil, are at the charge of making the salt, and sell it to the farmers for five sous the minot ; a measure of seven inches deep, and twenty-three and a half diam., weighs one hundred and twenty pounds. The salt which the owner sells for five sous, the former sells again for sixteen livres. For this favour, they say, the farmers give two millions a-year to the King, and are at as much more charge in officers and guards employed, keeping constantly in pay 18,000 men. The defrauding the duty of the commodity is of such consequence, that if a man should be taken with but a handful of salt not bought from the far- mers, he would be sent to the galleys.
26th. From Pont Lunel to Castries two long leagues. Here, on the top of a hill, is the house of the Marquis de Castries ; it was begun to be built about eighteen years ago by the late Marquis, the governor of Montpellier. The house is two sides of a square, about sixty steps long, the other side unfinished. At the entrance into the house is the great stair, then the hall, and several other ordinary rooms ; all this lower story is arched. Below the house, lies a very spacious garden, with a very large basin in it, all imperfect except an aqueduct, which is a mighty work, too big, one would think, for a private house ; by this the water is brought a league distant for the house and garden ; some part in a covered channel, winding on the sides of the mountain; some part on a wall seven, eight, or ten feet high, as is occa
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sion ; and some part of the way over arches, some whereof are of a great height. To carry it from the side of a moun- tain, over a valley near the house, there are eighty-five arches, most above thirty feet in the clear; the pedestals of the arches ten or twelve feet; the arches are all turned with stone, four feet ten inches, which is the thickness of the arch. They say the house and aqueduct cost 400,000 livres. The descents to the gardens are not by steps, but by gentle decH- yities very easy and handsome ; the waUs on the sides of squared stones, just as high as the earth.
We met some travellers ; few with boots, many with cloaks, especially purple ; none without pistols, even those that rode into the fields to see their workmen.
27th. Hain. Imaginary space seems to me to be no more anything than an imaginary world ; for if a man and his soul remained, and the whole world were annihilated, there is left him the power of imagining either the world, or the extension it had, which is all one with the space it filled ; but it proves not that the imaginary space is anything real or positive. Por space or extension, separated in our thoughts from mat- ter or body, seems to have no more real existence than number has (sine enumeration) without anything to be numbered ; and one may as well say the number of the sea- sand does really exist, and is something, the world being an- nihilated, as that the space or extension of the sea does exist, or is anything, afber such annihilation. These are only af- fections of real existences ; the one, of any being whatsoever ; the other, only of material beings, which the mind has a power not only to conceive abstractedly, but increase by re- petition, or adding one to another, ana to enlarge which, it hath not any other ideas but those of quantity, which amount at last bat to the fEiculty of imagining and repeating, adding units, or numbering. But if the world were annihilated, one had no more reason to think space anything than the darkness that will certainly be in it.
28th. The christenings of the religion at Montpellier are about three hundred, and the funerals about two hundred and sixty.
31st. Many murders committed here. He that endea- voured to kill his sister in our house, had before killed a man, and it had cost his father five hundred 6cus to get him off;
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by their secret distribution, gaining the favour of the coun- sellors.
April 2nd. The Papists visit all the churches, or at least seven or eight, and in each say four Paternosters, and five Ave Marias. A crucifix is exposed on the rails of the altar, which they kiss with great devotion, and give money ; there being persons set at all the avenues of all the churches with basins to beg.
7th. To Aries. To Marseilles.
9th. A large valley, covered with country-houses, the finest views I had ever seen.
10th. We went on board the Eoyal, the Admiral's galley ; the slaves clad in the King's livery, blue, in the other gal- leys red. This galley has twenty-nine oars of a side, two hundred and eighty slaves, sixty seamen, five hundred sol- diers. The slaves in good plight. At the end of the quay are two docks to build gaueys; the docks are covered, to work out of the rain and sunshine. Every galley in this arsenal has its peculiar storehouse. Great bake-houses; storehouses for bread, biscuit, and meat. A great gallery one hundred and twenty fathoms long, to make ropes and cables. An armoury well furnished. A large hospital for sick slaves, all very fit and magnificent. There go out this year twenty-six gsdleys.
The quay is handsome, and full of people walking, especi- ally in the evening, where the best company meet. Round about the town is a valley encompassed with high tills, or rather rocks, and a vast number of little countrv-houses, called bastiles, which stand within a bow-shot one of another, some say nfear 20,000 in number. They have little plots of ground walled in about them, filled with vines and fruit-trees, olive-trees, artichokes, and com in most of them.
12th. Set out for Toulon. The mountains, though perfectly rocky, are covered with pine, out of which they draw their turpentine, by cutting the bark and sap of the tree seven or eight rings deep, out of which the turpentine oozes and runs down into a hole cut to receive it ; it is afterwards boiled to resin. When, after many years, this treatment has killed the trees, they make charcoal of them.
13th. The way between high mountains of rocks ; but where the valleys open and there is any earth, they endeavour
F 2
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to preserve it b j walls one above the other, on the side of the hills ; it is full of corn, vines, figs. Near Toulon, we saw gardens full of great orange trees, and myrtles on the sides of the road. In the fair weather the wind accompanies the sun, and blows east at morning, south at noon, west at night ; and in summer about noon, constantly a sea-breeze from the south.'
We saw the .port. In the basin rode the Boyal Louis, one hundred and sixty-three feet long, forty-five wide, mightDy adorned with gilded figures ; cost of gilding 150,000 Hvres. She has portals for one hundred and twenty guns. The Dauphin, of one hundred guns, lies near her ; by them lay four other great vessels, and nine vessels in the port. The port is very large, capable of holding the biggest fleet in Europe, and in the basin itself there is room for a great fleet. It is separated from the road by a mole, made within these four or five years. The water in most places deep. — Memo- randa : A pump with balls instead of windfalls. The crane with the worm.
To Hyeres three leagues. Hyeres is situated on the south side of a high mountain. Below the town, the side of the hiU is covered with orange gardens. Eij)e China oranges in incredible plenty, sometimes nine or ten in a bunch. These gardens form the most delightful wood I had ever seen: there are little rivulets of water conveyed tnrough it to water the trees in summer, without which there would be little fruit. The piece of ground, which formerly yielded thirty-six charges of corn, now yields the owner 30 or 40,000 livres, or rather 18,000, as he pays to the king four hundred ecus for tax. For the best China oranges here we were asked thirty sous per hundred.
Here we had for supper, amongst other things, a dish of green beans, dressed with gravy, the best thing I ever eat. Above the town is a nunnery, of the order of St Bernard, of persons of quality ; they all eat alone in their chambers apart, keep a maid-servant and a lackey, and go out of the nunnery and walk about where they please. The situation very plea- sant, overlooking the town, the valley, the orange-gardens, and the sea.
[The journal is continued, and a descnption given of the country and cultivation by St Maximin to Aix :] Thence to
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Vauduse, the famous fountain just at the foot of an exceed- ing high rock ; the basin is a stone's cast over ; the water runs out amongst the rocks, and is the source of a great river in the valley below, and has all its water from hence. The basin about Easter is usually a yard or two higher, as one may see by the mark ; about August it sinks about twenty- five cans below the height it was now ; they say they cannot find any bottom.
Thence by Avignon ; crossed the Ehone to the Carthusian Convent, where are sixty friars ; their chapel well adorned with plate, crosses, and relics, very rich ; amongst the rest, a chakce of gold, given by E6n6, the last King of Naples of the Anjou race. I was going to take it; in my hand, but the Carthusian withdrew it till he had put a cloth about the handle, and so gave it into my hand, nobody being suffered to touch these holy things but a priest. In this chapel Pope Innocent VI. lies interred ; he died 1362. In a little chapel in their convent stands a plain old chair, wherein he was in* fallible : I sat too little a while in it to get that privilege. In their devotions they use much prostration and kissing the ground; they leave no more hai^ but one little circle growing round their heads, which is cut as short as one's whiskers. They have each a little habitation apart; their chapel, hall, and refectory very clean.
A league from Avignon, we passed the Durance, and then left the Pope's dominions ; the rest of the way to Tarascon was on the side of a not unfruitful valley, but seemed not to be so well cultivated : moderate taxes, and a freedom from quarter, give the Pope's subjects, as it seems, more industry. "Five companies of the regiment of Champagne, poor weak tattered fellows, return to
Montpellier, May 1st. The rent of lands in France fallen one half in these few years, by reason of the poverty of the people ; merchants and handicraftsmen pay near half their gain. Noble land pays nothing in Languedoc in whose hands soever : in some other parts of France, lands in the bands of the nobles, of what sort soever, pay nothing : these noble lands, which are exempted from taxes, sell for one-half and two-thirds more than others. The Protestants in France are thought to be one sixteenth part ; in Languedoc 200,000.
For returns of money, Mr Herbert found this train very
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good, and the men very civil. Mr Bouverie, in St Mary Axe, to Madame Herinx et son fils a Paris ; they to Messrs Covureur a Lyon ; they to Sen. Jacomo et Jo. Morleves, at Livorne ; they to their correspondent at Bome.
Eogation Procession, May 16th. Several orders of Eriars, with a great company of little children dressed up, carrying pictures and banners ; this is Rogation week for a blessing on the fruits of the earth, which, though little children can- not pray for, yet the prayers being made in their names, and offered up as from them by the parents and friends of those innocents, they think will be more prevalent.
[Description of silk-worms, of making soap, of bleaching wax, at great length, all omitted. Several extracts from statistical works on France, revenues of the Church of Trance, the same of Spain, all likewise omitted.]
Locke, during his residence at Montpellier, emploved his leisure in reading books of travels, of the best of which he was a great admirer. At this time he read Bemier's Account of Hindoostan, a work of the greatest merit, and still held in high estimation ; Delia Valle's Travels in the East. Of other books, the most frequent extracts are from Les Entretiens d' Ariste : a few specimens are here inserted.
" Le bon sens est gay, vif, plein de feu, come celuy qui paroist dans les Essays de Montaigne et dans le Testament de la Hoquette.
" Le Cavalier Marin n'est pas un bel esprit, car il ne s'est jamais vu une imagination plus fertile, ni moins regime que la sienne ; s*il parle d'une rose, il en dit tout ce qu'on pent imaginer ; bien loin de rejetter ce qui se pr^sente, il va cher- cher ce qui ne se presente pas ; il 6puise toujours son sujet.
Le Tasse n'est pas toujours le plus raisonnable du monde ; k la verite on ne pent pas avoir plus de genie qu*il en a. Ses imaginations sont nobles et agr^ables, ses sentimens sent forts ou delicats selon ce que le sujet en demande ; ses pas- sions sont bien touch^es, et bien conduites, toutes ses com- paraisons sont justes, toutes ses descriptions sont merveil- leuses ; mais son g6nie Temporte quelquefois trop loin ; il est trop fleuri en quelques endroits. II badine dans les endroits assez serieux ; il ne garde pas aussi exactement que Virgile toutes les biens^ances des moeurs.
" C*est un des grands talens de Voiture de choisir ce qu'il
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J a ae bon dans les livres, et le rendre meilleur par Tusage qu'il en fait. En imitant les autres, il s'est rendu inimitable ; les traits qu'il en emprunte quelque fois de Terence, et d'Horace, semblent faits pour son sujet, et sont bien plus beaux dans les endroits ou il les met, que dans ceux d*ou il les a pris.
" Gracian est parmi les Espagnols modemes un de ces genies incomprehensibles : il a oeaucoup d*^l^yation, de sub- Hmite, de force, et meme de bon sens : mais on ne sait le plus souvent ce qu'il veut dire ; et il ne S9ait pas peut-^tre luj m^me : quelques-uns de ses ouvrages ne semblent 6tre £Eiit8 que pour n*etre point entendus.
'' Ges diseurs 6temels de beaux mots et de belles sen- tences : ces copistes et ces singes de Seneque, ces Mancini, ces Malvezze et ces Loredans qui courent toujours apres les brillans ; et j'ay bien de la peine de souffrir Seneque luy mSme avec ses points, et sea antitheses perp^tuelles."
In March, 16^7, Locke quitted Montpeluer, where he had resided fourteen mpnths, and travelled by the way of Toulouse and Bourdeaux towards Paris.
Extract, May 14, 1677. I rode out, and, amongst other things, I saw the President Pontac's vineyard at Hautbrion ; it is a little rise of ^ound, open most to the west ; white sand mixed with a httle gravel, scarce fit to bear anything. The vines are trained, some to stakes, and some to laths ; not understanding G^scoin, I could not learn the cause of the difference from the workmen. This ground may be estimated to yield about twenty-five tun of wine ; however, the owner makes a shifb to make every vintage fifty, which he sells for 105 6cus per tun : it was sold some years since for sixty, but the English have raised the market on themselves. This, however, they say, that the wine in the very next vineyard to it, though seeming equal to me, is not so good. A tun of wine (1^ hogsheads !&iglish, or perhaps four per cent, more) of the best quality at Bourdeaux, which is that of Medoc or Pontac, is worth, the first penny, 80 or 100 crowns : for this the English may thank their own folly ; for whereas, some years since, the same wine was sold for fifty or sixty crowns per tun, the fashionable, sending over orders to have the best wine sent them at any rate, they have, by striving who should get it, brought it up to that price; but very
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good wines may be bad bere for tbirty-five, forty, and fifily crowns.
Tbe journey is tben continued by Poictiers and Tours.
26tb. Tours stands upon a little rise, between tbe Loire and tbe Cber, witb very good meadows on tbe soutb side ; it is a long town, well peopled, and tbriving, wbicb it owes to tbe great manufacture of silk.
Tney gave tbe King tbis year 45,000 livres, to be excused from winter quarters, wbicb came to one-tentb on tbe rent of tbeir bouses. Wine and wood tbat enter tbe town pay tax to tbe King ; besides, be sends to tbe several companies of tbe trades for so mucb money as be tbinks fit ; tbe officer of eacb corps de mestier taxes every one according to bis wortb ; wbicb, perbaps, amounts to one 6cu, or four livres, a man. But a bourgeois tbat lives in tbe town, if be bave land in tbe country and lets it, pays notbing ; but tbe paisanfc wbo rents it, tf be be wortb anytbing, pays for wbat be bas, but be makes no defalcation of bis rent. Tbe manner of taxing in tbe country is tbis : tbe tax to be paid being laid upon tbe parisb, tbe collectors for tbe jear assess every one of tbe inbabitants, according as tbey judge bim worth, but consider not tbe land in tbe parisb belonging to any living out of it ; tbis is tbat wbicb so grinds tbe paisant in France. Tbe collectors make tbeir rates usually witb great inequality ; tbere lies an appeal for tbe over-taxed, but I find not tbat tbe remedy is made mucb use of.
Arrived at Paris, June 2nd. At tbe King's Library, tbe MS. Livy ; Henry the Fourth's love-letters in bis own hand; tbe first Bible ever printed, 1462, upon vellum ; but wbat seemed of all tbe most curious, was eighteen large folios of plants, drawn to tbe life, and six of birds, so exactly well done, tbat whoever knew any of tbe plants or birds before, would then know them at first sight ; they were done by one Mr Eobert, who is still employed witb the same work. M. Silvester is employed in drawmg tbe King's twelve houses. Tbe library keeper told us tbere were 14,000 MSS.
Aug. 7th. M. Colbert's son answered in philosophy at tbe Cordeliers, his brother moderating over him, where were present three Cardinals, BoulHon, D'Estr^, and Bontzi, tbe Premier President of the Parliament of Paris, a great num- ber of bishops and clergy^ and of tbe long robe, a state
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being ere^;ted for the Dauphin, to whom his thesis was dedicated.
At Mr Butterfield's, au roy d' Angleterre, I saw a levelling instrument, made to hang and turn horizontallj : the sight was taken by a perspective glass of four glasses, about a foot long ; between the nrst and second glass was placed a single filament of silk stretched horizontally, by which the level wa« taken ; there was a heavy weight of lead hung down perpen« dicular about a foot long, to keep the telescope horizontal.
28th. The Jacobins in Paris fell into civil war one with another, and went together by the ears, and the battle arew BO fierce between them, that the convent was not brge enough to contain the combatants, but that several of them sallied out into the streets, and there cuffed it out stoutly. The occasion, they say, was, that the Prior endeavoured to reduce them into a stricter way of living than they had for some time past observed, for which, in the firay, he was soundly beaten. At the Observatory we saw the Moon in a twenty-two foot glass, and Jupiter, with his satellites, in the same. The most remote was on the east, and the other three on the west. We saw also Saturn and his ring, in a twelve- foot glass, and one of his satellites. Monsieur Cassini told me, that the declination of the needle at Pans is about two and a half degrees to the west.
Monsieur Bemier told me that the heathens of Hindoostan pretend to ^eat antiquity ; that they have books and his- tories in their language ; that their nodus in their numbers is ten, as ours, and their circuit of days seven. That they are in niunber about ten to one to the Mahometans. That Aurengezebe had lately engaged himself very inconveniently in wars with them upon account of religion, endeavouring to bring them by force to Mahometanism. And, to discourage and bring over the Banians, or undo them, he had given ex- emption of customs to the trading Mahometans, by which means his revenue was much lessened ; the Banians mak^ing use of the names of Mahometans to trade under, and so eluding his partiality.
4th. Saw the Palais Mazariu ; a house very well furnished with pictures and statues, and cabinets in great plenty, and veiT fine. The roofs of the rooms extremdy richly painted and
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Garde Meubles at tlie Louvre. We saw abundance of riches both in agate, gold, and silver vessels. Two frames of looking-glasses newly made, each weighed in silver 2400 marks, each mark, so wrought, costing' the King fiftj-two livres; and beds exceedingly rich in embroidery; one of which was begun by Francis the First, which Cardinal Eiche- lieu had fbiished, and presented the King, cost 200,000 6cus.
At the G-obelins we saw the hangings ; very rich and good figures. In every piece, Louis le Grand was the hero, and the rest the marks of some conquest. Li one, his making a league with the Swiss, where he lays his hand on the book to swear the articles, with his hat on, and the Swiss ambassador, in a submissive posture, with his hat oflF".
From Paris to Versailles four leagues. The chateau there a fine house, and a much finer garden, situated on a little rise of ground, having a morass on the east side of it, and though a place naturally without water, has more jet d'eaux and water-works than are elsewhere to be seen. Looking out from the King's apartments, one sees almost nothing but water for a whole league forward ; basins, jet d'eaux, a canal, in which is a man of war of thirty guns, two yachts, and several lesser vessels. The cascades, basins, &o. in the garden are so many, and so variously contrived, it would require much time to describe them. We had the honour to see them with the King, who walked about with Madame Mon- tespan, from one to another, after having driven her and two other ladies in the coach with him about a good part of the garden. The coach had six horses. The rooms at the cha- teau are but little, and the stairs seem very little in propor- tion to the greatness of the persons who are to mount by them.
The great men's houses seem at first sight to stand irre- gularly, scattered at a distance, like cottages in a country village, amongst which the chateau, being higher and bigger than the rest, looks like the manor-house. But when one takes a view of them from the centre of the chateau, they appear to be ranged in good order, and they make a pleasing prospect, considering they are in a place where Nature seems to have conferred no favour.
We saw the house and lodgings ; the King and Queen's apartments are very fine, but little rooms, near square. In
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the new lodgings they are somewhat bigger ; there are six of them, one within another, all vaulted roofs. The King's cupboard is without the room, on the stair-head in the pas- sage, and standing in the hollow of a window ; and so is the Dauphin's on the other side the court, on the stairs that go up there : both the King apd he eat in the rooms next the stairs, and have no antechamber to them. The water that is employed in the garden, is raised into a reservoir over the grotto, out of a well, by ten horses that turn two spindles, and keep two pumps continually going ; and into the well it is raisedf out of an ^tang in the bottom by windmills : out of the works in the garden it falls into the canal, and so to the 6tang again. One hundred and twenty horses are employed night and day to supply the ^tang.
• • • • •
Pans. At the Academy for Painting and Sculpture, one sees in the great room several pieces done by the chief mas- ters of that academy.
They are about eighty in number ; out of them are chosen two every two months to teach those who are admitted. The King gives a prize by the hands of Monsieur Colbert, who is protector of this academy ; the prizes three or four medals of gold, worth four hundred livres. Those usually who get it are sent into Italy, and maintained there at the King's cost to perfect them.
24th. From Paris to Fontarableau. One passes through the great forest for three or four miles, before one comes to the town, situated in a little open plain, encompassed with rocky, woody hUls.
At night we saw the opera of Aiceste. The King and Queen sat on chairs with arms ; on the right hand of the King sat Madame Montespan, and a little nearer the stage, on her right hand, Mademoiselle the King of England's niece : on the lefb hand of the Queen sat Monsieur, and at his lefb hand, advancing towards the stage, Madame, and so forward towards the stage other ladies of the Court, all on tabourets except the King and Queen.
We saw the house at Pontainbleau, and at night a ball, where the King and Queen and the great persons of the Court danced, and the King himself took pains to clear the
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room to make place for the danci^rs. The Queen was very rich in jewels : the King and Queen, &c. were placed as at the Opera, ^he Due d'Enghien sat behind.
At I'ontainbleau the King and Court went a stag-hunting in the afternoon, and at night had an opera, at all which Madame appeared in a peruke, and upper part dressed like a man.
Feb. 1st, 1678. I saw the review of the gardes du corps, the musquetaires, and the grenadiers, in the plain de Duue, near St G-ermain. The garde du corps, eleven or twelve squadrons, and might be 1200 or 1400 men, all lustj, well horsed, and well clad, all in blue, new, and alike, even to their hats and gloves; armed with pistols, carabines, and long back-swords, with well-guarded hilts, llie musquetaires were foiur squadrons, about 400 men, clad all alike in red coats, but their cloaks blue. Their hats and gloves all the same, even to the ribbons : they aU wore great whiskers ; I think all black, thinking perhaps to make themselves more terrible ; their arms, pistols, carabine, and other things, fit for the manage of their granados.
The King came to take a view of these troops between eleven and twelve o'clock, which he did so narrowly that he made them, squadron after squadron, march in file, man after man, just before him, and made the number in each squadron, as they passed, be counted, taking in the mean time a strict survey of their horses. The King, when he alighted out of his coach, had a hat laced about the edge with gold lace, and a white feather ; after a while he had been on horseback, it beginning to rain, he changed it for a plain hat that had only a black ribbon about it, and was I think by the Audace k Cordebec.
The Queen towards the latter end came in a coach and eight horses : the King led her along the head of all these squadrons, they being drawn up all in a line three deep, with little intervals between each squadron. At going off the field, which was at three in the afternoon, the grenadiers were made to exercise before him, which was done very readi- ^ ly by wheeling every four men of the same rank together, by which means they without any disorder faced about, and were immediately in rank again. When this was done, the King went alone into his chariot, taking his best hat again,
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and returned. There were at this muster two Marshals of France, viz. Luxembourg and De Lorge, each of them Cap- tain of a company of gardes du corps, at the head of which each of them took his place, and saluted the King as he re- turned, having passed along all these squadrons.
May 26th, 1678. At the Garde Meubles no increase, that I found, of silver vessels, but rather a diminution since I saw it last in October. Sumptuary laws, when the age inclines to luxury, do not restrain, but rather increase the evil, as one may observe in Tacitus, An. 1. 3. Perhaps the better way to set bounds to people's expenses, and hinder them from spending beyond their income, would be to enact that no landed men should be obliged to pay any book-debt to tradesmen, whereby the interest of tradesmen would make them very cautious of trusting those who usually are the leaders of fashions, and thereby a great restraint would be brought on the usual excess; on the other hand, the credit of poor labouring people would be preserved as before for the supply of their necessities.
June 5th. Invalides, a great hospital nearly finished. Abbeys, priories, and monasteries, were formerly obliged to entertain, some two, some five lay-brothers, which were maimed soldiers ; the maintenance came to be changed into a pension of 100 Hvres per ann. for each person ; this, some few years ago, was augmented to 150 livres per ann., and presently afterwards taken from the present possessors, and applied to the invalids, beside which, all the lands and revenues belonging to Hospitals for lepers are appropriated to the Invalides.
Locke quitted Paris in July, returning to Montpellier by the way of Tours, Orleans, and by the road leading towards Eocheile.
Many of the towns they called bourgs ; but considering how poor and few the houses in most of them are, would in England scarce amount to villages. The houses generally were but one story ; and though such low buildings cost not much to keep them up, yet, like groveling bodies without souls, they also sink lower when they want inhabitants, of which sort of ruins we saw great numbers in all these bourgs, whereby one would guess that the people of France do not at present increase ; but yet the country is all tilled
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and cultivated. The gentlemen* s seats, of wliich we saw many, were most of them rather bearing marks of decay than of thriving and being well kept, except the great chateau de Richelieu, the moat complete piece of building in France, where on the outside is exact symmetry, in the in- side convenience, riches, and beauty, the richest gildiug, the finest statues ; the avenues on aU sides exceeding handsome and magnificent ; the situation low and unhealthy : the town is built with the same exactness, and though it has not the convenience of a town of great trade, yet the great privileges the Cardinal has got settled upon it, it being a free town, exempt from taille and salt, vinll always keep it full of people, and the houses dear in it.
August 10th. Vernet, the seat of the Abbe Defiat, son of the Marshal D'Efiat : he has several church benefices, which makes him a great revenue ; they talk of 90,000 livres.
Great Abbey of Normoutier, where the new buildings, not yet finished, are very handsome ; the gardens large, but the cellars much larger, being cut in under the sides of the hill into the rock : they had the last year there 1380 pieces of wine; we saw a great cave which will hold 200 tuns of wine.
At Niort they complained of the oppression and grievance suffered by the quartering of troops on the inhabitants : here a poor bookseller's wife, who by the largeness and furniture of her shop seemed not to have either much stock or trade, told me that there being last winter 1200 soldiers quartered in the town, two were appointed for their share, which, considering that they were to have three meals a day of fiesh, besides a collation in the afternoon, aU which waa better to give them, and a fifth meal too if they desired it, rather than displease them; these two soldiers, for three months and a half they were there, cost them at least forty ecus.
Sept 15th. Bordeaux. They usually have in a year for the trade of this part of Trance 2000 vessels ; the present pro- hibitions in England trouble them : all wines low in price, except the best Fontac and Medoc.
Saw the chateau Trompett, a strong fort on the river side, of four bastions ; one of the best streets and four churches have been pulled down to set the citadel in a fair open
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roaoe : a house was yet pulling down when we were there that had cost lately the building about 50,000 ^cus. There are in the garrison 600 French soldiers and 200 Swiss ; the Erench have two sous per diem, and bread, which is worth about one more; the Swiss have five sous per diem aqd bread.
We rode abroad a league or two into the country west- ward, which they call G-rave, from whence comes the Grave wine ; all vineyard. Talking with a poor paisant, he told me he had three children ; that he usually got seven sous a day, finding himself, which was to maintain their family, five in number. His wife got three sous when she could get work, which was but seldom ; other times the spinning, which was for their cloth, yielded more money. Out of these seven sous they five were to be maintained, and house-rent paid, and their taille, and Sundays, and holidays provided lor. For their house, which, Gk)d wot! was a poor one- room, one story, open to the tiles, without windows, and a Httle vineyard, which was as bad as nothing — (for though they made out of it four or five tiers of wine, three tiers make two hogsheads, yet the labour and cost about the vine- yard, making the wine, and cost of the casks to put it in, being cast up, the profit of it was very little), — ^they paid twelve ^cus for rent, and for taille four livres, for which, not long since, the collector had taken their fiying-pan and dishes, money not being ready. Their ordinary food rye- bread and water ; flesh seldom seasons their pots : they can make no distinction between flesh and fasting days, but when their money reaches to a more costly meal, they buy the inwards of some beast in the market, and then they feast themselves. In Xantonge, and several other parts of France, the paisants are much more miserable : the paisants who live in Grave they count to be flourishing.
Taxes : one-eighth of the purchase to be paid of all church or corporation lands that have at any time been alienated : if they be decayed since the purchase, they pay one-eighth of the purchase ; if meliorated, they pay according to the improved value. He that refuses hath a garrison of soldiers presently sent to his house.
Saw the Carthusian convent a quarter of a mile without the town ; the altar adorned with pillars of the finest marble
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that I have seen ; the marble of so excellent a kind (inter- laced with veins, as it were, of gold), that the King hath been tempted to send for them away.
Sept. 26th. From Bordeaux to Cadillac. Saw the great chateau built by the D. d'Espemon, built on three sides of a court, as all the great houses in France are, four stories high, and much more capacious than the chateau of Eiche- lieu ; a broad long terrace wall surrounds the building.
At Toulouse saw the Charteraux, very large and fine ; saw the reliques at St Semin, where they have the greatest store of them that I have met with ; besides others, there are six Apostles, and the head of the seventh, viz. two Jameses, Philip, Simon, Jude, Barnabas, and the head of Barthelmy. We were told of the wonders these and other reliques had done being carried in procession, but more especially the head of St Edward, one of our Kings of England, which, carried in procession, deKvered the town from a plague some years since.
[Locke arrived at Montpellier the middle of October, and after a short residence of less than a fortnight, set out before the end of the month on his return to Paris, by way of Lyons and Orleans, having probably been recalled by Shaftesbury, who was then at the head of the English aaministration. The particulars of this journey home are omitted. The mode of travelling at that time was generally on horseback, hired from one great town to another ; the day's journey seven, eight, and ten leagues ; the hire of horses for a journey three livres a-day for three horses, and three livres for their meat ; to the guide that rode one, ten sous a day for his hire, and ten sous for his meat, and the same rate of seven livres a day for the return. Twenty sous, dinner ; thirty sous, coucher.
He arrived at Paris the latter end of November, and remained there about five months.
At this time are many notes of and comparison between French and English measures ; of length and capacity, oi weight and fineness, of the respective monies oi the two countries, and of Holland, ascertained by experiment and by information furnished by M. Briot, M. Toynard, and Bomer.]
Dec. 20th. In the library of the Abb^ of St G^rmainB,
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M. Covell and I saw two Yery old manuscripts of the ^ew Testament, the newest of which was, as appeared by the date of it, at least 800 years old, in each of which 1 John, ch.v. ver.7, was quite wanting, and the end of the eighth verse ran thus, " tres unum sunt ;" in another old copy the seventh verse was, but with interlining; in another much more modem copy, ver. 7 was also, but differently from the old copy; and in two other old manuscripts, also, ver. 7 was quite out, but as I remember in all of them the end of the eighth verse was "tres unum sunt."
The story of the nuns of Lodun possessed, was nothing but a contrivance of Cardinal Eichelieu to destroy G-raudier, a man he suspected to have wrote a book against him, who was condemned for witchcraft in the case, and burnt for it. The scene was managed by the Capuchins, and the nuns played their tricks well, but all was a cheat.
23rd. At the King's levee, which I saw this morning at St Germains, there is nothing so remarkable as his great devotion, which is very exemplary ; for as soon as ever he is dressed, he goes to his bed-side, where he kneels down to his prayers, several priests kneeling by him, in which posture he continues for a pretty while, not oeing disturbed by the noise and buzz of the rest of the chamber, which is full of people standing and talking one to another.
The Marquis de Bordage, who married M. Turenne's niece, being at Rome about the year 66 or 67, being at a mass where the Pope was present, and not above a yard or two -from him, a very considerable Cardinal, who waa just by him, asked him just after the elevation : " Che dice vostra Signioria di tutta qufista fenfantaria ? "
# # 4f • •
Amongst other things, M. Covell told me how the patriarchs of Constantinople are made at present by the Grand Seignior ! how they buy out one another ; and how the non-conformist Protestants were induced by him to take the sacrament kneeling.
1679 — January 4th. This day was the review of the in- fantry of the Maison du Roi. There were thirty companies, if one may reckon by their colours, of French, and ten of Swiss, all new habited. The officers of the French, gold embroidery on blue ; the Swiss, gold embroidery on red, and
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mucli the richer. The French common soldiers all in new clothes : the coat and breeches of cloth almost white ; red vests laced with counterfeit silver lace; as much as was seen, at least, was red cloth, though if one looked further, one should have found it grafted to linen; shoulder-belt&, and bandeliers of buff leather, laced at their vests; red stockings, a new hat laced, adorned with a great white woollen feather — some were red ; a new pair of white gloves with woollen fringe, and a new sword, copper gQt hilt ; aU which, I am told, with a coat of grey stuff to wear over it, cost forty-four Hvres, which is abated out of their pay ; of which, all defalcations made, there remains for their main- tenance five sous per diem. The soldiers, as I overtook thein coming home to JParis, had most of them oiled hat cases, a pSLit, I suppose, of their furniture, and coarse linen bus- kins, after the fashion of their country, to save their red stockings. The Swiss soldiers were habited in red coats and blue breeches cut after their fashion, with their points at their knees, and had no feathers. The pike-men of both had back and breast-plates ; but the Swiss also had head-pieces, which the French had not. For the Swiss, the King pays each captain for himself, and all the men in his company, eighteen livres per mensem ; the captain's profit lies in this, that he agrees with his officers as he can, and so with the soldiers, who have some ten, some fourteen livres per men- sem, as they can agree.
The King passed at the head of the line as they stood drawn up ; the officers at the head of their companies and regiments in armour, with pikes in their hands, saluting him with their pikes, then with their hats. He very courteously put off his hat to them again ; so he did, when taking hia stand they marched before him. He passed twice along the whole front forwards and backwards; first by himself, the Dauphin, &c. accompanying him ; and then with the Queen, he nding by her coach side.
The sergeants complaining that their pay would not reach to make them so fine as was required, i. e. scarlet coats with true gold galloon ; to make them amends for it, they were allowed to take more on their quarters. The French for ex- cusing from quarters make them pay twenty -four, the Swiss but eighteen livres.
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At Paris, the bills of mortality usually amount to 19 or 20,000 ; and they count in the town about 600,000 souls, 50,000 more than at London, where the bills are less. Quere, whether the Quakers, Anabaptists, and Jews, that die in London, are reckoned in the bills of mortality.
Exchange on London fifty-four pence five-eighths d' Angle- terre, for one ^cu of France ; so, with commission, <fec., I re- ceived 1306 livres two sous for £100 sterling.
M. Toinard showed me a new system of our tourbillion, wherein the centre of the sun described a circle of the tour- billion, in which it made its periodical circuit, and Mercury moved about the sun as the moon does about the earth.
Pomey and Chanson were burnt at Paris about the year 64, for keeping a bawdy-house of Catemites. M. Toinard.
February 13th. I saw the library of M. de Thou, a great collection of choice, well-bound books, which are now to be sold ; amongst others, a Ghreek manuscript, written by one Angelot, by which Stephens' Greek characters were first made. There was also a picture of a procession in the time of the League, wherein the monks of the several orders are represented armed, as indeed they were. Here also I had the honoxir to see the Prince of Conti, now in his seven- teenth year, a very comely young gentleman ; but the beauty of his mind far excels that of his body, being for his age veiy learned. He speaks Italian and German as a native, understands Latin well, Spanish indifierently, and is, as I am told, going to learn English : a great lover of justice and honour, very civil and obliging to all, and desires the ac- quaintance of persons of merit of any kind ; and though I can pretend to none that might recommend me to one of the first princes of the blood of France, yet he did me the honour to ask me several questions then, and to repeat his commands to me to wait upon him at his house.
Friday. The observation of Lent at Paris is come almost to nothing. Meat is openly to be had in the shambles, and a dispensation commonly to be had from the curate without difficulty. People of sense laugh at it, and in Italy itself, for twenty sous, a dispensation is certainly to be had. The best edition of the French Bible is that in folio, in two vols., Elzevir, but the notes are not very good. The best notes aro
o2
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those of Diodati, and his Italian Bible is very good. Mr Justel.
They tell here, that the Bishop of Bellay having writ against the Capuchins, and they against him, Cardinal Eiche- lieu undertook their reconciliation, and they both promised peace ; but the Capuchins writing again under another name, the Bishop replied ; so that the Cardinal, seeing him some time after, told him, that had he held his peace he would have canonized him. "That would do well," replied the Bishop, " for then we should each of us have what we desire ; i. e. one should be a Pope, and the other a saint."
Cardinal Eichelieu having given him the Prince of Balzac and the Minister Silhon to read (which he had caused to be writ, one as a character of the King, and the other of him- self), demanded one day, before the King, his opinion of them ; to which the Bishop replied, " Le Prince n'est pas grand chose, et le Ministre ne vaut rien ! "
A devout lady being sick, and besieged by the Cannes, made her will, and gave them all : the Bishop of Bellay com- ing to see her, after it was done, asked whether she had made her will ; she answered yes, and told him how ; he convinced her it was not well, and she desiring to alter it, found a difficulty how to do it, being so beset by the friars. The Bishop bid her not trouble herself for it, but presently took order that two notaries, habited as physicians, should come to her, who being by her bed-side, the Bishop told the com- pany it was convenient all should withdraw ; and so the for- mer will was revoked, and a new one made and put into the Bishop's hands. The lady dies, the Cannes produce their will, and for some time the Bishop lets them enjoy the plea- sure of their inheritance ; but at last, taking out the other will, he says to them, " Mes freres, you are the sons of Eliah, children of the Old Testament, and have no share in the New." This is that Bishop of Bellay who has writ so much against monks and monkery.
II y a ^ Paris vingt-quatre belles maisons qu'on pent voir; Luxembourg L'Hotel de Guise — de Soissons — de la Basinierre ■ de la Perte
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L'Hotel de Qrammont
de M. Colbert
de la Vrillierre
de Mazariu
de Lyonne
Bretonyilliera
. Justin
de M. Lambert
de Chaumont
- de Lesdiguiers
de Conti
de Lamoignon
de Jars
de Turenne
M. Amelot Bisicul
M. de Boisfranc
de Vendome
d'Espemon
de Longueville.
The Memoires de Sully are full of falsities and self-flattery, so concluded by the company chez Mr Justel; the same which Mr Falayseau had before told me : those of the Due de Ghuise, a romance; but those of Modena, concerning Naples, good.
I saw the Pere Cherubin, the Capuchin so famous for optics, at least the practical part in telescopes, at his convent in the Bue St Honor6.
The Capuchins are the strictest and severest order in France, so that to mortify those of their order, they com- mand them the most unreasonable things, irrational and ridiculous : as to plant cabbage-plants the roots upwards, and then reprehend them, the planters, because they do not grow. As soon as they find any one to have any inclinations any way, as Pere Cherubin in optics and telescopes, to take from him all that he has done, or may be useful to him in that science, and employ him in something quite contrary ; but he has now a particular lock and key to his cell, which the guardian's key opeus not.
This severity makes them not compassionate one to an- other, whatever they would be to others.
Within this year past, were bUls set up about Paris, with
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a privilege for a receipt to kill lice, whereof the Duke of Bouillon had the monopoly, and the bills were in his name.
" Par permission et privilege du Eoy, accords k perpetuite a Monsieur le Due de Bouillon, Grand Cbambellan de France, par lettres patentes du 17 Sept. 1677, verifies en Parlement par arret du 13 Dec. au dit an, le publique sera averti que 1 on vend k Paris un petit sachet de la grandeur d'une piece de quinze sols, pour garantir toute sorte de per- sonnes de la vermine, et en retirer ceux qui en sont incom- modes sans mercure.
'* 11 est fait defense k toutes personnes de le faire, ni con- trefaire, k peine de trois miUe hvres d'amende." Eitrait de Taffiche.
At the seminary of St Sulpice, over the door opposite to the gate, is the Virgin, a child crowning her, and under her feet this inscription : Interveni pro clero.
The Protestants within these twenty years have had above three hundred churches demolished, and within these two months fifteen more condemned.
[During his residence at Paris, Locke made acquaintance with Mr Justel (whose house wad then the resort of the literati of France), and with him he continued to correspond lon^ after his return to England. He also formed an ac- quaintance with Mr Guenelon, the celebrated physician of Amsterdam, whose friendship was most useful some years afterwards, during his retreat in Holland. He became also intimately acquainted with Monsieur Toinard, the author of Harmonia Evangeliorum.
At tbe beginning of May, Locke lefb Paris, and arrived in the Thames on the 8th ; he resided for some time at Thanet- House in Aldersgate-street, Shaftesbury being then at the head of the English administration.
Before proceeding further, it will be proper here to insert the notes and dissertations on different subjects scattered at intervals through the Journal.]
CKOWIiSDGE, ITS EXTENT ASD MBASXTBE.
Quod Yolumiis facile credimns.
Feb. 8, 1677.— Question. How far, and by what meanSi the will works upon the understanding and assent t
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Our minds are not made as large as truth, nor suited to the whole extent of things j amongst those that come within its reach, it meets with a great many too hig for its grasp, and there are not a few that it is fair to give up as in- comprehensible. It finds itself lost in the vast extent of space, and the least particle of matter puzzles it with an in- conceivable divisibility ; and those who, out of a great care not to admit unintelligible things, deny or question an eter- nal omniscient spirit, run themselves into a greater difficulty by making an eternal and intelligent matter. Nay, our minds, whdst they think and (*****) our bodies, find it past their capacity to conceive how they do the one or the other.
This state of our minds, however remote from the perfec- tion whereof we ourselves have an idea, ought not, however, to discourage our endeavours in the search of truth, or make us think we are incapable of knowing anything, because we cannot understand aU things. We shall find that we are sent out into the world furnished with those faculties that are fit to obtain knowledge, and knowledge sufficient, if we will but confine it within those purposes, and direct it to those ends, which the constitution of our nature, and the cir- cumstance of our being, point out to us.
If we consider ourselves in the condition we are in the world, we cannot but observe that we are in an estate, the necessities whereof call for a constant supply of meat, drink, clothing, and defence from the weather ; and our conveni- ences demand yet a great deal more. To provide these things, Nature furnishes us only with the material, for the most part rough, and unfitted to our use ; it requires labour, art, and thought, to suit them to our occasions ; and if the knowledge oi man had not found out ways to shorten tho labour, and improve several things which seem not, at first sight, to be of any use to us, we should spend all our time to make a scanty provision for a poor and miserable life : a suf- ficient instance whereof we have in the inhabitants of that large and fertile part of the world the "West Indies, whc lived a poor uncomfortable life, scarce able to subsist ; and that, perhaps, only for want of knowing the use of that store out of whicn the mhabitants of the Old World had the skill to draw iron, and thereof make themselves utensils necessary lor the carrying on and improvement of all other arts ; no
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one of winch can subsist well, if at all, without that one metal.
Here, then, is a large field for knowledge, proper for the use and advantage of men in this world ; viz. to find out new inventions of despatch to shorten or ease our labour, or applying sagaciously together several agents and materials, to procure new and beneficial productions fit for our use, whereby our stock of riches (i. e. things useful for the con- veniences of our life) may be increased, or better preserved : and for such discoveries as these the mind of man is well fitted; though, perhaps, the essence of things, their first original, their secret way of working, and the whole extent of corporeal beings, be as far beyond our capacity as it is beside our use ; and we have no reason to complain that we do not know the nature of the sun or stars, that the consideration of light itself leaves us in the dark, and a thousand other speculations in Nature, sineo, if we knew them, they would be of no solid acfvantage to us, nor help to make our lives the happier, they being but the useless employment of idle or over-curious Drains, which amuse themselves about things out of which they can by no means draw any real benefit.
So that, if we will consider man as in the world, and that his mind and faculties were given him for any use, we must necessarily conclude it must be to procure him the happiness which this world is capable of; which certainly is nothing else but plenty of all sorts of those things which can with most ease, pleasure, and variety, preserve him longest in it ; so that, had mankind no concernment but in the world, no apprehensions of any being after this life, they need trouble their heads with nothing but the history of nature, and an inquiry into the qualities of the things in the mansion of the universe which hath fallen to their lot, and, being well-skill- ed in the knowledge of material causes and effect of things in their power, directing their thoughts to the improvement of such arts and inventions, engines, and utensils, as might best contribute to their continuation in it with couveniency and delight, they might well spare themselves the trouble of looking any further : they neea not perplex themselves about the original frame or constitution of the universe, drawing the great machine into systems of their own contrivance, and building hypotheses, obscure, perplexed, and of no other use
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but to raise dispute and continual wrangling : Por what need have we to complain of our ignorance in the more general and foreign parts of nature, when all our business lies at home ? Why should we bemoan our want of knowledge in the particular apartments of the universe, when our portion here only lies in the little spot of earth where we and all our concernments are shut up ? Why should we think ourselves hardly dealt with, that we are not furnished with compass nor plummet to sail and fathom that restless, unnavigable ocean, of the universal matter, motion, and space P Since there be shores to bound our voyage and travels, there are at least no commodities to be brought from thence service- able to our use, nor that will better our condition ; and we need not be displeased that we have not knowledge enough to discover whether we have any neighbours or no in those large bulks of matter we see floating in the abyss, or of what kind they are, since we can never have any communication with them that might turn to our advantage.
So that, considering man barely as an animal of three or four score years' duration, and then to end, his condition and state requires no other knowledge than what may furnish him with those things which may help him to pass out to the end of that time with ease, safety, and delight, which is all the happiness he is capable of: and for the attainment of a correspondent measure mankind is sufficiently provided* He has faculties and organs well adapted for the discovery, if he thinks fit to employ and use them.
Another use of his knowledge is to live in peace with his fellow-men, and this also he is capable of. Besides a plenty of the good things of this world, with life, health, and peace to enjoy them, we can think of no other concernment man- kind hath that leads him not out of it, and places him not be- yond the confines of this earth ; and it seems probable that there should be some better state somewhere else to which man might arise, since, when he hath all that this world can afiford, he is still unsatisfied, uneasy, and far from happiness. It is certain, and that all men must consent to, that there is a possibility of another state when this scene is over ; and that the happiness and misery of that depends on the order- ing of ourselves in our actions in this time of our probation here. The acknowledgment of a God will easily lead any
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one to this, and he bath left so many footsteps of himself, so many proofs of his being in every creature, as are suflScient to convince any vrho will but make use of their faculties that way, — and I dare say nobody escapes this conviction for want of sight ; but if any be so blind, it is only because they will not open their eyes and see ; and those only doubt of a Supreme Ruler and a universal law, who would willingly be under no law, accountable to no judge ; those only question another life hereafter, who intend to lead such a one here as they fear to have examined, and would be loth to answer for when it is over.
This opinion I shall always be of, till I see that those who would cast off all thoughts of God, heaven, and hell, lead such lives as would become rational creatures, or observe that one unquestionable moral rule, Do as you would be done to.
It being then possible, and at least probable, that there is another life, wherein we shall give an account of our past actions in this to the great God of heaven and earth ; here comes in another, and that the main concernment of man- kind, to know what those actions are that he is to do, what those are he is to avoid, what the law is he is to live by here, and shall be judged by hereafter ; and in this part too he is not left so in the dark, but that he is furnished with principles of knowledge, and faculties able to discover light enough to guide him ; his understanding seldom fails him in this part, unless where his will would have it so. If he take a wrong course, it is most commonly because he goes wil- fully out of the way, or, at least, chooses to be bewildered ; and there are few, if anv, who dreadfully mistake, that are willing to be in the right ; and I think one may safely say, that amidst the great ignorance which is so justly com- plained of amongst mankind, where any one endeavoured to know his duty sincerely, with a design to do it, scarce ever any one miscarried for want of knowledge.
The business of men being to be happy in this world, by the enjoyment of the things of nature subservient to life, health, ease, and pleasure, and by the comfortable hopes of another life when this is ended ; and in the other world, by an accumulation of higher degrees of bliss in an everlasting aecurity, we need no other l^owledge for the attainment of
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those ends but of the history and observation of the effect and operation of natural bodies within our power, and of our duty in the management of our own actions, as far as they depend on our will, i. e. as far also as they are in our power. One of those is the proper enjoyment of our bodies, and the highest perfection of that, and the other of our souls ; and to attain both these we are fitted with faculties both of body and soul. Whilst then we have ability to improve our know- ledge in experimental natural philosophy, whilst we want not principles whereon to establish moral rules, nor light (if we please to make use of it) to distinguish good from bad actions, we have no reason to complain if we meet with dif- ficulties in other things which put our reasons to a nonplus, confound our understandings, and leave us perfectly in the dark under the sense of our own weakness : for those re- lating not to our happiness any way are no part of our business, and therefore it is not to be wondered if we have not abilities given us to deal with things that are not to our purpose, nor conformable to our state or end.
(Jod having made the great machine of the universe suit- able to his infinite power and wisdom, why should we think so proudly of ourselves, whom he hath put into a small canton, and perhaps the most inconsiderable part of it, that he hath made us tne surveyors of it, and that it is not as it should be unless we can thoroughly comprehend it in all the parts of it? It is agreeable to his goodness, and to our condition, that we should be able to apply them to our use, to understand so far some parts of that we have to do with, as to be able to make them subservient to the convenience of our life, as proper to fill our hearts with praise of hia bounty. But it is also agreeable to his greatness, that it should exceed our capacity, and the highest flight of our imagination, the better to fill us with admiration of hia^ power and wisdom ; — besides its serving to other ends, and being suited probably to the use of other more intelligent creatures which we know not of K it be not reasonable to expect that we should be able to penetrate into all the depths of nature, and understand the whole constitution of the universe, it is yet a higher insolence to doubt the existence of a G-od because we cannot comprehend him — to think there is not an infinite Being because we are not so.
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If all tilings must stand or fall by the measure of our under- standings, and that denied to be, Wherein we find inextricable difficulties, there will very little remain in the world, and we shall scarce leave ourselves so much as understandings, souls, or bodies. It will become us better to consider well our own weakness and exigencies, what we are made for, and what we are capable of, and to apply the powers of our bodies and faculties of our souls, which are well suited to our con- dition, in the search of that natural and moral knowledge, which, as it is not beyond our strength, so is not beside our purpose, but may be attained by moderate industry, and improved to our infinite advantage.
[This excellent article was begun in March, continued at intervals, and finished in May, apparently during a journey.]
STUDY.
1677, March 6th. |The end of study is knowledge, and the end of knowledge practice or communicatiog) This true de- light is commonly joined with all improfements of know- ledge ; but when we study only for that end, it is to be con- sidered rather astjffrersion than business, and so is to be reckoned among our recreationsX
The extent of knowledge oi<Siings knowable is so vast, our duration here so short, and the entrance by which the knowledge of things gets into our understanding so narrow, that the time of our whole life would be found too short without the necessary allowances for childhood and old age (which are not capable of much improvement), for the re- freshment of our bodies and unavoidable avocations, and in. most conditions for the ordinary employment of their call- ings, which if they neglect, they cannot eat nor live. I say that the whole time of our life, without these necessary de- falcations, is not enough to acquaint us with all those things, I will not say which we are capable of knowing, but which it would not be only convenient but very advantageous to know. He that will consider how many doubts and dif-
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ficulties Have remained in the minds of the most knowing men after long and studious inquiry ; bow muchj in those several provinces of knowledge they have surveyed, they have left imdiscovered ; how many other provinces of the " mundus intelligibilis," as I may call it, they never once travelled on, will easily consent to the disproportionateness of our time and strength to this greatness of business, of knowledge taken in its full latitude, and which if it be not our main business here, yet it is so necessary to it, and so interwoven with it, that we can make little further progress in doing than we do in knowing — at least to little purpose ; acting without understanding being usually at best but lost labour.
It therefore much behoves us to improve the best we can our time and talent in this respect, and since we have a 16ng journey to go, and the days are but short, to take the straightest and most direct road we can. To this purpose, it may not perhaps be amiss to decline some things that are likely to bewilder us, or at least lie out of our way. — Pirst, as aU that maze of words and phrases which have been in- tented and employed only to instruct and amuse people in the art of disputing, and will be found perhaps, when looked into, to have little or no meaning ; and with this kind of stuff the logics, physics, ethics, metaphysics, and divinity of the schools are thought by some to be too much filled. This I am sure, that where we leave distinctions without finding a difference in things ; where we make variety of phrases, or think we furnish ourselves with arguments without a pro- gress in the real knowledge of things, we only fill our heads with empty sounds, which, however thought to belong to learning and knowledge, will no more improve our under- standings and strengthen our reason, than the noise of a jack will fill our bellies or strengthen our bodies : and the art to fence with those which are called subtleties, is of no more use than it would be to be dexterous in tying and un- tying knots in cobwebs. Words are of no value nor use, but as they are the signs of things; when they stand for nothing, they are less than cyphers, for, instead of augment- ing the value of those they are joined with, they lessen it, and make it nothing; and where they have not a clear
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distinct signification, they are like unusual or ill-made figures that confound our meaning.
2nd. An aim and desire to boiow what hath been other men's opinions. Truth needs no recommendation, and error is not mended by it ; and in our inquiry after knowledge, it as little concerns us what other men have thought, as it does one who is to go from Oxford to London, to know what scholars walk quietly on foot, inquiring the way and sur- veying the country as they went, who rode post after their guide without minding the way he went, wno were carried along muffled up in a coach with their company, or where one doctor lost or went out of his way, or where another stuck in the mire. K a traveller gets a knowledge of the right way, it is no matter whether he knows the infinite windings, by-ways, and turnings where others have been misled; the knowledge of the right secures him from the wrong, and that is his great business : and so methinks it is in our pilgrimage through this world; men's fancies have been innnite even of the learned, and the history of them endless : and some not knowing whither they would go, have kept going, though they have only moved ; others have fol- lowed only their own imaginations, though they meant right, which is an errant which with the wisest leads us through strange mazes. Interest has blinded some and prejudiced others, who have yet marched confidently on ; and however out of the way, they have thought themselves most in the right. I do not say this to imdervalue the light we receive from others, or to think there are not those who assist us mightily in our endeavours after knowledge ; perhaps without books we should be as ignorant as the Indians, whose minds are as ill clad as their bodies ; but I think it is an idle and useless thing to make it one's business to study what have been other men's sentiments in things where reason is only to be judge, on purpose to be furnished with them, and to be able to cite them on all occasions. However it be esteemed a great part of learning, yet to a man that considers how little time he has, and how much work to do, how many things he is to learn, how many doubts to clear in religion, how many rules to establish to himself in morality, how much pains to oe taken with himself to master his imruly desires and passions, how to provide himself against a thousand cases and accidents
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that will happen, and an infinite deal more bath in his general and particular calling ; I say to a man that considers this well, it will not seem much his business to acquaint himself designedly with the yarious conceits of men that are to be found in books even upon subjects of moment. I deny not but the knowing of these opinions in all their variety, con- tradiction, and extravagancy, may serve to instruct us in the vanity and ignorance of mankind, and both to hiunble and caution us upon that consideration ; but this seems not reason enough to me to engage purposely in this study, and in our inquiries after more material points, we shaU meet with enough of this medley to acquamt us with the weakness of man's understanding.
3rd. Purity of language, a polished style, or exact criticism in foreign languages — ^thus I think Greek and Latin may be called, as well as French and Italian, — and to spend much time in these may perhaps serve to set one off in the world, and give one the reputation of a scholar ; but if that be all, methinks it is labouring for an outside ; it is at best but a handsome dress of truth or falsehood that one busies one's self about, and makes most of those who lay out their time this way rather as fashionable gentlemen than as wise or useful men.
There are so many advantages of speaking one's own lan-
fuage well, and being a master in it, that let a man's calling e what it will, it cannot but be worth our taking some pains in it, but it is by no means to have the first place in ouf studies ; but he that makes good language subservient to a good life and an instrument of virtue, is doubly enabled to do good to others.
when I speak against the laying out our time and study on criticisms, I mean such as may serve to make us great masters in Pindar and Persius, Herodotus and Tacitus ; aud I must always be understood to except all study of languages and critical learning, that may aid us in imderstanding the Scriptures ; for they being an eternal foundation of truth as immediately coming firom the fountain of truth, whatever doth help us to understand their true sense, doth well deserve our pains and study.
4th. Antiquity and history, as far as they are designed only to furnish us with story and talk. Por the stories of
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Alexander and Caesar, no further than they instruct us in the art of living well, and furnish us with observations of wisdom and prudence, are not one jot to be preferred to the history of Iwbin Hood, or the Seven "Wise Masters. I do not deny but history is very useful, and very instructive of hiunan life ; but if it be studied only for the reputation of being an his- torian, it is a very empty thing ; and he that can tell all the particulars of Herodotus and Plutarch, Curtius and' Livy, without making any other use of them, may be an ignorant n^an with a good memory, and with all his pains hath only filled his head with Christmas tales. And which is worse, the greatest part of history being made up of wars and conquests, and their style, especially the Eomans, speaking of valour as the chief, if not the only virtue, we are in danger to be misled by the general current and business of history, and, looking on Alexander and CsBsar, and such like heroes, as the highest instances of human greatness, because they each of them caused the death of several 100,000 men, and the ruin of a much greater number, overrun a great part of the earth, and killed the inhabitants to posfecss themselves of their coun- tries— ^we are apt to make butchery and rapine the chief marks and very essence of human greatness. And if civil history be a great dealer of it, and to many readers thus use- less, curious and difficult inquirings in antiquity are much more so ; and the exact dimensions of the Colossus, or figure of the Capitol, the ceremonies of the Greek jmd Eoman mar- riages, or who it was that first coined money ; these, I con- fess, set a man well off in the world, especially amongst the learned, but set him very little on in his way.
5th. Nice questions and remote useless speculations, as where tKe earthly Paradise was — or what fruit it was that was forbidden — where Lazarus's soul was whilst his body lay dead — and what kind of bodies we shall have at the Eesur- rection ? &c. &c. These things well regulated, will cut off at once a great deal of business &om one who is setting out into a course of study ; not that all these are to be counted utterly useless, and lost time cast away on them. The four last may be each of them the full and laudable employment of several persons who may with great advantage make lan- guages, historj^, or antiquity, their study. For as for words without meaning, which is the first head I mentioned, I can-
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not imagine them any way worth hearing or reading, much less studying ; but there is such a harmony in all sorts of truth and knowledge, they do aU support and give light so to one another, that one cannot deny but languages and criti- cisms, history and antiquity, strange opinions and odd specu- lations, serve often to clear and confirm very material and useful doctrines. My meaning therefore is, not that they are not to be looked into by a studious man at any time ; ail that T contend is, that they are not to be made our chief aim, nor first business, and that they are always to be handled with some caution : for since having but a little time, we have need of much care in the husbanding of it. These parts of knowledge ought not to have either the first or greatest part of our studies, and we have the more need of this cau- tion, because they are much in vogue amongst men of letters, and carry with them a great exterior of learning, and so are a glittering temptation in a studious man's way, and such as is very likely to mislead him.
But if it were fit for me to marshal the parts of knowledge, and allot to any one its place and precedency, thereby to direct one's studies, I should think it were natural to set them in this order.
1. Heaven being our great business and interest, the knowledge which may direct us thither is certainly so too, so that this is*vdthout peradventure the study that ought to take the first and chiefest place in our thoughts ; but wherein it consists, its parts, method, and application, will deserve a chapter by itself.
2. The next thing to happiness in the other world, is a quiet prosperous passage through this, which requires a dis- creet conduct and management of ourselves in the several occurrences of our lives. The study of prudence then seems to me to deserve the second place in our thoughts and studies. A man may be, perhaps, a good man (which lives in truth and sincerity of heart towards Grod), vnih a small portion of prudence, but he will never be very happy in himself, nor useful to others without ; these two are every man's business.
3. If those who are left by their predecessors with a plenti- ful fortune are excused from having a particular calling, in order to their subsistence in this life, it is yet certain that, by the law of God, they are under an obligation of doing some-
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thing ; which, having been judiciously treated by an able pen, I shall not meddle with, but pass to those who have made letters their business ; and in these I think it is incumbent to make the proper business of their calling the third place in their study.
This order being laid, it will be easy for every one to de- termine with himself what tongues and histories are to be studied by him, and how far in subserviency to his general or particular calling.
Our happiness being thus parcelled out, and being in every part of it very large, it is certain we should set ourselves on work without ceasing, did not both the parts we are made up of bid us hold. Our bodies and our minds are neither of them capable of continual study, and if we take not a just measure of our strength in endeavouring to do a great deal, we shall do nothing at all.
The knowledge we acquire in this world I am apt to think extends not beyond the limits of this life. The beatific vision of the other life needs not the help of this dim twilight ; but be that as it will, I am sure the principal end why we are to get knowledge here, is to make use of it for the benefit of ourselves and others in this world ; but if by gaining it we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that vnll be useless in our hands ; and if by harassing our bodies (though with a design to render ourselves more useful) we deprive ourselves of the abilities and opportunities of doing that good we might have done with a meaner talent, which G-od thought sufficient for us by having denied us the strength to improve it to that pitch which men of stronger constitutions can attain to, we rob God of so much service, and our neighbour of all that help which, in a state of health, with moderate knowledge, we might have been able to perform. He that sinks his vessel by overloading it, though it be with gold and silver and precious stones, vnll give his ovnier but an ill account of his voyage.
It being past doubt, then, that allowance is to be made for the temper and strength of our bodies, and that our health is to regulate the measure of our studies, the great secret is to find out the proportion ; the difficulty whereof lies in this, that it must not only be varied according to the constitution and strength of every individual man, but it must also change
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with the temper, vigour, and circumstances, and health of every particular man, in the different varieties of health, or indisposition of body, which everything our bodies have any commerce with is able to alter : so that it is as hard to say how many hours a day a man shall studv constantly, as to say how much meat he shall eat every day, wherein his own prudence, governed by the present circumstances, can only judge. . . The regular proceeding of our watch not being the fit measure of time, but the secret motions of a much more curious engine, our bodies being to limit out the portion of time in this occasion : however, it may be so contrived that all the time may not be lost, for the conversation of an inge- nious friend upon what one hath read in the morning, or any other profitable subject, may perhaps let into the mind as much improvement of knowledge, though with less preju- dice to the health, as settled solemn poring over books, which we generally call study ; which, though a necessary part, yet I am sure is not the only, and perhaps not the best, way of improving the understanding.
2. Great care is to be taken that our studies encroach not upon our sleep : this I am sure, sleep is the great balsam of life and restorative of nature, and studious sedentary men have more need of it than the active and laborious, because those men's business and their bodily labours, though they waste their spirits, help transpiration, and carry away their excrements, which are the foundation of diseases ; whereas the studious sedentary man, employing his spirits within, equally or more wastes them than the other, but without the benefit of transpiration, allowing the matter of disease in- sensibly to accumulate. "We are to lay by our books and meditations when we find either our heads or stomachs in- disposed upon any occasion ; study at such time doing great harm to the body, and very little good to the mind.
Ist. As the body, so the mind also, gives laws to our studies ; I mean, to the duration and continuance of them ; let it be never so capacious, never so active, it is not capable of constant labour nor total rest. The labour of the mind is study, or intention of thought, and when we find it is weary, eibher in pursuing other men's thoughts, as in reading, or tumbling or tossing its own, as in meditation, it is time to give off and let it recover itself. Sometimes meditation
n 2
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gives a refreshment to the weariness of reading, and vice versd ; sometimes the change of ground, i. e. going from one subject or science to another, rouses the mind, and fills it with fresh vigour ; oftentimes discourse enlivens it when it flags, and puts an end to the weariness without stopping it one jofc, but rather forwarding it in its journey ; and some- times it is so tired, that nothing but a perfect relaxation will serve the turn. All these are to be made use of according as every one finds most successful in himself to the best husbandry of his time and thought.
2nd. The mind has sympathies and antipathies as well as the body ; it has a natural preference often of one study be- fore another. It would be well if one had a perfect command of them, and sometimes one is to try for the mastery, to bring the mind into order and a pliant obedience ; but generally it is better to follow the bent and tendency of the mind itself, so long as it keeps within the bounds of our proper business, wherein there is generally latitude enough. By this means, we shall go not only a great deal faster, and hold out a great deal longer, but the discovery we shall make will be a great deal clearer, and make deeper impressions in our minds. The inclination of the mind is as t;he palate to the stomach ; that seldom digests well in the stomach, or adds much strength to the body, that nauseates the palate, and is not re- commended by it.
There is a kind of restiveness in almost every one's mind ; sometimes, without perceiving the cause, it will boggle and stand still, and one cannot get it a step forward ; and at an- other time it will press forward, and there is no holding it in. It is always good to take it when it is willing, and keep on whilst it goes at ease, though it be to the breach of some of the other rules concerning the body. But one must take care of trespassing on that side too often, for one that takes pleasure in study, flatters himself that a little now, apd a little to-morrow, does no harm, that he feels no ill effects of an hour's sitting up, — insensibly undermines his health, and, when the disease breaks out, it is seldom charged to these past miscarriages that laid in the provision for it.
The subject being chosen, the body and mind being botb ill a temper fit for study, what remains but that a man betake himself to it ? T^esp certainljir are good preparatories, yet if
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there be not something else done, perhaps we shall not make all the profit we might.
1st. It is a duty we owe to Gt)d, as the fountain and author of all truth, who is truth itself ; and it is a duty also we owe our own selves, if we will deal candidly and sincerely with our own souls ; to have oar minds constantly disposed to en- tertain and receive truth wheresoever we meet with it, or under whatsoever appearance of plain or ordinary, strange, new, or perhaps displeasing, it may come in our way. Truth is the proper object, the proper riches and furniture of the mind, and according as his stock of this is, so is the difference and value of one man above another. He that fills his head with vain notions and false opinions, may have his mind perhaps puffed up and seemingly much enlarged, but in truth it is narrow and empty ; for all that it compre- hends, all that it contains, amounts to nothing, or less than nothing ; for falsehood is below ignorance, and a lie worse than nothing.
Our first and great duty then is, to bring to our studies and to our inquiries after knowledge a mind covetous of truth ; that seeks after nothing else, and after that impar- tially, and embraces it, how poor, how contemptible, how un- fashionable soever it may seem. This is that which all studi- ous men profess to do, and yet it is that where I think very many miscarry. "Who is there almost that has not opinions planted in him by education time out of mind ; which by that means come to be as the municipal laws of the country, which must not be questioned, but are then looked on with reverence as the standards of right and wrong, truth and falsehood ; when perhaps these so sacred opinions were but the oracles of the nursery, or the traditional grave talk o{ those who pretend to inform our childhood ; who receive them from band to hand without ever examining them P This is the fate of our tender age, which being thus seasoned early, it grows by continuation of time, as it were, into the very constitution of the mind, which afterwards very difficultly re- ceives a different tincture. When we are grown up, we find the world divided into bands and companies ; not only as con- gregated under several polities and governments, but united only upon account of opinions, and in that respect combined strictly one with another, and distinguished from others,
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especially in matters of religion. If birth or chance have not thrown a man young into any of these, which yet seldom fails to happen, choice, when he is grown up, certainly puts him into some or other of them ; often out ol an opinion that that party is in the right, and sometimes because he finds it is not safe to stand alone, and therefore thinks it convenient to herd somewhere. Now, in every one of these parties of men there are a certain number of opinions which are re- ceived and owned as the doctrines and tenets of that society, with the profession and practice whereof all who are of their communion ought to give up themselves, or else they will be scarce looked on as of that society, or at best be thought but lukewarm brothers, or in danger to apostatize.
It is plain, in the great difference and contrariety of opinions that are amongst these several parties, that there is much falsehood and abundance of mistakes in most of them. Cunning in some, and ignorance in others, first made them keep them up ; and yet how seldom is it that implicit faith, fear of losing credit with the party or interest (for all these operate in their turns), suffers any one to question the tenet of his party ; but altogether in a bundle he receives, em- braces, and, without examining, he professes and sticks to them, and measures all other opinions by them. Worldly interest also insinuates into several men's minds divera opinions, which, suiting with their temporal advantage, are kindly received, and in time so riveted there, that it is not easy to remove them.
By these, and perhaps other means, opinions come to be settled and fixed in men's minds, which, whether true or false, there they remain in reputation as substantial material truths, and 80 are seldom questioned or examined by those who en- tertain them : and if they happen to be false, as in most men the greatest part must necessarily be, they put a man quite out of the way in the whole course of his studies; and though in his reading and inquiries he flatters himself that his design is to iuform his understanding in the real know- ledge of truth, yet in effect it tends and reaches to nothing but the confirming of his already received opinions, the things he meets with in other men's writings and discoveries being received or neglected as they hold proportion with those an- ticipations which before had taken possession of his mind.
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This will plainly appear if we look but on an instance or two of it. It is a principal doctrine of the Roman party to believe that their Church is infallible ; this is received as the mark of a good Catholic, and implicit faith, or fear, or inter- est, keeps all men from questioning it. This being enter- tained as an undoubted principle, see what work it makes with Scripture and reason ; neither of them will be heard — the speaking with never so much clearness and demonstra- tion— ^when they contradict any of the doctrines or institu- tions ; and though it is not grown to that height, barefaced to deny the Scripture, yet interpretations and distinctions, evidently contrary to the plain sense and to the common ap- prehensions of men, are made use of to elude its meaning, and preserve entire the authority of this their principle, that the Church is infallible.
On the other side, make the light within our guide, and see what will become of reason and Scripture. An Hobbist, with his principle of self-preservation, whereof himself is to be judge, will not easily admit a great many plain duties of morality. The same must necessarily be found in all men who have taken up principles without examining the truth of them. It being here, then, that men take up prejudice to truth without being aware of it, and afterwards, like men of corrupted appetites, when they think to noiunsh themselves, generally feed only on those things that suit with and in- crease the vicious humour, — ^this part is carefully to be looked after. These ancient predccupations of our minds, these se- veral and almost sacred opinions, are to be examined, if we will make way for truth, and put our minds in that freedom which belongs and is necessary to them. A mistake is not the less so, and will never grow into a truth, because we have believed it a long time, though perhaps it be the harder to part with ; and an error is not the less dangerous, nor the less contrary to truth, because it is cried up and had in ven- eration by any party, though it is likely we shall be the less disposed to think it so.
Here, therefore, we have need of all our force and all our sincerity ; and here it is we have use of the assistance of a serious and sober friend, who may help us sedately to examine these our received and beloved opinions; for the mind by itself being prepossessed with them cannot so easily question.
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look round, and argue against them. They are the darlings of our minds, and it is as hard to find fault with them, as for a man in love to dislike his mistress : there is need, therefore, of the assistance of another, at least it is very useful impar- tially to show us their defects, and help us to try them by the plain and evident principle of reason or religion.
2. This grand miscarriage in our study draws after it an- other of less consequence, which yet is very natural for bookish men to run into, and that is the reading of authors very intently and diligently to mind the arguments pro and con they use, and endeavour to lodge them safe in their memory, to serve them upon occasion. This, when it suc- ceeds to the purpose designed (which it only does in very good memories, and, indeed, is rather the business of the memory than judgment), sets a man off before the world as a very knowing learned man, but upon trial will not be found to be so ; indeed, it may make a man a ready talker and dis- putant, but not an able man. It teaches a man to be a fencer; but in the irreconcileable war between truth and falsehood, it seldom or never enables him to choose the right side, or to defend it well, being got of it.
He that desires to be knowing indeed, that covets rather the possession of truth than the show of learning, that designs to improve himself in the solid substantial knowledge of things, ought, I think, to take another course; i. e. to en- deavour to get a clear and true notion of things as they are in themselves. This, being fiied in the mind well (without trusting to or troubling the memory, which ofben fails us), always naturally suggests arguments upon all occasions, either to defend the truth or comound error. This seems to me to be that which makes some men's discourses to be so clear, evident, and demonstrative, even in a few words ; for it is but laying before us the true nature of anything we would discourse of, and our faculty of reasoning is so natural to us that the clear inferences do, as it were, make themselves : we have, as it were, an instinctive knowledge of the truth, which is always most acceptable to the mind, and the mind embraces it in native and naked beauty. This way also of knowledge, as it is in less danger to be lost, because it bur- dens not the memory, but is placed in the judgment ; so it makes a man talk always coherently and confidently to him-
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self on wliicli side soever he is attacked, or with whatever arguments : the same truth, by its natural light and contra- riety to firisehood, still shows, without much ado, or any great and lon^ deduction of words, the weakness and absurdity of the opposition : whereas the topical man, with his great stock of borrowed and collected arguments, will be found often to contradict himself; for the arguments of divers men being often founded upon different notions, and deduced from con- trary principles, though they may bo all directed to the sup- port or confutation of some one opinion, do, notwithstanding, often really clash one with another.
3. Another thing, which is of great use for the clear con- ception of truth, is, if we can bring ourselves to it, to think upon things abstracted and separate from words. Words, without doubt, are the great and almost only way of convey- ance of one man's thoughts to another man's understanding ; but when a man thinks, reasons, and discourses within himself, I see not what need he has of them. I am sure it is better to lay them aside, and have an immediate converse with the ideas of the things ; for words are, in their own nature, so doubtfiil and obscure, their signification for the most part 80 uncertain and undetermined which men even designedly have in their use of them increased, that if, in our meditations, our thoughts busy themselves about words, and stick at the names of things, it is odds but they are misled or confounded. This, perhaps, at first sight may seem but a useless nicety, and in the practice, perhaps, it will be found more difficult than one would imagine ; but yet upon trial I dare say any one's experience will tell him it was worth while to endeavour it. He that would call to mind. his absent friend, or preserve his memory, does it best and most effectually by reviving in his mind the idea of him, and contemplating that ; and it is but a very faint imperfect way of thinking of one's friend barely to remember his name, and think upon the sound he is usually called by.
4. It is of great use in the pursuit of knowledge not to be too confident nor too distrustful of our own judgment, nor to believe we can comprehend all things nor nothing. He that distrusts his own judgment in everything, and thinks his understanding not to be relied on in the search of truth, cuts off his own legs that he may be carried up and down by
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others, and makes himself a ridiculous dependant upon the knowledge of others, which can possibly be of no use to him ; for I can no more know anything by another man's under- standing than I can see by another man's eyes. So much I know, so much truth I have got ; so far I am in the right, as I do really know myself ; whatever other men have, it is in their possession, it belongs not to me, nor can be commu- nicated to me but by making me alike knowing ; it is a treasure that cannot be lent or made over. On the other side, he that thinks his understanding capable of all things, mounts upon wings of his own fancy, though indeed Nature never meant him any, and so, venturing into the vMt expanse of incomprehensible verities, only makes good tlie fable of Icarus, and loses himself in the abyss. We are here in the state of mediocrity ; finite creatures, furnished with powers and faculties very well fitted to some purposes, but very dis- proportionate to the vaat and unlimited extent of things.
5. It would, therefore, be of great service to us to know how far our faculties can reach, that so we might not go about to fathom where our line is too short ; to know what things are the proper objects of our inquiries and understanding, and where it is we ought to stop, and launch out no further for fear of losing ourselves or our labour. This, perhaps, is an inquiry of as much difficulty as any we shall find in our way of knowledge, and fit to be resolved by a man when he is Come to the end of his study, and not to be proj>osed to one at his setting out ; it being properly the result to be ex* pected after a long and diligent research to determine what IS knowable and what not, and not a question to be resolved by the guesses of one who has scarce yet acquainted himself with obvious truths. I shall therefore, at present, suspend the thoughts I have had upon this subject, which ought ma- turely to be considered of; always remembering th^t things infinite are too large for our capacity ; we can have no com- prehensive knowledge of them, and our thoughts are at a loss and confounded when they pry too curiously into them.
The essences also of substantial beings are beyond our ken ; the manner also how Nature, in this great machine of the world, produces the several phenomena, and continues the species of things in a successive generation, Ac, is what I think lies also out of the reach of our understanding.
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That which seems to me to be suited to the end of man, and lie level to his understanding, is the improvement of natural experiments for the conveniences of this life, and the way of ordering himself so as to attain happiness in the other — i. e. moral philosophy, which, in my sense, comprehends religion too, or a man's whole duty. [But vid. this alibi.]
6th. For the shortening of our pains, and keeping us from incurable doubt and perplexity of mind, and an endless inquiry after greater certainty than is to be had, it would be very convenient in the several points that are to be known and studied, to consider what proofs the matter in hand is capable of, and not to expect other kind of evidence than the nature of the thing will bear. Where it hath all the proofs that such a matter is capable of, there we ought to ac- quiesce, and receive it as an established and demonstrated truth ; for that which hath all the evidence it can have, all that belongs to it, in the common state and order of things, and that supposing it to be as true as anything ever was, yet you cannot possibly contrive nor imagine how to have better proofs of it than you have without a miracle : what- soever is so, though there may be some doubts, some obscur- ity, yet is clear enough to determine our thoughts and fix our assent. The want of this caution, I fear, has been the cause why some men have turned sceptics in points of great importance, which yet have all the proofs that, considering the nature and circumstances of the thing, any rational man can demand, or the most cautious fancy.
7th. A great help to the memory, and means to avoid confusion in our thoughts, is to draw out and have fre- quently before us a scheme of those sciences we employ our studies in, a map, as it were, of the mundus intelligibilis. This, perhaps, will be best done by every one himself for his own use, as best agreeable to his own notion, though the nearer it comes to the nature and order of things it is still the better. However, it cannot be decent for me to think my crude draught fit to regulate another's thoughts by, especially when, perhaps, our studies lie different ways ; though I cannot but confess to have received this benefit by it, that though I have changed often the subject I have been studying, read books by patches and accidentally, as they have come in my way, and observed no method nor order in
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my studies, yet making now and then some little reflection upon the order of things as they are, or at least I have fancied them to have in themselves, I have avoided confusion in my thoughts; the scheme I had made serving like a regular chest of drawers, to lodge those things orderly, and in the proper places, which came to hand confusedly, and without any method at aU.
8th. It will be no hinderance at all to our study if we sometimes study ourselves, i. e. our own abilities and defects. There are peculiar endowments and natural fitnesses, as well as defects and weaknesses, almost in every man's mind : when we have considered and made ourselves acquainted with them, we shall not only be the better enabled to find out remedies for the infirmities, but we shall know the better how to turn ourselves to those things which we are best fitted to deal with, and so to apply ourselves in the course of our studies, as we may be able to make the greatest advantage. He that has a bittle and wedges put into his hand, may easily conclude he is ordered to cleave knotty pieces, and a plane and carving tools to design hand- some figures.
It is too obvious a thing to mention the reading only the best authors on those subjects we would inform ourselves in. The reading of bad books is not only the loss of time and standing still, but going backwards quite out of one's way ; and he that has his head filled with wrong notions is much more at a distance from truth than he that is perfectly ignorant.
I will only say this one thing concerning books, that however it has got the name, yet converse with books ia not, in my opinion, the principal part of study ; there are two others that ought to be joined with it, each whereof contributes their share to our improvement in knowledge ; and those are, meditation and discourse. Beading, methinka, is but collecting the rough materials, amongst which a great deal must be laid aside as useless. Meditation is, as it were, choosing and fitting the materials, framing the timbers, squaring and laying the stones, and raising the building; and discourse with a friend (for wrangling in a dispute is of little use) is, as it were, surveying the structure, walking in the rooms, and observing the symmetry and agreement of
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the parts, taking notice of the solidity or defects of the works, and the best way to find out and correct what is amiss ; besides that it helps often to discover truths, and fix them in our minds, as much as either of the other two.
It is time to make an end of this long and overgrown discourse. I shall only add one word, and then conclude ; and that is, that whereas in the beginning I cut off history from our study, as a useless part, as certainly it is, where it is read only as a tale that is told ; here, on the other side, I recommend it to one who hath well settled in his mind the priilciples of morality, and knows how to make a judgment on the actions of men, as one of the most useM studies he can apply himself to. There he shall see a picture of the world and the nature of mankind, and so learn to think of men as they are. There he shall see the rise of opinions, and find from what slight, and sometimes shameful occasions, some of them have taken their rise, which yet afterwards have had great authority, and passed almost for sacred in the world, and borne down all before them. There also one may learn great and useful instructions of prudence, and be warned against the cheats and rogueries of the world, with many^more advantages, which I shall not here enumerate.
Monday, Dec: 12th, 1678. — The principal spring from which the actions of men take their nse, the rule they con- duct them by, and the end to which they direct them, seems to be credit and reputation, and that which at any rate they avoid, is in the greatest part shame and disgrace. This makes the Hurons and other people of Canada with such constancy endure inexpressible torments : this makes mer- chants in one country, and soldiers in another: this puts men upon school divinity in one country, and physics and mathematics in another : this cuts out the dresses for the women, and makes the fashions for the men; and makes them endure the inconveniences of all. This makes men drunkards and sober, thieves and honest, and robbers them- selves true to one another. Beligions are upheld by this and factions maintained, and the shame of being disesteemed by those with whom one hath lived, and to whom one would recommend oneself, is the great source and director of most
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of the actions of men. "Where riches are in credit, knavery and injustice that produce them are not out of countenance, because, the state being got, esteem follows it, as in some countries the crown ennobles the blood. Where power, and not the good exercise of it, gives reputation, all the in- justice, fdsehood, violence, and oppression that attains that, goes for wisdom and abili^. Where love of one's country is the thing in credit, there we shall see a race of brave Romans ; and when being a favourite at court was the only thing in fashion, one may observe the same race of Bomans all turned flatterers and informers. He therefore that would govern the world well, had need consider rather what fashions he makes than what laws ; and to bring anything into use he need only give it reputation.
"SOBTJPIJLOSITT,* 1678.
" Shall I not pass with you for a great empiric if I offer but one remedy to th^ three maladies you complain of ? Or at least will you not think me to use less care and appli- cation than becomes the name of friend you honour me with, if I think to make one answer serve the three papers you have sent me in matters very different ? But yet if it be found, as I imagine it will, that they all depend on the same causes, I believe you will think they will not need different cures.
" I conceive, then, that the great difficulty, uncertainty, and perplexity of thought you complain of in these par- ticulars, arise in great measure from this ground, that you think that a man is obliged strictly and precisely at all times to do that which is absolutely best ; and that there is always some action so incumbent upon a man, so necessary to be done, preferable to all others, that if that be omitted, one certainly fails in one's duty, and all other actions what- soever, otherwise good in themselves, yet coming in the place of some more important and better that at the time might be done, are tainted with guilt, and can be no more an acceptable offering to God than a blemished victim under the law.
* Probably a draft of a letter to Mr Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pem- broke, to whom Locke dedicated the Essay.
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" I confess sometimes our duty is so evident, and the rule and circumstance so determine it to the present perform- ance, that there is no latitude left ; nothing ought at that time to come in the room of it. But this I think happens seldom, at least I may confidently say it does not in the greatest part of the actions of our lives, wherein I think €K>d, out of his infinite goodness, considering our ignorance and frailty, hath left us a great liberty. Love to Grod and charity to ourselves and neighbours are, no doubt, at all times indispensably necessary: but whilst we keep these warm in our hearts, and sincerely practise what they upon all occasions suggest to us, I cannot but think that Gtod allows us in the ordinary actions of our lives a great latitude ; so that two or more things being proposed to be done, neither of which crosses that fundamental law, but may very well consist with the sincerity wherewith we love God and our neighbour, I think it is at our choice to do either of them.
" The reasons that make me of this opinion are : Ist. That I cannot imagine that Q-od, who has compassion upon our weakness and knows how we are made, would put poor men, nay, the best of men, those that seek him with sincerity and truth, under almost an absolute necessity of sinning perpetually against him, which will almost inevitably follow if there be no latitude at all allowed us in the occurrences of our lives, but that every instant of our being in the world has &iyrsja incumbent on it one certain action exclusive of all others. For according to this supposition, the best being idways to be done, and that being but one, it is almost im- possible to know which is that one best, there being so many actions which may all have some peculiar and con- siderable goodness, which we are at the same time capable of doing, and so many nice circumstances and considerations to be weighed one against another, before we can come to make any judgment which is best, and after all are in great danger to be mistaken : the comparison of those actions that stand in competition together, with all their grounds, mo- tives, and consequences as they lie before us, being very hard to be made; and what makes the difficulty yet far greater is, that a great many of those which are of moment, and should come into the reckoning, always escape us ; our
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112 LIFE AITD LETTEE8 OF JOHN LOCKE. [1678.
short sight never penetrating far enough into any action to discover all that is comparatively good or bad in it, or the extent of our thoughts to reach all the actions which at any one time we are capable of doing ; so that at last, when we come to choose which is best, in making our judgment upon wrong and scanty measures, we cannot secure ourselves from being in the wrong : this is so evident in all the consulta- tions of mankind, that should you select any niunber of the best and wisest men you could think of, to deliberate in almost any case what were best to be done, you should find them make almost all different propositions, wherein one (if one) only lighting on what is best, all the rest acting by the best of their skill and caution would have been sinners as missing of that one best. The Apostles themselves were not always of one mind.
" 2nd. I cannot conceive it to be the design of Q-od, nor to consist with either his goodness or our business in the world, to clog the actions of our lives, even the minutest of them (which will follow, if one thing that is best is always to be done), with infinite consideration before we begin it, and un- avoidable perplexity and doubt when it is done. When I sat down to write to you this hasty account, before I set pen to paper, I might have considered whether it were best for me ever to meddle with the answering your questions ; my want of ability, it being beside my business, the difficulty of advising anybody, and presumption of advising one so far above me, would suggest doubts enough in the case. I might have debated with myself, whether it were best to take time to answer your demands, or, as I do, set to it pre- sently.
" 3rd. "Whether there were not somewhat better that I could do at this time.
" 4th. I might doubt whether it were best to read any books on this subject before I gave you my opinion, or send you my own naked thoughts. To those a tliousand other scruples, as considerable, might be added, which would still beget others, in every one of which there would be, no doubt, still a better and a worse ; which, if I should sit down and with serious consideration endeavour to find and determine clearly and precisely with myself to the minutest difference, before I betake myself to give you an answer, perhaps my
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whole age might be spent in the deliberation about writing two sides of paper to you, and I should perpetually blot out one word and put in another, erase to-morrow what I write to-day ; whereas, having this single consideration of comply- ing with the desire of a firiend whom I honour, and whose desires I think ought to have weight with me, who persuades me that I have an opportunity of giving him some pleasure in it, I cannot think I ought to be scrupulous in the point, or neglect obeying your commands, though I cannot be sure but that I might do better not to offer you my opinion, which may be instable ; and probably J should do better to employ my thoughts how to be able to cure you of a quartan ague, or to cure in myself some other and more dangerous faults, which is more properly my business. But my inten- tion being respect and service to you, and all the design of my writing consisting with the love I owe to Gtod and my neighbour, I should be very well satisfied with what I write, could I be as well assured it would be useful as I am past doubt it is lawful, and that I have the liberty to do it ; and yet I cannot say, and I believe you will not think, it is the best thing I could do. If we were never to do but what is absolutely the best, all our lives would go away in delibera- tion and distraction, and we should never come to action.
"5th. I have often thought that our state here in this world is a state of mediocrity, which is not capable of ex- tremes, though on one side there may be great excellency and perfection ; that we are not capable of continual rest, nor continual exercise, though the latter has certainly much more of excellcDce in it. We are not able to labour always with the body, nor always with the mind ; and, to come to our present purpose, we are not capable of living altogether exactly by a rule, not altogether without it, — not always re- tired, not always in company ; but this being but an odd notion of mine, it may suffice only to have mentioned it, my authority being no great argument in the case ; only give me leave to say, that if it holds true, it will be applicable in several cases, and be of use to us in the conduct of our lives and actions ; but I have been too long already to enlarge on this fancy any further at present.
" As to our actions in general things, this in short I think : " Ist. That all negative precepts are always to be obeyed*
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114 LIFE ASD LETTESS OF JOHN LOCKE. [l678.
" 2nd. That positive commands only sometimes upon oc- casions; but ^e ought to be always furnished with the habits and dispositions to those positive duties against those occasions.
"3rd. That between these two; i. e. between unlawful, which are always, and necessary, quoad hie et nunc, which are but sometimes, there is a great latitude, and therein we have our liberty, which we may use without scrupulously thinking ourselves obliged to that which in itself may be best.
" If this be so, as I question not that you will conclude with me it is, the greatest cause of your scruples and doubts, I suppose, will be removed; and so the difficulties in the cases proposed will in a good measure be removed too. When 1 Imow from you whether I have guessed right or no, I may be encouraged to venture on two other causes, which I think may be concerned also in all the cases you propose ; but, being of much less moment than this I have mentioned here, may be deferred to another time, and then considered en passant, before we come to take up the particular cases separately.
Memorandum. The two general causes that I suppose re- maining, are :
'^Ist. Thinking things inconsistent that are not; viz. worldly business and devotion.
" 2nd. Natural inconstancy of temper ; where the cures are to be considered, at least as far as this inconstancy is prejudicial, for no further than that ought it to be cured.'*
" Sib, 1678.
" By yours of the 21st Nov. you assure me that in my last, on this occasion, I hit right on the principal and original cause of some disquiet you had upon the matter under con- sideration. I should have been glad to have known also, whether the cure I there offered were any way effectual ; or wherein the reasons I gave came short of that satisfaction as to the point, viz. that we are not obliged to do always that which is precisely best, as was desired. For I think it most proper to the subduing those enemies of our quiet — fear, doubts, and scruples, and for establishing a lasting peace, to do as those who design the conquest of new territories, viz.
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clear the country as we go, and leave behind us no enemies unmastered, no lurking-holes unsearched, no garrisons unre- duced, which may give occasions to disorder and insurrection, and excite disturbances.
"If, therefore, in that, or any other papers, any of my argu- ments and reasonings shall appear weak and obscure ; if they reach not the bottom of the matter, are wide of the particu- lar case, or have not so cleared up the question in all the parts and extent of it, as to settle the truth with evidence and certainty, I must beg you to let me know what doubts still remain, and upon what reasons grounded, that so in pur progress we may look upon those propositions that you are once thoroughly convinced of, to be settled and established truths, of which you are not to doubt any more without new reasons that have not yet been examined. Or, on the other side, by your answers to my reasons I may be set right and recovered from an error. For as I write you nothing but my own thoughts (which is vanity enough — but you will have it so), yet I am not so vain as to imagine them infalli- ble, and therefore expect from you that mutual great office of friendship, to show me my mistakes, and to reason me into a better understanding ; for it matters not on which side the truth lies, so we do but find and embrace it.
" This way of proceeding is necessary on both our accounts ; on mine, because in my friendship with you, as well as others, I design to gain by the bargain that which I esteem the great benefit of finendship, the rectifying my mistakes and errors, which makes me so willingly expose my crude extemporary thoughts to your view, and lay them, such as they are, before you : and on your account also I think it very necessary, for your mind having been long accustomed to think it true, that the thing absolutely in itself best ought always indispensably to be done, you ought, in order to the establishing your peace perfectly, to examine and clear up that question, so as at the end of the debate to retain it still fcr true, or perfectly reject it as a mistaken or wrong measure; and to settle it as a maxim in your mind, that you are no more to govern yourself or thoughts by that false rule, but wholly lay it aside as condemned, without putting yourself to the trouble, every time you reflect on it, to weigh again all those reasons upon which you made that; conclusion ; and so
I 2
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also in any other opinions or principles, when you once come to be convinced of their falsehood.
" If this be not done, it will certainly happen that this prin- ciple (and so of the rest), having been for a long time settled in your mind, will, upon every occasion, recur ; and the rea- sons upon which you rejected it not being so familiar to your mind, nor so ready at hand to oppose it, the old acquaintance Avill be apt to resume his former station and influence, and be apt to disturb that quiet which had not its foundation per- fectly established.
" For these reasons it is that I think we ought to clear all as we go, and come to a plenary result in all the propositions that come under debate, before we go any further. This has been usually my way with myself, to which, I think, I owe a great part of my quiet ; and, I believe, a few good principles, well established, will reach further, and resolve more doubts, than at first sight perhaps one would imagine ; and the grounds and rules on which the right and wrong of our actions . turn, and which will generally serve to conduct us in the cares and occurrences of our lives, in all states and conditions, lie possibly in a narrower compass, and in a less number, than is ordinarily supposed ; but, to come to them, one must go by sure and well-grounded steps."
[The argument is continued at great length, with the in- tent of reconciling worldly business and devotion.]
1678. — Happiness. That the happiness of man consists in pleasure, whether of body or mind, according to every one's relish. The summum malum is pain, or dolor of body and mind ; that this is so, I appeal not only to the experience of all mankind, and the thoughts of every man's breast, but to the best rule of this — the Scripture, which tells that at the right-hand of God, the place of bliss, are pleasures for ever- more ; and that which men are condemned for, is not for seeking pleasure, but for preferring the momentary pleasures of this life to those joys which shall have no end.
ViETUE. To make a man virtuous, three things are neces- sary : 1st. Natural parts and disposition. 2nd. Precepts and instruction. 3rd. ITse and practice ; which is able better to correct the first, and improve the latter.
May 17th, 1678. — According to the right of inheritance, by the law of Moses, the land of inheritance ought to have
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been divided into thirteen parts for tbe twelve sons of Jacob : viz. a double portion, i. e. two thirteenths for Eeuben the eldest, and one-thirteenth to each of the rest. Eeuben, by his incest, forfeited one-half of his birthright, and was disin- herited ; and Joseph (who had saved the family, and was the eldest son of Eacnel, designed by Jacob for his first wife) had this double portion shared betwixt his two sons, Ephraim and Manasses. Levi, in the mean time, had not its one- thirteenth of land, but one-tenth of all the product; by which account, it follows, that the rest of the tribes paid but one-fortieth to the tribe of Levi by their tithes, as having the one-thirteenth pi^rt of the land of inheritance belonging to the tribe of Levi, all except some few towns allotted the Levites for habitation, divided amongst them the lay tribes.
May 2l8t, 1678. — ^A civil law is nothing but the agreement of a society of men either by themselves, or one or more authorized by them : determining the rights, and appointing rewards and punishments to certain actions of all within that society.
Eeementation. I saw by chance an experiment which confirmed me in an opinion I have long had, that in ferment- ation a new air is generated.* M. Tomard produced a large bottle of Muscat ; it was clear when he set it on the table, but when he had drawn out the stopper, a multitude of little bubbles arose, and swelled the wine above the mouth of the bottle. It comes from this, that the air which was included and disseminated in the liquor, had liberty to expand itself, and so to become visible, and being much lighter than the liquor, to mount with great quickness. Q. Whether this be air new generated, or whether the springy particles of air in the fruits out of which these fermenting liquors are drawn, have by the artifice of Nature been pressed close together, wad thereby other particles fastened and held so: and whether fermentation does not loose these bonds, and give them liberty to expand themselves again ? Take a bottle of fermenting liquor, and tie a bladder on the mouth. Q. How much new air will it produce ? whether this has the quality of common airP
* Locke in this place appears to have come very near one of the greatest discoveries in physical science, that of fixed air, which a century later changed the whole face of chemistry.
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Sept. 4th, 1678. — In the reading of books, methinka these are the principal parts or heads of things to be taken notice of. Ist. The knowledge of things ; their essence and nature, properties, causes, and consequences of each species, which I call Philosophica, and must be divided according to the several orders and species of things : and of these, so far as we have the true notion of things as reaUy they are in their indistinct beings, so far we advance in real and true know- ledge. This improvement of our understandings is to be got more by meditation than reading, though that also is not to be neglected, and the faculty chiefly exercised about this, the judgment. The second head is history, wherein it being both impossible in itself, and useless also to us, to remember every particular, I think the most useful, to observe the opinions we find amongst mankind Concerning God, religion, and morality, and the rules they have made to themselves, or practice has established in any of these matters ; and here the memorv is principally employed. The third head is that which is of most use ; that is, what things we find amongst other people fit for our imitation, whether politic or private wisdom ; any arts conducing to the conveniences of life. The fourth is any natural production that may be transplanted into our country, or commodities which may be an advantage- ous commerce ; and these concern practice or action*
The first 1 call Adversaria Philosophica, which must be divided into the several species of things as they come in one's way.— — The second. Adversaria Historica, compre- hending the opinions or traditions which are to be found amongst men, concerning G-od, Creation, Revelation, Pro- phecies, Miracles. — 2nd. Their rules or institutes, concerning things that are duties, sins, or indifferent in matters of religion, or things that are commanded, forbidden, or per- mitted by their municipal laws in order to civil society, which I call Instituta, which contain — 0£icia Eeligiosa ]
Peccata > Lege divina et ad cultum divinum.
Indifferentia ) Officia Civilia \
Crimina > Lege civili.
Licita )
The ways they use to obtain blessings from the Dinnity, or
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1680.] EXTBACTS FROM HIS JOURNAL. 119
atone for their sins, which I call Petitoria Expiatoria ; and last of all, any supernatural things that are to be observed amongst them, magical arts or r^l predictions.
The third I call Adversaria Immitanda, and that is, vrhat- ever wise practices are to be found either for governing of policies, or a man's private conduct, or any beneficial arts employed on natural bodies for their improvement to our use, which contains these heads —
Politica sive sapientia civilis.
Prudentia sive sapientia privata.
Physica sive artes drca Potum. Cibum. Medicinam.
Motus ubi mechanica.
Sensuum objecta. The fourth I call Adversaria Acquirenda, which are the natural products of the country, fit to be transplanted into ours, and there propagated, or else brought thither for some useful quality they have : or else to mark the commodities of the country, whether natural or artificial, which they send out, and are the proper business of merchandise to get by their commerce ; and these are the following, Acquirenda and Merces. There is yet one more, which is the history of na- tural causes and effects, wherein it may be convenient in our reading to observe these several properties of bodies, and the several effects that several bodies or their qualities have one upon another ; and principally to remark those that may con- tnbute either to the improvement of arts, or give light into the nature of things, which is that which I called above Phi- losophica ; which I conceive to consist in having a true, clear, and distinct idea of the nature of anything, which in natural things, or real things, because we are ignorant of their essence, takes in their causes, properties, and effects, or as much of them as we can know, and in moral beings their essence and consequences. This Natural History I call His- torica Physica referenda secundum Species.
December 28th, 1680.— Eushworth, an. 1640, p. 1221. This note to be added in -the margin. This second coming in of the Scots was occasioned and principally encouraged by a letter which the Lord Saville, afterwards Earl of Sussex, writ
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with his own hand, and forged the names of a dozen or four- teen of the chiefest of the English nobility, together with his own, which he sent into Scotland by the hands of Mr H. Darley, who remained there as agent from the said EugHsh Lords until he had brought the Scots in. At the meeting of the Grand Council, when the English and Scotch Lords came together, the letter caused great dispute amongst them ; till at last my Lord Saville, being reconciled to the Court, confessed to the King the whole matter. — A. E. 6.*
. The like marginal note to be added, p. 1260. This petition was presented to the King at York, by the hands of the Lord Mandevill and the Lord Edward Howard. The King imme- diately called a Cabinet Council, wherein it was concluded to cut off both the Lords' heads the next day ; when the council was up, and the King gone, Duke Hamilton, and the Earl of Strafford, G-eneral of the army, remaining behind, when Duke Hamilton, asking the Earl of Strafford whether the army would stand to them, the Earl of Strafford answered he feared not, and protested he did not think of that before then. Hamilton replied, if we are not sure of thb army, it may be our heads instead of theirs ; whereupon they both agreed to go to the King and alter the council, which accordingly they did.
May 5th, 1681. — Coleman's Sermon on Job ii. 20. 4to, London, 45, p. 35.
The 1st Cor. 5, and Matt. 18, are the common places on which are erected Church Q-overnment. Padre Paolo writ many years before, that when the English hierarchy shall fall into the hands of busy and audacious men, or meet with a Prince tractable to Prelacy, then much mischief is likely to ensue in that kingdom. lb. p. 33. — Quaere. Whether there be any. such thing ?
May 16th, 1681. — The three great things that govern mankind are Eeason, Passion, and Superstition ; the first governs a few, the two last share the bulk of mankind, and possess them in their turns ; but superstition is most power- ful, and produces the greatest mischiefs.
June 24th. — There are two sorts of knowledge in the
world, general and particular, founded upon two different
principles ; i. e. true ideas, and matter of fact, or history.
All general knowledge is founded only upon true ideas j and
• Does A. E. S. mean Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury ?
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80 far as we have these, we are capable of demonstration, or certain knowledge ; for he that has the true idea of a triangle or circle, is capable of knowing any demonstration concern- ing these figures ; but if he have not the true idea of a scaJe- non, he cannot know a,nything concerning a scalenon, though he may have some confused or imperfect opinion concerning a scalenon, upon a confused or imperfect idea of it ; or when he believes what others say concerning a scalenon, he may have some uncertain opinion concerning its properties, but this is a belief, and not knowledge. Upon the same reason, he that has a true idea of Q-od, of himself as his creature, or the relation he stands in to Q-od and his fellow-creatures, and of justice, goodness, law, happiness, &c. &c., is capable of know- ing moral things, or have a demonstrative certainty in them.
But though I say a man that hath such ideas is capable of certain knowledge in them, yet I do not say that presently he hath thereby that certain knowledge, no more than that he that hath a true idea of a triangle and a right angle, doth presently thereby know that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones. He may believe others that tell him so, but know it not till he himself hath employed his thoughts on and seen the connection and agreement of their ideas, and so made to himself the demonstration ; i. e. upon exam- ination seen it to be so.
The first great step, therefore, to knowledge, is to get the mind furnished with true ideas, which the mind being capa- ble of knowing of moral things as well as figures, I cannot but think morality, as well as mathematics, capable of de- monstration, if men would employ their understandings to think more about it, and not give themselves up to the lazy, traditional way of talking one after another : by the know- ledge of natural bodies, and their operation reaching little further than bare matter-of-fact, without having perfect ideas of the ways and manners they are produced, nor the concur- rent causes they depend on ; and also the well management of public or private affairs depending upon the various and unknown humours, interests, and capacity of men we have to do with in the world, and not upon any settled ideas of things. Physique, polity, and prudence, are not capable of demonstration, but a man is principally helped in them by the history of matter-of-fact, and a sagacity of inquiring into
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probable causes, and finding out an analogy in their opera- tions and effects.
Knowledge then depends upon right and true ideas ; opinion, ypon history and matter-of-fect : and hence it comes to pass, that our knowledge of general things are eternw veritates, and depend not upon the existence or accidents of things, for the truths of mathematics and morality are cer- tain, whether men make true mathematical figures, or suit their actions to the rules of morality or no. Por that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, is in- falliably true, whether there be any such figure as a triangle existing in the world or no. And it is true, that it is every man's duty to be just, whether there be any such thing as a just man in the world or no. But whether this course in public o;* private affairs will succeed well, — whether rhubarb will purge, or quinquina cure an ague, is only known by experience ; and there is but probability grounded upon ex- perience or analogicf^l reasoning, but no certain knowledge or demonstration.
By having true and perfect ideas, we come to be in a ca- pacity of having perfect knowledge, which consists in two parts : 1st. The knowing the properties of the thing itself; thus he that hath the true idea of a triangle, may know, if he will examine and follow the conduct of his reason, that its three angles are equal to two right ones, and the like. 2nd. The knowing how it stands related to any other figure, of which he has p perfect idea ; viz. that of a triangle. But without the having these ideas true and perfect, he is not capable of knowing any of these properties in the thing itself, or relative to any other, though he may be able to say, after others, when he has affirmed it, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, and believe them to signify truth ; though he himself knows not what these words signify, if he have no true ideas of a triangle or right angles, or knows them not to be true, if he have not made out to himself that demonstration which is by comparing the ideas and their parts together.
The best Algebra yet extant is Outred's, though to all Algebra there needs but two theorems of Euclid, and five rules of De3cartes, but those who are not masters of it make use of more.
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" Les esprits popxilaires a'cffensent de tout ce qui repugne a leurs prejuges;" one ought to take care, therefore, in all discourses, whether narrative or matter-of-fact, instructive to teach any doctrine, or persuasive, to take care of shocking the received opinion of those one has to deal with, whether true or false.
June 26th. — To choose is to will one thing before another, and to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that which they see to be good (Hooker, 653, p. 78) ; or rather, to will is, after consideration, or upon knowledge and choice, to begin or continue any thought of the mind, op motion of the body, in our power.
Sunday, August 7th, 1681. — Whatsoever carries any excel- lency with it, and includes not imperfection, must needs make a part of the idea we have of God. So that with being, and the continuation of it, or perpetual duration, power and wisdom and goodness must be ingredients of the perfect or Buper-excellent being which we call God, and that in the utmost or infinite degree. But jet that unlimited power cannot be an excellency witKout it be regulated by wisdom and goodness; for since God is eternal and perfect in his own being, he cannot make use of that power to change his own being into a better or another state ; and therefore all the exercise of that power must be in and upon his creatures, which cannot but be employed for their good and benefit, as much as the order and perfection of the whole can allow each individual in its particular rank and station : and therefore looking on God as a being infinite in goodness as well as power, "we cannot imagine he hath made anything with a de- sign that it should be miserable, but that he hath alTorded it all the means of being happy that its nature and estate is capable of: and though justice be also a perfection which we must necessarily ascribe to the Supreme Being, yet we can- not suppose the exercise of it should extend further than his goodness has need of it for the preservation of his creatures in the order and beauty of the state that he has placed each of them in ; for since our actions cannot reach unto him, op bring him any profit or damage, the punishments he inflicts on any of his creatures, i. e. the misery or destruction he brings upon them, can be nothing else but to preserve the greater or more considerable part, and so being only for pre-
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servation, his justice is nothing but a branch of his goodness, which is fain by severity to restrain the irregular and destruc- tive parts from doing harm ; for to imagine God under a necessity of punishing for any other reason but this, is to make his justice a great imperfection, and to suppose a power over him that necessitates him to operate contrary to the rules of his wisdom and goodness, which cannot be supposed to make anything so idly as that it should be purposely destined or be put in a worse state than destruction (misery being as much a worse state than annihilation, as pain is than insensibility, or the torments of a rack less eligible than quiet sound sleeping) : the justice then of G-od can be supposed to extend no further than infinite goodness shall find it neces- sary for the preservation of his works.
Sunday, Sept. 18th, 1681. — Eeligion* being that homage and obedience which man pays immediately to God, it sup- poses that man is capable of knowing that there is a God, and what is required by, and is acceptable to Him, thereby to avoid his anger and procure his favour. That there is a God, and what that God is, nothing can discover to us, nor judge in us, but natural reason. For whatever discovery we receive any other way, must come originally from inspiration, which is an opinion or persuasion in the mind whereof a jnan knows not the rise nor reason, but is received there as a truth com- ing from an unknown, and therefore a supernatural cause, and not founded upon those principles nor observations in the way of reasoning which makes the understanding admit other things for truths. But no such inspiration conceruing God, or his worship, can be admitted for truth by him that thinks himself thus inspired, much less by any other whom he would persuade to believe him inspired, any further than it is con- formable to reason ; not only because where reason is not, I judge it is impossible for a man himself to distinguish be- twixt inspiration and fancy, truth and error ; but also it is impossible to have such a notion of God, as to believe that he should make a creature to whom the knowledge of himself was necessary, and yet not to be discovered by that way which discovers everything else that concerns us, but was to come into the minds of men only by such a way by which all man-
• These remarks anticmate the argument in Archbishop Tillotson's c^e- brated disoourse against Transubstantiation.
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ner of errors come in, and is more likely to let in falsehoods than truths, since nobody can doubt, from the contradiction and strangeness of opinions concerning Q-od and religion in this world, that men are likely to have more frenzies than inspirations. Inspiration then, barely in itself, cannot be a ground to receive any doctrine not conformable to reason.
In the next place, let us see how far inspiration can enforce on the mind any opinion concerning God or his worship, when accompanied with a power to do a miracle ; and here too, I say, the last determination must be that of reason.
1st. Because reason must be the judge what is a miracle and what not ; which not knowing how far the power of natural causes do extend themselves, and what strange effects they may produce, is very hard to determine.
2nd. It will always be as great a miracle, that God should alter the course of natural things, to overturn the principles of knowledge and understanding in a man, by setting up any- thing to be received by him as a truth, which his reason can- not assent to, as the miracle itself ; and so at best, it will be but one miracle against another, and the greater still on reason's side ; it being harder to believe that God should alter, and put out of its ordinary course some phenomenon of the great world for once, and make things act contrary to their ordinary rule, purposely that the mind of man might do 8o always afterwards, than that this is some fallacy or natural effect, of which he knows not the cause, let it look never so strange.
3rd. Because man does not know whether there be not several sorts of creatures above him, and between him and the Supreme, amongst which there may be some that have the power to produce in Nature such extraordinary effects as we call miracles, and may have the will to do it, for other reasons than the confirmation of truth ; for the magicians of Egypt turned their rods into serpents as well as Moses ; and since so great a miracle as that was done in opposition to the true God, and the revelation sent by Him, what miracle can have certainty and assurance greater than that of a man's reason ?
And if inspiration have so much the disadvantage of reason in the man himself who is inspired, it has much more so in
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him who receives the revelation only by tradition from another, and that too very remote in time and place.
I do not hereby deny in the least that God can do, or hath done, miracles for the confirmation of truth ; but I only say that we cannot think he should do them to enforce doctrines or notions of himself, or any worship of him not conformable to reason, or that we can receive such for truth for the mira- cle's sake : and even in those books which have the greatest proof of revelation from God, and the attestation of miracles to confirm their being so, the miracles are to be judged hf the doctrine, and not the doctrine by the miracles, v, Deut. xiii. 1 ; Matt. xiv. 24. And St Paul says, " If an angel from Heaven should teach any other doctrine," &c. &c.
Sunday, Peb. 19th, 1682. — ^A strong and firm persuasion of any proposition relating to religion, for which a man hath either no or not sufficient proofe from, reason, but receives them as truths wrought in the mind extraordinarily by influ- ence coming immediately from Qt)d himself, seems to me to be enthusiasm, which can be no evidence or ground of assur- ance at all, nor can by any means betaken for knowledge. If such groundless thoughts as these, concerning ordinary mat- ters, and not religion, possess the mind strongly, we call it raving, and every one thinks it a degree of madness ; but in religion, men, accustomed to the thoughts of revelation, make a greater allowance to it, though indeed it be a more danger- ous madness ; but men are apt to think in religion they may, and ought, to quit their reason.
I find that the Christians, Mahometans, and Brahmins, all pretend to this immediate inspiration ; but it is certain that contradictions and Msehoods cannot come from God ; nop can any one that is of the true religion be assured of any- thing by a way whereof those of a false religion may be and are equally confirmed in theirs. For the Turkish dervishes pretend to revelations, ecstasies, visions, raptures, to be trans- ported with illumination of Q-od, v. Eicaut. The Jaugis, amongst the Hindoos, talk of being illuminated and entirely united to God, v. Bemier, as well as the most spiritualized Christians.
April 6th. — It is to be observed concerning these illumina- tions, that how clear soever they may seem, they carry no
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knowledge nor certainty any further than there are proofb of the truth of those things that are discoTered by them ; and so far they are parts of reason, and have the same foundation with other persuasions in a man's mind, whereof his reason judges. If there be no proofs of them, they pass for nothing but mere imaginations of the fancy, how clearly soever they appear, or acceptable they may be to the mind. For it is not the clearness of the fancy, but the evidence of the truth of the thing, which makes the certainty. He that should pretend to have a clear sight of a Turkish paradise, and of an angel sent to direct him thither, might, perhaps, have a very clear imagination of all this ; but it altogether no more proted that either there were such a place, or that an angel had the con- duct of him thither, than if he saw all this in colours well drawn by a painter : these two pictures being no more differ- ent as to the appearance of anything resembled by them, than that one is a fleeting draught in the imagination, the other a lasting one on a sensible body.
That which makes aU the pretenders to supernatural illumination further to be suspected to be merely the effect and operation of the fancy, is, that all the preparations and ways used to dispose the mind to those illuminations, and make it capable of them, are such as are apt to disturb and depress the rational power of the mind, and to advance and set on work the fancy ; such are fasting, solitude, intense and long meditation on the same thing, opium, intoxicating liquors, long and vehement turning round, all which are used by some or other of those who would attain to those extra- ordinary discourses, as fit preparations of the mind to receive them, all which do really weaken and disturb the rational faculty, let loose the imagination, and thereby make the mind less steady in distinguishing betwixt truth and fancy.
I do not remember that I have read of any enthusiasts amongst the Americans, or any who have not pretended to a revealed religion, as all those before mentioned do ; which if 80, it naturally suggests this inquiry — Whether those that found their religion upon Revelation, do not from thence take occasion to imagine, that since Q-od has been pleased by Revelation to discover to them the general precepts of their religion, they that have a particular interest in his favour have reason to expect that he will reveal Himself to
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them, if they take the right way to seek it in those things that concern them in particular, in reference to their con- duct, state, or comfort. But of this I shall conclude nothing till I shall be more fiilly assured in matter-of-fact.
Enthusiasm is a fault in the mind opposite to brutish sen- suality ; as far in the other extreme exceeding the just mea sure of reason, as thoughts grovelling only in matter, and things of sense, come short of it.
April 20. — The usual physical proof (if I may so call it) of the immortality of the soul is this ; matter cannot think, ergo the soul is immaterial ; nothing can really destroy an immateHal thing, ergo, the soul is really immaterial.
Those who oppose these men, press them very hard with the souls of beasts ; for, say they, beasts feel and think, and therefore their souls are immaterial, and consequently im- mortal. This has by some men been judged so urgent, that they have rather thought fit to conclude all beasts perfect machines, rather than allow their souls immortality or an- nihilation, both which seem harsh doctrines ; the one being out of the reach of Nature, and so cannot be received afl the natural state of beasts after this life ; the other equalling them, in a great measure, to the state of man, if they shall be immortal as well as he.
But methinks, if I may be permitted to say so, neither of these speak to the point in question, and perfectly mistake immortality ; whereby is not meant a state of bare substan- tial existence and duration, but a state of sensibility ; for that way that they use of proving the soul to be immortal, will as well prove the body to be so too ; for since nothing can really destroy a material substance more than immate- rial, the body will naturally endure as well as the soul for ever ; and, therefore, in the body they distioguish betwixt duration and life or sense, but not in the soul ; supposing it in the body to depend on texture, and a certain union with the soul, but in the soul upon its indivisible and immut- able constitution and essence; and so that it can no mor^ cease to think and perceive, than it can cease to be imma- terial or something.
But this is manifestly false, and there is scarce a man that has not experience to the contrary every twenty-four hours. For I ask what sense or thought the soul (which is certainly
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then in a man) has during two or three hours of sound sleep without dreaming, whereby it is plain that the soul may exist or have duration for some time without sense or perception ; and if it may have for this hour, it may also have the same duration without pain or pleasure, or anything else, for the next hour, and so to eternity ; so that to prove that immor- tality of the soul, simply because, it being naturally not to be destroyed by anything, it will have an eternal duration, which duration may be without any perception, is to prove no other immortality of the soul tlian what belongs to one of Epicurus's atoms, viz. that it perpetually exists, but has no sense either of happiness or misery.
If they say, as some do, that the soul during a sound quiet 'sleep perceives and thinks, but remembers it not, one may, with as much certainty and evidence, say that the bed-post thinks and perceives too all the while, but remembers it not ; for I ask whether during this profound sleep the soul has any sense of happiness or misery ? and if the soul should continue in that state to eternity (with all that sense about it whereof it hath no consciousness nor memory), whether there could be any such distinct state of heaven or hell, which we suppose to belong to souls after this life, and for which only we are concerned for and inquisitive after its immortality ? And to this I leave every man to answer to his own self, viz. if he should continue to eternity in the same sound sleep he has sometimes been in, whether he would be ever a jot more happy or miserable during that eternity than the bedstead he lay on ?
Since, then, experience of what we find daily in sleep, and very firequently in swooning and apoplexy, &c., put it past doubt that the soul may subsist in a state of insensibility, without partaking in the least degree of happiness, misery, or any perception whatsoever (and whether death, which the Scripture calls sleep, may not put the souls of some men at least into such a condition, I leave those who have well considered the story of Lazarus to conjecture), shall establish the existence of the soul, will not, therefore, prove its being in a state of happiness or misery, since it is evident that perception is no more necessary to its being than motion is to the being of body. Let, therefore, spirit be in its own nature as durable as matter, that no power can destroy it
K
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but that Omnipotence that at first created it ; they may both lie dead and inactive, the one without thought, the other without motion, a minute, an hour, or to eternity, which wholly depends upon the will and good pleasure of the first Author ; and he that will not live conformable to such a fu- ture state, out of the undoubted certainty that Q-od can, and the strong probability, amounting almost to certainty, that he will, put the souls of men into a state^of life or perception after the dissolution of their bodies, will hardly be brought to do it upon the force of positions, which are, by their own experience, daily contradicted, and will at bestj if admitted for true, make the souls of beasts immortal as well as theirs.
" Apnl 26th, 1682. — * Necjue ante Philosophiam patefactam qU8B nuper inventa est.' — Cicero. If Philosophy had been in TuUy's time not long in the world, it is likely the world is not older than our account, since it is impossible to imagine that the world should be so old as some would reckon, much more that the generation of men should have been from eter-» nity, and yet jmilosophy not be found out by the inquisitive mind of man till a little before Tully's time.
"*Natur^ futura praesentiunt aut aquarum fluxiones aut deflagrationem futuram aliquando'coeli^atque terrarum,' — an old opinion, it seems, that the world should perish by fire.
" The loadstone itself, that we have reason to think is as old as the world, and is to be found plentifully in several parts of it, and very apt to make itself be taken notice of by so sensible and so surprising an efiect as is its attraction of iron, and its steady adhesion to it ; and can one imagine the busy inquisitive nature of man, in an infinite number of ages, should never by chance, or out of curiosity, observe that working and pointing to the north which that stone has in itself, and so readily communicates to iron ? Can we think it reasonable to suppose that it required as long a duration as was from eternity to oui' great-grandfathers* days, to dis- cover this useful quality in that common metal ? in which it is so near natural, that almost every place has the virtue of a loadstone to produce it ; our common utensils get it only by standing in our chimney-comers. And yet the discovery, when once made, does, by its proper use, so unavoidably spread it- self over all the world, that nothing less than total extirpa- tion of all mankind can ever possibly make it be forgotten.
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" It is a matter of great admiration how the art of print- ing should be so many ages undiscovered, and how the an- cients, who were skilled in graving on brass, should miss this great art of despatch, when it was so natural to consider how easy it would be to imprint, in a moment, on paper, all those graved characters, which it would cost a great deal of time even first to write with a pen ; though this thought never occurred in several ages ; so fair a beginning was never im- proved into the art of printing till about 200 years since ; yet eternity of the world could by no means admit so late a discovery of it, and it is impossible to imagine that men, in an infinite succession of generations, should not infinitely sooner have perfected so useful and obvious an invention, which when once brought to light, must needs continue to eternity, if the world should last so long."
Some of these last articles are selected from the journal subsequent to Locke's arrival in England, as may be observed from their dates ; they have been arranged in their present order to prevent confusion. For some years after that period the journal contains very little except private memoranda^ medical observations, extracts from books, and dates of the change of residence. There are occasionally notices of other things, such as the following :
" 1681, March 1st. This day I saw Alice George, a woman, as she said, of 108 years old at Allhallow-tide last : she lived in St GHes' parish, Oxford, and has lived in and about Ox- ford since she was a young woman ; she was bom at Salt- wych, in "Worcestershire ; her father lived to eighty-three, her mother to ninety-six, and her mother's mother to 111. When she was young she was neither fat nor lean, but very slender in the waist; for her size she was to be reckoned rather amongst the tall than the short women ; her condition was but mean, and her maintenance her labour. She said she was able to have reaped as much in a dav as a man, and had as much wages ; she was marned at thu-ty, and had fifteen diildren, viz. t^n sons and five daughters, besides five mis- carriages; she has three sons still alive, her eldest, John, living next door to her, seventy-seven years old the 25th of this month. She goes upright with a staff" in one hand, but I saw her stoop twice without resting upon anjrthing, tak- ing up once a pot, and at another time her glove from the
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ground. Her hearing is very good, and her smelling so quick, that as soon as she came near me, she said I smelt very sweet, I having a pair of new gloves on that were not strong scent- ed. Her eyes she complains of as failing her since her last sickness, which was an ague that seized her about two years since, and held her about a year ; and yet she made a shift to thread a needle before us, though she seemed not to see the end of the thread very perfectly. She has as comely a face as ever I saw any old woman have, and age has neither made her deformed nor decrepit. The greatest part of her food now is bread and cheese, or bread and butter, and ale. Sack revives her when she can get it ; for flesh she cannot now eat, unless it be roasting pig, which she loves. She had, she said^ in her years, a good stomach, and ate what came in her way, oftener wanting victuals than a stomach. Her memory and understanding perfectly good and quick. Amongst a great deal of discourse we had with her, and stories she told, she spoke not one idle or impertinent word. Before this last ague she used to go to church constantly, Sundays, Wednes- days, and Saturdays ; since that she walks not beyond her little garden. She has been ever since her being married troubled sometimes with vapours, and so is still, but never took any physic but once, about forty years since. She said she was sixteen in 1588, and went then to Worcester to see Queen Elizabeth, but came an hour too late, which agrees with her account of her age."
In this part of the journal there is at length an account of Captain Wood's reasons for, and observations on, his attempt of the North-west passage in 1676 ; it was grounded on the opinion of one William Barants, a Hollander, who attempted the passage in 1605, and it was then thought that an open sea would have been found at the Pole. After giving the au- thority and information of several Dutch captains, &c., " upon these considerations he set out in the Speedwell with sixty- eight men and boys, and a pink, called the Prosperous, to at- tend her at the beginning of the voyage, May 28, 1676, from the buoy at the Nore ; and on the 29th of June following, their ship split upon a ledge of rocks, at Nova Zembla, where they endured great hardships ; being relieved and taken in by the Prosperous, they returned to the buoy at the Nore on the 2Brd of August following,"
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• • • • •
*^ He (the Captain) conceives the Dutch relations are all &lae, lying pamphlets, and so also the relations of our own countiymen. He beHeves that if there be no land north of lat. 80, that the sea there is all frozen," &c. &c.
• • ♦ • •
I shall conclude these extracts with the following little incident, belonging to an episcopal visitation in the century before the last.
'* Monday, August 2nd, 1680. From Salisbury to Basing- stoke, thirty miles ; where being a visitation of the Bishops, Mr Carter, who found it a long time now to the next pre- sentment, sat drinking with his churchwardens next chamber to me, and affcer drink had well warmed them, a case of doc- trine or discipline engaged them in a quarrel, which broke out into defiimce and cuffs, and about midnight raised the house to keep the peace, but so fruitlessly, that between skirmishing, parleys, and loud defiances, the whole night was spent in noise and tumult, of which I had more than sleep. In the morning when I rose all was quiet, and the pardon a-bed, where he was like to be kept past his ale and sleep, his
fown having more of the honour of a tattered colours than a ivinity robe ! "
The following directions appear to have been set down for some foreigner about to visit fei^gland. They are curious, as affording a comparison with the improvement of the present time.
"Ekoland.— 1679.
" The sports of England, which^perhaps, a curious stranger would be glad to see, are horse-racing, hawking, and hunting. Bowling. — ^At Marebone and Putney he may see several persons of quality bowling two or three times a week all the summer ; wrestling, in Lincoln's Inne Field every evening all the summer ; bear and bull-baiting, and sometime prizes, at the Bear-Gkirden ; shooting in the long-bow and stob-ball, in Tothill Fields ; cudgel-playing, in several places in the country ; and hurling, in Cornwall.
" London : — See the East India House, and their maga- zines ; the Custom House ; the Thames, by water, from
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134 LITE AND LBTTEES OF JOHN LOCKE. [l679.
London Bridge to Deptford ; and the King's yard at Dept- ford ; the sawing-windmill ; Tradescant's garden and closet ; Sir James Morland's doset and water-works ; the iron mills at Wandsworth, four miles above London, upon the Thames, or rather those in Sussex ; Paradise by Hatton Q-arden ; the glass-house at the Savoy, and at Vauxhall. Eat fish in Fish Street, especially lobsters, Colchester oysters, and a fresh cod's-head. The veal and beef are excellent good in London ; the mutton better in several counties in England. A venison pasty and a chine of beef are good everywhere ; and so are crammed capons and fat chickens. Bailes and heath-polts, ruffs, and reeves, are excellent meat wherever they can be met with. Puddings of several sorts, and creams of several fashions, both excellent, but they are seldom to be found, at least in their perfection, at common eating-houses. Mango and saio are two sorts of sauces brought from the East Lidies. Bermuda oranges and potatoes, both exceeding good in their kind. Chedder and Cheshire cheese.
" Men excellent in their Arts :—
" Mr Cox, in Long Acre, for all sorts of dioptrical glasses.
" Mr Opheel, near the Savoy, for all sorts of machines.
" Mr , for a new invention he has, and teaches to
copy all sorts of pictures, plans, or to take prospects of
" The King's gunsmith, at the Yard by Whitehall.
" Mr Not, in the Pall Mall, for binding of books.
" The Eire-eater.
"At an iijnmonger's, near the May-pole, in the Strand, is to be found ■ great variety of iron instruments, and utensils of all kinds. ^
" At Bristol see the Hot-well ; St G-eorge's Cave, where the Bristol diamonds are found ; Batcliff Church ; and at Kingwood the coal-pits. Taste there Milford oysters, mar- row-puddings, cock-ale, metheglin, white and red muggets, elvers, sherry, sack (which, with sugar, is called Bristol milk) ; and some other urines, which, perhaps, you will not drink so good at London.
" At Glocester observe the whispering place in the Cathe- dral.
" At Oxford see all the colleges, and their libraries ; the schools, and public library; and the physic-garden. Buy
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there knives and gloves, especially wbite kid-skin ; and the cuts of all the colleges graved by Loggins.
" If you go into the North, see the Peak in Derbyshire, described by Hobbs, in a Latin poem, called *Mirabilia Pecci.'
" Home-made drinks of England are beer and ale, strong and small ; those of most note that are to be sold, are Lam- beth ale, Margaret ale, and Derby ale ; Herefordshire cider, perry, mede. There are also several sorts of compounded ales, as cock-ale, worm-wood ale, lemon-ale, scurvygrass ale. Col- lege-ale, &c. These are to be had at Hercules Pillars, near the Temple ; at the Trumpet, and other houses in Sheer Lane, Bell Alley ; and, as I remember, at the English Tavern near Charing Cross.
" Foreign drinks to be found in England are all sorts of Spanish, Q-reek, Italian, Rhenish, and other wines, which are to be got up and down. at several taverns. Coff6, th6, and chocolate, at coffee-houses. Mum at the mum houses, and other places ; and! Molly, a drink of Barbadoes, by chance at some Barbadoes merchants. Punch, a compounded drink, on board some West India ships ; and Turkish sherbet amongst the merchants.
" Manufa<;tures of cloth, that will keep out rain ; flannel, knives, locks, and keys ; scabbards for swords ; several things wrought in steel, as little boxes, heads for canes, boots, riding-whips, Bippon spurs, saddles, &c.
'^ At Nottingham dwells a man who makes fans, hatbands, necklaces, and other things of glass, drawn out into very small threads."
Locke arrived in London from the Continent on the 8th (^ May, as has been before mentioned. He had perhaps prolonged intentionally his residence at Paris, to avoid wit- nessing the folly and fury of his friends in England on the subject of the Popish Plot. It is indeed very probable that the two following reflections in his Journal, which he wrote whilst at Paris, were suggested by the state, I will not say of public opinion, but of public fury in England. His words are, " Where power and not the good exercise of it give re- putation, all the injustice, falsehood, violence, and oppression that attains that (power), goes for wisdom and ability;" and again, ^'Beligions are upheld and factions maintained,
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136 LIFE AKD LETTEBS 07 JOHIT LOCKE. [l679.
and the shame of being disesteemed by^ those with whom one hath lived, and to whom one would recommend oneself is the great source and direction of most of the actions of men."
On his return to England, this observation is found in his Journal.
" June 17th, 1679. — Opikiok. A thinking and considerate man cannot believe anything with a firmer assent than is due to the evidence and validity of those reasons on which it is founded ; yet the greatest part of men not examining the probability of things in their own nature, nor the testimony of those who are their vouchers, take the common belief or opinion of those of their country, neighbourhood, or party, to be proof enough, and so believe as well as live by fashion and example ; and these men are z€^ous Turks as well as Christians."
It is evident from these liotes, that the writer partook not of the popular phrensy which had so long prevailed in Eng- land, and had not as yet entirely subsided.
The same asthmatic complaint which had induced him to leave England in 1675, was now an obstacle to any long- continued residence in London, and obliged him to pass the winter season for the most part either at Oxford or in the "West. This absence must have been a subject of regret, since Shaftesbury, who had recalled him from France, was now either in power, or deeply engaged in the politics of that eventful period.
The events of Locke's life henceforward became so much connected with the history of the time, that it will be neces- sary to give a short outline of the political transactions which ended in the triumph of the Court, and enabled Charles II. to trample on the liberties of his country.
The Parliament which had originally been chosen in 1661, that pensioned Parliament as it was called, that obedient and subservient Parliament as it certainly was, beginning at last to manifest distrust of the King, was after a long life dissolved in December, 1678, and the next Parliament, which met in March, 1679, proving equally unmanageable, the King determined, by the advice of Temple, to call some of the po- pular leaders to his Council, of which Shaftesbury was made President. It did not escape the penetration of that great
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politiciaii, that he never possessed more than the appearance of Court &Toiir. He resolved, therefore, although in the King's cabinet, to adhere to the popular party by strongly supporting the Bills for the exclusion of the Duke of York, or those for the limitation of his power, which were frequently urged forward by the popular leaders in Parliament. He was also mainly instrumental in passing the Habeas Corpus, Act, a measure particularly obnoxious to the Court.
A new Parliament having been chosen, the King, who, with all the Tory party, looked with great apprehension to the expected meeting, determined by his own act, without the concurrence of his Council, »r<wr»o tnotu, to prevent its assembling by a prorogation. He knew well that he should be opposed by the popular leaders whom he had admitted to his Council, and therefore decided without their advice. Upon this, Lord Eussell resigned in disgust, and Shaftesbury quitted his office of President of the Council.
After dissolutions, and new Parliaments in rapid succes* sion, the Parliament which was summoned to meet at Oxford, 1680, was the last that was allowed to assemble in the r^ign of Charles II. The country party had a decided majority in the election of the members of that House of Commons ; and even in the county of Oxford it seems that all the four can* didates were on that side. The chief difficulty, therefore, for the leaders of the country party, was a proper choice of friends, as appears by a letter from Shaftesbury to Locke on the subject or the elections.
"Feb. 19th, 1681. " Me Looeb,
*' I am extremely obliged to you, and so are all the rest of the Lords, for the trouble we have put you to. This bearer comes from us all, to take possession of our allotments in BaUol College, and to provide things necessary. He is or- dered in the first place to address himself to you.
" We are told here, that you have four very worthv men stand for Knights of the county of Oxford. 'Tis unnappy that we should make trouble and expense amongst ourselves ; the two last Kjiights were very worthy men, and therefore 'tis much wished here, that you or some other worthy person should persuade Sir Philip Harcourt and Sir John Norris to sit down. Those that deserved well in the last Parliament
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138 LIFE AND LETTEES OF JOHK L0j»0O. [l68l.
ought in right to have the preference ; and at this rate of Parliaments, I wish all our friends hare not ndore than time enough to be weary. I shall trouble you no further at present. 1 am »
Your most affectionate friend and seifrant,
Shaftesbury.'*
If the only difficulty which the country party at that time had, was to make the best selection of members most friendly to their cause ; if the temper of the Commons was generaUy adverse to the Court, and there is no reason to doubt that it was so, since the Exclusion Bill and all the 'Other obnoidous measures were pressed on in Parliament with much activity, — the triumph which the King gained in the course of the next two years after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament is the mpre extraordinary. He had, we know, the powerful assistance of the Church, acting in perfect union zealously to enforce and firmly to estabSsh in practice the slavish principles contained in their famous manifesto of passive obedience and non-resistance. Then began the campaign of judicial murders, which continued without remorse or pity to the end of the reign of Charles II. Argyle, Eussell, and Sydney, fell martyrs to the vindictive spirit of the Court. Shaftesbury was indicted of high treason, but was saved by a verdict of ignoramus given by the G^rand Jury. He was indebted for his escape much more to the contrivance of his friends than to the fairness of a Court of Justice. Hume, who cannot be supposed to be favourable to him, says, " that as far as swearing could go, the treason was clearly proved against Shaftesbury ; or rather so clearly as to merit no kind of cre- dit or attention. That veteran leader of a party, inured from his youth to faction and intrigue, to cabals and conspiracies, was represented as opening without reserve his treasonable intentions to these obscure banditti, aad throwing out such violent and outrageous reproaches upon the King, as none but men of low education like themselves could be supposed to employ."
This was the last defeat which the Court sustained : the sheriffs, after this time, were appointed by the Crown, the juries packed, and writs of Quo Warranto issued against the corporations throughout England. As it was evidently un*
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safe for any person who bad incurred the displeasure of the Court .to remain within its power, Shaftesbury* made bis retreat to Holland at the end of the year 1682. Locke, who bad so long been connected with him, and had been so much trusted by him, thought it more prudent to take refuge also in Holland about the end of August, 1688.
Lord Bussell had already been executed, and as prepara- tions were at that very time making for the trial, or, what is the same thing, the execution of Sydney, it was evident that no person who had been connected with Shaftesbury and that party, however innocent he might be, could consider himself safe, so long as he remained within reach of a vindictive Court, whose will was law, and whose judges were often its degraded advocates, and always the instruments of its venge- ance.
Nothing perhaps can more clearly prove the unscrupulous atrocity and violence of those unhappy times, than the form of Prayer, or rather of commination, against the country party, ordered by the -King's proclamation to be read, to- gether with his declaration, in all the churches on the 9th of September, 1683. It is indeed lamentable to observe that the Church of England then made herself the willing hand- maid of a bloody Government, exciting the passions of the congregations, and through them inflaming the juries before the trials of all the accused were finished.f The following composition may be presumed to be the pious production of the heads of our Church at that time, though, from its tone and spirit, it should seem rather to have proceeded from the
* Shaftesbury died shortly after his arrival in Holland, and was buried at St Giles's, in Dorsetshire, Feb. 26th, 1683, where Locke attended the foneral of his patron and his friend. .
t After the commitment of Lord Russell ana Algernon Sydney, Hamp- den, the grandson of the great Hampden, was bv the GouncU committed also to the Tower, charged with high treason ; but as only one witness. Lord Howard, could be procured to appear against him, he was arraigned on a charge of misdemeanor, on the 28th of November, 1684, and grieyously fined. He was afterwards tried for high treason, that is, tried a second time for the same offence, when the Goiurt had procured the other witness. Lord Grey.
Sir Thomas Armstrong was murdered by form of law in June, 1684. Lord Melven, Sir J. Cochrane, Robert Ferguson, and thirteen or fourteen others, were named in the King's Declaration as having escaped firom jus- tice, all charged with the same treason as Russell and Sydney^
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140 Lnrs ajstd littbbs of JOHK LOOKE. [1683.
mouth of the Mufti and the TJlema than from the Bishops and rulers of the Christian Church of England.
The Prayer is taken from the authorized copy printed hy the King's printer.
' " His Majestie's Declaration to all his loving subjects con- cerning the treasonable conspiracy against his sacred person and government, appointed to be tern in all churches :
"Chaeles Eex. — It has been our observation that for several years last past a malevolent party has made it their business to promote sedition by libellous pamphlets, and other wicked arts, to render our government odious, &c. &c,
" But it pleased Q-od to open the eyes of our good subjects, &c. &c.
• • • •
And convince the common people of the villainous designs of their &ctious leaders," &c.
• • • • • Then, after reciting the preparations and design of shoot- ing into the coach where " our Eoyal Person and our dearest Brother were, and that such was the abundant mercy of Al- mighlr G^od, that a discovery was made unto us on the 12th of July last, we have used the best means we could for the detection and prevention of so hellish a conspiracy: but it so happened that divers having notice of warrants issued for their apprehension, have fled from justice. Sir Thomas Arm- strong, &c. &Q. ; others have been taken, some of whom, the Lord William Eussell, Thomas Walcot, William Hone, and John Bouse, have, upon their trials, been convicted, attainted, and executed, according to law. This we thought fit to make known to our loving subjects, that they, being sensible (as we are) of the mercy of God in the great deliverance, may cheerfully and devoutly joyn with us in returning splemn thanks to Almighty God for the same. We do appoint the 9th day of September next to be observed as a day of thanks- giving, &c., in a form of prayer which we have commanded to ne prepared by our Bishops, and published for that purpose. —At Court of Whitehall, 21th July, 1683.
" A FoB-M OF Pbatee, Ac, to be solemnly observed in all Churches, in due acknowledgment of God's wonderful provi- dence and mercy in discovering and defeating the late treason- able conspiracy against his Majesty's person and govern- ment." Then after Exhortation, Psalms, &c. :
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" Almighty God and Heavenly Father, who of thine un- speakable goodness towards us liast, in a most extraordinary manner, discovered the designs and disappointed the attemptn of those traitorous, heady, and high-minded men, who, under the pretence of religipn, and thy most holy name, had con- trived and resolved our destruction ; as we do this day most heartily dnd devoutly adore and magnify thy glorious name for this thine infinite gracious goodness already vouchsafed to us, so we most humbly implore the continuance of thy grace and favour for the farther and clearer discovery of these depths of Satan, this mystery of iniquity. Send forth thy light and thy truth, and make known the hidden things of diurkness ; infatuate and defeat aU the secret counsels of the ungodly, abate their pride, assuage th^ir malice, and confound their devices: strengthen the hands of our gracious Kinff Charles, and all that are put in authority under him, witn judgment and justice to cut off all such workers of iniquity, as turn religion into rebellion, and faith into faction, that they may never prevail against us, or triumph in the ruin of thy Church amongst us. To this end protect and defend our Sovereign Lord the King and the whole Eoyal Family, from all treasons and conspiracies. Bind up his soul in the bundle of life, and let no weapon formed against him prosper : be unto him a helmet of salvation, and a strong tower of defence, against the face of his enemies : let his reign be prosperous, and his days many : make him glad now according to the time wherein thou hast afflicted him, and for the years wherein he has suffered adversity : as thou hast given him the necks of his enemies, so give him also every day more and more the hearts of his subjects. As for those that are implacable, clothe them with shame ; but upon himself and his posterity let the crown for ev^r flourish : so we that are thy people, and the sheep of thy pasture, shall ^ve thee thanks tor ever, and will always be snowing forth thy praise from generation to generation, through Jesus Christ our only Saviour and Bedeemer. Amen."
" Almighty God, who hast in all ages showed forth thy power and mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of thy Church, and in the protection of righteous and reli- gious Kings, and States professing thy holy and eternal truth, from the malicious conspiracies and wicked practices
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142 LIEB JLTTD LETTBES OP JOHK LOCKE. [l6834
of all their enemies, we yield unto thee, from the very bot- tom of our hearts, unfeigned thanks and praise for the late signal and wonderful deliverance of our most gracious Sove- reign, his Royal Brother, and loyal subjects of all orders and degrees, by the fanatic rage and treachery of wicked and un- godly men appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous and savage manner. From their unnatural and hellish conspiracy, not our merit but thy mercy, not our foresight but thy providence, not our ovm arm but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, hath rescued and delivered us, even because thou hast a favour unto us : and, therefore, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, be ascribed all honour, glory, and praise, with most humble and hearty thanks in all Churches of the Saints ; even so, blessed be the Lord our Q-od, who only doeth wondrous things, and blessed be the name of his Majesty for ever, through Jesus Christ our Lord and only Saviour. Amen."
" O God, whose providence neglects not the meanest of thy creatures, but is most illustriously visible in watching over the persons of Kings, the great instruments of thy good- ness to mankind, we give thee most hearty thanks and praises, as for the many wonderful deliverances formerly vouchsafed to thy servant, our dread Sovereign, through the whole course of his life ; so especially for the late miracle of thy mercy, whereby thou didst rescue him and us all from those bloody designs, which nothing but thine infinite wisdom and power could have discovered and defeated. For this thy great good- ness (notwithstanding our great unworthiness and many pro- vocations) so graciously continued to us, we praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory: humbly beseeching thee that our present sense of this thy favour, and the fervent affections now kindled in our hearts thereby, may never cool, or sink down into forgetfulness or ingratitude ; but may produce in every one of us firm resolutions of future thankfulness and obedience, with a suitable constant perseverance in the same. Let us never forget, how often, and how wonderfully thou hast preserved thme anointed and his people : that being all duly sensible of our absolute dependence upon thee, we may endeavour to answer the blessed ends of this thy good proM-
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1683.] POEM OP PBA.TBR OBDEBED BY THE KIKa. 143
dence over us. Continue bim a nursing father to this thy Church, and thy minister for good to all his people ; and let us and aD his subjects look upon him henceforth not only as the ordinance, but as the gift of Q-od, promising and perform- ing, in thee and for thee, all faithful duty and loyalty to him and his heirs after him : with a religious obedience and thank- fulness unto thee, for these and all other thy mercies, through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord : to whom with thee, O Father, and Gk)d the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory.'*
In the evening service, this additional prayer for our ene- mies:
" Father of mercies and lover of souls, who art kind to the unthankful and to the evil, and hast commanded us also to extend our charity even to those that hate us, and despite- fully use us : we beseech thee as to accept our prayers and praises, which we have this day offered up unto thee in be- half of all that are faithful and loyal in the land ; so also to enlarge thy mercy and pity, even to those that are our ene- mies. O most wise and powerful Lord God, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, as the rivers of water to turn them whithersoever thou wilt; work mightily upon the minds of all parties amongst us. Turn the hearts of the children to the Others, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just ; and so make them a ready people prepared for the Lord. Thou that sitteth between the cherubim be the earth never so unquiet, thou that stilleth the raging of the sea, and the noise of his waves, and the madness of the people : stir up thy strength and come and help us ; let the wicked- ness of the wicked come to an end. Take away his un- godliness and thou shalt find none: let the fierceness of man turn to thy praise, and the remainder of wrath do thou restrain. To this end take firom them all their prejudices and all their passions; their confident mistakes, their car- nal ends, and their secular interests. Open the blind eyes that they may see (at least in this their day) the things which belong to their peace, and wisely considering thy work, may say. This hath God done ; and so hear, and fear, and do no more wickedly. Soften the most obdurate hearts into a meek, and humble, and docile tehiper, that they may no longer resist the truth. Bow down the stiff neck and the iron sinew to the gentle and easy yoke of thy most holy law !
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take away the brass from the whore's forehead, and make their faces ashamed, that they may seek thy name. Re- double, O Lord, the joys of this day, that we may not only triumph in the disappointment of their wicked imaginations, but with thy holy angels rejoice in their conversion. Amen!!!"
The following paper, conceived in the same or even in a worse spirit, may oe considered to be the echo of the royal declaration.
DETON SESSION.
" Ad Gheneral. Quarterial. Session. Pacis Dom. Eegis tent, apud Castr. Exon. in et pro Comitat. prsed. secundo die Octobris, Anno Regni Dom. nostri Caroli Secundi Dei gratis AnglifiB, ScotisB, FrancisB, et HibemisB Eegis, Fidei Defensor, &Q, tricesimo quinto, Annoque Dom. 1683.
" "We have been so abundantly convinced of the seditious and rebellious practices of the sectaries and fanatics, who through the course of above one hundred years, since we were first infested with 'em, have scarce afforded this unhappy kingdom any interval of rest from their horrid treasons, as that we must esteem 'em, not only the open enemies of our established Grovemment, but to all the common principles of society and humanity itself. Wherefore that we may prevent their horrid conspiracies for the time to come, and secure (as much as in us lies) our most gracious King and the Q-ovemment from the fury and malice of 'em, we resolve to put the severest of the laws (which we find too easie and gentle, unless enlivened by a vigorous execution) in force against 'em.
" 1. "We agree and resolve, in every division of this county, to require siSficient sureties for the good bearing and peace- able behaviour of all such as we may justly suspect, or that we can receive any credible information against, thai they have been at any conventicles and unlawfiu meetings, or at any factious or seditious clubs ; or that have, by any dis- courses, discovered themselves to be disaffected to the present established government, either in church or state ; or that hav^ been the authors or publishers of any seditious libels ;
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or that shall not, in all things, duly conform themselves to the present established Q-ovemment.
" 2. Because we have a sort of false men, and more per- fidious than professed phanatiques, who either wanting cour- age to appear in their own shape, or the better to bring about their treasonable designs, privately associate with and encourage the seditious clubs of the sectaries, and with them y plot heartily against the G-ovemment; and yet that they gl ' may pass unsuspected, sometimes appear in the church with a Kilse show of conformity, only to save their money, and the better to serve their faction : that we may, if possible, distinguish and know all such dangerous enemies, we will ^ jstrictly require all the churchwardens and constables, at all jg our monthly meetings, to give us a fuU account of all sucb ^ ; as do not, every Sunday, resort to their own parish churches, ^ j and are not at the beginning of divine service, and do not ' behave themselves orderly and soberly there, observing all such decent ceremonies as the laws enjoin : and that they , likewise present unto us the names of &\1 such as have not j received the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in their \ own parish churches thrice a year.
" 3. Being fuUy satisfied, as well by the clear evidence of the late horrid plot as by our own long and sad experience, that the Nonconformist preachers are the authors and fo- menters of this pestilent faction, and the implacable enemies of the established Q-ovemment, and to whom the late execrable treasons, which have had such dismal effects in this kingdom, are principally to be imputed, and who by their present ob- stinate refusing to take and subscribe an oath and declara- tion, that they do not hold it lawful to take up arms against the King, and that they will not endeavour any alteration of government, either in church or state; do necessarily en- force us to conclude that they are still ready to engage themselves (if not actually engaged) in some rebellious con- spiracy against the King, and to invade and subvert his government ; wherefore we resolve, in every parish of this county, to leave strict warrants in the hands of all constables for the seizing of such persons. And as an encouragement to all officers and others that shall be instrumental in the apprehending of any of them, so as they may be brought to justice, we will give and allow forty shillings as a reward for
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146 LIFE A.KD LETTERS Or JOHW LOCKE. [l683.
every Nonconformist preacher that shall be so secuFed. And we resolve to prosecute them, and all other such dangerous enemies of the Government, and common absenters from church and frequenters of conventicles, according to the di- rections of a law made in the five and thirtieth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, intituled An Act for the Keeping her Majesties Subjects in due obedience.*
" Lastly. That we may never forget the infinite mercies of Almighty Q-od in the late wonderful deliverance of our gra- cious King and his dearest brother, and all his loyal subjects (who were designed for a massacre), from the horrid conspi- racy of the phanatiques and their accomplices ; and that we may perpetuate as well our own thankfulness as their infamy, that the generations to come may know their treachery, and avoid and never trust men of such principles more ; and also that we ourselves may perform our pubhc duty to Almighty Q-od before we enter upon the public service of our country ; we order, resolve, and agree, with the advice and concurrence of the Bight Reverend Father in Q-od, our much honoured and worthy Lord Bishop, to give and bestow, for the beauti- fjdng of the chappel in the castle of Exon, and for the erect- ing of decent seats there, ten pounds. And we will likewise give and continue six pounds, to be paid yearly to any one of the church of Exon, whom the said Lord Bishop shall appoint to read the divine service, with the prayers lately ap- pointed for the day of Thanksgiving on the ninth of Septem- ber last, and to preach a sermon, exhorting to obedience in the said chappel, on the first day of every general quarter sessions of the peace, held in the said castle, to begin pre- cisely at eight of the clock in the morning. And may the mercies of Heaven, which are infinite, always protect our religious and gracious King, his dearest brother, and every branch of that royal family ; and may all the treasonable conspiracies of those rebellious schismaticks be always thus happily prevented 1
* By this act any person above the age of sixteen, who shall obstinately refuse to repair to some church, or any person who shall persuade any other person to forhear or abstain from coming to church, or be present at any conyenticle, shall be committed to prison, and remain there until they con- form; and unless they conform within three months, shall abjure tha realm, or be adjudged a felon.
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1684.] DEPBITED OP HIS STTJDKITTSHIP, 147
" That the continued care of his Majesties justices of the peace for the county of Devon, for the safety of his Majesties sacred person, the pireservation of the puhlick peace, and ad- vancement of true religion, may be fuller known and have a better effect, I do hereby order and require all the clei:gy of my diocess within the county of Devon, deliberately to pub- lish this order the next Sunday afber it shall be tendered to them.*
" Tho. Exon.
" Hugo Vaughan, Cler. Facis Com. praed."
In 1684, Locke was by an illegal order of the King de- prived of his studentship at Christ-church, The account given in Mr Fox's history is as follows : —
"Among the oppressions of this period, most of which were attended with consequences so much more important to the several objects of persecution, it may seem scarcely worth while to notice the expulsion of J. Locke from Christ-church College, Oxford. But besides the interest which eVery inci- dent in the life of a person so deservedly eminent naturally excites, there appears to have been something in the trans- action itself characteristic of the spirit of the times, aa well as of the general nature of absolute power. Mr Locke w^ known to have been intimately connected with Lord Shaftes- bury, and had very prudently judged it advisable for him to prolong for some time his residence upon the Continent, to which he had resorted originally on account of his health. A Biispicion, as it has been since proved unfounded, that he was the author of a pamphlet which gave offence to the Go- vernment, induced the JBang to insist upon his removal from his studentship at Christ-church. Sunderland writes, by the King's command, to Dr Fell, Bishop of Oxford, and Dean of Christ-chiurch. The Eeverend Prelate answers, that he has long had an eye upon Mr Locke's behaviour ; but though frequent attempts had been made (attempts of which the Bishop expresses no disapprobation) to draw him into im- prudent conversation, by attacking in his company the re- putation, and insulting the memory, of his late patron and
» If such principles were generally prevalent, the Letters on Toleration were indeed necessary.
l2
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148 LIFE AKD LETTBES OP JOHW LOCKE. [l684,
friend, and thus to make his gratitude, and all the best feel- ings of his heart, instrumental to his ruin, these attempts all proved unsuccessful. Hence the Bishop infers not the in- nocence of Mr Locke, but that he was a great master of concealment, both as to words and looks ; for looks, it is to be supposed, would have furnished a pretext for his expulsion, more decent than any which had yet been discovered.
" An expedient is then suggested to drive Mr Locke to a dilemma, by summoning him to attend the College on the 1st of January ensuing. If he do not appear, he shall be expelled for contumacy ; if he come, matter of charge may be found against him, for what he shall have said at London, or elsewhere, where he will have been less upon his guard than at Oxford. Some have ascribed FeU's hesitation, if it can be so called, in executing the King's order, to his un- willingness to injure Locke, who was his friend ; others, vrith more reason, to the doubt of the legality of the order. However this may have been, neither his scruples nor his reluctance was regarded by a Court which knew its own power. A peremptory order was accordingly sent, and im- mediate obedience ensued. Thus while, without the shadow of a crime, Mr Locke lost a situation attended with some emolument and great convenience, was the University de-
S rived of, or rather thus, from the base principles of servility, id she cast away, the man, the having produced whom is now her chiefest glory ; and thus to those who are not de- termined to be blind, did the true nature of absolute power discover itself, against which the middling station is not more secure than the most exalted. Tyranny, when glutted with the blood of the great and the plunder of the rich, vrill con- descend to hunt humbler game, and make the peaoeable and innocent Fellow of a College the object of its persecution. In this instance, one would almost imagine there was some instinctive sagacity in the Gk>vernment of that time, which pointed out to them, even before he had made himself known to the world, the man who was destined to be the most suc- cessful adversary of superstition and tyranny."
On a careful examination of the whole case, and with the light* since thrown upon it, it appears that Locke was not
♦ Oxford a^d Lqc^e, by Lord Grenville,
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1884.] DEPEIVED OP HIS STUDENTSHIP. • 149
expelled by the University of Oxford; he was deprived of his studentship by the Dean and Chapter of the College to which he belonged. If, however, we acquit the University of any direct share in the transaction, we may not unfairly conclude, from the spirit and temper then prevalent at Oxford, that the University was accessory to that disgraceful deed. The famous Oxford decree, it must be remembered, had passed on the very day of the execution of Lord Russell. The divine rights of Kings, and the indiscriminate obedience of subjects, were the favourite tenets of the University, which, by a solemn decree, condemned as impious and here- tical the principles upon which the constitution of this, and of every free country, maintains itself. The deprivation of liocke was, strictly speaking, the act of the Dean and Chapter of Christ-church, courting, and almost anticipating, the ille- gal mandate of the Crown, and is not to be described as an actual expulsion from the Universitv of Oxford.
It is true. Lord Sunderland, in his letter to the Bishop of Oxford and Dean of Christ-church, signifies the King's com- mands for the immediate expulsion of Mr Locke, as one who had belonged to the Ean of Shaftesbury, and had be- haved himself very factiously and undutifully towards the Qt)vemment. The Bishop also, in his answer, uses the word expulsion, incorrectly certainly, but what better phrase could he have selected to flatter a despotic Court, which had de- termined to punish all whom it chose to consider as its enemies ?
Correspondence between the Earl of Sunderland and the Bishop of Oxford respecting Mr Locke : —
TO THE LOBD BISHOP OP OXPOBD.
«* Whitehall, Not. 6, 1684. "Mt Lobd,
" The King being given to understand that one Mr Locke, who belonged to the late Earl of Shaftesbury, and has upon several occasions behaved himself very factiously and un- dutifully to the Government, is a student of Christ-church ; his Majesty commands me to signify to your Lordship, that^ he would have him removed from being a student, and that,
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150 LIPE AKD LETTEBS 01* JOHN LOCKS. [l684.
in order thereunto, your Lordship would let me know the method of doing it.
" I am, my Lord, Ac.
Sxnn)BRLA2n)."
TO THE BIGHT HOIT. THE EJLBL Or SUNDEBLASD, PBUrCIPAL SECBETABT OF BTATS.
«NoT. 8, 1684. "ElOHT HOK.
"I have received the honour of your Lordship's letter, wherein you are pleased to inquire concerning Mr Locke's being a student of this house, of which I have this account to render ; that he being, as your Lordship is truly informed, a person who was much trusted by the late Earl of Shaftes- bury, and who is suspected to be m-aflfected to the Q-ovem- ment, I have for divers years had an eye upon him, but so close has his guard been on himself, that after several strict inquiries, I may confidently affirm there is not any one in the College, however familiar with him, who has heard him speak a word either against or so much as concerning the Q-ovem- ment ; and although very frequently, both in public and in private, discourses have been purposely introduced, to the disparagement of his master, the Earl of Shaftesbury, his party, and designs, he could never be provoked to take any notice, or discover in word or look the least concern ; so that I believe there is not in the world such a master of taciturnity and passion. He has here a physician's place, which frees him irom the exercise of the College, and the obligation which others have to residence in it, and he is now abroad upon want of health ; but notwithstanding that, I have summoned him to return home, which is done with this prospect,, that if he comes not back, he vnll be liable to expulsion for con- tumacy ; if he does, he will be answerable to your Lordship for what he shall be found to have done amiss; it being probable that though he may have been thus cautious here, where he knew himself to be suspected, he has laid himself more open in London, where a generai liberty of speaking was used, and where the execrable designs against his Ma- jesty, and his G-overnmeiit, were managed and pursued. If he does not return by the 1st day of January next, which is
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1684.] DEPBITXD OF HIS STUDEKTSHIP. 151
tlie time limited to bim, 1 Bball be enabled of course to pro- ceed against bim to expulsion. But if tbis metbod seem not effectual or speedy enougb, and bis Majesty, our founder and yisitor, snail please to command bis immediate remove, upon tbe receipt tbereof^ ^directed to tbe Dean and Cbapter, it sball accordingly be executed by
My Lord, your Lordsbip's Most bumble and obedient servant,
J. OlOK."
TO THE BISHOP OF OZPOBD.
"Whitehall, Nov. 10, 1684.
**Mt Loed,
" Having communicated your Lordsbip's of tbe 8tb to his Majesty, be bas tbougbt fit to direct me to send you tbe enclosed, concerning bis commands for tbe immediate expul- sion of Mr Locke. Sukdeblani).
''to the bight BSYEBEin) PATHEB IS GOD, JOHIT LOBB BISHOP 07 OXON, DEAK OF CHBIST-OHUBOH, AITB OUB TBITSTT AlfD WBLL-BELOTEI) THE OHAPTEB TUEBE.
" Eigbt Beverend Fatber in Gk)d, and trusty and well-be- loyed, we greet you well. Wbereas we bave received in- formation of tbe factious and disloyal bebaviour of Locke, one of tbe students of tbat our College ; we bave tbougbt fit bereby to signify our will and pleasure to you, tbat you fortbwitb remove bmi from bis student's place, and deprive bim of all tbe rigbts and advantages thereunto belonging, for wbicb tbis sball be your warrant; and so we bid you heartily fiEirewell. G-iveii at our Court at Wbiteball, lltb day of November, 1684.
" By bis Majesty's command,
SUNDEBLAND."
TO THE BIGHT HOIT. THE EABL OP SUITDEBLAKD, PBIKCIPAL SECBETABT 07 STATE.
"i^ovemberl6, 1684, * Eight Hok.
*^ I bold myself bound in duty to signify to your Lordship,
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J
/
152 LIFE ASJ} LETTSBS 01? JOHK LOCKS. [l684.
that his Majesty's command for the expulsion of Mr. Locke from the College is fully executed. J. Oxosr."
to the bishop of oxon. "Mt Lobd,
" I have your Lordship's of the 16th, and have acquainted his Majesty therewith, who is well satisfied with the College's ready obedience to his commands for the expulsion of Mr Locke. Stjndeelaitd."
The meanness of Fell's (the Bishop of Oxford) conduct was certainly never exceeded, seeing by his own unblushing confession, that he had been instrumental in laying snares for the destruction of one who was a member of his own College, and to whom he stood therefore in the relation of a father; and of one with whom he had lived in habits of friendship during the time of his prosperity : as a proof of which, one or two amongst many letters from the same hand, and in the same phrases of friendship, are here inserted.
TO HIS ESTEEMED EEIEKD MH JOHN LOCKE, AT THAITBT HOUSE, IN ALDEBSGATB 8TBSBT.
"June 1,1680. " Sir,
" You are not to excuse your address by letter as if it could give a trouble to me ; I assure you I have that respect and friendship for you, that I should have been glad to have heard from you, although you had no other business than to let me know you were in health, especially since you left this place in such a condition as might make your friends appre- hensive for you. As to the proposal conceming books, we have two years since quit our hands of our stocK to men of trade, so that the interest is now with those we dealt with. I have spoke this morning with one of them, Mr Pitt, who within few days will be in London, and will there attend upon you ; he seems to approve of the terms offered, so that I presume he will close with them. I have no more to add at present, but desire that when you write to Monsieur Jus* tell, you would represent the esteem I have for him. Let me also desire you to be assured that I am your
Affectionate friend,
JOHK OxoK.'*
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1684.] DEPBITBD O? HIS STUDEITTSHIP. 153
From the same affectionate friend, of an earlier date, in- dorsed 1675.
" November 8. « Sib,
" I am sorry for the occasion of your Toyage, but wish you success in it, and by no means expect you should add to it, by a journey hither upon the score of ceremony. It is that which I by no means expect from my friends, and I hope the rest of the Chapter are of the same mind. When we have occasion to meet next, I shall propose your concern to the company, and with my affectionate remembrances, remain, Sir, Tour assured friend and servant,
J. Fell.''
And many other letters directed to the worthily esteemed John Locke, Esq., at Thanet House, in Aldersgate Street.
Of the illegality of the proceeding there can now be no doubt. The visitatorial power of the Crown can only be executed by the Lord Chancellor ; and the King, like every other visitor, is bound, before he pronounces sentence against any party, to hear him, or at least to cite him, and give him an opportunity of being heard. It is but fair, however, to add, that, at tne time of the transaction alluded to, the rights and powers of visitors were much more loose and unsettled than at present. The leading decision on the visitatorial power (the Exeter College case) took place many years after- wards, and the necessity of a visitor's acting strictly and properly, in that capacity, was not finally established before the case of the King and the Bishop of My.
Eesistance was, however, made even at Oxford a few years later, but it was at a time when the rights and privileges, not of an obnoxious individual, but of the whole ecclesiastical order, were attacked ; at a time when the blind despot, then on the throne, fortunately aimed his blows, not only against the liberties of his country, but against the Church itself, and broke the terms of the secret articles, offensive and de- fensive, so well understood at all other times between the parties concerned, which are inferred in the union of Church and State.
When I say it was fortunate that James II. aimed his
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154 LIFS AKD LSTTEBB Or JOHK LOCKE. [l685.
blows against the Church, which secured her assistance in the work of the Eevolution, I by no means express an opinion that the gentlemen of England were so dead to all feelings of patriotism, that they would have surrendered their liberties lor ever without a struggle. That country which, in the preceding age^ had produced a Hampden, a rym, a Coke, and a Hutchinson, would doubtless have burst asunder the bonds of tyranny, even without the assistance of the Established Church, although the effort might have cost a second civil war.
The persecution which had driven Locke from his country, the tyranny which had illegally deprived him of his situation at Oxford, did not cease after his retreat to Holland ; the King's minister at the Hague demanded amongst several others named in his memorial, that Locke should be delivered up, describing him as secretary to the late Earl of Shaftes- bury, a state crime worthy of such extraordinary interpo- sition.
M6moire pr^sent^ par Monsieur Schelton, Envoye Extra- ordinaire de sa Majeste de la Grande Bretagne k Messeigneurs les Estats Q-en6raux.
Ha.ut et Puissants Sbioneubs, \
Yos Seigneuries ayant fait s9avoir il y a trois jours au B0usign6 Ikivoy6 Extraordinaire de sa Majest6 le Koi de la Grande Bretagne, la resolution qu'elles avoyent prise de bannir tous les sujets rebelles du !uoi son maitre des terres de leur domination, sur les representations que sa Majeste avait faites aux Ambassadeurs de cet Estat, le susdit Envoy^ Extraordinaire auroit eu lieu de se contenter en partie des esgards que vos Seigneuries avoyent tesmoigne pour sa Ma- jesty en cette rencontre s'il n'en eut re9u des ordres expres de representer k vos Seigneuries qu'elle apprend avec un tree sensible deplaisir que tant de ses sujets rebelles (dont les noms sont si-dessous specifies) se sont refugi^s dans les pro- vinces de vostre obeissance, lesquels se sont attire sa juste indignation et colore, en ce que centre la foy et T obeissance qu'ils doivent ^leur souverain, ils ont conspir6 centre la vie de sa sacree personne, centre le gouvemement dont le boule- versement a fait depuis assez long temps le but de leurs des-
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11885.] HIS BETBXAT TO HOLLAND. 155
sins, et qti'ils ne Be lassent de former tous les jours de nou- yeaux projets de traliison et d'infamie, et de d^cbirer la renomm^e et la gloire de sa Majesty par toutes sortes de papiers diffamatoires qu'ils font imprimer et distribuer en ces pays. Or sa Majesty voyant le danger auquel sa sacr^e per- Sonne est exposee, tant que ces traitres et fils d^natur^s de leur patrie trouyent un azile dans les provinces de vos Sei- gneuries, ou ces sc^l^rats par la grande facility continuent a corr^spondre avec ceux do leur party en Augleterre et en Ecosse, et k s'assembler et consulter sur la destruction du repos et de la prosp^rit^ des royaumes de sa Majesty, elle se persuade ^ue yos Seigneuries non seulement les en cbasseront, mais aussi les saisiront et envoyeront en Angleterre con- formement k leur propre declaration faite sur ce sujet. Et certes, il semble que Tamiti^, que de droit et d'int^ret de bons yoisins doiyent les uns aux autres, ne le demande pas seulement, mais il y a des raisons bien plus fortes, k S9ayoir des trait^s entre sa Majesty et cet estat, qui luy donnent ces pretentions, outre que la prosperity de leur estat, k laquelle sa Majeste prend tant de part, depend de celle des affaires du Boi. Et c'est ^ourquoi le susoit Enyoy6 Extraordinaire d' Angleterre croit que vos Seigneuries voudront d'abord don- ner les mains k cette saisie et bannissement d'autant plus qu'elles dans Textr^ct de leur r&olution de Mardy le 15 de May, de rann6e prdsente, veulent bien- donner les assurances de concourir en tout ce que dependra d'elles pour le maintien des trait^s et de la bonne intelligence entre sa Majesty et cet estat. Fait k la Haye k 17 May, 1685.
(Sign6) B. SoHELTOK.
Then follows a list of the proscribed, including Locke.
He was therefore under the necessity of living very much concealed, and of going out only at night, in order to avoid observation. His occupations, however, were such as could not have given offence to the most jealous Ghovemment ; and he had actually, at one time (as says Le Clerc)^ removed from Amsterdam to Utrecht, to avoid the possible suspicion of beins^ connected with Monmouth, or of subetting his expe- dition, having no good opinion either of the leader or of his undertaking. He certamly left Amsterdam on the 16th of
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156 LIFE AKD LETTEBS 07 JOHK LOCKE. [ioSS.
April, 1685, and remained at Utrecht till the 23rd of May following, which last date coincides exactly, I belieye, with the Duke of Monmouth's departure from the Texel.
It was during this secluded residence with M. Veen in 1685 that his Letter on Toleration was finished. The subject had many years before enfgaged his attention, as I find a long article on Toleration in his Common-place Book, dated 1667, containing his early thoughts on that most important of aU questions, as he first committed them to writmg. It con- cludes thus : '^ But to show the danger of estabHshing uni- formity, to give a full prospect of this subject, there remain yet these following particulars to be handled :
1st. To show what influence Toleration is like to have upon the number and industry of your people.
2nd. What force must compel all to a uniformity in England ; to consider what party alone, or what parties, are likeliest to unite, to make a force able to compel the rest.
drd. To show that all that speak against Toleration, seem to suppose that severity and force are the only arts of go- vernment, and way to suppress any faction, which is a mistake.
4th. That for the most part the matters of controversy and distinction between sects are no parts, or very incon- siderable ones, and but appendages of true religion.
5th. To consider how it comes to pass that the Christian religion has made more factions, wars, and disturbances in civil societies than any other, and whether Toleration and Latitudinism would not prevent those evils.
6th. The making the terms of church communion as lai^e as may be, i. e. that your articles in speculative opinions be few and large, and COTemonies in worship few and easy, which is Latitudinism.
7th. That the desiring and undertaking to prove several doctrines which are comessed to be incomprenensible, and to be no otherwise known but by revelation, and requiring men to assent to them in the forms proposed by the doctors of your several churches, must needs make a great many Atheists.
But of these when I have more leisure. Sic cogitavit J. Locke, 1667."
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1684.] HIS BEEUSAli OF Jl PAEDOIT. 167
The Letter on Toleration* was first printed in Latin at Tergou. The title " Epistola de Tolerantia ad Clarissimum virum T.A.E.P.T.O.L.A. Scripta a P.A.P.O. J.L.A. The first letters signify TheologisB apud Eemonstrantes Professo- rem, Tyrannidis Osorem, Limburgium Amstelodamensein : and the last letters Pacis Amico, Persecutionis Osore. Jo- anne Lockio Anglo." This, in some sort the most useful, because the most practical of all his works, was translated into English and printed in London after the Eevolution, and frequently defended by its author from the repeated at- tacks of his adversaries.
William Penn, who ^enjoyed some degree of favour with James II.,» offered to obtain from the King the pardon of Locke, who nobly refused to accept a pardon, as being con- scious of having committed no crime. The same office of friendship and assistance was also performed by the Earl of Pembroke, to whose honour the following letters deserve to be ^made Imown. The first relates probably to the proceed- ings at Oxford ; the second to the promise of pardon obtained from James II.: to these, one of a later date from the same person is added, relating to the publication of the Essay on Human Understanding, which was dedicated to him.
" Nov. 1684.
"Sib,
"You might very well expect that I, who have had so much satisfaction in the friendship I have so many years contracted with you, would be pleased at your design of coming hither this winter ; but when I consider how prejudicial it may be to your health to leave that country (which I have often heard has much increased it), I can't but use my endeavours you should not remove till spring. I was much surprised when I heard the reason of your coming so soon, but as soon comforted myself, when I considered how many men of good reputation, by being accused, have had an advantage publicly to prove themselves honest men: certainly, I, who know your actions, should be to blame to give credit to others' words. You may be assured, nothing shall hinder me from
• A letter from Locke to Limborch, which will be found in the Appen- dix, shows that he was highly displeased with Limborch for having disclosed to a friend that Locke was the author of the Letter for Toleration.
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158 LIFE AND LETTBBS OF JOHN LOCKE. [1685-87.
hazarding all I am worth, when it may be advantageous to such a fiend. I perceive my great concern has made me B&j more than is needful, I will therefore subscribe myseK Your friend, Fembboeie.'^
<< London, Aug. 20, 1685. " Sib,
" I have often writ to you with great satisfaction in hopes of an answer. You will easily therefore conclude with how much more I write now, since it will be the occasion of en- joying your company here in England. I need not tell you that I have omitted no opportunity of contradicting all false reports to the King, and (as in so good a cause none can but succeed) I have so satisfied the King, that he has assured me he will never believe any ill reports t)f you. He bid me write to you to come over ; I told him, I would then bring you to kiss his hand, and he was fuUy satisfied I shoul£ Pray, for my sake, let me see you before the summer be over ; I believe you will not mistrust me : I am sure, none can the King's word. You having so many friends, lest you should mistime who I am, I must subscribe myself
Your friend, Pembboke."
"London, Not. 26, 1687. "Sib,
" I received the second part, and with it the names of all the rest in print ; such thoughts need no epistle to recom- mend them. I do not say so to excuse my name to it, for I shall always be as desirous (by my name) to testify the sa- tisfection I have in anything you are pleased to write, as I am and ever will be (by my person) ready to vindicate any- thing you do ; but pra^ do not let the hopes of seeing tms in print, defer the satisfaction of seeing tne whole at large, which I hope you will send me as soon as possibly you can. A chain is not to be commended for its strength by taking it asunder ; I shall not, therefore, protend to commend this, since I can't do it without repeating the whole ; but I will spare no pains where I may approve myself
Your friend, Pekbboke."
At the back of this letter his friend Dr Thomas writes :-^
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1684.] HIS EESIDENCE IIT HOLLAND. 169
" If I can be serviceable to you in anything, I will see you, though it be now winter ; if not, I will early in spring, and not wait for Musidore,* because his occasions may delay me, if I wait to suit mine to his. He tells me Will. Penn hath moved the King for pardon for you, which was as readily granted. I said, if you either wanted or desired it, you would move by your friend here, and you would write your own seiise of it."
During his abode in Holland, he was often occupied in different scientific pursuits in company with M. Guenelon, the first physician at Amsterdam, with whom he had become acquainted some years before, whilst resident at Paris. He now formed a sm^l society, which met weekly at each other's houses, to discuss such questions as by their rules had been proposed at a previous meeting. The society consisted of liimborch, Le Clerc, Guenelon, and a few others. He ap- pears, indeed, on all occasions, to have been very much dis- Eosed to promote the formation of societies of that natur^, aving encouraged frequent meetings at his ghambers whilst resident at Oxford, and also that weekly society which he afterwards promoted when settled for a few years in London, after his return to England in 1689.
It has been observed that he led a very retired and se- cluded life at Amsterdam, to avoid observation. His Journal at that time consists for the most part of references to the books he was reading ; there are sentences from Cicero, and many notes from books of travels, of which latter he was al- ways veiT fond. A few extracts will show his manner of life and employment.
Feb. 14th.— Montaigne, by a gentle kind of negligence, clothed in a peculiar sort of good language, persuades with- out reason : his Essays are a texture of strong sayings, sen- tences, and ends qf verses, which he so puts together, that they have an extraordinary force upon men's minds. He reasons not, but diverts himself, and pleases others ; full of pride and vanity.
Friday, March 3rd. — The ice here at Amsterdam, this having been the hardest winter in the memory of man, being cut on purpose to try its thickness, was one Amsterdam ell
• Mnsidore, a name by which his other Mend Tyrrell was designated, to avoid danger.
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and one inch : an Amsterdam ell is three quarters of an Eng- lish yard. This, Mr Wilcock saw himself cut and measured, in a place cleared from snow in the Fluelle Burgwall by the old Kirk.
April 14th. — M. Bremen showed us at Dr Sibilius's the way of making Th6, in use amongst the Japanese, where he lived eight years. He beat the yolks of eggs with sugar-candy in a basin, pouring on them the hot infusion of Th6 by degrees, always stirring it.
# • • • • ,
May 12th. — From Amsterdam to Haarlem two and a-half hours. There I saw a mill for weaving of incle or ribbon, where a man with the easy motion of one hand, would weave at once thirty pieces of incle. Between Haarlem and Heem- sted they bleach much linen.
Sunday, July 30th. — The Armenian priest going to say the service, was habited in a cap without brims, on the top of which stood a cross. His dress a white silk cope, on which, behind, was a large red satin cross, a great high collar, the collar standing at a distance from the neck, and reaching half way up his head ; he had under this a surplice girt close about his middle with a girdle ; he was assisted by one in a surplice. He began with crossing and bowing ; after some few words, I suppose a prayer, he pulled off his cap and ap- peared shaved, more Bomano. The species are elevated be- fore consecration both covered, after consecration separately, the priest keeping his face to the altar. Afterwards, the cup m his hand, and the wafer held over it, he turns about to the people, and holds it there. All this time the people on their knees beat their breasts, and say something. The priest breaks the wafer and soaks ,it in wine, and so takes it. After the service is done, the priest, holding the New Testa- ment in his hand, descends from the altar, and so standing with his face turned towards the people, they all come, one after the other, and kiss the cover of the book, which was of silver ; and most of them also kiss the priest's hands, and then, by the assistant, have each of them a little bit given them of the same bread (but imconsecrated) that the wafer was made of, that was consecrated. In crossing, bowing, incense, and other things, they agree much with the Eoman ceremonies, only they incense all present. They give not
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1684.] HIS BESLDE^NCK IN HOLLAND. 161
the cup to the laity, but only a wafer dipped in the wine. They admit to their- communion all Christians, and hold it our duty to join in love and charity with those who differ in opinion.
Aug. 16th. — From Amsterdam to Alkmar, six hours. A pretty little town, very clean, but seems rather in a decaying than a thriving condition. The church large, built like a cathedral. The great merchandise of the town is cheese, which the pastures round about it furnish. About a league and a half is Egmont, the ancient seat of the Counts of £gmont.
17th. — ^To Home, a large town on the Zuider Sea. From Home to Enchuysen, three hours, the way all pitched with clinkers, and beset with boors' houses almost as it were one street. The houses are of a pretty odd fashion ; the bam "oining to the dwelling-house making apart of it. Enchuysen las a fair East India House, the most handsome and statdy of anything in the town. Here I lay at the sign of the Golden Hen ; in the same house, twenty-three years since, they say the King lay for a whole week together in a little room over the kitchen, in a cupboard-bed, about five feet long.
18th. — To Worcum, four leagues; the land is secured against the sea for a mile by long piles driven in, a little in- clining towards the bank, close one by another, each whereof cost, to be there so placed, a ducat. Thirty or forty lime- kilns ; the lime all cockle-shells picked upon the sea strand, which, laying with turf, they bum to lime. The ordinary women went most bare-legged ; but what most surprised me was to see them have woollen cloth stockings reaching down to the small of their legs, close laced, and yet bare-foot. To Balswert by sailing.
19th. — To Franeker ; it is a little fortified town, that one may walk round in half an hour i it has a university ; the schools and library not extraordinary, which shows that knowledge depends not on the stateliness of the buildings, &c. &c. &c., since this university has produced many learned men, and has now some amongst its professors; the professors thirteen or fourteen — the scholars 300. They have the pic- tures of all their professors. A thing worthy imitation in other places is, that any one may take his degree here when
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he is fit, abilities, and not time, being only looked after : the fees are moderate. In Friesland thej still use the old style. The land is generally better than in Holland ; some worth thirty francs per morgen, but they say the taxes amount to one half the value.
2l8t. — To Leewaerden; to Wienwert. Here, in M. Somer- dyke's house, is the church of the Labadists ; they receive all ages, sexes, and degrees^ upon approbation, after trial. They live all in common ; and whoever is admitted is to give with himself all he has to Christ the Lord, i. e. the church, to be managed by officers appointed by the church. It is a funda- mental miscarriage, and such as will deserve cutting ofl^ to possess anything in property. Their discipline whereby they prevent and correct offences is, first, reprehension ; secondly, suspension from sacrament; and if this makes no amendment, they cut him off from their body, &c. &c. &c. Baptism they administer only to grown people, who show themselves to be Christians by their lives, as well as professions, &c. &c. &c* They have been here these nine years, and, as they say, in- crease daih" ; but yet I could not learn their numbers : M* Tonn said 100, M. Meuler, 80. They are very shy to give an account of themselves, particularly of their manner and rule of living and discipline ; and it was with much difficulty I got so much out of them ; for they seemed to expect that a man should come there disposed to desire and court admit* tance into their society, without inquiring into their ways ; and if the Lord, as they say, dispose him to it, and they see the signs of grace in him, they will proceed to give him further iustruction ; which signs of grace seem to me to be, at last, a perfect submission to the will and rules of their pastor, M. Yonn ; who, if I mistake not, has established to himself a perfect empire over them. For though their cen- sures, and all their administration, be in appearance in their church, yet it is easy to perceive how at last it determines in him. He is dominus factotwm ; and though I believe they are much separated from the world, and are, generally speaking, people of very good and exemplary lives, yet the tone of voice, manner, and fashion, of those I conversed with, seemed to make one suspect a Jittle of Tartouf. Besides that, all their discourse carries with it a supposition of more purify in them thajx ordinary^ and as if nobody was in the way to hea*
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ven but they ; not without a mixture of canting, in referring things immediately to the Lord, even on those occasions where one inquires after the rational means and measures of proceeding, as if they did all things by revelation. It was above two hours after I came before I could receive audience of. M. Tonn, though recommended by a friend; and how many offers soever I made towards it,J could not be admitted to see either their place of exercise, of eating, or any of their chambers, but was kept all the while I was there in atrio gentium^ a little house without the gate ; for, as I said before, they seemed very shy of discovering the aecreta dom^Sy which seemed to me not altogether so suitable to the pattern of Ghnstianity.
24th. — Bj Leewaerden to Doccum. To Groningen, a large town, regularly fortified with seventeen bastions, the distance of each 470 steps. The taxes here are, for every chimney, 65s. per annum ; for every |;rown person, one ; boys at school, half so much ; besides excise on beer, wine, bread, and everything : French, or Ehenish wiue, pay 36 per hogs- head ; brandy, 78 ; and they pay so much a head for their cattle ; besides near one haiJf the value of their lands for land-tax. Here is a university ; eight professors : their library, a long gallery, two sides of a square.
26th. — ^Eeturned to Leewaerden the same way.
29th. — ^Henrie Casimir, Prince of Nassau, Governor and Captain-General of the provinces of Friesland and Groningen, having about eight months since married the Princess of An-» hault, made his public and solemn entry into Leewaerden, the capital city of Eriesland, at the public charge of the States* The cavalcade and solemnity were suitable to the greatness of the government. That that I observed particular m it was, that when the Prince and his Princess, with their two mothers, and the Princess of Screwin and their two sisters, were alighted at his house, and had rested a little, he took the ladies with him dpwn into the court, and there placing them in chairs just within the outward gate which stood open, he himself stood bare just without the gate, whilst all the burghers who were that day in arms, marched by and saluted him with firing their muskets as they passed. This lasted well nigh two hours, and after that they went to supper. Some of the gentlemen of the country, and some of
K 2
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the chief of his officers, supped with him and the ladies, and hereupon a page said grace.
The Prince is about twenty-eight years old, little, and not very handsome ; but, as they sajr, a man of parts, loving, and well-beloved of his country. His ladv is of a younger branch of the house of Hainault ; and her father at present a Marshal to the Duke of Brandenburgh.
30th. — This evening the Prince and Princess were treated at supper by the Deputies of the States of the province, and entertained with fireworks.
31st. — ^And this day, to conclude the compliment, they are entertained at dinner by the States at the Cfollege, where the States used to keep their assembly.
Sept. 3rd. — To Ens, Campertown, Groning, and Dewenter. Here are two Protestant nunneries ; one belongs to the free- men of the town, and their daughters only are admitted: these are fourteen ; they live all together in one house ; the oldest, of course, is the abbess. They have each a little garden, and their dividend of the com and some land which belongs to them, which amounts to three or four bushels of rye. Their meat and drink they provide for themselves, and dress it in a common kitchen in the summer, in the winter in their chambers. There was formerly, before the Eeforma- tion, a convent of Catholic nuns ; and when in the last war the Bishop of Mun^ter was possessed of this town two years together, he put three Catholic maids into the nunnery, which remain there still, under the samQ rules as the others.
There is, besides this, another nunnery in the town, only of the noblesse of the province ; they have each four hundred guilders per annum, one half whereof the abbess has for their board, the other half they have themselves to dispose of as they please. They have no particular habit, and are often at home with their friends in the country.
20th. — From Dewenter to Zutphen and Amheim. In the midway is Deiren, where the Prince of Orange has a house, more considerable for the pleasant country about it than for its largeness or beauty. Here I saw the camels which the Count of "Waldek sent the Prince, taken amongst others in the rout of the Turks. The taller was near about seven feet high ; they were both males. They seemed creatures made for labour by their patience and submissiveness and small
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1684.] HIS BXSIDSNCZ; IS HOLLAND. 165
feeding ; these eat not so much as a horse. Their food hay, and a paste made of rye-meal ; upon bidding they lie down, resting on their sternum. From Deiren to Arnheim is a pleasant country ; the borders of their fields set with rows of oaks three or four deep, which makes it look like a country full of woods. The soil sandy and dry, but not unfruitful.
21st. — To Nimegen. The town is situated on a rise on the side of the Waal.
They showed some remains of an old !Boman building. In their town-house are some ancient inscriptions found about the town.
23rd. — To Gorcum, Bomel, and Utrecht.
Oct. 10th. — Utrecht to Amsterdam.
15th. — To Haerlem — ^to Leyden.
23rd. — ^The young Q-ronovius, son of the famous G-rono- rius, made a solemn oration in the schools ; his subject was the original of Bomulus. At it were present the curators of the university, and the professors, solemnly ushered in by the university officers. The music, instrumental and vocal, began and concluded the scene. The harangue itself began with a magnificent and long compliment to the curators, and then something being said to the professor and scholars, he came to tho main business, which was to show that Eomulus was not an Italian bom, but came from the East, and was of Palestine or thereabout. This, as I remember, was the de- sign of his oration, which lasted almost two hours.
29th. — Sunday, to the French church. Here Joseph Sca- liger lies buried, with a high eulogium on a table in the wall ; he was honorary professor here.
Nov. 12th. — From Doctor Herman, who lived nine years in Zeylon (Ceylon), many partictilars of diseases of that cli- mate, <&c. <&c.
• • • • •
The cinnamon grows large : the smell is peculiar to the bark, and in that too there is great difference, according to the temper the tree is in. They gather it in August and Febru- ary, at which time the sap rises, and so makes it easy to se- parate the bark from the wood. They bark none Jbut young trees, and those only on one side.
15th. — I saw Swammerdam's remains, being a great col- lection of anatomical preparations of several parts of animals,
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166 IiIF£ AND LSTTEBS OF JOHK LOCKE. [l685,
especially of human bodies. Amongst other things very re- markable, is the spiral valves in the rectum, and the circular in the ilium ; in the ilium they reach not quite over the cavity of the gut, but are continued all round in circles, about half an inch or less asunder. In the colon they are not con- tinued round, but end in three seams, that are continued all along that gut, but the direction in them is more spiral than circular, and they stand at a greater distance than in the small gut. There were the parts of several guts, we knew not of what animals, that were perfectly spiral. The csdcum had visibly a valve opening outwards, and hindering the in- gress of any matter into the cjecum, Ac.
June 22, 1685. — I saw, at Mr Lewenhook's, several micro- scopical observations, which answer the description he has given of them, &c. &c. The exceeding small and regular fibres of the crystalline humour are wonderful, if all the works of Nature were not so. [Speaking of some of the small animals which Lewenhook mentioned that he had dis- covered, there is a very long description.]
• • • # #
It was with much difficulty I could perceive the tails he describes, if, at least, I did perceive any at all. The glasses we saw, he said, would magnify to a million of times, which I understood of cubical augmentation, which is but 100 in length ; but the best of all his glasses, and those by which he describes his spermatic animals, we did not see, nor, as I hear, does he show them to any one.
24th. — To Amsterdam.
Aug. 28. — I saw a boor's house a mile or more from Am- sterdam. The people and the cows live all in the same room in the winter, there being place for twenty-four cows on both sides, with a large space to pass between them in the middle, to which their heads are turned. The place they stand in is raised a little above the pavement. There runs a row of white marble paving fifteen or eighteen inches square, on which their meat was laid. At the upper end of the room was a partition of about breast-high of boards, which se- parated a^square place where the people lived. There were three pigeon-hole beds, after the Dutch fashion, and though this was but a part of the stable wherein the people and their beasts live together, yet the whole room, and everything
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1687.] HIS AXSIDEI^CE HT HOLLAND, 167
inlt, was much cleaner than one shall see any kitchen, nay, most of the finest parlours in England.
Oct. 6. — Concerning the beginning of the Quakers, all I can learn from B. Furly is, that John Saltmarsh, who had been Fairfax's chaplain, and a member of the Church of lElngland, was the first that began to be scrupulous of the hat, and using common language, in 1649. In 1650, Job Pox, a shoemaker, and Jas. Nailor, a sergeant in the army, in the North, began to publish the doctrines of the light.
March 8th, 1687. — Whether things, both moral and his- torical, writ, as other such matters are, by men liable to the same mistakes and frailties, may not yet be so ordered by Providence, as to be certain rules in future ages, and presig- nifications of future events, sufficient to guide those who are sincere inquirers after truth and right.
June 1.— A boor, that lived about three miles from Eot- terdam, had about thirty morgens of land, which would keep iMrty cows. His land was worth, to be let, about seventeen shiUings per annum per morgen, besides taxes, which were about seven or eight guilders per year more ; whereof three, or thereabouts, to the State, the remainder four or five was for mills, sluices, and other charges of draining. A morgen of land, to be sold, is worth 700, for he had given 2100 for three morgens, which he would now let for fifty, so that the lands sell for above thirty-feve years' purchase. One of these morgens, which is to be sold, being digged up, and the turf sold, will make SOOOs,, whereof the State has 40008. Making the turf, and other charges about them, will amount to 2000s. The tax which is to be still paid, after the turf is dug out, and the land lying under water, may be bought off for 225s., (Q. whether this be the whole tax for miUs and all ?) so that b^ selling his land for the turf, a man does more than double bis fee.
The vein of turf lies about two feet under the surface, and is about eight feet thick. Under it lies clay. The top of the vein now lies higher than the surface of the water, as it is in summer time when lowest. The upper part of the vein yields the best turf, the under half is not so good. They cut it not with spades, but fish it all up from under the water with nets, and so lay it upon the neighbouring land of a certain thickness to dry, and when it is of a fit temper, they cut it
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16d LIFff AKD LSTTEB8 OP JOHN LOX^KE. [l687.
into sizes fit for use. The turf never grows there again ; at least as they observe : but sometimes, when a large tract of ground is by this means laid under water, they drain it, and 80 have their land again, for which they pay no taxes for thirty years after draining.
Whilst Locke resided in Holland he kept up a regular correspondence with his friends in England, and appears to have been well informed of what was passing there. Some of these letters describe the state of affairs, and the particulars of the proceedings of James the Second's commissioners at Oirford, in the business of Magdalen College.
EXTBAOTS OF A LETTEB EBOM TYBBSLL TO LOCKE.
"May 6th, 1687.
"Tour discourse about the liberty of conscience would not do amiss now, to dispose people's minds to pass it into law whenever the Parliament sits. The thing gives so gener- al a satisfaction, that more are displeased at the manner of doing it than at the thing itself. So that I find few but the high Church of England-men highly displeased ; but let the intent of those that do it be as it will, I believe whatever the Church of England may lose, the [Roman Catholic religion will not gain 'so much as they imagine ; more being likely to go off to the fanatics than to them, amongst the ordinary people, who can neither expect offices nor pensions by the change ; and if so, I think the [Roman Catholic religion (as Osborne says) will only change herb John for Coloquintida.
" As for news, I have not. much to send you, only, to the great satisfaction of many. Judge "Wilkins is put out ; and one Sir Eichard Allebone, a Eoman Catholic of great inte- grity, as those say who know him, put in his room ; and more such changes are daily expected.
" The Vice Chancellor of Cambridge was suspended and deprived this day by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ab officio et beneficio, for refusing to propose and admit Father Francis, a Dominican friar, to the degree of Master of Arts in the university ; the rest of the doctors who signed the
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Bniversity plea are to expect their doom, but what it will be we cannot yet tell.
" And now 1 am speaking of universities, I will give you a abort account of the state of Oxford. In Christ-church, where there hath been a Eoman Catholic head almost this half year, I cannot hear of one conversion amongst the stu- dents. The old Hall in cant quadrangle, formerly the Bishop's wood-house, is now fitting up for a chapel for the Dean. There are, notwithstanding Mr W.'s great endeavours to turn people, not above six or seven scholars besides himself, who have declared themselves Soman Catholics. Mr "W. prints books at his new press for his religion, but they have no very good success : one was answered as soon as it came out ; tne other, which is a kind of history of the Eeformation, has a very slight reception among the learned, being no more than a tianslation of Gander's and Gretner's stones, which have been so long since confuted.
"I doubt not you have received Dr Burnet's letters, which are a pattern bow a man should travel, and what ob« servations he should make. The book was forbid to be brought in, but it has since been printed here and sells in- finitely.
^ I forgot to tell you, the head of Magdalen College in Oxford being dead, the Eling sent down a mandamus for one Mr Farmer, a new convert, a commoner of the House ; but the Fellows refused to elect him, and have been so stout as to choose Mr Hough, a chaplain of the Duke of Ormond, for their President. My Lord Sunderland has writ to them from the King about it ; their answer was, that they could not choose Mr F. with a safe conscience, being under an oath, and having received the sacrament upon it, to choose none but a fit man, whereas this man was not so, being a person of Hl-fiftme and debauched life."
7B0H TYBBELL TO LOCKE.
« Not. 2nd. • •••*.
" I HAVE nothing else worth writing but a short account how things have gone lately at Magdalen College before the Commissioners whom the King sent down to visit the Col- lege ; viz. the Bishop of Chester, the Lord Chief Justice
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170 lilFB AND LETTEBS OP JOHW LOCKE. [l687.
u*
Wright, and Barcm Jenner, When they came, they sum* moned the President and Fellows before them, and admon-t ished the President to recede from the government of the House, which he refusing, they expelled him. Then the^ asked all the Fellowrf severally, whether they would admit the Bishop of Oxford to be their head ? which all of them refusing except one Papist, they admitted him themselves by installing one of his chaplains, and giving him the oaths by proxy. Then they sent to Dr Hough for the keys of the lod^mg, which he refusing to deliver, they sent for a smith and broke them open, and put the Bishop's proxy in posses- sion ; then they sent for all the Fellows again, and asked them whether they would submit to and obey the President
whom the King had set over them, which Dr F , who was
the first man asked, utterly refused, saying he neither would nor could do it with a safe conscience. The rest of them signed a paper in which they promised to submit to the Bishop in omnibus Ileitis et honestis^ according to the statutes of the house, which submission was taken, and they much
commended for it. But Dr F upon the third admoni-*
tion still refusing, had his name struck out of the books, and was ordered to depart the College within fourteen days; against which proceedings as null and unjust, he read and gave in a protestation, as Dr Hough had done before, both appealing to the King in his courts, &c. So there were no more expelled at present for denying their authority, than the
President, Dr F , and the under-porter. But on Friday
morning, upon receiving fresh instructions, the former sub^ mission not being looked upon as full enough, they were further required to sign an address to the King, wherein they were to confess and beg pardon for their passed con- tumacy, and promise absolute obedience for tne time to come ; but instead of that, when they came together, they made a quite other sort of address to the Commissioners, wherein they first assert that they are not conscious of having acted in anything contrary to their oaths and the statutes of the house, and therefore nope that his Majesty will pardon them if they cannot render any more than a passive obedience to his Majesty's commands, since they cannot look upon the Bishop as their lawful head, or words to that effect : and de* sire the Commissioners to represent their case fairly to \m
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1688.] HIS EBTITEK TO BNGlAlO). 171
Majesty, At wliich paper (being signed by all the Pellows except twQ, viz. Dr Smyth and Chamock) they were very much displeased, and acyoumed the court till the 20th in** stant, when it is to be feared they will come down again, and
Proceed very severely against all that signed that paper, 'his is the sum of what has been done ; Dr F is very
cheerful under it, and many commend his carriage as much more fair and above-board than the rest, who meant the same thing, though they dared not speak it out. What will be the issue, God knows ! but we rear the turning out the most of the Fellows. I fear I have tired you as much as I havQ myself. Yours sincerely,
M."
TBOM THE SAME TO THE SAME.
"Feb, 20th, 1688. . • # * • •
" The aldermen and bailiffs in Oxford that were lately put
in by the new charters, are all turned out, and Mr P ,
your old acquaintance, Alderman "Wright, with several others, put in their places, though I hear the former refuses to act. t^ow if you would know the reason of all this, they say there will be a new Parliament in May, and in order to his Majes- ty's designs, it is fit the Corporation should undergo a new alteration, the former members growing weary, and not will- ing to drive out the whole stage, it was time the very Judases should be imhamessed and turned out to grass. Those that before were so ready in giving up their charters, now find the good effect of it, being the first that were turned out ; nee tea estjustior ulla. Enough of politics, but wishing you all health and a happy meeting.
Tours sincerely,
M,"
That happy accident, the Bevolution of 1688, enabled Locke to return to his native country, and he arrived in tho same fleet that brought the Princess of Orange to England. It was at this time that he stood forward as the most strenu- ous champion of those true principles of G-ovemment which assert, that the people are not to be considered as the pro- perty of their rmers, nor Monarchs as the gods of the earth, according to the slavish doctrine of the divine and indefeasi-
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ble right of Kings ; but that the kingly office and all other orders, privileges, and distinctions whatsoever, are held in trust for the benefit of the people, by whose consent they were appointed, and from whom they derive their delegated power.
It was almost immediately afber his arrival in England that an offer was made to him by Lord Mordaunt, whom he had known in Holland, then one of King "William's Minis- ters, and much trusted by him, as Burnet says, to be em- ployed as Envoy at one of the great German courts, probably either at Vienna or Berlin ; an appointment which he mo- destly refused by the following letter, the copy of which is indorsed J. L. to Lord Mordaunt.*
"Whitehall, Feb. 21, 1689. *'Mt Loed,
" I cannot but in the highest degree be sensible of the great honour his Majesty has done me in those gracious in- tentions towards me which I have understood from your Lordship ; and it is the most touching displeasure I have ever received from that weak and broken constitution of my health which has so long threatened my life, that it now ^ords me not a body suitable to my mind in so desirable an occasion of serving his Majesty. I make account every Englishman is bound in conscience and gratitude not to con- tent himself with a bare, slothful, and inactive loyalty, where his purse, his head, or his hand may be of any use to this ovlt great deliverer. He has ventured and done too much for us to leave room for indifferency or backwardness in any one who would avoid the reproach and contempt of aU mankind. And if with the great concerns of my country and all Chris- tendom I may be permitted to mix so mean a consideration as my own private thoughts, I can truly say that the particu- lar veneration I have for his person carries me beyond an ordinary zeal for his service.
" Besides this, my Lord, I am not so ignorant as not to see the great advantages of what is proposed to me. There is honour in it enough to satisfy an ambition greater than mine, and a step to the making my fortune which I could not have expected. These are temptations that would not suffer me ♦ Afterwards Earl of Peterborough.
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1689.] DECLINES APFODTTMEKT AS AMBASSADOB. 173
easily to decline so eminent a favour, as the other are obliga- tions to a forward obedience in all things, where there are hopes it may not be unuseful. But such is the misfortune of my circumstances, that I cannot accept the honour that is designed me without rendering myself utterly unworthy of it. And however tempting it be, I cannot answer to myself or the world my embracing a trust which I may be in danger to betray even by my entering upon it. This I shall cer- tainly be guilty of, if I do not give your Lordship a true account of myself, and what I foresee may be prejudicial to, his Majesty's affairs. My Lord, the post that is mentioned to me is at this time, if I mistake not, one of the busiest and most important in all Europe, and, therefore, would require not only a man of common sense and good intentions, but one whom experience in the methods of such business has fitted with skill and dexterity to deal with not only the reasons of able, but the more dangerous artifices of cunning men, that in such stations must be expected and mastered. But, my liord, supposing industry and good-will would in time work a man into some degree of capacity and fitness, what will they be able to do with a body that hath not health and strength enough to comply with them P what shall a man do in the necessity of application and variety of attendance on business to be followed there, who sometimes, after a little motion, has not breath to speak, and cannot borrow an hour or two of watching from the night without repaying it with a ' great waste of time the next day ? "Were this a conjuncture wherein the affairs of Europe went smooth, or a little mistake in management would not be soon felt, but that the diligence or change of the Minister might timely enough recover it, I should perhaps think I might, without being unpardonably feulty, venture to try my strength, and make an experiment so much to my advantage ; but I have a quite other view of the state of things at present, and the urgency of affairs comes on so quick, that there was never such neea of success- ful diligence, and hands capable of despatch, as now.
^'The dilatory methods and slow proceedings, to say no worse of what I cannot without indignation reflect on in some of my countrymen, at a season when there, is not a moment of time lost without endangering the Protestant and English interest throughout Europe, and which have already
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174 LIFB AND LSTTEBS 01' JOHN LOCSS. [l680.
put things too &t back, make me justly dread the thought that my weak constitution should m so considerable a post any way clog his Majes^'s affairs ; and I think it much bet- ter that I should be laid by to be forgotten for ever, than that they should at all suffer by my ambitiously and forwardly undertaking what my want of health or experience would not let me manage to the best advantage ; for I must again tell your Lordship, that however unable I might prove, there will not be time in this crisis to call me home and send an- other.
" If I have reason to apprehend the cold air of the country, there is yet another thin^ in it as inconsistent with my con- stitution, and that is, theur warm drinking. I confess obstin- ate refusal may break pretty well through it, but that at best wiU be but to take more care of my own health than the King's business. It is no small matter in such stations to be acceptable to the people one has to do with, in being able to accommodate one's sdf to their fashions ; and I imagine whatever I may do there myself, the knowing what others are doin^ is at least one-half of my business, and I know no such rack in the world to draw out men's thoughts as a well- managed bottle. If therefore it were fit for me to advise in this case, I should think it more for the King's interest to send a man of equal parts, that could drink his share, than the soberest man in the kingdom.
''I beseech you, my Lord, to look on this, not as the dis-. course of a modest or lazv man, but of one who has truly considered himself, and, above all things, wishes well to the designs which his Majesty has so gloriously begun for the redeeming England, and with it all il^ope, and I wish for no other happiness in this world, but to see it completed, and shall never be sparing of my mite where it mav contribute any way to it ; which I am confident your Lordship is suf- ficiently assured of, and therefore I beg leave to tell your Lordship that if there be anything wherein I may flatter inyself I have attained any degree of capacity to serve his Majesty, it is in some little knowledge I perhaps may have in the constitutions of my country, the temper of iny coun- try-men, and the divisions amongst them, whereby I persuade myself I may be more useful to him at home, though I can- not but see that such an employment would be of greater
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ie89.] PETITIOir FOE EESTOBATIOIT AT CHEISTOHITECH. 175
advantage to myself abroad would but my health consent to it.
" My Lord, missing your Lordship at your lodging ttis morning, I have taken the liberty to leave you my thoughts in writing, being loth that in anything that depends on me there should be a moment's delay, a thing which at this time I look on as so criminal in others.
I am, my Lord, Tour Lordship's most humble
and most obedient servant,
J. LOOKB."
Locke, on his return to England, after the Eevolution, endeavoured to be reinstated in his studentship at Christ- church, and, for this purpose, presented a petition to the King, as visitor, to be restored to his former station and rights in that College.
"to the kino's most excellent majesty, the HTTMBLU
PETITION OB JOHN LOCKE
" Showeth, — That your Petitioner, being student of Christ^hurch College, in Oxford, was, in the year 1684, by a letter sent by the Earl of Sunderland, the principal Secre- tary of State, to the Dean and Chapter of the said College, ordered to be turned out. Dr Eell, then Bishop of Oxford, and Dean of the said College, finding it against the rules of common justice, as weU as the ordinary method of the College, to turn out any one without hearing, or so much as being accused of any fact which might forfeit his place, especially one who had lived inoffensively in the College for many years, did, by a "Moneo" affixed to the screen in the Col- lege-hall of the same College, summon your Petitioner, who was then in Holland, to appear at Christmas follovidng, which was about two months after, to answer anything should be alleged against him ; but this regular proceedmg not suiting the designs upon the University, another letter was sent the week followmg, with positive orders to turn your Petitioner out immediately, which was accordingly done.
" Tour Petitioner therefore humbly prays that your Ma- jesty, being Visitor of the said College, and having power by
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17.6 LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN LOOKS. [l689.
youp immediate command to rectify what you find amiss there, would, out of your great justice and goodness, be gra- ciously pleased to direct the Dean and Chapter of the said College to restore your Petitioner to his stuaent's place, to- gether with all things belonging unto it which he formerly enjoyed in the said College.
And your Petitioner shall ever pray."
A Paper, indorsed J. Locke's case, 1689, contains the substance of the petition, with this variation : —
" He therefore prays his Majesty, who is Visitor of the said Colleffe, and has, at least, as much power to redress as others to do wrong, to grant his mandate to the Dean and Chapter of the said College immediately to restore the said John Locke to his former place of student in the College, and to his chambers and the other rights he had therein, with a liberty to be absent, he having an employment in his Majesty's service.'*
What were the exact difficulties which prevented his rein- statement are not known ; Le Clerc says, that finding he could only be received as a supernumerary, he determined to press his claim no further. It is probable, from the terms of nis petition, that he rejected any other conditions than such as should afford him full redress for the wrongs and injustice he had suffered.
One of the first acts that passed after the settlement of the new G-ovemment at the Kevolution, was that for " ex- empting their Majesties' Protestant subjects from the penal- ties of certain laws ;" and although the act confers but a scanty measure of religious lib,erty, it did not pass without the murmurs of the bigoted Churchmen. There is a tradi- tion, that the terms of the Toleration Act were negotiated by Locke himself; and the fact is in some degree confirmed by an expression in one of his letters to Limborch. "We know, however, that he was dissatisfied with the terms then panted, and that he considered them most inadequate and insufficient.
In this first charter of religious liberty, as much was granted as the prejudices of the time would permit. The iJnitarianSi who were not allowed to enjoy the benefit of that
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1089.] THE ESSA.T OK HITMAW TJNDEESTAKDINO. 177
act, were afterwards relieved by a subsequent statute of George III. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, so long resisted, and at last so happily conceded, was the next great step towards the attainment of religious liberty and peace. The repeal of the laws which, since the reign of Charles the Second, have excluded oui* Eoman Catholic fel- low-subjects from their civil rights, and from their due share of political power, has now confirmed that just and teue
LIBEETT, THAT EQUAL AND IMPARTIAL LIBBETT, WHICH WE HAVE SO LONG STOOD IN NEED OE.
The Essay on Human Understanding, which had been finished during the author's retirement in Holland, and the English version of the Letter on Toleration, were now pub- lished on his return to his native country. They contributed, as Stewart has observed in his excellent Dissertation, to pre- pare the thinking part of his readers, in a degree till then unknown, for the unshackled use of the imderstanding. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that if Luther delivered the Christian world from the thraldom* of the priesthood in matters of religion ; Locke in no less degree contributed, by his method of bold examination, and by his ardent search for truth, to deliver the world from the thraldom of errors and prejudices.
It has been observed by Mr D. Stewart, and also by Sir James Mackintosh,t who, Doth as a writer and orator, is so eminently distinguished by his profound research and splen- did talents, that the course and circumstances of Locke's life were, in every respect, favourable to the production of such a work as the Essay on Human Understanding. Mr Stewart remarks, that the study of medicine formed one of the best preparations for the study of mind ; and that the busy and diversified scenes through which the author afterwards passed, contributed, not less than the academical retirement of his former life, to enhance the peculiar and characteristic merit of his works. On his first entrance into life, aa he himself says, "I no sooner perceived myself in the world, but I found myself in a storm ;" and thus he might well describe the civil wars, and the military rule^ which prevailed from his
♦ It has been said that Luther made every man his own Pope; i. 0. established the right of private judgment.
t Vide a most admirable article in the Edinburgh Beview, vol. xlzri*
n
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178 IIFE AND LETTEES OF JOHN LOCKE. [l689.
childhood to his twenty-sixth year. "Educated then," to use the words of Sir James Mackintosh, "amongst the English Dissenters, during the short period of their political ascendancy, he early imbibed that deep piety and ardent spirit of liberty which actuated that body of men ; and he probably imbibed also in their schools the disposition to metaphysical inquiries, which has everywhere accompanied the Calvinistic theology. Sects, founded on the right of pri- vate judgment, naturally tend to purify themselves from intolerance, and in time learn to respect in others the free- dom of thought, to the exercise of which they owe their own existence. By the Independent divines who were his in- structors, our philosopher was taught those principles of reli- gious liberty which they were the first to disclose to the world. When free inquiry led him to milder dogmas, he retained the severe morality which was their honourable singularity, and which continues to distinguish their success- ors in those communities which have abandoned their rigor- ous opinions. His professional pursuits afterwards engaged him in the study of the physical sciences, at the moment when the spirit of experiment and observation was in its youthful fervour, and when a repugnance to scholastic subtle- ties was the ruling passion of the scientific world. At a more mature age he was admitted into the society of great wits and ambitious politicians ; during the remainder of his life he was often a man of business, and always a man of the world, without much undisturbed leisure, and probably with that abated relish for merely abstract speculation, which is the inevitable result of converse with society and experience in affairs. But his political connections, agreeing with bis early bias, made him a zealous advocate of liberty in opinion and in government ; and he gradually united ms zeal and activity to the illustration of such general principles as are the guardians of those great interests of human society. Al- most all his writings (even his Essay itself) were occasional, and intended directly to counteract the enemies of reaBon and freedom in his own age. The first Letter on Toleration the most original, perhaps, of his works, was composed in Holland, in a retirement where he was forced to conceal himself from the tyranny which pursued him into a foreign land; and it was publisned in England, in the year of the
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1689.] THE ESSAY OK HUMAK UKDEBSTAKBIKG^. 179
devolution, to vindicate the Toleration Act, of which the author lamented the imperfection.'*
As no one is so capahle of describing the extent and scope of Locke's improvements as the philosophical writer whose words have been already quoted, the same high authority is again appealed to in the following transcript, with all due acknowledgment, and with an unfeigned deference and admir- ation for his talents and judgment.
** It is with the Second Book that the Essay on Human Understanding properly begins, and this Book is the first considerable contribution in modem times towards the ex- perimental philosophy of the human mind. The road was pointed out by Bacon; and by excluding the fallacious analo- gies of thought to outward appearance, Descartes mav be said to have marked out the limits of the proper field of in- quiry. But before Locke, there was no example in intellec- tual philosophy of an ample enumeration of facts, collected and arranged for the express purpose of legitimate generaliza- tion. He himself tells us, that his ^ purpose was, in a plain historical method, to give an account of the ways by which our understanding comes to attain those notions of things we have.* In more modem phraseology this would be called an attempt to ascertain, by observation, the most general facts relating to the origin of human knowledge. There is some- thing in the plainness, and even homeliness, of Locke's lan- guage, which strongly indicates his very clear conception that experience must be his sole guide, and his unwillingness, by the use of scholastic language, to imitate the example of those who make a show of explaining facts, while, in reality, they only * darken counsel by words without knowledge.' He is content to collect the laws of thought, as he womd have collected those of any other object of physical knowledge, from observation alone. He seldom embarrasses himself with physiological hypotheses, or wastes his strength in those insoluble problems which were then called metaphysical. Though in the execution of his plan there are many and great defects, the conception of it is entirely conformable to the Verulamian method of induction, which, even after the fullest enumeration of particulars, requires a cautious examination of each subordinate class of phenomena; before we attempt,
N 2
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througli a very slowly ascending series of generalization, to soar to comprehensive laws.
" Few books have contributed more to rectify prejudice, to undermine established errors, to diffuse a just mode of think- ing, to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry, and yet to contain it within the boundaries which Nature has prescribed to the human, understanding. An amendment of the general habits of thought is, in most parts of knowledge, an object as im- portant as even the discovery of new truths, though it is not BO palpable, nor in its nature so capable of being estimated by superficial observers. In the mental and moral world, which scarcely admit of anything which can be called dis-^ . covery, the correction of the intellectual habit is probably the greatest service which can be rendered to science. In this respect the merit of Locke is unrivalled : his writings have diffused throughout the civilized world the love of civil liberty ; the spirit of toleration and charity in religious differences ; the disposition to reject whatever is obscure, fantastic, op hypothetical in speculation; to reduce verbal disputes to their proper value ; to abandon problems which admit of no solution ; to distrust whatever cannot be clearly expressed ; to render theory the simple expression of facts ; and to prefer those studies which most directly contribute to human hap- piness. If Bacon first discovered the rules by which know- ledge is improved, Locke has most contributed to make man- kind at large observe them. He has done most, though often by remedies of silent and almost insensible operation, to cure those mental distempers which obstructed the adoption of these rules ; and thus led to th^t general diffusion of a health- ful and vigorous understanding, which is at once the greatest of all improvements, and the instrument by which all other improvements must be accomplished. He has left to posterity the instructive example of a prudent reformer, and ol a philo- sophy temperate as well as liberal, which spares the feelings of the good, and avoids direct hostility with obstinate and formidable prejudice. These benefits are very slightly coun- terbalanced by some political doctrines, liable to misapplica- tion, and by the scepticism of some of his ingenious follow- ers ; an inconvenienpe to which every philosophical school is exposed, which does not steadily limit its theory to a mere
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exposition of experience. If Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none ; yet both did more for the improvement pf the understanding, and not less for the progress of know- ledge, than the authors of the most brilliant discoveries. Mr Locke will ever be regarded as one of the great ornaments of ibe English nation ; and the most distant posterity will speak of him, as in the language of the poet —
* 0 Decus AngliacaD certe, 0 Lux altera gentis.*
Gray d^ Princ, cogitand"
With respect to the style of the Essay, it has been ob- served by a most competent judge,* that it resembles that of a well-educated man of the world, rather than of a recluse student, who had made an object of the art of composition. It everywhere abounds with colloquial expressions, which he had probably caught by the ear from those whom he consi- dered as models of good conversation ; and hence, though it now seems somewhat antiquated, and not altogether suited to the dignity of the subject, it may be presumed to have contributed its share towards the great object of turning the thoughts of his contemporaries to logical and metaphysical inquiries.t
we learn from Lord Shaftesbury and from Addison that the Essay very soon after its publication excited considerable attention. Lord Shaftesbury was one of the first who sound- ed the alarm against what he conceived to be the drift of that philosophy which denies the existence of innate principles. The most direct of all his attacks upon Locke is to be found in the eighth letter, addressed to a student at the University, which was published long after the death of Locke. The two following letters, from the same Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, are selected from a great number written by the same person, now remaining amongst Mr Locke's papers : the one dated 1689 is near the period of the publication of the Essay, when, considering his intimacy with the author,
* Mr Dugald Stewart.*
t In a new translation of Aristotle's Bhetoric, 1823, it is said of Locke's Essay, ** This admirable work is recommended by clearness of conception, (Etonndness of judgment, accuracy of reasoning, and a richness of fancy ec^ual to the illustration of* every subject. When we add to all these thejpunty, aptness, and variety of his style, it is no wonder that the Essay on Human Understanding should have formed a new epoch in philosophy."
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be must have seen it ; the other, dated 1694, is soon after the publication of the second edition. They both appear to be aimed against the new philosophy, and bemg written to Locke, it is probable that the opinions contained in the Essay are the real objects of attack. After perusing these letters, the reader will probably be of opinion that the friends of the author of the Essay gave him as much trouble as his public adversaries. 1
LOBB ASHLEY TO MB LOGSJ!.
« Aug. 1689. «SlB,
" I was 80 concerned at not being able to explain myself on some notions that I had only started to a discourse which, to excuse myself I must say was begun by you, that whether it was .only the affection that every one nas to his own that made me fond of them, yet, rather than they should die so, I resolved to engage further in their defence the next day, with the same impudence that 1 have used you to. But as good luck would have it for you, you were gone abroad, so I missed the gain of an hour or two by you, and you the loss of as much upon me ; yet so far was I from learning the discretion 1 mougnt by this, that 1 grew worse than before ; those thoughts that were not so well satisfied with themselves, but feared their doom from you, proud and insolent with this reprieve, thought now of nothing less than living ; and those that were clearer con8cienced,and had before expected quarter, now fell to refining upon themselves, in hopes still better to deserve it ; so that here was I drawn in and disposed of at the caprice of these impertinent thoughts (for to speak in- genuously, I care not a straw for either one or other of them, or what becomes of them), and for aU what resistance my materiality could make, this troublesome immateriality, as the distinction is that you taught me, got the better, and 1 was forced to think whether 1 would or no. Being thus, at length, forced to know and acknowledge the existence and much superior force of an immaterial part ; so finding it came upon me with such violence, 1 quitted hold, and let myself be carried down in the midst of this immaterial stream, which, methinks, I had much rather have called this muddy one, if you would have let one alone to one's natural epithets.
" This here must certainly maze you, ii, as I cannot expect
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otherwise, you should have forgotten the subject of the last* discourse I had with you ; therefore, to recover you out of what confusion such a wild style as this may have put you in, know the truth, that being caught in an idle hour, and cut off from the recourse to books, having only this very pen and paper left me for my defence, I bethought myself of the practice you have so often advised me to ; and here being a very feir occasion offered, I resolved to muster up my (Es- orderly thoughts, and make all the strength I could for those yesterday's notions that had fainted but at the apprehension of your siding against them, and that only in your absence comd come to something, where they might have liberty to come to some head ere they were crashed, and were not to be destroyed so still in their rise ; but if, after all, that was to be theur f&te to perish under you, that I might at least have the honour of yielding with more resistance, and you of overcoming with greater opposition.
'^ This is enough to vindicate myself from what may appear shocking to anything that relates to religion by the side of the argument I have chose to defend, which I know you would have me do with vigour ; for as to mySelf, to make use of Mgnsieur Fontenelle's words, * Je respecte jusqu'aui deli- catesses excessives, que Ton a sur le £Eiit de la relie;ion.'
" Thus far in my letter I have let you read without inter- rupting you ; but for the rest that follows, unless you are as idle when you receive it as I am now I write it, pray put it up in your pocket, and do not read it till you happen to be BO, how long soever it may be till that time.
" So then to our argument. "Whatever was of matter you denied to be ,anv part of the soul, and the only part you justified to be immaterial was thought. Now, what will thought prove when you do not appropriate it to a body ? What is it that thinks, when no material being does ? What is thought, but the ideas of natural objects as they represent themselves to sensible creatures ; and if these ideas do not cease with the sensibility of the creature, why do you attri- bute their original to matter ? Will you amrm, that that which subsists without matter should have sprung from matter, and that that which sprung out of matter shoidd out- live it ?
'' Agaiiii how is it, that in distempers and obstructions in
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184 LirE AND LETTBBS OF JOHN LOCKE. [l689.
the order and motion of the matter of our bodies, the think- ing faculty is by these obstructed : may there be a medium supposed, such a liaison, compounded of materiality and im- materiality, to work these mutual influences ? or what hold else shall plain matter have on that which has not anything of its own nature ?
" Again, does the thought fail ever, as we know the senses may ? or do we think, and not know it ? feel, and not know it ? see, and not know it ? I would answer, we do not then feel, we do not then see : how then is it that we still think, and think on you must ; for you dare not allow of a suspension of the exercise of thought, for fear of destroying the only reliance of its being.
" Thus much in short ; but let us take away all materiality from the faculty of thinking, and all from the objects it is to work upon (for this must be to suppose it completely inde- pendent from matter), and then give me an idea of what this thought or idea is to be ; or do but remove a thing from us by the discovery of it to the sense or imagination of all living creatures like us, will you say an idea shall simply rise from this real being ? As thus, before it was discovered the earth moved, or that there were antipodes, was there from this either thought or idea for several ages in the known part of our world ? Creatures dizzied, have fancied it to move, and,, by a wild incoherence of rambling thought, men may have been fancied opposite as flies on a table. But this msS^ea no idea of existence of those things ; for the very ideas, on which it must then be said to have been received, themselves hinder the framing of such a one, and show it to be only accidental classing of ideas, that have no just relation to one another. In short, from a being hid from the conceptions of aU sensible creatures (but such a one you cannot expect me to instance), there can no idea or thought arise ; for if it be inanimate, it cannot have an idea of itself: therefore, as there is no idea but from things substantial, so there cannot bo any fix)m such but by the communication of them to the senses ; and thus we owe all to our sensibility ; and by the measure this decreases, the other must.
" But, to conclude with the best my apprehension will afford me, I define thought as a name given, not to the power where- by animated bodies are prepared and rendered capable of
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1680.] LETTEBS OlS THE ESSAY. 185
receiving the impressions of ideas (for tbat Nature alone is to give an account of, and how matter in some bodies is animated, and in others not), but to the action, the evident workings of exterior objects, by their ideas, on sensible crea- tures, who receive them either by the immediate and forcible application of the objects to the senses, or more remotely and indirectly from the impressions they have left. This depends on the natural composition of the brain, or other essential parts, as it is coarser or finer ; for as in animated creatures, ffom those that are but in the first degree removed from vegetables, to us that esteem ourselves in the furthest, the senses multiply and grow in vigour ; so do they, when arrived to a sufficient number and force, retain the many ideas they receive, and receive them afterwards by reflection. But here the imperfection of the remaining impressions, which the in- tervention of time has occasioned, or that originally may have been imperfect, and the obscurity of a dubious variety of these occurring representations, breed such alteration and confusion, that there is often great difficulty and trouble ere a fixed idea be framed in the mind ; that, last remaining, be- ing the subsequent idea of the preceding ones, and formed by their concurrence. Those being just, orderly, and full, the general comprehensive idea that springs thence wiU be true, and the nature of the thing described in the mind will appear as it is ; whereas if, on the contrary, they prove weak, de- ceitful, confused, or imperfect, the conclusive ideas that are drawn from and formed out of those will be defective, cor- Thpt, uncertain, false. I profess myself now, as far as I can, (and till I know more of myself you will excuse me), as fer, that is, as materiality will go.
Entirely yours, A. Ashley.' ' *
"StGiles's, Sept. 29, 1694. " Mb Locke,
" You may most certainly be assured, that if out of any studies of mine, which you mention, I could draw anything I thought could be any ways profitable, or other than super- fluous to you, I should not fail to communicate it without any need of being pressed ; since that all the end to which
♦ Afterwards the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Author of the " Character- istics," &c.
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my studies, such as they are, have any leading or bent, is but to learn me this one thing, in short — ^how to commimicate everything freely — how to be more sociable, and more a friend. How is it possible that I should be a niggard here, and not impart all that I were able ? It is not with me as with an empiric, one that is studying of curiosities, raising of new inventions that are to gain credit to the author, starting of new notions that are to amuse the world, and serve them for diversion, or for trial of their acuteness (which is all one as if it were some new play, as chess, or a game of cards that were invented) ; — it is not in my case, as with one of the men of new systems, who are to build the credit of their own invented ones upon the ruin of the ancienter, and the dis- credit of those learned men that went before. Descartes, op Mr Hobbes, or any of their improvers, have the same reason to make ado and be jealous about their notions and disco- veries, as they call them, as a practising apothecary or moun- tebank has to be jealous about the compositions that are to go by his name ; for, if it be not a livelihood is aimed, it is a reputation, and what I contend for reputation in I must ne- cessarily envy another man's possession of But as for me, could I make any of those admirable discoveries which were nothing worth but to be commended for their subtilty, I would do as Timon did (though out of a just contrary prin- ciple) when he found gold, — waiter I had by chance dug upon it, and found what it was, I would put the clod over it again, and say nothing of it, but forget it if I could. For my part, I am so far from thinking that mankind need any new dis- coveries, or that they lie in the dark, and are unhappy for want of them, that I know not what we could ask of G-od to know more than we do, or easily may do. The thing that I would ask of G-od should be to make men live up to what they know, and that they might be so wise as to desire to know no other things than what belonged to them, and what lay plain before them, and to know those to purpose ; and tliat all other ajQfectation of knowledge he would preserve us from as from a disease, in which sort of knowledge, if we excelled ever so much, and were masters of all as fer as we coveted, it would not help us to be one jot the honester or better creatures.
'* If there be any one that knows not, or believes not, that
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1694.] IiETTEBS OK THE E8BAT. 187
all things in the iiniyerse are done for the best, and ever will go on so, because conducted by the same good cause; if there be any one who knows nothing like this of Q-od, or can think of him constantly in this manner, and who cannot see that he himself is a rational and a sociable creature by his nature, and has an end to which he should refer his slightest actions, such a one is indeed wanting of knowledge. But if this be known (as what is easier to know ?), there is not then one study or science that signifies a rush, or that is not worse than ignorance, which gives a man no help in the pur* suance of what he has learnt to be his duty ; assists him not in the government of the irrational and brutal part of himi self; which neither makes him more truly satisfied with what Q-od does in the world (for that is loving Q-od), nor more sociable, more honest, or more just, by removing of those passions which he has always to struggle with, that he may preserve himself so. If there are any other sciences that are worthy of esteem, they are what must relate to the well-being of mankind in societies ; and on that account a button-maker is to be esteemed if he improves his art, and adds some conveniency to life. But how the founders of metaphysics, of rhetoric, of the arts of reasoning upon every- thing and never coming to end, of the arts that lie in words and the turns of them, and the divisions that may be run upon them ; how, I say, these men came to be preferred to the commonest mechanics I cannot tell.
"Anciently, these notable inquisitive men, that were curious in what signified nothing, were called by a name that they thought themselves highly honoured with, and aspired no further ; they were called sophists, and never expected to be treated in the style of philosopJiers, or professors of philosophy. Who were true philosophers those wise men showed (for amongst them the name came up), that were in early times in Greece, whom the fancy of people that succeeded put into a certain number called seven, though the number was far greater ; of whom not one but was signally remarkable for some service to his Commonwealth ; who were all united in the strictest friendship, and by good offices, and helps one to another ; and whos^ study was that of knowing themselves, and learning how to be serviceable to others.
" When Socrates lived, it was still thus, for he made the
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sophists know themselves and keep their distazice ; but when, after his death, the Socratic spint sunk much, then began philosophy and sophistry to be better acquainted; but it was never known till more late days, that to profess philoso- phy was not to profess a life, and that it might be said of one, that he was a great man in philosophy, whilst nobody thought it to the purpose to ask, how did he live f what in- stuices of his fortituoe, contempt of interest, patience, Ac. ?
"What is philosophy, then, if nothing of this is in the case ? What signifies it to know (if we could know) what elements the earth was made from, or how many atoms went to make up the round ball we live upon, though we know it to an atom? What signifies it to know whether the chaos was cast in Dr Burnet's mould, or if Q-od did it a quite diflferent way ? What if we knew the exact system of that of our frames ; should we learn any more than this, that God did aU things wisely and for the best ? And are we not already satisfied of this, or may be assured of it by the thousandth part of what we know and see? K we should discover anything that led us to conceive what were contrary to this, we should have learnt that which was worse than nothing. And better than we know already we cannot learn to biow ; for God cannot by any discovery be conceived to be more wise than perfectly so, and such it is easy to conceive him to be without knowing any more of the things of nature than we already do.
" What I count true learnfaig, and all that we can profit by, is, to know ourselves ; what it is that makes us low and base, stubborn against reason, to be corrupted and drawn away from virtue, of different tempers, inconstant, and inconsistent with ourselves ; to know how to be always friends with Providence, though death and many such dreadful businesses come in the way; and to be sociable and good towards all men, tiiough they turn miscreants, or are injurious to us. Whilst I can get anything that teaches this ; whilst I can search any age or language that can assist me here ; whilst such are philosophers and such philosophy whence I can learn aught from of this kind, there is no labour or study, no learning, that I would not undertake. This is what I know to be sufficiently despised ; for who is there that can think so much to the dishonour and prejudice of himself as to think- he has odious vices within him wmch only labour and ezerciise
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1694.] LETTERS OK THE ESSAY. 189
can throw out ? or who, if he sees sometimes any such ill sights in himself, can endure to look on that side long, but turns to that other side which his flatterers (and himself the greatest of them) always readily present to him ? To look to our bodies and our fortunes is a soHd and serious work, and has been, is, and will keep in good fashion in the world. Animi autem medicina (says one who spoke, yet in a much better time than this), nee tarn desiderata antequam inventa, nee tarn culia posteaqimm cognita est, nee tarn nmltis grata et probata, pltiribtis etiam suspecta et mvisa, . . . But I must fend; for I have almost out-writ the post-time. Ton see what it is to get me a-talking. I can add nothing now more than that I am with all sincerity your entire friend and humble servant, A. Ashley."
" I have not yet received the book, but I have a thousand obligations to my Lady Masham."
About four years after the publication of the Essay, that is, towards the end of 1694, the new philosophy began to excite some attention at Oxford. It was Mr Wynne, Fellow of Jesus College, who first appears to have recom- mended the Essay in that University ; and it gives me plea- sure to make known the opinions and the efforts of that ex- cellent man, who was sincerely desirous of promoting the advancement of knowledge and science.
TO THB HONOTJEED MB J. L0CKJ3, GATES, IK ESSEX.
"HoNOTJBED Sib,
" After the repeated perusal of yx>ur excellent Essay con- cerning Human XJnderst^tnding (which will ever afford me the most agreeable and instructive entertainment), though I feel myself deeply impressed with motives of the greatest re- spect and esteem for the author, yet I am very sensible how impertinent it would be for one of my rank and condition to pretend to make any private acknowledgements for so public and universal a benefit. But having some thoughts relating to your book, which may be of advantage to the public, 1 make bold to offer them to you, not doubting but that your candour will pardon my presumption, though your judgment «hoidd disallow my proposal.
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" Ever since I had the happiness to be acquainted with your accurate Essay, I have been persuaded that the greatest ser- vice that could be done for the judicious and thinking part of the world, next to the composing of it, would be to bring it into vogue and credit, and thereby into common and ge- neral use. If men did not labour under inveterate prejudices and obstinate prepossessions, this might easily be effected. And yet, notwithstanding these, the truths contained in your book are so clear and evident, the notions so natural and agreeable to reason, that I imagine none that carefully reads and duly considers them, can avoid being enlightened and in- structed by them. I have for some time made it mv business, in my little sphere, to recommend it to all those that I have any mfluence over, nor did I ever meet with any, who, after an attentive and diligent perusal, complained of being dis- appointed in their expectation ; but, on the contrary, they owned themselves to have been infinitely benefited by it. By the light which they have derived from it, they so clearly perceive how useless and insignificant our vulgar systems are, that they have resolved to trifle no longer, but to rid their hands and heads entirely of them ; and in all probability it would have the same effect upon us all, if it were but read and considered by all.
** Now, in order to this, I am inclined to think that it would be very useful to publish an abridgment of the book. If some of the larger explications (some of which are but incidental to the general design of the work) were contracted, it might be reduced to the compass of a moderate 8vo. I need not represent to you the advantages of a small over a large volume ; but shall only tell you that it would be of ex- cellent use to us of this place, to be put into the hands of our young men, and be read and explained to them instead of those trifling and insignificant books, which serve only to perplex and confound, instead of enlightening and improving our reason. I do not see that there is anything wanting in it to complete the third part in vour division of science. I know you mention an epitome of the work in your preface ; but 'tis, as I am informed, in a language not commonly un- derstood amongst us, and too scarce to answer the end which I propose.
" If, upon this intimation, you shall think what is here of-*
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1694.] LSTTEBS OK TH^ ESSAY. 191
fered worthy ofyour regard, I would willingly contribute any assistance tnat I may be capable of to ease you of the trou- ble. I humbly crave your pardon for this bold intrusion, and beg leave to subscribe myself, what 1 sincerely am, with all respect imaginable, honoured Sir,
Your obedient and very humble Servant,
JOHK "WtKOTB." " Jesus College, Oxon. Jan. 31, 1695."
THE AKSWEB TO THE ABOYE LETTER, HmOBSEB J. LOCKE TO J. WYNISTB.
''Oates, 3rd Feb. 1694-6. "Sib,
" You cannot think it strange that I should be surprised at the receipt of a letter of so much civililrv to me from a person I had not the honour to know, and of so great com- mendation of my book from a place where I thought it littie taken notice of; and though the compliments you are pleased to bestow both on me and it are above what belongs to either, yet I cannot but acknowledge myself sensibly obliged by the kind thoughts you are biassed with in favour both of me and mj Essay. It having been begun by chance, and continued with no other design but a free inquiry into the subject, it would have been great vanity in me to publish it with hopes, that what had been writ for the diversion of my idle hours, should be made serious business of studious men who know how to employ their time. Those who had leisure to throw away in speculations a little out of the road, I guessed might perhaps look into it. If by the credit and recommendation of those who, like you, have entertained it vnth a favourable opinion, it be read further, and get into the hands of men of letters and study, it is more than I could expect from a Trea- tise I writ in a plain and popular style, which, having in it nothing of the air of learning, nor so much as the language of the schools, was little suited to the use or relish of those who, as teachers or learners, applied themselves to the mys- teries of scholastic knowledge.
" But you, I see, are got above feshion and prejudice ; and you must give me leave to have no ordinary thoughts of a man, who, by those two great opposers of all new efforts of improvement, will not suffer yourself to be hindered from
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192 LIFE AUTD LETTEES OP JOHN LOCKE. [l694.
contriving how to make the way to real knowledge more open and easy to those beginners who have set their faces that way. I should be very glad if anything in my book could be made useful to that purpose. I agree with you, that most of the larger explications may be looked on as incidental to what you design, and so may by one, who would out of my book make a system of the third part in my division of science, be wholly passed by or but lightly touched on ; to which let me add that several of those repetitions, which for reasons then I let it go with, mav be omitted, and all the parts contracted into that form and bigness you propose.
" But with my Uttie health, and less leisure, considering that I have been so long a stranger to systems, and am ut- terly ignorant what would suit those you design it for, it is not for me to go about it, though what you have said would incline me to believe it might not be wholly lost labour. It is not for nothing I hope that this thought is fallen into the mind of one who is much abler to execute it ; you, I see, are as much master of my notions as I myself, and better able to put them together to the purpose you intend. I say not this to decline giving my assistance, if you, in civility, think I can afford you any.
" The Abstract, which was published, in French, in the Bibliotheque XJniverselle of 1688, will neither in its size or design answer the end you propose ; but if the rough draught of it, which I think I have in English somewhere amongst my papers, may be of any use to you, you may command it, or whatever service I can do you in any kind ; for I am, with a very particular esteem and respect.
Sir, your most humble Servant."
After the first objection had been overcome, the success of the Essay must be considered to have been very great, as its several successive editions during the life of the author, as well as an excellent translation by M. Coste into the French language, sufficiently attest. If, however, the Essay received the approbation of enlightened men, not only in England, but on the Continent, yet after an interval of several years from its first publication, when time had been allowed to sift its merits, and decide its character, it excited the disappro- bation of the Heads of Houses at Oxford, who at cme time
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1704.] LETTEES ON THE ESSAY. 19^
took counsel to hanishi it from that seat of learning. Their proceedings are described in the following letter : —
ME TTEEELL TO LOCKE.
"April, 1704. '*Deab Sie,
" In answer to yours received by our good friend Mr Church, the best information I can give you concerning the forbidding the reading of your Essay is as follows : That in the beginning of November last, there was a meeting of the Heads of Houses then in town ; it was there proposed by Dr Mill, and seconded by Dr Maunder, that there was a great decay of long-cut exercises in the University, which could not be attributed to anything so much as the new philosophy which was so much read, and in particular, your Book and Le Clerc's Philosophy: against which it was offered, that a Pro- gramma should be published, forbidding all tutors to read them to their pupils. This was like, at first, to have passed, till it was opposed by some others there present, and particu- larly by Dr Dunstan ; who not only vindicated your Book, but said that he thought the making the Programma would do more harm than good ; first, by making so much more noise abroad, as if the University went about to forbid the reading of all philosophy but that of Aristotle ; next, that he thought that, instead of the end proposed, it would make young men more desirous to buy and read those books, when they were once forbid, than they were before. Then, at another meeting, their resolution upon the whole was, that upon Dr Edwards' proposal they agreed, instead of a Pro- gramma, that all Heads of Houses should give the tutors private instructions not to read those books to their pupils, and to prevent their doing it by themselves as much as lay in their power ; and yet I do not find, after all, that any such thing has been put in execution in those Colleges where I have any acquaintance, as particularly in University, Magda- len, New College, and Jesus, all which have Heads that are sufficiently of the High Church party ; so that I believe they, finding it like to "have little effect, have thought it best to let it drop. Mr Percy, the son of your old acquaintance at Christ-church, not only read your Dook himself, but encour- aged others to do it. I hope you will not impute the indis-
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194 LIFE AND LSTTEBS OF JOHK LOCKE. [l704.
creet zeal of a few to the whole University, any more than we should lay the flailing of the Bishops to the Church.
Your most faithful servant,
T. Tyebell."
It is here necessary to give some account of the attack which Dr Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, made upon the Essay, as also upon the principles of the author. If it be true, as it was reported at the time, that the Eeverend Prelate died from vexation at the issue of the contest he had engaged in, his memory as a metaphysician has at least been preserved from oblivion by the celebrity of his antagonist, and by hid own signal defeat.
The circumstances which led to the controversy were these : — Toland had published a book, called " Christianity not Mysterious," in which he endeavoured to prove that there is nothing in the Christian religion contrary to reason, or even, above it ; and in explaining his doctrines, had used several arguments from the Essay on Human Understanding. It happened abo that some Unitarian Treatises, published nearly at the same time, maintained that there was nothing in the Christian religion but what was rational and intelligi- ble ; and Locke having asserted in his writings, that Beveki- tion delivers nothing contrary to reason ; the Bishop of Worcester,* defending the mysteries of the Trinity against
* It seems probable that Locke and Dr Stillingfleet, though now engaged in adverse controversy, had formerly belonged to the same party , the Id- shop of Lincoln having conferred upon him his first dignity in the church at Shaftesbury's request.
TO THI BiaHT HOK. THB EABL OF SHATTESBUBT, AT WIKBOBNB ST GILES, DOBSETSHIBB.
<< Hatton Grarden, Jan. 27, 1674. "My vebt good Lobd,
" That your Lordship may perceive I have not been unmindful of the promise I made^ I have conferred on Dr Stillingfleet the Prebend of North Kelsey, which is the more acceptable to him because it lies very conveni- ently, and is that which he desired.
" I wish your Lordship all happiness, from my heart. The times are bad, but I comfort myself with the close of Bishop Duppa's i^istle before Arch- bishop Spottswood's History of Scotland—
' Non, si mala nunc, et olim sic erit.* *^ Beseeching God to ^de and protect you, I rest.
Your Lordship's most humble and affectionate servant,
G. LiKCOLV."
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1698.] STILLINGrLEET'S ATTACK OV THE ESSAY. 195
Toland and tlie Unitarians, denounced some of Locke's principles as heretical, and classed his works with those of the above-mentioned writers.
Locke answered the Bishop, who replied the same year. This replj was confuted by a second letter of Locke's, which produced a second answer from the Bishop in 1698. Locke again replied in a third letter, wherein he treated more largely of the certainty of reason by ideas, of " the certainty of faith, of the resurrection of the same body, and the immateriality of the soul." He showed the perfect agreement of his prin- ciples with the Christian religion, and that he had advanced nothing which had the least tendency to scepticism, with which the Bishop had very ignorantly charged him.
The death of Stillingfleet put an end to the controversy ; in which we cannot but admire Locke's strength of reason- ing, the great clearness and precision with which he explains his own notions and principles, and exposes and confutes those of his adversary. The Bishop was by no means able to maintain his opinions against Locke, whose reasons he did not understand any more than the subject itself about which they disputed. The Beverend Prelate nad employed his time chiefly m the study of Ecclesiastical Antiquities, and in multifarious reading ; but was no great philosopher, and had never accustomed himself to that close way of thinking and reasoning, in which Locke so highly excelled.
^Notwithstanding the reason which Locke had to complain of the unfounded charges brought against him by the Bishop writing upon a subject upon which he was wholly ignorant, yet he always treated him with the respect due to his rank, whilst he triumphantly confuted his mistakes, and from his own words convicted him of inaccuracy and ignorance.
** Never was a controversy," Le Clerc observes, " managed with so much skill on one side, and on the other part with so much misrepresentation, confusion, and ignorance, alike dis- creditable to the cause and the advocate."
In other times, and under other circumstances, had a con- test arisen between a Philosopher and a Churchman, the cause, if unfavourable to the latter, would have been removed into the Inquisition, or into the Court of High Ecclesiastical Commission. Perhaps this Prelate of our reformed church
o 2
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might, in the extremity of his distress (as " the method and management of that holy office were not wholly unknown to his Lordship, nor had escaped his great reading*'*), breathe a regret, that he could not employ the arms of the Eoman Church, or of the Stuart Princes, and silence his adversary by the same ultima ratio of ecclesiastics, which he had seen so successfully used against Galileo, scarce fifty years before.
In a letter written to his relation, Mr King,t during the controversy with the Bishop of Worcester, Locke, in noticing the observations and remarks of some of his adversavies^ thus expresses his contempt : —
"November 5, 1698. « * * * *
" If those gentlemen think that the Bishop hath the ad- vantage by not making good one of those many propositions in debate between us, but by asking a question, a personal question, nothing to the purpose, I shall not envy him such a victory. In the mean time, tf this be all they have to say, the world that sees not with their eyes, will see what disputants for truth those are who make to themselves occasions of calumny, and think that a triumph. The 'Bishop is to prove that my book has something in it that is inconsistent with the doctrine of the Trinity, and all that upon examination he does, . is to ask me, whether I believe the doctrine of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church ? — ^a worthy proof !$
* Second Reply to the Bishop of "Worcester, t Afterwards Lord Chancellor.
X EXTRACT OP LETTER, PROM LEIBNITZ TO DB BURNET, 1697.
*' Je liray avec attention les Amoebaea de Monsieur TEyeque de Worcester et de Monsieur Locke. Je ne doute point que celui-ci ne se tire fort bien d'aifaire. II a trop de jugement pour dormer prise k Messieurs les eccl^si- astiques, qui sont les directeurs naturels des peuples, et dont il faut suivre les formukires autant qu'il est possible. Et j'ay dej^ remarque dans les endroits que j'ai Tds d'abord que Monsieur Locke se justifie d'une mani^re tros solide. II ra'est arrive ouelque chose d'approchant avec le cel^bre Monsieur Amaud. II avait tu quelque chose de moy, et il avait cnl y trouver des mauvaises consequences, mais quand il cut vu mes explications il me dechargea hautement lui-m^me, et quoique nous ne fussions pas d' ac- cord en tout, il ne laissa pas de reconnoitre que mes sentimens n'avoient rien de mauvais.
" J 'imagine qu'il pourra arriver les meme chose k regard de Monsieur'
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1698.] HIS DEFENCE OF THE BS8A.T, 197
And in a draft of a letter on the proper manner of conduct- ing a controversy, Locke says : —
" If readers were not willing to cosin themselves, how could they, where they pretend to seek for truth ana in- formation, content themselves with the jingle of words, and something they know not what, that looks like a sprinkling of wit or satire, in all which they find not the least improve- ment of their knowledge or reason ? Those whose aim is to divert, and make men laugh, let them write plays and ro- mances, and there sport themselves with words and false images of things as much as they please. But a professor, to teach or maintain truth, shoidd have nothing to do with all that tinsel trumpery ; should speak plain and clear, and be afraid of a fallacy or equivocation, however prettily it might look, and be fit to cheat the reader ; who on his side should, in an author who pretends instruction, abominate all such arts, and him that uses them, as much as he would a common cheat who endeavours to put off brass money for standard silver.'*
It was not in this public controversy only that the author of the Essay was obliged to labour in defence of his work. He was equally anxious to satisfy the scruples of his friends, and to clear up any doubts and difficulties which they sug- gested. To Mr TyrreU he writes in explanation of some points which he had misunderstood, and successfully obviates the chief objections then and since urged against what have been called the dangerous principles of the Essay.
,de "Worcester, car les sentimens peuvent demeurer differens sans ^tre dan- gereuses ou repr^hensibles. Je vous ai marqu^ autrefois en quoi je diSkire im pen moy m^me de Monsieur Locke, et je serai bien aise d'en avqjr un jour Totre sentiment. Les miens en philosopMe approchent un pen da- vantage de ceux de feu Madame la Comtesse de Conway, et tient le milieu entre rlaton et D6mocrite ; puisque je crois que tout se fait m^chanique- ment, comme veulent D6mocnte et Descartes, centre Topinion de Monsieur Moms et ses semblables. £t que neanmoins tout se fait encore yitalement et suivant les causes finales, tout etant plein de yie et de perception, contre Fopinion des Democriticiens. Un ami d'HoUande me demanaa si mes re- marques sur les essais de Monsieur Locke ne pourroient pas §tre jointes k la nouYelle edition de Hollande ; mais je m'en excusai, car il auroit 6t6 in- juste de pubUer dans son propre ouyrage quelque chose qui auroit pu paroitre ait contre lui sans lui donner lieu d'y joindre sa reponse,"
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• « Gates, Aug. 4th, 90. " Deae Spt,
" I see you and your friends are so far from understanding me yet rightly, that I shall give you the trouble of a few lines to make my meaning clearer, if possible, than it is ; though I am apt to think, that to any unprejudiced reader, who will consider what I there ought to say, and not what he will fancy I should say besides my purpose, it is as plain as anything can well be. — L. 1, c. 3, s. 13, where it was pro- per for me to speak my opinion of the law of nature, I affirm, m as direct words as can ordinarily be made use of to express one's thoughts, that there is a law of nature knowable by the light of nature. — Book second, c. 27, s. 7 and 8, where I have occasion to speak indefinitely of the divine law, it is objected I could mean none other but the divine revealed law exclusive of the law of nature, and that for two reasons : the first is, because I call it a law given by G-od to mankind. The law of nature, then, in these men's opinions, had not G-od for its author ; for if it had, he gave it to mankind ; and if he did, I think it is no derogation to it to say he gave it to mankind.
" I fear somebody on the other side will, from this very sen- tence, argue that I could not mean the Mosaical or evangelical law of G-od. I am sure they may with more reason, for neither of those, as I take it, was given to mankind ; which is a term which, in my sense, includes all men. 'Tis plain the Mosaical law was not given to mankind ; for it was, Hear, O Israel ! and I never yet met vnth any one that said the laws of Moses were the laws of mankind ; and as for the revealed will of God in the New Testament, which was a revelation made to the children of men 2000 years after Moses, and 4000 years after the Creation ; how that can be called a law given to mankind is hard to conceive, unless that men bom before the time of the Gospel were no part of mankind, or the Gospel were revealed before it was re- vealed.
" The other reason I find in your letter why I could not there mean the law of nature, is because the divine law I there speak of has enforcements of rewards and punishments in another life. Your letter indeed says, whose only enforce' ment, but only is of your putting in, and not mine, as you
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1690.] LETTEE TO MB TYBBELL ON THE ESSAY. 199
will perceive if you read the passage in my Book again ; and that, I suppose, would have as well excluded the law of Moses as well as that of nature, and I imagine the law of the G^os- pel too. But if those gentlemen think that it is a denial of that branch of the divine law which is called the law of na- ture, to speak of a divine law whose enforcements are the rewards and punishments of another life, which is as much as to say the law of nature has no such enforcements ; and if they are of that opinion, they cannot but.be very sincere and zealous sticklers for a divine law of morality only upon rewards and punishments of this life ; 'tis easy to see what a kind of morality they intend to make of it.
" You tell me, you could not tell how to answer them ; I am sorry for it, not being able to see any difficulty. The reason you give in these words : I must confess I could not tell positively what reply to make, because you do not expressly tell us where to find this law, unless in the S. 8.; and since it is likewise mtich doubted by some whether the rewards and punishments you mention can be demonstrated as established by your divine law. This reason or reasons seem very ad- mirable to me, that I could not mean the law of nature, because I did not expressly tell you where to find the law, unless in the S. S. I do not remember I anywhere tell you it is to be found in the S. S. Cannot I tell you, in matter-of-fact, that some men, many men, do compare their actions to a divine law, and thereby form the ideas of their moral rectitude or pravity, without telling where that law is to be found P
"Another thing that stumbles you is, that it is much doubted by some whether the rewards and punishments Imen- tion can be demonstrated as established by any divine law. Will nothing then pass with you in religion or morality but what you can demonstrate P If you are of so nice a stomach, I am afraid, if I should now examine how much of your re- ligion or morality you could demonstrate, how much you would have left : not but that I think that demonstration in these matters may be carried a great deal further than it is. But there are many, perhaps millions of propositions in ma- thematics which are demonstrable, which neither you nor I can demonstrate, which, perhaps, no man has yet demon- Btrated, or will do, before the end of the world.
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" The probability of rewards and pimisbments in another life, I should think, might serve for an enforcement of the divine law, if that were the business in hand ; but in the pre- sent case, demonstration of future rewards and punishments was no more my business than whether the squaring of the circle could be demonstrated or no. But I know not how you would still have me, besides my purpose, and against all rules of method, run out into a discourse of the divine law, show how and when it was promulgated to mankind, demon- strate its enforcement by rewards and punishments in an- other life, in a place where I had nothing to do with all this, and in a case where some men's bare supposition of such a law, whether true or false, served my turn. It was my busi-. ness there to show how men came by moral ideas or notions, and that I thought they did by comparing their actions to a rule.
" The next thing I endeavoured to show is, what rules men take to be the standards to which they compare their actions to frame moral ideas, and these I tane to be the divine law, the municipal law, and the law of reputation or fashion. If this be so in matter-of-fact, I am in the right in all that I pretended, and was proposed in that place. If I am out in either of these propositions, I must confess I am in an error, but cannot be accused for not having treated more amply of these rules in that place, or entered into a full disquisition of their nature, force, or obligation, when, if you will look into the end of that chapter, you will find it is not of concernment to my purpose in that chapter, whether they be as much' aS true or np ; but only that they be considered in the minds of men as rules to which they compare their actions, and judge of their morality.
" But yet you think me guilty of other men's mistakes, because I did not write plainer, and I think they might have considered better what I writ. I imagine, what I was there to make, out I have done very plainly ; and if readers will not allow so much attention to the book they read, as to mind what the author is upon, and whether he directly pursues the argument in hand, they must blame themselves, if they raise doubts and scruples to themselves, where the author gave no occasion for any. And if they be ill-natured as well as groundless objections, one may suspect that they meant
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1690.] LSTTEB TO MB TTBRELL ON THE ESSAY. 201
not over well to the author, or the argument they are so scrupulous about.
" Tou say, that to show what I m^ant, I should, after di- vine law, have added in a parenthesis, which others call the law of nature^ which had been so far from what I meant, that it had been contrary to it, for I meant the divine law indefi- nitely, and in general, however made known or supposed ; and if ever any men referred their actions to the law of na- ture as to a divine law, 'twas plain I meant that, if any judged of their actions by the law of Moses or Jesus Christ, as by a divine law, 'twas plain I meant that also ; nay, the Alcoran of the Mahometans and the Sanscrit of the iBramins could not be in this case excluded (though perhaps you or your friends would have thought it more worth their censure if I had put them in, and then I had lain open to I know not what interpretation), or any other supposed divine revelation whether true or Mse. For it being taken for a divine law, it would have served men, who make use of it, and judged of their actions by it, to have given them notions of morality or moral ideas, and that was all I was to show. Indeed, if you can tell of any other rule but, Ist, Divine laws or the law of G^od ; 2nd, Civil laws, or the laws of the magistrate ; 3rd, The law of fashion or reputation, whereby men judge of the goodness of their actions, I have then failed in giving a fuU account whence men get their moral ideas : but that is all I can be accused to have failed in here ; for I did not design to treat of the grounds of true morality, which is necessary to true and perfect happiness ; it had been impertinent if I had so designed ; my business was only to show whence men had moral ideas, and what they were, and that, I suppose, is sufficiently done in the chapter. I am,
J. Locke."
The occupations which now engaged the attention of this great man 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
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directing them to the improyement and benefit of his country and of mankind.
His literary employments at this period were the Treatises on Government, written in defence of the Eevolution against the Tory enemy. And in the following year, 1690, he pub- lished a Second Letter for Toleration (without the name of its author), in vindication of the principles of religious liberty, which had as naturally been attacked by a Churchman.
Perhaps the most deadly blow which the Court and Church had ever directed against the liberty of the country, was the act of 1662, for preventing abuses in Printing. It established a censorship in England, and under the specious pretence of prohibiting the printing of books contrary to the Christian faith, or of seditious works, the number of printing-presses was limited by law within the narrowest bounds, and all works were subjected to the previous licence of the governors of the Church and State.
This act was at first passed for two years in 1662, and was afterwards continued in force by several reenactments till 1679, when it expired, and the country was exempt from that tyranny (though from no other) for six years, till 1686, when it was again revived for seven years more, and at the expira- tion of these seven years was continued for a year longer, when at last, by the refusal of the House of Commons, it was Buffered finally to expire.
The following copy of the objectionable clauses of the act, with Locke's observations upon each separate clause, virill be found very interesting, as a record of the existence of a cen- sorship in England, accompanied by the comments of so com- petent a judge, who had witnessed both the beginning and the end of that most arbitrary measure. These notes were probably written at the time when the Printing Act was last under consideration in Parliament, in 1694. If the unanswer- able objections which Locke stated against every part of that act contributed in any degree to prevent its further reenact- ment, his exertions may be regarded as no small service rendered to the cause of liberty and truth.
"Airso 14* CAB. 2. CAP. xxxin. "An Act for preventing abuses in printing seditious^
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1604.] HIS OBSEBVATIONS ON THE CBNSOBSHIP. 203
treasonable, and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets, and for regulating Printing and Printing-presses."
*' § 2. Heretical, seditious, schismatical, or offensive books, wherein anything contrary to Christian faith or the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England, is asserted ; or which may tend to the scandal of religion, or the church, or the government, or governors of the church, state, or of any cor- poration, or particular person, are prohibited to be printed, unported, published, or sold.*'
Some of these terms are so general and comprehensive, op at least so submitted to the sense and interpretation of the governors of Church and State for the time being, that it is impossible any book should pass but just what suits their humours. And who knows but that the motion of the earth may be found to be heretical, as asserting Antipodes once was?
I know not why a man should not have liberty to print whatever he would speak ; and to be answerable for the one, just as he is for the other, if he transgresses the law in either, ^ut gagging a man, for fear he should talk heresy or sedition, has no other ground than such as will make gjrves necessary, for fear a man should use violence if his hands were free, and must at last end in the imprisonment of all who you will sus- pect may be guilty of treason or misdemeanour. To prevent men being undiscovered for what they print, you may pro- hibit any book to be printed, published, or sold, without the printer's or bookseller's name, under great penalties, what- ever be in it. And then let the printer or bookseller, whose name is to it, be answerable * for whatever is against law in it, as if he were the author, unless he can produce the person he had it from, which is all the restraint ought to b^ upon printing.
" § 3. All books prohibited to be printed that are not first entered in the register of the Company of Stationers, and licensed."
Whereby it comes to pass, that sometimes, when a book is
brought to be entered in the register of the Company of
Stationers, if they think it may turn to account, they enter
it there as theirs, whereby the other person is hindered from
♦ This is now the law.
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204 LIFE AKB LETTEBS OF JOHN LOOSE. [l694.
printing and publishing it ; an example whereof can be given by Mr Awnsham ChurchiU.
" § 6. No books to be printed or imported, which any per- son or persons by force or virtue of any letters patent, have the right, privilege, authority, or allowance, solely to print, upon pain of forfeiture, and being proceeded against as an offender against this present act, and upon the further penally and forfeiture of six shillings and eight-pence for eveiy such book or books, or part of such book or books imported, bound, stitched, or put to sal^, a moiety to the King, and a moiety to the informer."
By this clause, the Company of Stationers have a monopoly of aU the classical authors ; and scholars cannot, but at exces- sive rates, have the fair and correct edition of those books printed beyond seas. For the Company of Stationers have obtained from the Crown a patent to print all, or at least the greatest part, of the classic authors, upon pretence, as I hear, that they should be well and truly printed ; whereas they are by them scandalously ill printed, both for letter, paper, and correctness, and scarce one tolerable edition is made by them of any one of them. Whenever any of these books of better editions are imported from beyond seas, the Company seizes them, and makes the importers pay 6s. 8d. for each book so imported, or else they confiscate them, unless they are so bountiful as to let the importer compound with them at a lower rate. There are daily examples of this ; I shall men- tion one, which I had from the sufferer's own mouth. Mr Samuel Smith, two or three years since, imported from Hol- land Tully's Works, of a very fine edition, with new cor- rections made by Gronovius, who had taken the pains to compare that which was thought the best editioti before with several ancient MSS., and to correct his by them. These Tully's Works, upon pretence of their patent for their alone printing Tully's Works, or any part thereof, and by virtue of this clause of this act, the Company of Stationers seized and kept a good while in their custody, demanding 6b. 8d. per book : how at last he compounded with them I know not, but by this act scholars are subjected to the power of these dull virretches, who do not so much as understand Latin, whether they shall have any true or good copies of the beet
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1694.] HIS OBSEBVATIONS ON THE CEKSOBSHIP, 206
.ancient Latin authors, unless they pay them 6s. 8d. a book for that leave.
Another thing observable is, that whatever money, by virtue of this clause, they have levied upon the subject, either as forfeiture or composition, I am apt to believe not one farthing of it has ever been accounted for to the King, and it is probable considerable sums have been raised.
Upon occasion of this instance of the classic authors, I demand whether, if another act for printing should be made, it be not reasonable that nobody should have any peculiar right in any book which has been in print fifty years, but any one as well as another might have the liberty to print it ; for by such titles as these, which lie dormant, and hmder others, many good books come quite to be lost. But be that de- termined as it will, in regard of those authors who now write and sell their copies to booksellers, this certainly is very absurd at first sight, that any person or company should now have a title to the printing of the works of TuUy, CsBsar, or Livy, who lived so many ages since, in exclusion of any other ; nor can there be any reason in nature why I might not print them as weU as the Company of Stationers, if I thought fit. This liberty, to any one, of printing them, is certainly the way to have them the cheaper and the better ; and it is this which, in Holland, has produced so many fair and excellent editions of them, whilst the printers all strive to out-do one another, which has also brougnt in great sums to the trade of Holland. Whilst our Company of Stationers, having the monopoly here by this act and their patents, slobber them over as toey can cheapest, so that there is not a book of them vended beyond seas, both for their badness and deamess ; nor will the scholars beyond seas look upon a book of them now printed at London, so ill and false are they ; besides, it would be hard to find how a restraint of printing the classic authors does any way prevent printing seditious and treason- able pamphlets, which is the title and pretence of this act.
" § 9. No English book may be imprinted or imported from beyond the sea. No foreigner, or other, unless a station- er of London, may import or seU any books of any language whatsoever."
This clause serves only to confirm and enlarge the Sta* tioners' monopoly.
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206 LIFE AKD LBTTEBS 07 JOHK LOCKE. [l694.
" § 10. In this §, besides a great many other clauses to . secure the Stationers' monopoly of printing, which are very hard upon the subject, the Stationers' interest is so fkr pre- ferred to all others, that a landlord, who lets a house, forfeits five pounds if he know that his tenant has a printing-press in it, and does not give notice of it to the masters and wardens of the Stationers' Company. Nor must a joiner, carpenter, or smith, &e., work about a printing-press, without givmg the like notice, imder the like penalty."
Which is greater caution than I think is used about the presses for coinage to secure the people from false money.
" By § 11, the number of master-printers were reduced from a greater number to twenty, and the number of master- founders of letters reduced to fewer ; and upon vacancy, the number to be filled by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, and to give security not to print any un- licensed books."
This hinders a man who has served out his time the benefit of setting up his trade, which, whether it be not against the right of the subject, as well as contrary to common equity, deserves to be considered.
" § 12. The number of presses that every one of the twenty master-printers shall have, are reduced to two. Only those who have been masters, or upper-wardens of the Company, may have three, and as many more as the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London will allow.
" § 13. Every one who has been master, or upper-warden of the Company, may have three, every one of the livery two, and every master-printer of the yeomanry but one, ap- prentice at a time."
By which restraint of presses, and taking of apprentices, and the prohibition in § 14, of taking or using any journey- men except Englishmen and freemen of the trade, is the rea-. son why our printing is so very bad, and yet so very dear in England : they who are hereby privileged to the exclusion of others, working and setting the price as they please, whereby ftny advantage that might be made to the realm by this manufacture is wholly lost to England, and thrown into the hands of our neighbours ; the sole manufacture of printing bringing into the Low Countries great sums every year. But our Ecdesiastictd laws seldom favour trade, and he that reads
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1694.] HIS OBSEBTA.TIONS OK'tHB OEKSOBSHIF. 207
this act with attention will find it upse* ecclesiastical. The nation loses bj this act, for our books are so dear, and ill printed, that thej have very little vent among foreigners, unless now and then by truck for theirs, which yet shows how much those who buy the books printed here are imposed on, since a book printed at London may be bought cheaper at Amsterdam than in Paul's Church-yard, notwithstanding all the charge and hazard of transportation : for their printing^ being free and imrestrained, they sell their books at so much a cheaper rate than our booksellers do ours, that in truck, valuing ours proportionably to their own, or their own equally to ours, which is the same thing, they can afford books received &om London upon such exchanges cheaper in Holland than our stationers sell them in England. By this act England loses in general, scholars in particular are ground, and nobody gets, but a lazy, ignorant Company of Stationers, to say no worse of them ; but imythi/ng^ rather than let Mother Chu/rch he disturbed in her opinions or impositions hy any hold inquirer from the press.
" § 15. One or more of the messengers of his Majesty's chamber, by warrant under his Majesty's sign-manual, or under the hand of one of his Majesfy's principal secretaries of state, or the master and wardens of the Company of Sta- tioners, taking with them a constable and such assistance as they shall think needful, has an unlimited power to search all houses, and to seize upon all books which tney shall but think fit to suspect."
How the gentry, much more how the peers of England, came thus to prostitute their houses to the suspicion of any- body, much less a messenger upon pretence of searching for books, I cannot imagine. Indeed, the House of Peers, and others not of the trades mentioned in this act, are pretended to
Qual,
But this is but the shadow of an exemption, for they are still subject to be searched, every comer and coffer inr them, under pretence of unlicensed books, a mark of slavery which, I thii^ their ancestors would never have submitted
* A low word, derived from the Dutch xipsee, signifying highly.
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208 LIFE AWD LETTERS OF JOHIT LOCKE. [l694.
to. They so lay their houses, which are their castles, open, not to the pursuit of the law against a malefactor convicted of misdemeanour, or accused upon oath, but to the suspicion of having unlicensed books, which is, whenever it is thought fit to search his house to see what is in it.
" § 16. All printers offending any way against this act are incapacitated to exercise their trade for three years. And for the second offence, perpetual incapacity, with any other pun- ishment not reaching to life or limb."
And thus a man is to be undone and starved for printing Dr Bury's case, or the History of Tom Thumb, unlicensed.
" § 17. Three copies of every book printed are to be re- served, whereof two to be sent to the two Universities by the master of the Stationers' Company."
This clause, upon examination, I suppose, will be found to be mightily, if not wholly neglected, as all things that are good in this act, the Company of Stationers minding nothing m it but what makes for their monopoly. I believe that u the public libraries of both Universities be looked into (which this will give a fit occasion to do), there will not be found in them half, perhaps not one in ten, of the copies of books printed since this act.
§ Last. This act, though made in a time when every one strove to be forwardest to make court to the Church and Court, by giving whatever was asked, yet this was so mani- fest an invasion of the trade, liberty, and property of the subject, that it was made to be in force only for two years. From which, 14 Car. 2, it has, by the joint endeavour of Church and Court, been, from time to time, renewed, and so continued to this day. Every one being answerable for books he publishes, prints, or sells, containing anything seditious or against law, makes this or any other act for the restraint of printing very needless in that part, and so it may be left firee m that part as it was before 14 Car. 2. That any person or company should have patents for the sole printing of ancient authors is very unreasonable and injurious to learning ; and f&r those who purchase copies from authors that now live and write, it may be reasonable to limit their property to a cer- tain number of years after the death of the author, or the first printing of the book, as, suppose, fifty or seventy years. This I am sure, it is very absurd and ridiculous that any one
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1689.] DBMONSTEATION BY NEWTON". 20d
now Kving should pretend to hare a propriety in, or a power to dispose of the propriety of any copy or writings of authors who lived before printing was known or used in Europe.
This act, which had been renewed once since the Eevolu- tion, was suffered finally to expire in 1694. It may appear extraordinary that the same Parliament which passed the Act of Settlement, and embodied the Declaration of Eights in our statutes, should also have subjected the press to the fetters imposed upon it by the former printing acts of Charles and James II. But as the Revolution was effected by the assist- ance of the Church, the new government might perhaps wish to avoid giving offence to that powerful party by too sudden a repeal of this their favourite act.
It was probably at this period, during Locke's residence in London, which continued about two years after the Eevolu- tion of 1688, that he became known to Newton, some of whose letters fortunately have been preserved. With Sir John Somers he lived at this time in habits of intimate friend- ship, and one of his recreations was a weekly meeting for the purpose of conversation and discussion, held at the house of Lord Pembroke, the same Earl of Pembroke to whom Locke had dedicated the Essay.
Several letters from Newton, from Lord Monmouth, better known as the celebrated Earl of Peterborough in the succeed- ing reign, and from Lord Somers, are here inserted ; and con- sidering by whom they were written, and to whom they were addressed, they will not be read with indifference, or con- sidered superfluous.
The following papers, indorsed " Mr Newton, March, 1689," are the earliest in point of date ; they are Newton's Demonstration of Kepler's Observation, that the planets move in ellipses, as communicated by that great philosopher. Their construction and demonstration differ materially from those in the Principia, and the Lemmas which are prefixed are expressed in a more explanatory form than those of the Principia usually are.
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210
LITB AKD LETTEBS 07 JOWST LOCKE.
ri689.
JL DBHOKSTBATIOir, THAT THE TI^AJSTRTB, BY THEIB OBA.TITT TOWABBS THE SUISr, MAY MOVE OT ELLIPSES.
" Hypotli. 1. — Bodies move uniformly in straight lines, un- less so far as they are retarded by the resistance of the me- dium, or disturbed by some other force.
" Hypoth. 2. — ^The alteration of motion is proportional to the force by which it is altered.
^' Hypoth. 3. — Motions impressed by forces in different lines, if those lines be taken in proportion to the motions, and completed into a parallelogram, compose a motion where- by the diagonal of the parallelogram shaU be described in the same time in which the sides thereof would have been describ- ed by the compounding motions apart. The motions A B, A C, compound the motion AD. a^^— — -/fl
PROP. I.
" If a body move in a vacuo, and be continually attracted towards an immovable centre, it shall constantly move in one and the same plane, and in that plane, with a right line, drawn continually from its own centre to the immovable centre of attraction, describe equal areas in equal times.
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1689.] DEMONSTEATIOK BY KEWTOK. 211
" Let A be the centre towards which the bodj is attracted, and suppose the attraction acts not continually, but hy dis- continued impressions, or impulses, made at equal intervals of time, which intervals we will consider as physical mo- ments. Let B G be the right line in which it begins to move, and which it describes with uniform motion in the first physical moment, before the attraction makes its first im- pression upon it. At C let it be attracted towards the centre A by one unpulse ; produce B C to I, so that CI be equal to B C. Li C A take C E in such proportion to C I as the mo- tion which the impulse alone would have begotten hath to the motion of the body before the impulse was impressed. And because these two motions apart would, in the second moment of time, have carried the body, the one to I, by rea- son of the equality of CI and B C, and the other to K, by reason of the aforesaid proportion, complete the parallelogram I C, B D, and they shall both together, in the same time of that second moment, carry it in the diagonal of that parallel- ogram to D by Hypoth. 3.
" Now, because the basis B C, C I of the triangle ABC, A C I, are e<^ual, those two triangles shall be equal; also, be- cause the triangles A C I and A C D stand upon the same base, A C, and between two parallel lines, A C and D I, they shall be equal ; and therefore the triangle A C D, described in the second moment, shall be equal to the triangle ABC, described in the first moment. And by the same reason, if the body at the end of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and following moments, be attracted again by single impulses successively in D, E, F, Q-, H, &c., describing the line D B in the third moment, E F in the fourth, F Q- in the fifth, &c.; the triangle A E D, shall be equal to the triangle ADC, and all the following triangles to one another. And by conse- quence the areas compounded of these equal triangles (as AB C, A E Q-, A B Q-, &c.) are to one another as the times in which they are described. Suppose now, that the mo- ments of time be diminished in length, and increased in number in mfiniium, so that the impulses or impressions of the attraction may become continual, and that the line B C, D E F G- H, by the infinite number, and infinite littleness of its sides B C, C D, D E, &c., may become a curve lioe ; and the body, by that continual attraction, shall describe areas of
p 2
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212 LITE AKD LETTERS OF JOKN LOCKE. [l689,
this curve, ABE, AEQ-, ABG-, &c., proportional to the times in which they are described, which was to be demon strated.
T.ET>rM-A I.
'^ If a right line touch an ellipsis in any point thereof, and parallel to that tan^nt be drawn another right line from the centre of the ellipsis which shall intersect a third right Hne drawn from the touch point through either focus of the ellipsis ; the segment of the last-named right line, lying be- - tween the point of intersection and the point of contact, shall be equal to half the long axis of the ellipsis.
" Let A P B Q be the ellipsis, A B its long axis, C its centre, 'Ef its foci, P the point of contact, P E the tangent, C D the une parallel to the tangent, and PD the segment of the line P F ; I say that this segment shall be equal to C B.
" For join P F, and draw/E parallel to C D ; and because Ff and F E are bisected in C and D, PD shall be equal (to half the sum of P F, and P E, that is, to half the sum of P F, and Vf, that is, to half AB, that is) to C B, W. w. to be demonstrated.
LEMMA II.
1
" Everjr line drawn through either focus of any ellipsis, and terminated at both ends by the ellipsis, is to that di- ameter of the ellipsis, which is parallel to this line, as the same diameter is to the long axis of the ellipsis.
" Let A P B Q be the ellipsis, A B its longer axis, Yf its foci, 0 its centre, P Q the line drawn through its focus F, and V C S its diameter parallel to P Q ; and P Q shall be to
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1689.J
DEMONSTEATION BY ITEWTOK,
213
VS as VS to AB; for dvAw/p parallel to QFP, and cut- ting the ellipsis in p, join P^, cutting V S in T, and draw P E, which shall touch the ellipsis in P, and cut the diameter in VS produced in E, and CT will he to CS as CS to CE. But C T is the semi sum of F P and /p, that is, of F P and F Q, and therefore 2 C T is equal to P Q, also ^C S is equal to V S, and (by the foregoing Lemma) ^C E is equal to A B, wherefore P Q. is to V S as V S to AB ; "W. t(7. to be dem. corol. AB X P Q = VS^i = *C S^ .
LEMMA m,
" If from either focus of any ellipsis unto any point in the perimeter of the ellipsis be drawn a right line, and another right line do touch the ellipsis in that point, and the angle of contact be subtended by any third line drawn parallel to the first line, the rectangle which that subtense contains with the same subtense produced to the other side of the ellipsis, is to the rectangle which the long axis of the ellipsis contains with the first line produced to the other side of the ellipsis, as the square of the distance between the subtense and the first line is to the square of the short axis of the ellipsis.
" Let AKB L be the ellipsis, AB its long axis, KL its short axis, C its centre, F/ its foci, P the point in the peri- meter, F P the first line, PQ that line produced to the other side of the ellipsis, PX the tangent, XY the subtense, XI the same subtense produced to the other side of the ellipsis, and YZ the distance between this subtense and the first line,
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214
LIFE JlXTD letters OP JOHK LOCKE.
Ll68»*
I say, that the rectangle YX I is to the rectangle AB XPQ, as y Z^i to K L^. For let V S be the diameter of the ellipsis parallel to the first line F P, and Q- F another diameter pa- rallel to the tangent P X, and the rectangle Y X I shall be to P X** the square of the tangent, as the rectangle S C V to the rectangle aCH, that is, as SV* to Q-H^ This is a property of the ellipsis demonstrated by all that write of the conic sections, and they have also demonstrated that all the parallelograms circumscribed about an ellipsis are equal, whence the rectangle P E X G H is equal to the rectangle A B X K L, and consequently G- H is to £ L as A B, that is (by Lem. i.), 2 P D, is to 2 r E, and by consequence as P X to YZ; and therefore PX is to GH as YZ to KL, and PX^i to GtW^ as YZ^ to KL^ But PX'i was to GH* aa YXI to SVS and SV^ (by Corel. Lem. n.) is equal to AB xPQ,andtherefore YXlisto AB xPQas YZ^to KL*!. W.t(7. tobedem.
PROP. II.
" K a body be attracted towards either focus of any ellip- sis, and by that attraction be made to revolve in the perime- ter of the ellipsis, the attraction shall be reciprocally as the square of the distance of the body from that focus of the ellipsis.
** Let P be the place of the body in the ellipsis at any moment of time, and PX the tangent, in which the body
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1689.] DEMONSTEATIOK BY NEWTOK, 215
would move uniformly, were it not attracted, and X the place in that tangent at which it would arrive in any given part of time, and Y the place in the perimeter of the eUipsis at which the body doth arrive in the same time by means of the attraction. Let us now suppose the time to be divided into equal parts, and that those parts are very little ones, so that they may be considered as physical moments ; and that the attraction acts not continually, but by intervals in the beginning of every physical moment, and let the first action be upon the body m P, the next upon it in Y, and so on perpetually ; so that the body may move from P to Y, in the chord of the arch P Y, and from Y to its next place in the ellipsis in the chord of the next arch, and so on for ever. And because the attraction in P is miade towards P, and di- verts the body from the tangent P X into the chord P Y, so that in the end of the first physical moment it is not found in the place X, where it would have been without the at- traction, but in Y, being by the force of the attraction in P translated from X to Y, the line XY, generated by the force of attraction in P, must be proportional to that force and parallel to its direction, that is, parallel to PE, as is manifest by the third hypothesis.
"Produce X Y and PF till they cut the ellipsis in I and Q. Join F Y, and upon F P let fall the perpendicular yz^ ftnd let A B be the long axis, and K L the short axis of the ellipsis, and by the third Lemma Y X I will be to A B XP Q as \ Z«^ to fc IJ^^, and by consequence, Y Z will be equal
ABxPQxYZ^
ayXKL^™** " And in like manner, if 'py be the chord of another arch, ^, which the revolving body describes in a physical moment of time, and px be the tangent of the ellipsis at j?, and ^ the subtense of the angle of contact drawn parallel to ^F, and if i^F and iry, produced, cut the ellipsis m ^ and i ; and from y, upon j^F be let fall the perpendicular yz^ the subtense
y^shaUbeequalto ^^^^^^ -
" Now, because the lines P Y py are, by the revolving body, described in equal times, the areas of the triaugles P YF, py^ must be equal by the first proposition, and there-
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216 LIFE AKD LETTEBS OP JOHN LOCKE. [l690.
fore the rectangles PF X TZ and p¥Y.yz are equal ; and j?F is to PF as YZ to yz, andpF*'^ to PF^^^ as YZ*^ toyzf^"^ (and if you multiply the antecedents alike, and the consecu-
ents alike), J? pF^""^ to ^PF*«^ aa J^YZ^^ to ^^zf''^
that 18, as xixKL^ *" X«xKL^ '^^^ ""' "" YZ to yx, and therefore as the attraction in P to the attrac-i tion in |> by Hypoth. 2 and 3.
" Suppose now^that the equal times in which the revolving body describes the lines PT^and^y becomes infinitely little, so that the attraction may become continual, and the body, by this attraction, revolve in the perimeter of the ellipsis, and the Hne PQ, XI, as also j?^', a?*, becoming coincident, and by
consequence equal to the quantities =y |?F* and ^ PF** will
become ^F^ and PF*; and therefore the attraction in P will be to the attraction in p as pF^ to PF*, that is, reciprocally as the squares of the distances of the revolving body from that focus of the ellipsis towards which the attraction is directed, which was to be demonstrated."
The first letter, dated November 14, 1690, and that dated February 16, 169i, relate to " an account of the corruptions of Scripture" wntten by Newton, and which he desired to have translated into French, and published abroad. He re- solved afterwards, as it appears by his letter dated February 16, 169^, to suppress the translation and impression, and it is believed that Newton's letters upon the disputed verse in the Epistle of St John, and the controverted passage in the First Epistle to Timothy, were not published before 1764. Mr Person, in his celebrated letter to Archdeacon Travis, states that Newton wrote his discourse between 1690 and 1700, but that it was not published before 1754, and then imperfectly. It was afterwards restored by Dr Horsley, in his edition of Newton from the original manuscript, of which a more detailed account will be found at the end of these letters.
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1690.] LETTBBS EBOH SIB ISAAC KSWTOIT. 217
"Nov. 14, 1690.
"Sib,
"I send you now by the carrier, Martin, the papers I promised. I fear I have not only made you stay too long for them, but also made them too long by an addition. For upon the receipt of your letter reviewing what I had by me concerning the text of 1 John v. 7, and examining authors a little further about it, I met with something new concern- ing that other of 1st Tim. iii. 16, which I thought would be as acceptable to inquisitive men, and might be set down in a little room ; but by searching further into authors to find out the bottom of it, is swelled to the bigness you see, I fear the length of what I say on both texts may occasion ' you too much trouble, and therefore if at present you get only what concerns the first done into French, that of the other may stay till we see what success the first will have. I have no entire copy besides that I send you, and therefore would not have it lost, because I may, perhaps, after it has gone abroad long enough in French, put it forth in English. What charge you are at about it (for I am sure it will put you to some), you must let me know ; for the trouble alone 18 enough for you. Pray present my most humble service and thimks to my Lord and Lady Monmouth, for their so kind remembrance of me ; for their favour is such that I can never sufficiently acknowledge it. If your voyage hold, I wish you a prosperous one, and happy return. I should be glad of a line from you, to know that you have these papers, and how far vou have recovered your health, for you told me nothing of that.
I am, Sir, Your most faithful and most humble servant,
Is. Newtok,"
"Cambridge, Feb. 7, 1690-1. « Sib,
"I am sorry your journey proved to so little purpose, though it delivered you from the trouble of the company the day after. Tou have obliged me by mentioning me to my friends at London, and I must thank both you and my Lady Masham for your civilities at Oates, and for not thinking
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218 IIPB JlXTD LBTTEBS or JOHIST LOCKB. £1690.
that I made a long stay there. I hope we shall meet again in due time, and then I should he glad to have your judgment upon some of my mystical fencies. The Son of man, Dan. vii., I take to he the same with the "Word of Q^od upon the "White Horse in Heaven, Apoe. lix., and him to he the same with the Man Child, Apoc. xii., for hoth are to rule the na- tions with a rod of iron ; hut whence are you certain that the Ancient of Days is Christ P Does Christ anywhere sit upon the throne P
If Sir Francis Masham be at Gates, present, I pray, my service to him with his lady, Mrs Cudworth, and Mrs Mas- ham. Dr Covel is not in Clambridge.
I am Tour aflTectionate and humble servant.
Is. Newtgit."
" Know you the meaning of Dan. x. 21 : TJtere is none that 7u>ldeth noith me in these things hut Mich, yowr FHnce ?"
"Sib,
" I had answered your letter sooner, but that I stayed to revise and send you the papers which you desire. But the consulting of authors proviug more tedious than I expected, 60 as to make me defer sending them tiU the next week, I could not forbear sending this letter alone, to let you know how extremely glad I was to hear from you ; for thorugh your letter brought me the first news of your having been 80 dangerously fll, yet by your undertaking a journey into HoUand, I hope you are well recovered. I am extremely much obliged to my Lord and Lady Monmouth for their kind remembrance of me, and whether their design succeeded or not, must ever think myself obliged to be their humble servant. I suppose Mr Falio is in Holland, for I have heard nothing from mm the half year.
Sir, I am. Your most humble servant.
Is. Nkvttok.** w Cambridge, Sept. 28, 1690."
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1691.] LETTSBS EBOM SIB ISAAC KSWTOIT. 219
** Cambrid^, Jtme 30th, 1691. «SlB,
" Tour deferring to answer my letter is what you needed not make an apology for, because I use to be guilty of the same fault as often as I have nothing of moment to write, and therefore cannot in justice complain. If the scheme you have laid of managing tne controller's place of the M., will not give you the tarouble of too large a letter, you will oblige me by it. I thank jon heartily for your being so mindful of me, and ready to assist me with your interest.
" Concerning the Ancient o/Da^s, Dan. vii., there seems to be a mistake either in my last letter, or in yours, because you wrote in your former letter, that the Ancient of Days is Christ ; and in my last, I either did, or should have asked, how you knew that. But these discourses may be done with more freedom at our next meeting.
" I am indebted to my solicitor, Mr Starkey. If you please to let me have your opinion what I should send him, I will send it with a letter by the carrier. My Lady Madham and you have done me much honour in looking into my book, and I am very glad to have the approbation of such judicious persons. The observation you mention in Mr Boyle's book of Colours, I once made upon myself with the hazard of my eyes. The manner was this : I looked a very little while upon the sun in the looking-glass with my right eye, and then turned my eyes into a dark comer of my chamber, and winked, to observe the impression made, and the circles of colours which encompassed it, and how they decayed by de- grees, and at last vanished. This I repeated a second and a third time. At the third time, when the phantasm of light and colours about it were almost vanished, intending my fancy upon them to see their last appearance, I found to my amazement, that they began to return, and by little and little to become as lively and vivid as when I had newly looked upon the sun. But when I ceased to intende my fancy upon them, they vanished again. After this, I found that as often as I went into the dark, and intended my mind upon them, as when a man looks earnestly to see anything which is diffi- cult to be seen, I could make the phantasm return without looking any more upon the sun ; and the oftener I made it
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220 LIFE AND LETTEBS Or JOHK LOGEE. [l691.
return, the more easily I could make it return again. And at length, by repeating this without looking any more upon the sun, I made such an impression on my eye, that if I looked upon the clouds, or a book, or any bright object, I saw upon it a round bright spot of light like the sun. And, which is stiU stranger, though I looked upon the sun with my right eye only, and not with my left, yet my fancy began to make the impression upon my left eye, as well as upon my right. For if I shut my right eye, and looked upon a book or the clouds with my left eye, I coidd see the spectrum of the sun almost as plain as with my right eye, if I did but in- tende my fancy a little while upon it ; for at first, if I shut my right eye, and looked with my left, the spectrum of the sun did not appear till I intended my fancy upon it ; but by repeating, this appeared every time more easily. And now, in a few hours' time, I had brought my eyes to such a pass, that I could look upon no bright object with either eye, but I saw the sun before me, so that I durst neither wnte nor read : but to recover the use of my eyes, shut myself up in my chamber made dark, for three days together, and used all means to divert my imagination from the sun. For if I thought upon him, I presently saw his picture, though I was in the dark. But by keeping in the darK, and employing my mind about other things, I began in three or four days to have some use of my eyes again ; and by forbearing a few days lojiger to look upon bright objects, recovered them pretty well, though not so weU, but that for some months after the spectrum of the sun began to return as often as I began to meditate upon the phenomenon, even though I lay in bed at midnight with my curtains drawn ; but now I have been very well for many years, though I am apt to think, that if I durst venture my eyes, I could still make the phan- tasm return by the power of my fancy.
" This story I tell you, to let you understand, that in the observation related by Mr Boyle, the man's fancy probably concurred with the impression made by the sun's light, to produce that phantasm of the sun which he constantly saw in bright objects : and so your question about the cause of this
fhantasm involves another about the power of fancy, which must confess is too hard a knot for me to untie. To place this effect in a constant motion is hard, because the sun ought
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1692.] LETTERS PROM BIB ISAAC OTDWTOlfr. 221
then to appear perpetually. It seems rather to consist in a disposition of the sensorium to move the imagination strongly^ and to be easily moved both by the imagination and by the light, as often as bright objects are looked upon.
" If the papers you mention come not out, I will tell you at our next meeting what shall be done with them.
" My humble service to Sir Francis, my lady, and Mrs Cudworth.
I am your most humble servant,
Is. Nbwtok.'*
<< Cambridge, Jan. 26th, 169|. " SlE,
" Being fully convinced that Mr Mountague, upon an old grudge which I thought had been worn out, is false to me, I have done with him, and intend to sit still, unless my Lord Monmouth be still my friend. I have now no prospect of seeing you any more, unless you will be so kind as to repay that visit I made you the last year. If I may hope for thia favour, I pray bimg my papers with you. Otherwise I de- sire you would send them by some convenient messenger, when opportunity shall serve. My humble service to my Lady Masham, and to Sir Erancis if at Oates.
I am your most humble servant.
Is. Newtoit.
" I understand Mr Boyle communicated his process about the red earth and Mercury to vou as well as to me, and be- fore his death procured some of that earth for his friends."
" Cambridge, Feb. 16th, 169}. "Sib,
" Your former letters came not to my hand, but this I have. I was of opinion my papers had lain still, and am sorry to hear there is news about them. Let me entreat you to stop their translation and impression as soon as you can, for I design to suppress them. If your friend hath been at any pains and charge, I will repay it, and Ratify him.
" I am very glad my Lord Monmouth is still my friena, but intend not to give his Lordship and you any further trouble. My inclinations are to sit still. I am to beg his Lordship's pardon, for pressing into his company the last
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222 UTB AlTD LSTTEB8 OF JOHK LOCKS. [l692«
time I saw bim. I had not done it, but that Mr Pawling pressed me into the room.
<< Miracles of good credit continued in the Church for about two or three hundred years. Gregorius Thaumaturgus had his name from thence, and was one of the latest who was eminent for that gift ; but of their nimiber and frequency I am not able to giTC you a just account. The history of those ages is verjr imperfect. Mr Pawling told me you had writ for some of Mr Boyle's red earth, and by that I knew you had the receipt.
Your most affectionate and humble servant,
Is. Newton."
<< August 2nd, 1692. «SlB,
" I beg your pardon that I sent not your papers last week ; the carrier went out a quarter of an hour sooner than I was aware of. I am glad you haye all the three parts of the re- cipe entire ; but before you go to work about it, I desire you would consider these things, for it may perhaps save you time and expense. This recipe I take to oe the thing for the sake of which Mr Boyle procured the repeal of the Act of Parliament against Multipliers, and therefore he had it then in his hands. In the mars^in of the recipe was noted, that the mercury of the first work would grow hot with gold, and thence I gather that this recipe was the foundation of what he published many years ago, about such mercuries as would grow hot with gold, and therefore was then known to him, that is, sixteen or twenty years ago, at least ; and yet, in all this tune, I cannot find that he has either tried it him- self, or got it tried with success by anybody else : for, when I spoke doubtingly about it, he confessed that he had not seen it tried ; but added, that a certain gentleman was now about it, and it succeeded very weU so far as he had gone, and that all the signs appeared, so that I needed not doubt of it. This satisfied me that mercury, by this recipe, may be brought to change its colours and properties, but not that gold may be multiplied thereby ; and I doubt it the more, because I heard some years ago of a company, who were upon this work in London, and after Mr Boyle had communicated his recipe to me, so that I knew it was the same with theirs. I inquired
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1692.] LETTEBB PBQM BIB ISAAC KEHTTOST. 228
after them, and learnt that two of them were since forced to other means of living ; and a third, who was the chief artist, was still at work, but was run so far into debt that he had much ado to live ; and by these cii*cumstances, I understood that these gentlemen could not make the thing succeed. When I told Mr Boyle of these gentlemen, he acknowledged that the recipe was gone about among several ohymists, and therefore I mtend to stay till I hear that it succeeds with some of them.
'' But, besides, if I would try this recipe, I am satisfied that I could not, for Mr Boyle has reserved a part of it from my knowledge. I know more of it than he has told me ; and by that, and an expression or two which dropped from him, I know that what he has told me is imperfect and useless with- out knowing more than I do : and, therefore, I intend only to try whether I know enough to make a mercury which wiU grow hot with gold, if perhaps I shall try that.
" For Mr Boyle to offer nis secret upon conditions, and after I bad consented, not to perform his part, looks oddly ; and that the rather because I was averse from meddling with his recipe, till he persuaded me to it ; and by not performing his part, he has voided the obligation to the conditions on mine, so that I may reckon myself at my own discretion to say or do what I wiR about this matter, though perhaps I shall be tender of using my liberty. But that I may under- stand the reason of his reservedness, prav will you be so free as to let me know the conditions which he obliged you to, in communicating this recipe ; and whether he communicated to you anything more than is written down in the three parts of the recipe.
" I do not desire to know what he has communicated, but rather that you would keep the particulars from me (at least in the second and third part of the recipe), because I have no mind to be concerned with this recipe any further than just to know the entrance. I suspect his reservedness might proceed from mine ; for when I communicated a certain ex- periment to him, he presently, by way of requital, subjoined two others, but cumbered them with such circumstances as startled me, and made me afraid of any more ; for he ei-
Sressed that I should presently go to work upon them, and esired I would pubHsh them after his death. I have not yet
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224 LIFE AKD LETTEBS OF JOHN LOCEE. [1691
tried either of them, nor intend to try them ; but since you have the inspection of his papers, if you design to publish any of his remains, you will do me a great favour to let these two be published among the rest. But then I desire that it may not be known that they come through my hands. One of them seems to be a considerable experiment, and may prove of good use in medicine for analysing bodies ; the other is only a knack.
" In dissuading you from too hasty a trial of this recipe, I have forborne to say an3rthing against multiplication in gener- al, because you seem persuaded of it ; though there is one argument against it, which I could never find an answer to, and which, if you will let me have your opinion about it, I will send you in my next."*
" Cambridge, Dec. 13, 1691. "Sib,
" When I received your former letter, I was engaged here by the term, and could not stir. I thank you for putting me in mind of Charterhouse, but I see nothing in it worth making a bustle for : besides a coach, which I consider not, it is bvit £200 per annum, with a confinement to the London air, and to such a way of living as I am not in love with ; neither do I think it advisable to enter into such a competi- tion as that would be for a better plac^.
" Dr Spencer, the Dean of Ely, has perused the specimen of Le Clerc's Latin Version of the Old Testament, and likes the design very well, but gives me no remarks upon it.
" Pray return my most humble service and hearty thanks to my Lady Masham, for her ladyship's kind invitation ; and aiccept of mine to yourself for so frankly offering the assistance of your friends, if there should be occasion. Mr Green called on me last Tuesday, and I designed to have answered your letter sooner, but beg your pardon that I did not.
I am Your most humble servant,
Is. Newton."
^ * Multiplication of metals was the term used by the chymists of that time to express a process, by which they supposed that a certain quan- tity of a metal would be increased by their operations. Locke was, at this time, editing a General History of the Air, by the Eight Hon. Eobert Boyle,
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1692.] LETTERS FEOM SIB ISAAC ^TEWTOIT. 225
" Cambridge, May 3rd, 1692.
"Sir,
" Now the churlish weather is almost over, I was thinking, within a post or two, to put you in mind of my desire to see you here, where you shall be as welcome as I can make you. I am glad you have prevented me, because I hope now to see you the sooner. Tou may lodge conveniently either at the Koae tavern, or Queen's Arms inn. I am glad the edition is stopped, but do not perceive that you had mine, and there- fore have sent you a transcript of what concerned miracles, if it come not now too late. For it happens that I have a copy of it by me. * Concerning miracles, there is a notable passage or two in Ireneus, 1. 22, c. 56, recited by Eusebius, 1. 5, c. 17. The miraculous refection of the Eoman army by rain, at the prayers of a Christian legion (thence called fulminatrix), is mentioned by Ziphilina apud Dionam. in Marco Imp., and by Tertullian Apolog. c. 5, and ad Scap. c. 4, and by Eusebius, 1. 6, c. 5, Hist. EccL, and in Chronico, and acknowledged by the Emperor Marcus in a letter, as Tertullian mentions. The same Tertullian somewhere challenges the heathens to pro- duce a Demoniac, and he will produce a man who shall cast out the demon.' Eor this was the language of the ancients for curing lunatics. I am told that Sir Henry Telverton, in a book about the truth of Christianity, has writ well of the ancient miracles, but the book I never saw. Concerning Gregory Thaumaturgus, see Gregory Nystra in ejus vita, and Easu de Spiritu Sancto, c. 29.
" My humble service to Sir Francis and his lady.
I am Tour most humble servant,
Is. Newton.
" Ikziow of nothing that will call me from home this month."
I must be allowed to call the reader's attention to the two following letters, by prefixing the note of Mr Dugald Stewart.
**For the preservation of this precious memorial of Mr Locke," he is pleased to say, " the public is indebted to the descendants of his friend and relation, the Lord Chancellor King;" and after noticing the ingenuous and almost in- £ftntme simplicity of Newton's letters, he adds, speaking of
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226 I^ITE AND LETTEES OP JOHN LOCKE. [l693,
Locke's reply, " it is written with the magnanimity of a philo- sopher, and with the good-hnmoured forbearance of a man of the world ; and it breathes throughout so tender and so un- affected a veneration for the good as well as great qualities of the excellent person to whom it is addressed, as demonstrates at once the conscious integrity of the writer, and the superi- ority of his mind to the irritation of little passions : " he adds, " I know nothing from Locke's pen which does more honour to his temper and character."
"Sib, . _
" Being of opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me with women and by other means, I was so much affected with it, as that when one told me you were sickly and would not live, I answered 'twere better i£ you were dead. I desire you to forgive me this uncharitableness. For I am now satined that what you have done is just, and I beg your pardon for my having hard thoughts of you for it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality, in a principle you laid down in your Book of Ideas, and designed to pursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I be^ your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an office, or to embroil me.
I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,
Is. Newton.'*
<< At the Bull, in Shoreditcli, London, Sept. 16th, 1693."
LOCKE TO NEWTON.
«0ate8,0ct. 5th,93. «SlB,
" I have been, ever since I first knew you, so entirely and sincerely your friend, and thought you so much mine, that I could not have believed what you tell me of yourself^ had I had it from anybody else. And though I cannot but be mightily troubled that you should have had so many wrong and unjust thoughts of me, yet next to the return of good offices, such as from a sincere good will I have ever done you, I receive your acknowledgment of the contrary as the kindest thing you could have done me, since it gives me hopes that I have not lost a friend I so much valued. After what your
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1693.] LETTEES TEOM SIE ISAAC NEWTON. 227
letter expresses, I shall not need to say anything to justify myself to you. I shall always think your own reflection on my carriage both to you and all mankind, will sufficiently do that. Instead of that, give me leave to assure you; that I am more ready to forgive you than you can be to desire it ; and I do it so freely and fulljr, that I wish for nothing more than the opportunity to convince you that I truly love and esteem you ; and that I have still the same good will for you as if nothing of this had happened. To confirm this to you more fully, 1 should be glad to meet you anywhere, and the rather, because the conclusion of your letter makes me apprehend it would not be wholly useless to you. But whether you think it fit or not, I leave wholly to you. I shall always be ready to serve you to my utmost, in any way you shall like, and shall only need your commands or permission to do it.
" My book is going to the press for a second edition ; and though I can answer for the desi|:n with which I writ it, yet since you have so opportunely given me notice of what you have said of it, I should take it as a favour, if you would point out to me the places that gave occasion to that censure, that by explaining myself better, I may avoid being mistaken by others, or unawares doing the least prejudice to truth or virtue. I am sure you are so much a friend to them both, that were you none to me, I could expect this from you. But I can- not doubt but you would do a great deal more than this for my sake, who after all have all the concern of a friend for you, -wish you extremely well, and am without compliment."
The draft of the letter is indorsed ^' J. L. to I. Newton."
" The last winter, by sleeping too often by my fire, I got an ill habit of sleeping ; and a distemper, which this summer baa been epidemical, put me further out of order, so that when I wrote, to you, I had not slept an hour a night for a fortnight together, and for five nights together not a wink. I remember I wrote to you, but what I said of your book I remember not. If you please to send me a transcript of that passage, I will give you an account of it if I can. 1 am your most humble servant,
Is. Newton." *< Cambridge, Oct. 5th, 1693."
q2
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228 LIFE AND LETTERS OE JOHN LOCKE. [l703.
Newton, in the following letter, criticises Locke's para- phrase of 1 Cor. vii. 14, the unbelie\ring husband is sanctified or made a Christian by his wiie ; the words, however, stand unaltered in the printed copy.
"London, May 16, 1703. "Sir,
" IJpon my first receiving your papers, I read over those concerning the First Epistle of the Corinthians, but by so many intermissions, that I resolved to go over them again, so soon as I could get leisure to do it with more atten- tion. I have now read it over a second time, and gone over also your papers on the Second Epistle. Some faults, which seemed to be faults of the scribe, I mended with my pen, as I read the papers ; some others, I have noted in the enclosed papers. In your paraphrase on 1 Cor. vii. 14, you say, * the unoelieving husband is sanctified or made a Christian in his wife.' I doubt this interpretation, because the unbe- lieving husband is not capable of baptism, as all Christians are. The Jews looked upon themselves as clean, holy, or separate to God, and other nations as unclean, unholy, op common, and accordingly it was unlawful for a man that was a Jew to keep company with, or come unto one of another nation. Acts x. 28. But when the propagation of the Gospel made it necessary for the Jews who preached the Gospel to go unto and keep company with the Gentiles, God showed Peter by a vision, in the case of Cornelius, that he had cleansed those of other nations, so that Peter should not any longer call any man common or unclean, and on that account forbear their company ; and thereupon Peter went in unto Cornelius and his companions, who were uncircumcised, and did eat with them. Acts x. 27, 28, and xi. 3. Sanctifying, therefore, and cleansing, signify here, not the making a man a Jew or Christian, but the dispensing with the law, whereby the people of God were to avoid the company of the rest oi the world as unholy or unclean. And if this sense be applied to St Paul's words, they will signify, that although believers are a people holy to God, and ought to avcnd the company of unbelievers as unholy or unclean, yet this law is dispensed with in some cases, and particularly in the case of marriage. The believing wife must not separate from the unbelieving
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1708.] LETTEES FEOM SIE ISAAC NEWTON. 229
husband as unholy or unclean, nor the believing husband from the unbelieving wife ; for the unbeliever is sanctified or cleansed by marriage with the believer, the law of avoiding the company of unbelievers being, in this case, dispensed with. 1 should therefore interpret St Paul's words after the fol- lowing manner :
" * For the unbelieving husband is sanctified or cleansed by the believing wife, so that it is lawful to keep him company, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband ; else were the children of such parents to be separated from you, and avoided as unclean, but now by nursing and educating them in your families, you allow that they are holy.*
" This interpretation I propose as easy and suiting well to the words and design of St Paul, but submit it wholly to your judgment.
" I had thoughts of going to Cambridge this summer, and calling at Gates in my way, but am now uncertain of this journey. Present, I pray, my humble service to Sir Francis Masham and his lady. I think your paraphrase and com- mentary on these two Epistles is done with very great care and judgment, I am
Tour most humble and obedient servant.
Is. Newton."
EEMAEKS ON SIE ISAAC NEWTON's THEEE LETTEES.*
The principal subject to which the first letter of 14th of November, 1690,relates, and which is referred to in the others, of 16th February, 1692, and 3rd May, 1692, will cause them to be read with interest by the Biblical scholar. Sir Isaac Newton's dissertations on the controverted texts of 1 John V. 7, and 1 Timothy iii. 16, have long been before the public, and now hold their proper rank amongst the ablest treatises of this class. The history of these valuable tracts is, however, but imperfectly known ; it may, therefore, not be
* I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. DrEees, to whom I had sub- mitted the letters of Sir Isaac Newton and of M. Le Clerc with Mr Locke, for these learned and critical remarks.
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230 LIFE AKD LETTERS Ot JOHW LOCKS.
unacceptable to state here a few facts, collected chiefly firom Mr Locke's papers, which may conduce to its elucidation.
• Mr Person, who must be believed to have been extensively acquainted with whatever related to the controversy, evidently knew little as to the origin of the first of these works, and of its progress towards publication. In the Preface to his masterly Letters to Travis (pp. ii, iii), he thus expresses himself: — "Between the years 1690 and 1700, Sir Isaac Newton wrote a Dissertation upon 1 John v. 7, in which he collected, arranged, and strengthened Simon's arguments, and gave a clear, exact, and comprehensive view of the whole question. This Dissertation, which was not published till 1754, and then imperfectly, has been lately restored by Dr Horsley, in the last edition of Newton's "Works, from an original manuscript." Bishop Horsley, who regarded the two Dissertations with no favourable eye, satisfies himself with the following account of their publication : — " A very imperfect copy of this Tract, wanting both the beginning and the end, and erroneous in many places, was published in London, in the year 1754, under the title of * Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to M. Le Clerc :' but, in the author's manuscript, the whole is one continued discourse, which, although it is conceived in the epistolary form, is not address- ed to any particular person." — Preface to the Tract, New- ton's "Works, vol. V. p. 494.
The edition of 1754, although it conveys some additional information, leaves some things still to be explained. The editor thus accounts (pp. 122, 123) for his possession of the papers : — " The reader is to be informed that the manuscript of these two Letters is still preserved in the library of the Eemonstrants in Holland. It was lodged there by Mr Le Clerc, and it was sent to him by the famous Mr Locke, and ' is actually in the handwriting oi this gentleman And not- ; withstanding the Letters have the acknowledged defects, the editor thought it a pity that the world should be longer de- prived of these two pieces, as they now are, since they can- not be obtained more perfect, all other copies of them being either lost or destroyed."
The "acknowledged defects," to which the editor alludes, are the loss of the beginning of the first letter, and of the end of
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EBMAEKS ON BIB ISAAC NEWTON'S LETTEES. 231
the second. The second letter is printed after the imperfect manuscript, and concludes in the middle^ of a sentence. A different fate befell its companion. Another writer, con- jecturing from the course of argument pursued in the exist- ing portion of the first dissertation what must have been comprised in that which was lost, drew up a new introduction to supply its place. The reader is not apprized of this fSwjt till he arrives at the end of the thirteenth page, when his at- tention is arrested by the following note. " The editor must inform the reader, that tlittsfar is not Sir Isaac* s : the copy transmitted to him fairly acknowledges it, and adds, that the first four paragraphs of the manuscript are lost ; and that as there were no hopes of recovering them they were sup- plied, not out of vamty, but merely to lay before the reader those passages which the letter itself plainly shows had beeu made use of by the author himself, and to the purposes, as is apprehended, they are here subservient to ; and an assurance is also given that all which follows the words * he makes use of,' are Sir Isaac's own, without alteration."
The author of the new introduction has shown himself to be a man of learning, well acquainted with the subject. There is, however, a considerable difference, as may well be imagined, between what he has written and Sir Isaac Newton's original, which is now happily recoverd.
These are the cmef particulars of information to be ob- tained from books as to the early history of the two tracts. It may be proper to add, that in some catalogues of Sir Isaac Newton's works, another edition is mentioned of the date of 1734, under the title of " Two Letters to Mr Clarke, late Divinity Professor of the Eemonstrants in Holland." But no opportunity has occurred of consulting this edition, which is stated to be a duodecimo pamphlet.
Mr Locke's papers have thrown some new light upon this subject. Prom Sir Isaac Newton's letters, inserted above, we now learn that these valuable papers were first communi- cated to Mr Locke in the strictest confidence. The author, with his characteristic timidity, shrank from the responsi- bility of sending them forth to the public with the sanction of his name, and thus expose himselrto the scoffs or the cen- sures of the theological bigots of the age, who were either in- competent or iadisposed to appreciate the value of his labours.
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232 LIFE AITD LETTSBS 07 JOHK LOCKE.
Mr Locke was at this time meditating a voyage to Holland ; and Sir Isaac Newton's first purpose was, that he should take these papers with him, and, through the medium of some literary acquaintance, procure the translation and publication of them there in the French language. He wished in this manner, without bringing himself personally before the pub- lic, to ascertain the feeling and judgment of Biblical critics, as to the subjects of his work. Then, " after it had gone abroad long enough in French," he "might,** he states, " perhaps put it forth in English."
Mr Locke having postponed or abandoned his design of revisiting Holland, forwarded the papers to his friend M. Le Clerc, with instructions to have them translated and pub- lished. Sir Isaac Newton was not apprized of this circum- stance, but, knowing that Mr Locke had not quitted England, concluded that they were still in his possession. In the second letter, written fifteen months after the first, he expresses hia regret at learning that this was not the case, and entreats Mr Locke to countermand the translation, it being his design to suppress the work. In the third letter, written three months later, he merely says, he was " glad the edition was stopped."
There exist no letters of Mr Locke's to indicate what steps he took towards the execution of Sir Isaac Newton's commis- sion. This deficiency is, however, partially supplied by the letters, still among his papers, addressed to hum by M. Le Clerc. The subject is first mentioned in a letter dated April 11th, 1691, in which M. Le Clerc thus writes : —
" Des que j'aurai quelque loisir, je traduirai, ou en Latin ou en rran9ois, le petit Historical Account, Ac., qui m^rite de voir le jour. Je crois pourtant qu'il pourroit Stre meil- leur si I'Auteur avoit lu avec soin ce que M. Simon a dit da sujet, dont il parle dans la Critique du N. T. p. 1.'*
In a letter dated July the 3lBt, in the same year, referring to a preceding communication, probably the letter abready quoted, M. Le Clerc writes : —
" Je vous y disois (juelque chose du MS. sur le passage corromj)u. Je n'en ai encore rien fait, k cause de diverses occupations que j'ai cues, mais j'espere d'avoir occasion de le publier avec quelques autres dissertations, etant trop petit pour paroitre tout seul. Un trop petit livre se perd ; il faut tacher de le grossir un pen si on veut qu'il subsiste."
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EKMAEKS ON SIE ISAAC NBWTON's LETTEES. 233
The next letter in whicli the tract is mentioned, is dated Jan. 20th, 1692, and was written after a further communica- tion had been received from Mr Locke. " J'aurois soin," ' says M. Le Clerc, " d'inserer dans la dissertation sur le pas- sage de S. J. Taddition que vous m'avez envoiee, et de traduire I'autre, pour les publier toutes deux ensemble en Latin. Si je n'etois pas engage dans un autre travail qui demande tout mon temps, j'entreprendrois de composer, ou de traduire en Latin, quantite de dissertations Anglois, ou !Fran9ois, ou Italiennes, sur des sujets de litterature, qui sont peu connues, et que leur petitesse fait perdre. Je les donnerois de temps en temps au public, comme la Bibliotheque ; ou les Nbuvellea de la Bep. des Lettres ; et je le ferois a mes depenses, parce que les libraires sont ici si avares, et de si mauvais gout, qu'ils veulent tout avoir pour rien, et m^prisent les meilleurea choses lorsqu'on les leur offre. Mais je suis h, present trop occupy pour cela."
M. Le Clerc's next letter is dated the 11th of April, 1692. He had by this time received Mr Locke's instructions to stop the publication. From the terms of M. Le Clerc's answer, it may be conjectured, that the fears of the author of the tract that he might be recognised, even through the disguise of a translation, had been alleged as the cause of its suppres- sion ; and this conjecture is strengthened by the language of the subsequent letter.
" C'est dommage," writes M. Le Clerc, " que ces deux dis- sertations MSS. que j'ai, demeurent supprim^s. Je ne crois pas que Ton put reconnoitre qu'elles sont traduites, a moins qu'on ne le dit. Dans une matiere de cette nature, oii je ne saurois manquer de prendre le sens de I'auteur, j'y donne un tour d'original qui ne sent point du tout la traduction. Je n'avois pas encore conclu pour cela avec I'imprimeur,, qui faisoit difficult^ a cause de la petitesse de I'ouvrage; et depuis votre lettre, je ne lui en ai plus parle."
In the next letter, July 15, 1692, M. Le Clerc thus ex- presses himself :
"Je garderai fid^lement les deux dissertations que j'ai, jusqu'a ce que vous me marquerez ce que I'Auteur veut que j'en fasse. Je puis bien dire, que ni cela, ni autre chose qui seroit public ici, ne feroit aucune affaire h, personne, pourvu qu'on n'en sut rien d'ailleurs de-1^ la mer. II faut hazarder
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234 LIFE AlfD LETTEES OF JOHN LOCEES.
quelque chose pour decrasser beaucoup d'honn^tes gens, qui ne pechent que par ignorance, et qui desabuseroient les autres s'ils 6toient disabuses."
On the 5th of December, in the same year, M. Le Clerc observes : — " Vous aurez oui parler du dernier Tome de la Critique du P. Simon sur le N, Testament. II y a encore
rlques ^claircissemens sur le passage de S. Jean, sur lequel Amaud avoit fait diverses remarques dans ses Objections a M. Steyaert, Cela meriteroit d'etre examin^ par V Auteur de la dissertation."
No further notice of these papers occurs in this corre- spondence, which continued to the year 1704, when Mr Locke died. There can be no doubt that the manuscript remained in M. Le Clerc' s hands up to this period. He had been en-
i'oined not to publish the dissertations, and he appears to lave faithfully acted up to his instructions. He was fully competent to appreciate their value : the most favourable and inviting opportunities offered of making them more exten- sively known through the press. His Bihliotheq^m, which had been discontinued about 1693, to afford him leisure to prosecute works of more research and greater importance, was resumed in December, 1703, and continued till about 1730 ; and yet, in none of the volumes, although presenting BO convenient a channel for their publication, are they intro- duced or named. In the absence of more decisive informa- tion, we may receive, as probable at least, the statement of the anonymous editor of the edition of 1754, that M. Le Clerc deposited the manuscript in the library of the Kemonstrants, from which, through the medium of ^a friend, he alleges that he received his copy.
The title of the edition of 1754, "Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to M. Le Clerc," is conjectural and inaccurate. The tract having been in M. Le Clerc's possession, being written too in the epistolary form, and the first leaves with the title-page having been lost, the editor concluded that the author had actually addressed them to the Remonstrant pro- fessor. It is now clear that Sir Isaac Newton had no direct correspondence with this gentleman on the subject, all the communications having been made through Mr Locke. There is also good reason to believe that Mr Locke had on no occa- sion divulged to his correspondent the name of the writer,
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EEMAEKS ON SIE ISAAC KEWTON's LETTEES. 235
who was anxious to remain unknown. If the letters were really addressed to any one, it must have been to Mr Locke, to whom the papers were transmitted as they were com- posed. The probability however is, that the epistolary form was adopted by the author merely as a matter of taste or con- venience. The title given to the tract by M. Le Clerc him- self, in acknowledging the receipt of the manuscript in the first extract inserted above, is not that of " Two Letters," but " Historical Account,^ &c., which corresponds with the beginning of the title of the copy inserted in Bishop Hors- ley's edition of Newton's Works, viz : — " An Historical Ac- count of two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, in a Letter to a Friend."
Sir Isaac Newton teUs Mr Locke, " I have no entire copy besides that I send you." At a later period, he must have written many other copies, without introducing any very material alterations. Bishop Horsley performed a valuable service to Biblical literature, by the publication of one in the author's own hand, in the possession of Dr Ekins, Dean of Carlisle. From the catalogue of the Newton Manuscripts at Lord Portsmouth's, at Hurstbome, it would appear that there are some copies there ; but whether in a perfect state or not, cannot be ascertained until that collection shall have been examined by some competent person, less influenced by theo- logical and ecclesiastic^ biases, than the learned and Eight Eeverend editor of Sir Isaac Newton's Works.
ME SOMEES TO HE LOCKE.
"Oxon, Wednesday, Sth March, 1689. "Deab Sib,
" Since you have wished so kindly to my election, I cannot but think it my duty to give' you an account that yesterday morning my ola paitoer, Mr Bromley, and myself, were chosen at Worcester without any opposition. I know you will bo pleased to hear that my Lord BeUamont has all the reason in the world to be assured of being elected at Droitwich, and I hope the next post will bring you a certain account that it is so, to-morrow being his day. This day was the election for the county of Worcester, and I doubt not but
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236 LIPB AND LETTEES OP JOHN LOCKE.
Mr Foley and Sir "Ft, "Winnington were chosen, which may be looked upon as good fortune, for there would have been danger from any pretenders, as far as I can find, by the sense of the county. I was very willing to get out of the town as soon as my election was over, and so got into the circuit at this place, from whence I shall go back to Worcester, where I hope you will make me so happy as to let me receive another letter from you, in which 1 will beg your advice (for by this time you have an account of the bulk of the elections), whether you think I may go on in the circuit or not ; what you write shall be my rule in this point. If I could hope to be useful, I would not fail to be at the opening of the Session ; but if there be no hopes of it (and that the G-azette inclines me to beHeve), I would take the advantage of the whole circuit, since I am now engaged in it. This letter I beg from you by Saturday's post ; and when I have the satisfaction of seeing you, I will beg your pardon for this freedom, which nothing but your kindness to me upon all occasions, as well as my dependence upon your judgment, could have drawn me to. 1 am earnest in expectation of your thoughts in this and greater matters, and shall be often wishing for the coming of the post to Worcester on Monday next. I am, Sir,
Your most faithftil, humble servant,
J. SOMEBS.
" I am so unfortunate as to have forgot the name of the gentleman at whose house you lodge, and therefore direct this to the Earl of M (onmouth)."
3£B SOMEBS TO MB LOCKE.
"Worcester, Sept. 25, 1698. **SlB,
" I ought to be out of countenance for being so long in making my acknowledgments for your two favours, which I really value so much ; but as I had nothing to write from this place which was fit for you to read, so I wanted a proper address to you, till I learnt it from my friend Mr Freke, in his last letter. The country, generally speaking, is extremely well-disposed in relation to the Q-ovemment ; but some few
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1689.] COBBESPONDSKCE WITH LOED MONMOUTH. 237
clergymen who have not taken the oaths, and some that have, and a very little party of such as pay them a blind obedience, use incredible diligence, by misconstructions of eyerything, false stories, and spreading of libels, to infect the people. I wish heartily the friends of the Government were encouraged to use the same diligence in suppressing such doings ; for though they behave themselves with much malice, yet it is so very fooHshly, that they lie as open as one could wish. I am making all possible haste to town, and hope to learn from you aU that I want from my long absence. Tour former favours make me bold to presume upon you, and your judg- ment is such that I can depend upon your instructions as the rules for my behaviour. I am.
Your most obliged, humble servant;
J. SOMSBS."
The next eight letters are selected from the correspondence between the Earl of Peterborough and Mr Locke ; the in- tervals are wide, the date of the first being 1689, and that of the last 1703, the year before Locke's death. Lord Monmouth had been in Holland before the Eevolution^ and there, probably, their intimacy commenced.
"Newcastle, Jan. 9, 1689. *'Mb Loceje,
" I must begin with a description of my Lord Delamere's army: it wanted nothing to be a complete regiment but clothes, boots, arms, horses, men, and officers : there never was anything so scandalous as that the King should have
f)aid near nine thousand pounds already to that rout of fel- ows, that have been more disorderly than any, never having aU the while but one obtain with them. He hath still those same champions with him that saved the nation, in the same or worse equipages than they were in the west, mounted upon just such horses attended the Protestant peer out of town. Q^ood God ! what is the love of money ! O Eoma venalis esses, &c., and so is everything else. Who has got tea thousand pounds by the late made peer ? we take it for granted he gave no more ; he offered but fifteen for fifteen years together. Some of our Lords take their rest, others their pleasure ; my Lords Devonshire and Lumley stay here $
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238 LITE AKD LETTEBS OF JOHK LOCKE. [l692.
Mr Wharton* goes for Scotland. I go to-morrow for Ber- wick, to examine some regiments, and come back the next day to Newcastle, a pleasant journey ; at least no reproach shall lie at my door ; for I can brag that pleasure, when I am engaged in business, neyer made me go an hour out of my way. Direct your letters to Carlisle.
Tours,
MoiQiOUTH.*'
BABL OF MOm^OUTH TO MB LOOEE.
« 19ih Not. 1692.
'' I am told, that so many of your friends haye sent you word how desirous they are you should come to town, that I am resolved I will not be of the number, concluding that your health obliges you to stay in the country. I am a&aid of mentioning r arson' s-green to you, for I find you would be importunea, if so near, to come to town, and our innocent air would be accused of the ill effects of London smoke. If your acquaintances would make you visits, and expect no re- turns, I would do all in my power to tempt you to a lady, who would take all possible care of you : she has prepared you a very warm room, and if you take the resolution, which she thinks you are obliged to by your promise, you must send me word of it ; for as your physician, you must refuse none of her prescriptions ; and she will not allow you to come up but in a glass coach. This is no compliment ; and you can gain no admittance except my coach brings you, which I can send without the least inconvenience ; but after all, I desire you not to venture coming towards us if it may be prejudicial to your health.
" K you stay in the country, I will send you now and then a news-letter : our revolving Government always affords us something new every three or four months ; but what would be most new and strange, would be to see it do anything that were ^really for its interest ; there seems a propensity towards something like it; I fear their sullen and duller heads will not allow it. Mons. Blanquet tells us the King is grown in love with Englishmen and Whigs ; it is true, he
* Mr Wharton, the same whose song of lillibnlero had produced such an effect on King James's army.
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1693.] OOBEESFONDENCE WITH LOBD MOKMOUTH. 239
smiles and talks with ns, but Messrs Semour and TreTor come up the back stairs.*
" Mons. Dolm tells us my Lord Nottingham is a little law- yer, and no man of business ; yet the Court have taken all possible pains to prevent the petition against him, and my good Lord Mayor, to set it aside, broke up the coiirt so ao- ruptly as my Lord Sidney the Irish Farliimient. I will en- gage no further in politics, but being sick, am going, by way of physic, to eat a good supper, and drink your* health in a glass or two of my reviving wine. "Xiours,
Monmouth."
"March 25, 1693. "Me Looke,
" Shall we pretend more that nothing shall surprise us ? and have you heard of our late Whiggish promotion without admiration ? I cannot but confess, I rather wish we had our Whiggish laws : but, however, I think there must be some consequence, not so much of our joy, as of the ill humour of the Tories, which is so apparent, and so great, that I am re- solved to enjoy the satisraction it gives me, and not lose the few moments of mirth offered us by a too nice examination. The new Secretary t treads the stage with quite another air than our friend; the poor Lord Keeper J looks as if he wanted the comfort of his friends; but the other § thinks he may depend on his own parts and the ability of Mr Bridgman. "Wnether to congratulate with your friends, or to see the silly looks of the enemy, I suppose you will give us one week in town. There is a uttle philosophical apartment quite finished in the garden that expects you, and if you will let me know when you will come, it will not be the least inconvenience to me to send my coach twenty miles out of town to meet you, and may make your journey more easy, and if you would make me so, pray, Mr Locke, be less ceremonious to your affectionate servant, Monmouth."
* King William had sometimes an inclination to form a Tory adminis- tration, on account of their accommodating temper, but was deterred when told that he was not the King of the Tories.
t The Earl of Shrewsbury.
X Sir John Trevor, afterwards expelled the House of Commons for cor- ruption.
^ Sir John Somers.
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240 LIFE AND LETTEB8 OF JOHN LOCKE. [l695.
" December 12, 1695. ** Mb Locke,
" I cannot but write to you to give some ease to my ill- humour, for, though accustomed to see such follies committed, I cannot be insensible when I see them repeated, especially when the public and a friend is concerned. I was some dayu ago extremely pleased when the King was brought to so reasonable a resolution as to determine upon a council of trade, where some great men were to assist, but where others, with salaries of a thousand pounds a year, were to be fixed as the constant labourers. Mr Locke being to be of the number, made me have the better opinion of the thing, and comforted me for our last disappointment upon your subject : but, ac- cording to our accustomed wisdom and prudence, when all things had been a good while adjusted, the patent ready for the seal, and some very able and honest men provided for your companions, it was impossible to get the King to si^ it ; but delaying it from day to day, the Parliament this day fell upon it, and are going to form such a commission, to be nommated by themselves. Our great managers, surprised, were forced to run up to some in our House, others to go to Kensington, so that at last the Secretary informs the House at the latter end of the debate (and much consultation), that the King had just formed such a commission, with all that could be said to . prevent their further proceeding ; but they all looked upon it as a trick, and all they could do was to put it to a vote for an adjournment, which, in a full House, after great exertions, they carried but by eleven : this is the effect of our gravity and prudence ; what the event will be I know not, but for the little I am able, I shall endeavour. Mr Locke may be the choice of the House, as well as the King's : if it take that course, if the ill- weather prevent you not, it were not improper you were in town ; but, above all things, take care of yourself, without which your friends will lose the pleasure they may have in serving you. I hope we may make the House desist, and that your affair is fixed; but these un- necessary labours might be spared to those who have enough to do.
Erom your affectionate servant,
Monmouth."
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169.7, 1702.] COBB|:SFOKDEKCB WITH LOED MOKHOUTH. 241
"August, 1697.
" Me Locke,
" You know the impati^ice country gentlemen have for news ; we are here as lond of a Gtizette as the sparks are of their mistresses with you. We lay wagers on Ponty and Eevel and Conti and Saxe, to pass away the lime, instead of playing at pickett. Fray give us a letter now and then to decide who has won : this request is made you, not only by myself, but by some other of your humble friends.
Pbtebboeow.
" Direct yours for me, to be left at the post-house, Chip- penham, "Wiltshire."
"September 4th, 1697. " Me Looee,
" We all return you thanks for your charitable correspond- ence, but the lady is a little out of humour since your last, having long ago settled the peace with the restitution of JStrasburgh, and Luxemburgh, and Loraine, and sunk and destroyed all or most of Ponty 's squadron, not consid^ng the generous Knight-errantry of our admirals, who scorn to beat their enemies with odds nine to five, being shameful ad- vantage. The next letter you are pleased to write this way, address it to the ladv, who stays here some time longer. I hope in four or five days after you have received this, to see you in London ; for I take it for granted, the Essex lady is not to attract, while the sun has so much influence. Your most afiectionate servant,
Pbtbebobow."
'*Dec.26tli, 1702. "Sib,
" The lady that made you a visit witli me would not let me write, till I could tell you all is gone afore, and that the first jeasterly wind we foUow. I wish we were as sure of success as we are of your good wishes ; and I assure you, Sir, I have some pretence to that from the very sincere respect and in- clination I have ever had for you. Our Vigo success has a littie abated pur vigour, a fault too often committed by the English, and we seem not so willing as the Dutch to raise jiew recruits for the next campaign. I confess (after the
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242 LIFE AND LETTEES OP JOHlf LOCEE. [l703.
schoolboy fashioii) I am for giving the enemy the rising blow when they are down. And I hope to convince you in the "West Indies, that if Providence give us successes, we will not sleep upon them. Sir, if I make a prosperous voyage and live to come back again, I shall not have a greater pleasure than to meet you where we parted last.
Tour most affectionate friend and servant,
Peteebobow. " The gentleman you recommended from my Lady Coverly, went this night aboard.'*
"27th Jan., 1703 " Had I not, with Mr Locke, left off wondering at anything long ago, I might with surprise write this letter, and you re- ceive it with amazement, when I let you know our American expedition is fallen, as a mushroom nses in the night. I had my orders to be aboard the 16th; aU my equipage and servants gone ; and the 14th I was sent for to the place of "Wisdom to Be asked this question, whether I could not effect with three thousand men, what I was to have attempted with above double the number ? I modestly confessed myself no woiker of miracles ; and being told that the States had desired the Dutch squadron and land-forces might be employed upon other services, since the season was so far spent, and the wind con- trary, I likewise desired they would excuse my going if the season were passed, when 1 was sure the force would not answer what the world expected from her Majesty's arms and preparations so long talked of: besides, these 3000 men I was to depend upon, were but 2800 when they left Gales, and before my arrival must have been employed for four months against the French in their strongest islands, and probably reduced to half the number, at least, by disease and the ac- cidents of war. I am sure this does not surprise you, that I refused to go to the other world loaded with empty titles, and deprived of force. These mysteries of state I will not pre- tend to unfold at present, but before I return to my home, I will have another meeting in Essex.
Tour most faithful friend,
Peteebobow.**
The state of the coin had for a long time very much en-
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1695.] BEFBEOIATIOK OF THE COOT. 243
gaged Locke's attention ; the first of bis treatises upon that subject was published in 1691, and the "Further Considera- tion" in 1695,, for the purpose of correcting the false ideas then universally prevalent.
"Whenever there is considerable distress in the public affairs, — if trade is embarrassed, if the currency is disordered, if the finances are deranged, — ^there are always to be found men who, from ignorance or interest, are ready to recommend what they are pleased to call the easy, practical, and natural remedies, which in the end generally aggravate the evils they were supposed to cure. Under a despotic Government, if the debts are embarrassing;, or the finances in disorder, a base coin is issued, and the defrauded creditor is compelled to sub- mit in silence to the royal ordinance. Such was the common ordinary practice of the old Erench Government, and of most of the other states of Europe, whose coins have been succes- sively deteriorated from their original standard.
In our own country, and in our own times, we have seen a Bank Eestriction Act imposed to avoid a temporary diffi- culty, which deranged our affairs during a quarter of a cen- twcj*
in 1695, one or perhaps aU these causes of national distress were severely felt ; the war had diminished the national re- sources, and the frauds practised for some time by the clipping the money had considerably impaired its intrinsic value. Mr Lowndes and the practical men of that day recommended the usual panacea, an alteration of the standard ; but those honest ministers. Lord Somers and Sir "William Trumbull, the Secre- tary of State, knowing from the treatise on Lowering of Interest, and Eaising the Yalue of Money, published in 1691, that Locke had turned his attention very much to those sub- jects, now called him to their assistance, and were guided by nis advice.
Lord Keeper Somers writes to him :
"November, 95. "SiB,
" Tou will easily see by the book which was put in my hand last night, and by the title of a Eeport which it bears, as well as by the advertisement at the end of it, that you were in the right when you said that the alteration of the standard
b2
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244 LIFE AHD LETTERS OF JOHK LOCKE. [iMS.
was the thing aimed at. The challenge at the end, if you will allow me to say so, is in some sort directed to you. The proposition which you and I discoursed upon yesterday is en- aeavoured to he represented impracticahle. The passing of money hy weight is said to he ridiculous, at least in little pay- ments ; the sudden fall of guineas will he an utter ruin to very great numbers ; there is no encouragement proposed to invite people to hring the clipped money into the Mint, so that will he melted down to be transported, which will be a certain profit at least, till by a law money can be exported. And whilst this is doing, nothing will be Mt to carry on com- merce, for no one will bring out his guineas to part with them for twenty shillings when he paid thirty shillinss for them so lately. These, as I remember, were the objections made use of; and I doubt not but you will, without great difficulty, help us with some expedients for them. I believe it an easier task than to remove what I see is Bo&:ed,the project of alteration of the standard. I am.
Your most humble tservant,
J. SOMEBS.*'
In the "Further Consideration on raising the Value of Money," published 1696, addressed to Sir John Somers, he endeavoured to strip the question of hard, obscure, and " doubtful words wherewith men are often misled and mis- lead others." He condemns the nefarious project of raising the denomination and altering the standard as a fraud upon all creditors, and justly considers it as " the means of coif-
FOTTBTDIlSra THE PEOPEETT OF THE SUBJECT, AITD DISTUBBIKG AFFAIBS TO KO PUEPOSE."
The advice of Locke was followed, and the great recoinage of 1696 restored the current money of the country to the full legal standard.
The difference between the embarrassments which affected the currency in the reign of King "William, and those which have occurred in our own time, may be thus stated : the coin at the period first mentioned, had been deteriorated by the frauds of individuals and the neglect of the public ; but when the evil was felt, and the remedy pointed out, the Parliament, notwithstanding the pressure of the war and the false theories
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1696.] DIFBEOIATIOK OF THE OOHT. 245
of the practical men of those days, applied the proper remedy at the proper time before any great permanent debt had been incurred. In pur own time the depreciation of the currency was entirely to be attributed to the Bank and the Qt>vern- ment. The paper-money of a banking company without the one indispensable condition of security against excesses, fajj* mefU in specie on demand, was in an evil hour substituted in place of the King's lawful coin ; and in order that the Min- ister might avoid the imputation of being an unskilful finan- cier, who borrowed money on unfevourable terms, a debt of unexampled magnitude was accumulated in a debased cur- rency, to be ultimately discharged by payment in specie at the full and lawful standard. It must be confessed, that by the tardy act of retributive justice which was passed in 1819, the punishment inflicted upon the nation was in the exact proportion to the former deviations from good faith and sound principle, and we may at least hope that the severity of the penalty will prevent for the future a repetition of the same fdly.
Bespecting the other subject of the treatise, viz. " Consider- ation on lowering the rate of Interest," the author asks this question : " Whether the price of the hire of money can be regulated by law?" The same question, after the lapse of 130 years, we may still continue to repeat with the same success. He then shows that the attempt *' to regulate the rate of interest will increase the difficulty of borrowing, and prejudice none but those who need assistance."
In the same year he was appointed to a seat at the Coun- cil of Trade. Sir John Somers writes to inform him of the King's nomination, and to make excuse for using his name without his "express consent."
Sir Wm. Trumbull communicates the same appointment by the following letter.
"Whitehall, May 19, 1696. "Sib,
" Besides my particular obligations to thank you for your kind letter to me, I am now to call upon you in behalf of the public, whose service requires your help, and consequently your attendance in town. The Council of Trade (whereof you are most wortiiily appointed a member), must go on with
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246 LTEE ATTD LETTERS OP JOWS LOCKE. [l697.
effect, or the greatest inconveniences and mischief will follow. I hope your health will permit you to come and make some stay nere ; and what reluctancy soever you may have to ap- pear among us, I know your love to your country, and your feat zeal for our common interests, will overcome it, so that will trouble you no further till I can have the happiness of seeing you here, and assuring you by word of mouth that I am unalterably
Your most faithful humble servant,
William Tbfmbull. '
" My wife will have me send her humble service to you.'*
After holding the appointment at the Board of Trade for a short time, his increasmg infirmities made him wish to resign it, and he communicated his intention to Lord Keeper Somers, by letter, dated 7th Jan., 1696-7.
"My Lobp,
" Some of my brethren, I understand, think my stay in the country long, and desire me to return to bear my part, and to help to despatch the multitude of biisiness that the present circumstances of trade and the plantations fill their hands with. I cannot but say they are in the right ; and I cannot but think, at the same time, that I also am in the right to stay in the country, where all my care is little enough to pre- serve those small remains of health, which a settled and incur- able indisposition would quickly make an end of anywhere else.
" There remains, therefore, nothing else to be done but that I should cease to fill up any longer a place that requires a more constant attendance than my strength will allow ; and to that purpose, I prevail with your Lordship to move his Majesty, that he would be pleased to ease me of the employ- ment he has been so graciously pleased to honour me with, since the crazyness of my body so ill seconds the inclination I have to serve him in it, and I find myself every way incapa- ble of answering the ends of that commission. I am not in- sensible of the honour of that employment, nor how much I am obliged to your Lordship's favourable opinion in putting me into a post, which I look upon as one of the most con- siderable in England. I can say that nobody has more warm
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1697.] EESIGNS OFriCE AT BOABD OF TEADB. 247
wishes for the prosperity of his country than I have ; but the opportunity of showing those good wishes, in being any way serviceable to it, I find comes too late to a man whose health is inconsistent with the business, and in whom it would be folly to hope for a return to that vigour and strength which such an employment I see requires. It is not without due consideration that I represent this to your Lordship, and that I find myself obliged humbly and earnestly to request your Lordship to obtain for me a dismission out of it. I wish your Lordship many happy new years, and am, with the utmost acknowledgment ana respect,"
LOBD EEEFEB SOMEBS TO ME LOOEE.
<*26tli Jan., 1696-7. «SlE,
" My great fatigue, joined with a very great indisposition, must make my excuse for being so slow in returning an an- swer to your very obliging letter. I am very sorry for your ill health, which confines you to the country for the present ; but now you will have so much regard to yourself, your friends, and your country, as not to think of returning to business till you are recovered to such a competent degree, as not to run the hazard of a relapse. As to the other part of your letter, which relates to the quitting the commission, I must say you are much in the wrong, in my opinion, to entertain a thought of it ; and I flatter myself so far as to believe I could bring you over to my sentiments, if I had the happiness of half an hour's conversation with you. These being my thoughts, you cannot wonder if I am not willing to enter upon the commission you gave me, of saying something to the King of your purpose. But when the new commission is made, and the establishment fixed, and the Parliament up, and you have had the opinion df your friends here, I will submit to act as you shall command me. In the mean time give me leave to say, that no man alive has a greater value for you, nor is with more sincerity than myself, Sir,
Tour most faithful servant,
J. SOMBES."
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248 LIPB AITD LETTEBS OT JOWS LOCKE. [l697.
DBAFT OF liOCES'S AKSWEB TO LOBD EEEPEB BOMEBS.
"Feb. 1, 1696-7. "Mt Lobd
"I know nobody that can with so much right promise himself to bring me over to his sentiments as your Lordship, for I know not any one that has such a master-reason to pre- vail as your Lordship, nor any one to whom, without attend- ing the convictions of that reason, that I am so much disposed to submit to with implicit faith. Tour Lordship, I perceive,^ from several positions takes a different view of the same thing ; and since your Lordship, who always speaks reason, is always also ready to hear it, I promise myself that the pro- positions I made would not appear to your Lordship alto- gether unfit, had I an opportunity to offer to your Lordship aU the consideratioi^ that moved and hold me to it. The obliging promise your Lordship has been pleased to make me in the honour of yours of the 25th of January, that when I have had your Lordship's opinion, you will not refuse me the favour I have asked, if I sh^ then continue my request, sets me at rest for the present ; and a word from your Lordship that you will have the goodness to let me have notice time enough to lay before your Lordship what weighs with me in the case, before anything can be done either in making a new commission, or fixing the establishment, will ease your Lord- ship of any further importunity from me ; and then I, who am so much in your favour, shaU not alone of all the subjects of England, apprehend that, upon a fair hearing, your Ix>rdship will not allow the equity of my case. Untoward health, which complies no more with good manners than with other obliga- tions, must be my excuse to your Lordship for this last, as well as it was a great cause of my first request to you in this . affair. If my ill lungs would permit me now presently (as becomes me) to come to town and wait there the opportunity of discoursing your Lordship, I should not have reason as I have to desire to quit this employment. The great indulgence your Lordship expresses to my infirm constitution, makes me nope it will extend itself further ; it cannot, I think, do less than make your Lordship bethink yourself of a man to sub- stitute in the place of a shadow. I cannot make an equal return to your Lordship's concerns for my health, since mj
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1698.] DIOLIKES BSSXTMPTIOK 07 OTFICS. 249
country's welfare is so much interested in your Lordship's preservation, mixing with my concern for your late indisposi- tion, will not suffer my good wishes for the confirmation of your strength to he purely personal to your Lordship, though nobody can be more than I am, &c. &e"
In the following year King William ordered Locke to at- tend him at Kensington, desirous to employ him again in the public service. However flattering the King's intention to- wards him must have been, the state of his health prev^ited him from accepting the honour that was designed him : he writes to the Lord Chancellor Somers, probabfy fifom Oates.
"Jan. 28, 1697-8. **Mat it please tottb Lobdship,
" Sunday, in the evening, after I had waited on the Kin^, I went to wait upon your Lordship, it beinc;, I imderstood, his Majesty's pleasure I should ao so before I returned hither. My misfortune in missing your Lordship I hoped to repair by an early diligence the next morning, but the night that came between destroyed that purpose and me almost with it. For, when I was laid in my bed, my breath fiiiled me ; I was fain to sit up in my bed, where I continued a good part of the night, with hopes that my shortness of breath would abate, and my lungs grow so good-natured as to let me lie down to get a little sleep, whereof I had greai need ; but my breath constantly failing me as often as I laid my head upon my pillow, at three I got up, and sat by the firie till morning. My case being brought to this extremity, there was no room for any other thought but to get out of town immediately ; for after the two precedent nights with- out any rest, I concluded the agonies I laboured under so long in the second of those, would hardly fail to be my death the third, if I stayed in town. As bad weather, therefore, as it was, I was forced early on Monday morning to set out and return hither.
'^ His Majesty was so &vourable as to propose the em ployment your Lordship mentioned ; but the true knowledge of my own weak state of health made me beg his Majesty to think of some fitter person, and more able, to serve him in that important post ; to which I added my want of experience
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250 LIFE AND LETTEBS or JOHN LOCZE. [1698.
for such business. That your Lordship may not think this an expression barely of modesty, I crave leave to explain it to your Lordship (though there I discover my weakness), that my temper, always shy of a crowd of strangers, has made my acquaintances few, and my conversation too narrow and particular, to get the skill of dealing with men in their various humours, and drawing out their secrets. Whether this was a fault or no to a man that designed no bustle in the world, I know not. I am siire it will let your Lordship see that I am too much a novice in the world for the employ- ment proposed.
" Though we are so oddly placed here, that we have no ordinary conveyance for our letters from Monday tiU Eriday, yet this delay has not fallen out much amiss. The King was graciously pleased to order me to go into the country to take care of my health : these four or five days here have given me a proof to what a low state my lungs are now Drought, and how little they can bear the least shock. I can lie down again, indeed, in my bed, and take my rest ; but, bating that, I find the impression of these two days in Lon- don so heavy upon me still, which extends further than the painfulness of breathing, and makes me listless to everything, 80 that methinks the writing this letter has been a great per- formance.
" My Lord, I should not trouble you with an account of the prevailing decays of an old pair of lungs, were it not my duty to take care his Majesty should not be disappointea, and, therefore, that he lay not any expectation on that, which, to my great misfortune, every way, J find, would certainly fail lum ; and I must beg your Lordship, for the interest of the public, to prevail with his Majesty to think on somebody- else, since I do not only fear, but am sure, my broken health will never permit me to accept the great honour his Majesty meant me. As it would be unpardonable to betray the King's business, by undertaking what I should be unable to go through ; so it would be the greatest madness to put myself out of the reach of my friends during the small time I am to linger in this world, only to die a little more rich or a little more advanced. He must have a heart strongly touched with wealth, or honours, who at my age, and labouring for, breath, can find any great relish for either of them."
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1698.] EESIDENOB AT GATES. 261
King William, who was subject to the same asthmatic complaint, is said to have conversed with Locke respecting his treatment of his own disorders. The King, when he was told that a very strict abstinence afforded the only relief, ac- knowledged that the advice was very good, but, like other patients, did not resort to that disagreeable remedy. Having refused the employment which the King had designed foi him, he now determined to resign that which he for somft years held, and for the same reason.
The asthmatic complaint, to which he had been long subject, making a continued residence in London, particularly during the winter season, very distressing to him, he had for some years taken up his abode with Sir F. and Lady Masham, at Oates, near Ongar, in Essex, where he was perfectly at home, and enjoyed the society most agreeable to him; as Lady Masham, the daughter of Cudworth, is said to have been a woman of great sense and of most agreeable manners. Their intimacy seems to have been of long standing by the following letter of Locke to her brother, Mr Cudworth, dated 1683, which is interestiug, as it affords a proof of the great activity^ of his mind in the search for every sort of knowledge,
"London, 27th April, 1683. "Sib,
" Though you are got quite to the other side of the world, yet you cease not to make new acquisitions here ; and the character you have left behind you, makes your acquaintance be sought after to the remotest parts of the earth. There is a commerce of iriendship as well as merchandise ; and though nobody, almost, lets his thoughts go so far as the East Indies, without a design of getting money and growing rich, yet, if you allow my intentions, I hope to make a greater advantage by another sort of correspondence with you there. In the conversation I have had the happiness to have some- times with your sister here, I have observed her often to speak of you with more tenderness and concern than all the rest of the world, which has made me conclude it must.be something extraordinary in you which has raised in her (who is so good a judge) so particular an esteem and affection, beyond what is due to the bare ties of nature and blood. And I cannot but think that your souls are akin, as well as
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252 LITE AND L1TTIB8 OF JOHK LOCKE. [1683.
your bodies, and that jours, as well as hers, is not of the or- dinary alloy. I account it none of the l^ist £ivours she has done me, that she has promised me your friendship; and you must not think it Strang, if I presume upon her word, and trouble you with some mquiries concerning the country you are in, since she encourages me in it, and assures me 1 shall not fail of an answer.
. " Some of those who have travelled, and writ of those parts, give us strange stories of the tricks done by some of their jugglers there, which must needs be beyond legerdemain, and seems not within the power of art or nature. I would very gladly know whether they are really done as strange as they are reported ; and whether those that practise them are any of them Mahometans, or all (which I rather suppose) heathens, and how they are look^ on by the Bxamins, and the other people of the country ; whether they have any ap- paritions amongst them, and what thoughts of spirits ; and as much of the opinions, religion, and ceremonies of the Hindoos and other heathens of those countries, as comes in your way to learn and inquire. It would be too great kind- ness, if you could learn any news of any copies of the Old or New Testament, or any parts of them, which they had amongst them, in any language, in those Eastern countries, before the Europeans traded thither h^f the Cape of Gbod Hope. I should trouble you also with inquiries concerning their languages, learning, government, manners, and particu- larly Aureng Zebe, the Emperor of Hindoostan, since I could Eromise myself a more exact account from you than what we ave in printed travels ; but I fear I have been more trouble- some than what you will imagine will become a man that does but now begin to beg your acquaintance. If I have trespassed herein, you must excuse it to the little distinction I make between you and your sister ; you must conclude I forgot myself, and thought I was talkmg to, and (as I used to do) learning something of her ; and 'tis to the same ac- count I must beg you to place the obligation you will lay on me, by procuring and sending hither an answer to the en- closed letter, directed to Mrs Eichards. Her husband died going to the East Indies, in a ship that set out hence about Christmas was twelvemonths, where he was to have been fActoT, somewhere in the Bay of Bengal, for the Company.
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1683.] LXTTIB TO MB OITDWOBTH. 253
His Wife and two daughters, who were with him, went on their voyage ; where she settled h^sel^ and remains now, you will easily know. I beg the favour of you to get the ^enclosed conveyed to her, and an answer from her, which be pleased to direct to be left for me either with Mr P. Perce- Tail, at the Black Boy, in Lombard-street, or Mr S. Cox, at :;the Iron £ey, in Thames-street, London.
" And now, having been thus free with you, 'tis in vain to ^nake apologies for it ; if you allow your lister to dispose of your friendship, you will not take it amiss that I have looked upon myself as in possession of what she has bestowed on me ; or that I begin my conversation with you with a freedom and familiarity suitable to an established amity and acquaint- ance ; besides, if^ at this distance, we should set out according to the forms of ceremony, our correspondence would proceed with a more grave and solemn pace than the treaties of princes, and we must spend jsome years in the very prelimin- aries. He that, in his first address, shoidd only put off his bat and make a leg, and say, your servant, to a man at the other end of the world, may (if the winds set right), and the ships come home safe, and bring back the return of his com- pliment^ may, I say, in two or three years, perhaps, attain to something that looks like the beginning of an acquaint- ance, and by the next Jubilee there may be hopes oi some conversation between them. Sir, you see what a blunt fellow your sister has recommended to you ; as far removed from the ceremonies of the Eastern people you are amongst, as from their country ; but one that, with great truth and sin- cerity, says to you,
I am, <&c., J. L.
" One thing, which I had forgot, give me leave to add, which is a great desire to know how the several people of the East keep their account of time, as months ana years ; and whether they generally agree in using periods answering to our weeks ; and whetheor their aritlunetic turns at ten as ours doth."
The following letters are selected from a very great num- ber written by Locke to his relation Mr King, afterwards Lord Chancelloir, and found amongst his papers.
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254l LITE AITD LETTEBS OF JOHK LOCKE. [l698, 1701.
TO P. EOra, ESQ., U. P., MIDDLE TEMPLE, LONDON.
« Gates, July 3rd, 98. " Deab CoTTsnr,
'' I am glad that you are so well entered at the bar ; it is my advice to you to go on so gently by degrees, and to speak only in things that you are perfectly master of, till you have got a confidence and habit of talking at the bar. I have many reasons for it, which I shall discover to you when I see you. This warm day (which has been the third that I have Deen able this year yet to pass without a fire) gives me hopes that the comfortable weather which I have long wished for is setting in, that I may venture to town in a few days, for I would not take a journey thither to be driven out again pre- sently, as I am sure our late cold weather would have done, for my lungs are yet very weak.
" I have writ to my Lord Pembroke, because you desire it, and because I understand by you that Mr Edwards desires it ; you will see what I have writ, but it is by no means fit that Mr Edwards should see my letter, for I have in it kept to the measures I always observe in such cases, and which have gained some credit to my recommendation, though it does not always content candidates, if one says no more than what one knows. If you deliver it, pray let it be with my most humble service ; if you do not aeliver it, pray bum it,
" My lady, Ac., give you their service.
I am, dear cousin, your most affectionate
J. Locke."
"Gates, March 1st, 1701. '* Deab Cottsht,
" Li compliance with yours of yesterday, I write this even- ing with intention to send my letter to Harlow to-morrow morning, that Mr Harrison may, if possible, find some way of conveyance of it to you bewre to-morrow night. The family and other circumstances have no exception, and the person I have heard commended, but yet the objection made IS considerable. I think the jo\ms gentleman concerned ought to manage it so as to be well satisfied whether that be what he can well bear, and will consist with the comfort
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1700.J LBTTBES TO MB KIKG. 265
and satisfaction he proposes to himself in that state before he seems to hearken to any such proposal, so that he may avoid what he cannot consent to, without any appearance of a refusal. For to make a visit upon such proposal, though it be designed without any consequence, and offered to be contrived as of chance, is yet a sort of address ; anJ then going no further, whatever is said will be ill taken of her mends, and consequently the whole family be disobliged, which will have ill consequences, and therefore should be avoided : for whatever reason a man may have to refuse a woman that is offered him, it must never be known that it was anything in her person ; such a discovery makes a mortal quarrel. If he that proposed it be the confidant of the young gentleman, and can be relied on by him, and has said nothing of it to her friends, he possibly may contrive an unsuspected interview, and is the fittest person to do it ; if not, the young man must find some other wav to satisfy himself that may not be discovered. A fnend of mine in Jermyn-street, who missed you narrowly when you came last from Exeter, knows her well ; but an inquiry there must be managed with great dexterity to avoid suspicion of the matter, and consequently talking of it. You shall be sure to hear from me in the matter before you go out of town, if you persist in the mind of going.
I am your most affectionate cousin,
and humble servant,
JoHir LooBj;.'
"Jan. 27, 1700. "Deab Cousnsr,
'* I am as positive as I can be in anything that you should not think of going the next circuit. I do not in the mean time forget your calling; but what this one omission may be of loss to you, may be made up otherwise. I am sure there never was so critical a time when every honest Member of Parliament ou|;ht to watch his trust, and that you will see before the end of the next vacation. I therefore expect in your mext a positive promise to stay in town. I tell you, you will not, vou shall not repent it. I cannot answer the other parts of your letter, lest I say nothing to you at all this post, and I must not omit by it to put an end to the remain-^
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256 LIFE AKD LBTTEB8 OP JOHN LOCKE. [lyOO.
Aer of your wavering about your going the circuit. I sliall enlarge in my next,
And am, yours, J. L."
"Gates, Jan. 31, 1700. *'I>Ei.B Corsnr,
" Haying no time but for a few words the last post, it is fit I now answer the other particulars of your letter, which I th^i was forced to omit. Your staying in town the next vacation I lock upon as resolved, and the reascms I find for it in your own letters, now that I have time to read them a little more deliberately, I think sufficient to determine you should, though I say nothing at all. Every time I think of it I am more and more confirmed in the opinion that it is absolutely necessary in all respects, whether I consider the public or your own private concerns, neither of which are indiffer^it to me. It is my private thought that the Parlia- ment will scarce ^t even so much as to choose a Speaker be- fore the end of the term ; but whenever he is chosen, it is of no small consequence which side carries it, if there be two nominated, <»* at least in view, as it is ten to one there will be, especially in a Parliament chosen with so much struggle.
" Having given all the help possibly you can in this, which is usually a leading point, showing the strength of the par- ties, my next advice. to you is not to speak at all in the House for some time, whatever fair opportunity you may seem to have : but though you keep your mouth shut, I doubt not but you will have your eyes open to see the temper and ob- serve the motions of the House, and diligently to remark the skill of management, and carefully watch the first and secret bednnings of things, and their tendencies, and endea- vour, if there l^ danger in them, to crush them in the eg^. You will say, what can you do who are not to speak ? It is true I would not have you speak to the House, but you may communicate your lignt cfr apprehensions to some honest speaker who may make use of it ; for there have always been veiy able members who never speak, who yet by their pene- tration and foresight have this way done as much service as any within those walls. And hereby you will more recom- mend yourself when people shaU observe so much modesty
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1700.] LETTEBS TO MR KING. 257
joined with your parts and judgment, than if you should seem forward though you spoke well. But let the man you communicate with be not only well-intentioned, but a man of judgment.
" Methinks I take too much upon me in these directions ; I have only then to say in my excuse, that you desired it more than once, and I advise you nothing I would not do riiyself were I in your place. I should have much more to say to you were you here, but'it being fitter for discourse than for letter, I hope I may see you here ere long. Sir Erancis having already proposed to me your stealing down sometimes with him on Saturday, and returning on Monday. The Votes you offer me will be very acceptable, and for some time at least during the busy season I Would be glad you would send me, every post, the three newspapers, viz. Postman, Postboy, and Flying Post ; but when you begin to send them you will do me a kindness to stop Mr Churchill from sending me any more, for he sends them now ; but it is by the butcher they come, and very uncertainly. But when you send me these papers, do not think you are bound always to write to me ; though I am always glad to hear from you, yet I must not
•ut that penance upon you. Things of moment I doubt not
ut you will let me know.
I am your affectionate cousin,
J. L."
e;
"Feb. 7tli, 1700. "Dear Cousik,
" I am glad to find by yours of the 30th Jan. that you are resolved to stay ; your own resolution in case of unforeseen accidents will always be in your power, or if you will make me your compliment that you will not go without my leave, you may be sure that in any unforeseen and pressing occa- sion that may happen that may make it necessary for you, you will not only have my leave, but my persuasion to go : but as things are, I think it for your interest to stay. If you have read the two parts of the Duke of Anjou's Succession Considered, pray tell me your opinion of it.
"Just now I received yours of the 4th; whether you should frequent the meeting of the Eose I know not, till I know who they are that meet there.
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258 LITB AJSTD LETTXB8 OF JOHK LOCKE. [X701.
" I think your cousin's advice about Bank bills and East India bonds is right. I wish the cash you have of mine were turned into guineas ; in that specie it will be fitter to lodge anywhere, as there shall be occasion. I hope with you it is very secure where it is, and I cannot desire vou should do better for me than for yourself; so that I shall rest satisfied whatever may happen, being confident you do for me as for yourself. Pray put in the Gazette with the other newspapers you send me.
Your affectionate cousin, and humble servant,
J. LOCKB."
« Gates, Feo. 29th, 1701. "DEi.E COTTSHf,
^' You need not make apologies for not precisely answering my letters : I can easily conceive your nands full of late. When you see my Lord Shaftesbury again, pray, with my most humble service, let him know that, though the honour of a visit from him be what I could not in good manners ask, yet there is nothing I have for this good while more earnestly longed for, than an opportunity oi kissing his hands ; and since he owns so favourable an intention, that of coming hither, my Lady Masham and I are in impatient expecta- tion of it.
" I believe Sir H. Fume's case might afford you fit occa- sion to speak in a matter which, being law, you might be fully master of. I am very glad the ice is broke, and that it has succeeded so well ; but now you have showed the House that you can speak, I advise you to let them see you can hold your peace, and let nothing but some point of law, which you are perfectly clear in, or the utmost necessity, call you up again.
" When you go to the meeting of those gentlemen you mention, I think you should say as little as possible as to public affairs, but behave yourself rather as one unyersed, and a learner in such matters. And your other business in the law will be an excuse, if you are not there every night, and you may always learn the next day what was debated there the night bewro.
'^ You will do me a kindness to send me word what is done in the House of Lords, and which way at any time they move with regard to public things on foot.
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1701.] LETTSBS TO HB KING. 259
'' I am glad to hear it said that the House seems in a good disposition, and resolved to support England against France ; but wonder at myself for saying I am glad, it being prodigious for any one to think it could ever be otherwise. And yet I find some here wonder, that whUst the King of France makes such a mighty collection of forces in Flanders just over against us, we hear not of raising any land-forces on this side the water, especially since the printed papers mention transport ships drawn together about Calais and that wa^. If his fleet should be ready before ours (which God forbid !) what will your thirty thousand seamen signify ?
I am, dear cousin, yours,
J. LOCICB.
" The transactions also of the Convocation are worth ob- serving : pray tell me, is Dr Kennet's answer to Mr Atter- bury worth the reading ? if it be, pray speak to Mr Churchill, whgn he comes in your way, to send it me."
" Gates, March 3rd. "Dear CorsiN,
" I imagine by what you say of the circuit, that you have not duly considered the state in which we are now placed. Pray reflect upon it well, and then tell me whether you can think of being a week together allsent from your trust in Parliament, till you see the main point settled, aiid the king- dom in a posture of defence against the ruin that threatens it. The reason why I pressed you to stay in town was, to give the world a testimony how much you preferred the public to your private interest, and how true you were to any trust you undertook ; this is no small character, nor of small advantage to a man coming into the world. Besides, I thought it no good' husbandry for a man to get a few fees on circuit, and lose Westminster Hall. For I assure you, Westminster Hall is at stake, and I wonder how any one of the House can sleep till he sees England in a better state of defence, and how he can talk of anything else till that is done. Pray read the pamphlet I sent you by M. Coste ; of the rest, you and I shall talk when I see you here : the sooner the better.
T am your afiectionate
J. L."
8 2
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260 LITE Ain) LETTBES OF JOHN LOCZE. [l702.
" Gates, 3rd Jan. 1701-2, **Deae CoTTsnr,
" I have received the prints you sent me ; I have read the King's speech, which is so gracious, and expresses so high concern for the reKgion, freedom, and interest of his people, that methinks that besides what the two Houses will do or have already done, the city of London and counties of Eng- land, and all those who have so lately addressed him, cannot do less than with joined hearts and hands return him ad- dresses of thanks for his taking such care of them. Think of this with yourself, and think of it with others who can and ought to tiiink how to save us out of the hands of France, into which we must fall, unless the whole nation exert its utmost vigour, and that speedily. Pray send me the King's speech printed by itself, and without paring off the edges ; a list also of the members, if there be yet any one printed com- plete and perfect.
I am, dear cousin, affectionately, <&c.,
J. L."
" Gates, 27ih Feb. 1701-2. "DEi.B COFSIK,
" I am more pleased with what you did for the public the day of your last letter than for anything you have done for me in my private affairs, though I am very much beholden to you for that too. You will guess by all my letters to you of late, how acceptable to me is the news of your not going out of town the beginning of the next week. You see what need there is of every one's presence, and how near things come. Do not at this time lose a week by going to Winchester or Salisbury. You think the crisis is over ; but you know the men indefatigable and always intent on opportunity, and that will make new crises, be but absent and afford occasion. I conclude, therefore, that you will stay at least a week longer ; and let me tell you it can, it will, it shall be no loss to you.
Your affectionate cousin,
John Locke."
"Gates, 5th April, 170X. # * * # #
" I confess I do not see, if we stick to our proposals, which the Putcb and we haye given in, how a war. can be
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iy02.] LEMEBS TO MB KING. 261
avoided ; and if we do not obtain tliat security, the Dutch and we must be lost. The House of Lords in their address are clear in that point, and I think everybody sees it. The good King of France desires only that you would take his word, and let him be quiet till he has got the West Indies into his hands, and his grandson well established in Spain ; and then you may be sure you shall be as safe as he will let you be, in your religion, property, and trade* To all which who can be such an infidel as not to believe him a great friend ?
" I am glad Lord Shaftesbury and you talk of coming at Easter, there will then be some kind of vacancy/'
,** Gates, 4th Nov. 1702. "Deab Cousnr,
" Had not my health with strong hand held me back from such a journey at this time of the year, especially to London, I had certainly, upon reading my Lord Peterborough's mes- sage to me in your letter, obeyed my inclination and come to kiss his hands before he went ; nor could the considerations of my health have hindered me, nor the remonstrances of my friends here against it, if I could have eeen anything wherein I could by waiting upon him have done any service to his Lordship. As it is, there is nothing I have borne so uneasily from the decays of age, my troublesome ear, my breathless lungs, and my being unable to stir, as the being stopped pay- ing my respects in person, upon his going upon such an expedition. And yet I know not what I could do were I now in London, but intrude myself unseasonably amidst a crowd of business, and rob him uselessly of some of his time, at a season when he cannot, I know, have a minute to spare. But when I have said and resolved all this, I find myself dis- satisfied in not seeing of him ; and 't is a displeasure will rest upon my mind, and add weight to that of those infirmi- ties that caused it. If I could hope that in this my state of confinement and impotency there was anything remained that might be useful to his Lordship, that would be some comfort and relief to me. And if he would let me know wherein I might be any way serviceable to him in his absence, it would make me put some value upon the little remainder of my life. And, dear cousin, if you could, before my Lord
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262 LIFE JlSJ) LETTEE8 OF JOHN LOCKE. [l702, 8.
goes, find an opportunity to wait upon him, and say some'^ thing to him from me to the purport ahove written, you would do me a singular kindness.
" Let me hear from you by the first opportunity.
Your affectionate cousin, J. Loceju'*
"Gates, 23rd Not. 1702. " Deab Cousnr,
" If you had come (as it seems you talked) with my Lord Peterborough, you had saved him the going several miles out of the way, and I had seen you ; but you had business, and I wonder not at it. I must trouble you once more to wait upon my Lord or Lady Peterborough in my name, with the return of my humble service and thanks for the honour they have done me, and my inquiries how they do after their jour- ney. I hope you will have an opportunity of going so &r as Bow-street to-morrow, that I may hear from you how they do. I was much in pain about theu* getting to town now the days are so short ; your letter saying nothing of them, makes ^me presume they got safe ; it would else have made a noise. Pray in your letter write whether my Lord Marlborough be yet come or no. I beg your pardon for this trouble, and ex- cuse it this once more.
And believe that I am your- affectionate J. L.
" AU here greet you."
« Gates, April 80th, 1703. " Deab CoiTSlW, ^
" I am puzzled in a little affair, and must beg your assist- ance for the clearing of it. Mr Newton, in Autumn last, made me a visit here; I showed him my Essay upon the Corinthians, with which he seemed very well pleased, but had not time to look it all" over, but promised me if I would send it him, he would carefully peruse it, and send me his observations and opinion. I sent it him before Christmas, but hearing nothing from him, I, about a month or six weeks since, writ to him, as the enclosed teUs you, with the remain- ing part of the story. When you have read it, and sealed it, I desire you to deliver it at your convenience. He lives in German St. : you must not go on a Wednesday, for that is his day for being at the Tower.
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1703.] LETTEES TO ME KINS. - 263
" The reason why I desire you to deliver it to him yourself is, that I would fain discover the reason of his so long silence. I have several reasons to think him truly my friend, but he is a nice man to deal with, and a little too apt to raise in himself suspicions where there is no ground ; tnerefore, when you talk to him of my papers, and of his opinion of them, pray do it with all the tenderness in the world, and discover, if you can, why he kept them so long, and was so silent. But this you must do without asking why he did so, or dis- covering in the least that you are desirous to know. You will do well to acquaint him that you intend to see me at "Whitsuntide, and shall be glad to bring a letter to me from him,^or anything else he will please to send; this per- haps may quicken him, and make him despatch these papers, if he has not done it already. It may a little let you into the freer discourse with him, if you let him know that when you have been here with me, you have seen me busy on them (and the Eomans too, if he mentions them, for I told him I was upon them when he was here), and have had a sight of some part of what I was doing.
" Mr Newton is really a very valuable man, not only for his wonderful skill in mathematics, but in divinity too, and his great knowledge in the Scriptures, wherein I know few his equals. And therefore pray manage the whole matter so as not only to preserve me in his good opinion, but to increase me in it ; and be sure to press nim to nothing, but what he is forward in himself to do.
" In your last, you seemed desirous of my coming to town ; I have ^any reasons to desire to be there, but I doubt whe- ther ever I shall see it again. Take not this for a splenetic thought ; I thank Gbd I have no melancholy on that account, but I cannot but feel what I feel ; my shortness of breath is BO far from being relieved by the renewing season of the year, as it used to be, that it sensibly increases upon me. Twas not therefore in a fit of dispiritedness, or to prevail with you to let me see you, that in my former I mentioned the shortness of the time I thought I had in this world. I spoke it then, and repeat it now upon sober and sedate con- sideration. I have several things to talk to you of, and some of present concernment to yourself, and I know not whether this may not be my last time of seeing you. I shall not die
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264 LIFE JlSD LETTEBS of JOKS LOCKE. [l70S.
the sooner for having cast up my reckoning, and judging as impartially of my state as I can. I hope I shall not live one jot the less cheerfully the time that I am here, nor neglect any of the offices of life whilst I have it ; for whether it be a month or a year, or seven years longer, the longest any one out of kindness or compliment can propose to me is so near nothing when considered, and in respect of eternity, that if the sight of death can put an end to the comforts of life, it is always near enough, especially to one of my, age, to have no satisfkction in living.
I am your affectionate cousin
And humble servant, J. L."
••Gates, April 23, 1703. "Dea.b CoTTsnr,
" I told you that the Term had got you, nor am I dissatis* fied that you mind your business ; but I do not well bear it that you speak so doubtfully of making yourself and me a holiday at Whitsuntide. I do not count upon much time in this world, and therefore you will not blame me (if you think right of me) for desiring to see and enjoy you as much as I can, and having your company as much as your business vdll permit : besides that, I tmnk some intervals of ease and air are necessary for you."
"Gates, Not. 16, 1703. "DEi.B Cousnr,
"I take very kindly your offer of coming hither: your kindness makes me very willing to see and enjoy you, but at the same time it makes me the more cautious to disturb your business ; however, since you allow me the liberty, you may be assured, if there be occasion, I shall send for you.
" I am troubled at the news from Turkey, for though I think I shall be gone before any storm from thence can reach hither, yet you and my friends and my country, whilst I have any thought, will be dear to me.
"As to my lungs, they go on their course, and though they have brought me now to be good for nothing, I am not surprised at it ; they have lasted longer already than the world or I expected ; how much longer they will be able to blow at the hard rate they do, I cannot precisely say. But
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1708, 4.] LETTERS TO ME KING. 265
in the race of human life, when breath is wanting for the least motion, one cannot be far from one's journey's end. Your affectionate cousin,
And humble servant, J. L."
" Dec. 4, 1703.
" If Sir Cloudesly Shovel and the men-of-war that went out of the Downs with him are lost, and the storm has that effect upon us and the Dutch that the King of Spain cannot go between this and Christmas to Portugal, as was concerted^ what other thing can be reasonable to be done, but to keep ready money by you for any exigence that may happen ? there you have in short my measures. I would not, I confess, part with a penny for parchment or paper securities of any Kind, till I could see what is like to come of the terrible shock."
** Gates, June 1, 1704.
" I have received no letters from you since the 20th. I remember it is the end of a Term, a busy time with you, and you intend to be here speedily, which is better than writing at a distance. Pray be sure to order vour matters so as to spend all the next week with me : as mr as I can impartially guess, it will be the last week I am ever like to have with you ; for if I mistake not very much, I have -very little time left in the world. This comfortable, and to me usually restor- ative, season of the year has no effect upon me for the bet- ter : on the contrary, my shortness of breath, and uneasiness, every day increases ; my stomach, without any visible cause, sensibly decays, so that all appearances concur to warn me that the dissolution of this cottage is not far off. Eefuse not, therefore, to help me to pass some of the last hours of my life as easily as may be in the conversation of one who is not only the nearest, but the dearest to me, of any man in the world. I have a great many things to talk to you, which I can talk to nobody else about. I therefore desire you again, deny not this to my affection. I know nothing At such a time so de- sirable, and so useful, as the conversation of a friend one loves and relies on. It is a week free from business, or if it were not, perhaps you would have no reason to repent the bestowing a day or two upon me. Make haste, therefore, on Saturday, and oe here early : I long till I see you. I writ to
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266 LIFE AITD LETTEES OF JOHN LOCKE. [l704
you in my last, to bring some cherries with you, but fear they will be troublesome to you ; and these things, that entertain the senses, have lost with me a great part of their relish ; therefore, give not yourself any trouble about them ; such desires are usually bift the fancy seeking pleasure in one thing, when it has missed it in another, and seeks in vain for the de- light which the indisposition of the body has put an end to. When I have your company, I shall forget these kind of things. I am, dear cousin, your most affectionate
J. Locke.*'
It was probably in this calm and philosophic temper of mind that he wrote the epitaph, which was afterwards placed upon his tomb, at High Laver.
" Siste, viator ; juxta situs est * * * *. Si qualis fuerii rogas, mediocritate sua contentum se vixisserespondet.. Literis in- nutritus, eousque tantum profecit ut veritati unice studeret. Hoc ex scriptis illius disce ; quae, quod de eo reliquum est, majori fide tibi eihibebunt, quam epitaphii suspecta elogia. Yirtutes si quas habuit, minores sane quam quas sibi laudi, tibi in exemplum proponeret. Vitia una sepeliantur. Morum exemplum si quaeras, in Evangelio habes (vitiorum utinam , nusquam), mortalitatis certe quod prosit hie et ubique.
"Natum • * * .
"Mortuum ♦ * * *
** Memorat hac tabula brevi et ipsa interitura."
During the last four years of his life, increasing infirmities confined him to the retirement he had chosen at Oates, near High Laver, in Essex ; and although labouring under an in- curable disorder, he was cheerful to the last, constantly inter- ested in the welfare of his friends, and at the same time per- fectly resigned to his own fete. His literary occupation at that time was the study of, and Commentary on, St Paul's Epistles, published amongst his posthumous works.
Li October, 1704}, his disorder greatly increased : on the 27th of that month. Lady Masham, not finding him in his study as usual, went to his bedside, when he told her that the fatigue of getting up the day before had been too much fot his strength, and that he never expected to rise again from his bed. He said that he had now finished his career in this
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1704.] HIS DEATH. 267
TTorld, and that in all probability he should not outlive the night, certainly not to be able to survive beyond the next day or two. After taking some refreshment, he said to those present that he wished them aU happiness after he was gone. To Lady Masham, who remained with him, he said that he thanked God he had passed a happy life, but that now he found that all was vanity, and exhorted her to consider this world only as a preparation for a better state hereafter. He would not suffer her to sit up with him, saying, that perhaps he might be able to sleep, but if any change should happen, he would send for her. Having no sleep in the night, he was taken out of bed and carried into his study, where he slept for some time in his chair : after waking, he desired to oe dressed, and then heard Lady Masham read the Psalms, ap- parently with great attention, until, perceiving his end to draw near, he stopped her, and expired a very few minutes after- wards, about three o'clock in the afternoon of the 28th Octo- ber, in his 73rd year.
Whto we consider the number of his publications, as well as the subjects which he discusses, it is evident that his appli- cation must have been very great, and to enumerate his works will prove . his surprising industry. His great work, the Essay on Human "Understanding, was first published in 1690, nearly at the same time as Newton's Principia, both con- tributing to render illustrious the era of the Eevolution. The Treatise on Civil Government, a Letter for Toleration, first published in Latin, in Holland, and afterwards in Eng- Hsh, with the second Letter in defence of Toleration, were «11 published in 1690, and a third Letter in 1692. The Treatise on Education,* 1690 ; that concerning raising the
* Bayle, Op. Mix. torn. 4, p. 695. Lettre k Minutol, September 21, 1693. ^' M. l^ke a public en Anglais diTerses Pens^es sur 1' Education des Enfans. C'est nn profond philosophe, et qui a des Tues fort finies sur tout oe qu'il entrenend/' — ^And in page 696, ^* Quelqu'un travaille k mettre en Fran^ais les Pens^es que Monsieur Locke, I'un aes plus profonds metaphy- fiioiens de ce sidcle, a publics en Anglais sur I'Education. C'est un homme de beaacoup d' esprit. Je I'ai rd ici (Roterdam) pendant le regne du Koi Jaques ; la Rerolution le ramena en Angleterre, oti il est fort content. H a publi4 un s^rst^me de Tentendement, et un traits de Torigine du GrouTeme- ment, le dernier a M traduit en Frantjais. II prouve que la souveraint^ i^partient aux peuples, et qu'ils ne font que la d^poser entre les mains de MUX qu'on appetle souverains ; sauf k eux k retirer leur d6p6t pour le mieuz
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268 LIFE a:si} lettebs of JOHN LOCICE.
value of Money and lowering the Interest, 1691 ; and further considerations on the same subject, 1696, when he was very much consulted on the measures then in operation for restor- ing the coin. The Beasonableness of Cnrlstianity,* 1695,
Slacer, lorsque le bien public le demande. Vous savez que c'est I'evangile u jour k present parmi les Protestans,*' &c.
* Locke on the Beasonableness of the Christian Religion, criticised in Vol. II. Biblioth^ue choisie of Le Clerc, and Histoire des Ouyraees des Savans, Feb. 1703. Bayle, Op. torn. 4, p. 834. Letter to Coste, Dec. 27, 1703. " Autant que ie rai compris [the work on the Reasonableness, &c.] cet ouvrage tend a montrer, que pourru que Ton croie que Jesus Christ est le Messie, et que Ton ait une intention sincere d'obeir a ses preceptes, et de decouvrir les autres Veritas contenus dans le Nouveau Testament, on a toute I'essence du Chretien : de sorte (^u'en viyant selon TEyangile, autant que la fragility humaine le pent souffrir, et en suppliant par la foi et par ta. r^ pentance ce qui manque aux bonnes oeuYres, on est sauv^ aussi sCbrement, que si I'on etoit 6clair6 sur tons les myst^res que TEglise Anglicane, par exemple, trouve dans les ecrits des Apdtres.
<* L'auteur nous apprend dans la seconde partie, qu'il a surtout eu dessein de convertir les D^istes : on a done lieu de croire qu*il a pr^tendu faire voir, que r esprit de la Religion Chr^tienne n'est pas d'exi^er de Thomme, com- me une condition n^cessaire k ^tre sauv^, que Ton croie ce grand nombre de dogmes incomprehensibles et qui choquent la lumi^re naturelle, dont la con* fession des Protestans est charg^e : le P^ch^ originel, la Trinity, I'unioa hypostatique du Verbe, &c. II n'a point travaill6 a concilier avec la raison, ou k imposer k la raison le joug de cos dogmes, comme il a travaill^ forte- ment k refuter les objections fond6es sur les faits de la conduite du Messie ; je veux dJre, sur la mani^re de cacher ou de deguiser sa Mission, d'emploier des responses ambigues quand il etoit interroge par les Pharisiens, &c. : choses que certains Juifs ont Tiolemment critiqu^es, et qui out je ne S9ai quoi de choc^uant. L'auteur a dit, ce me sembie, la-dessus de tres bonnes choses ; mais je ne crois point qu*il j ait des Sociniens qui ne souserioient k son liyre, gSneralement parlant ; et il est certain ^ue cette Secte a toujours Buivie cette tablature, pour rendre le Christiamsme plus conforme aux lumi^res de la raison."
Ditto, page 840. Letter to Coste, April 8, 1704.
" H auroit 6t^, peutetre, k souhaiter que Pauteur se fdt' fait cette objec- tion. Qu' encore qu'au commencement du Christianisme on f&t sauv^ sans une croyance distincte de la consubstantialit^ du Verbe, U ne s'ensuit pas
Dieu, et les autres mani^res : mais aujourd'hui cette abstraction est im* possible, n faut, ou admettre formellement, ou rejetter formellement la co-essentialit^ du Verbe. Cela fait une difference capitale ; car vous sayez que * abstrahentium non est mendacium.' Tel 6toit r^tat des simples aux
Eremiers sidles ; ils n'affirmoient ni ne nioient ce dogme ]k ; leur foi 6toit i-dessus ind^terminee. Mais depuis des disputes et les decisions, il faut opter ou la negative ou Taffirmatiye. Or il est bien plus criminel de rejet-
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1704.] CODICIL EELATIITG TO HIS WOEKS. 269
and a first and second vindication of the same, 1696, and also the three elaborate Letters in defence of the principles con- tained in the Essay against the attacks of the Bishop of Wor- cester.
The Conduct of thfe Understanding, one of the most useful and practical of his works, and the Commentaries and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, close the catalogue of those of his literary labours which have been given to the world.*
CODICIL OF ME LOCKE's WILL EELATINQ TO HIS WOEKS.
"Whereas the Eev. Dr Hudson, library keeper of the Bodleian Library in the University of Oxford, writ to me some time since, desirin^g of me, for the said library, the books whereof I was the author, I did, in return to the honour done me therein, present to the said library all the books that were published in mv name, which though accepted with honour- able mention of me, yet were not understood fully to answer the request made me ; it being supposed that there were other treatises, whereof I was the author, which had been published without my name to them : in compliance, therefore, with what was desired in the utmost extent of it, and in acknowledg-
ter une Y6rit6 propos^e, (^ue d'ignorer simplemeiit si les termes, sous lesqueb on croit, sigmfieut pricis^ment, d^terminement^ une telle chose, ou-une autre,"
♦ COPYBIGHT OF LOOKS 'B WOBKS.
Mr Locke received for the first edition of the Essay on Human tJnder- standing £30 in 1689 ; and bv agreement made several years afterwards, the bookseller was to deliver six Docks well bound for every subsequent edition, and also to pay ten shillings for each additional sheet. For the Reason- ableness of Christianity, the price was ten shillings each sheet. For '^ the oopy of several other books," which I believe were, the Consideration of raising the Value, or loweriuj^ the Interest of Money, the Reasonableness of Clmstianity, and Vindication of the same, the sum received was " £44 16*." For the Treatise on Education, £5 for every impression, and twenty- five books bound in cal|. Of this book Mr Cline, the celebrated surgeon, said that it had contributed more to the general health of the higher classes of society, by one rule which the author lays down, than any other book he had ever read.
X698. My Reply to the Bishop of Worcester's second answer £14 10».
Fourth edition of my Education 5.
1699. Third Letter to the Bishop of Worcester 14.
Locke*8 Account-Books.
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270 LIFE AlTD LETTEBS OE JOHN LOCEE. [l704.
ment of the honour done me, in thinking my writings worthy to be placed among the works of the learned, in that august repository, — I do hereby give to the public library of the University of Oxford these following books ; that is to say, three letters concerning Toleration, the first whereof I writ in Latin, and was published at Tergon in Holland, 1689, under the. title "!E5)istola de Toleranti&," and afterwards translated into English, without my privity. 2nd, A second letter concerning Toleration, printed for Awnsham and John Churchill, 1690. 3rd, A third letter for Toleration, to the author of the third letter concerning Toleration, printed for Awnsham and John Churchill, 16921- Two Treatises of go- vernment, whereof Mr Churchill has published several edi- tions, but all very incorrect. The Eeasonableness of Chris- tianity as delivered in the Scriptures. A Vindication of the Eeasonableness of Christianity from Mr Edwards' reflections. A Second Vindication of the Beasonableness of Christianity. These are all the books whereof I am the author, which have been published without my name to them. Item. I give to the said Bodleian Library the argument of the letter con- cerning Toleration, briefly considered and answered, printed at Oxford, 1691, both which treatises it is my will should be bound up in one volume, with my three letters on the same subject, that therein any one who pleaseth may have the con- venience to examine what my opponent and I have said in the controversy.
" Item. Whereas there is intended speedily another edition of my Essay concerning Human Understanding, wherein there will be in the thirty-first chapter of the second book some small alterations which I have made with my own hand, that the University which hath been pleased to honour it with a place in its librarv may have that Essay in the Estate that my last thoughts left it in, it is my will that my executor shall, in my name, present to the said Bodleian Library, one copy of the next edition of my said Essay well bound. Item. "Whereas I am informed that there is a design of publishing two other volumes as a continuation of the collection of voyages published this year by A. and S. Churchill in four vols. folio,xit is my will that my executor shall, in my name, present to the, said Bodleian Library the two intended
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LE CLEEO'S CHABACTEE OF LOCKE. 271
volumes also, when they come out, which I do hereby give to the University of Oxibrd."
The character of Locke which Le Clerc has added to his eloge, derived, as he tells us, from a person who knew him well, is too excellent to be omitted.
"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 some- thing of almost everything 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 as- sumed less the airs of a master, or was Ibss dogmatical, and he was never offended when any one did not agree with his opinions. 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 whomever 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 tilings concerning the arts and trade, that he seemed to have made them his particular study, insomuch that those whose profession they were often
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272 LIFE AND LETTEES OE JOHIT LOCKE.
profited by his information, and consulted him with advant- age. Bad manners particularly annoyed and disgusted him, when he saw they proceeded not from ignorance of the world, but from pride, from haughtiness, from ill-nature, 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 aught to be more insisted on tjian it commonly is. He recommended with reference to this a tract of Messrs. de Port Boyal, * sur les moyens de conserver la paix avec les hommes ;' and he much approved the sermons he had heard from Mr Wichkot, a Doctor of Divinity, on this subject, and which have since been printed.
" His conversation wa? 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 acquired them by intercourse with the world, ^nd 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 iii 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 anything which could shock or injure any body. He knew how to soften everything he said, and to give it an agreeable turn. If he joked his friends, it was about a trifling Siult, 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 naturei defect.
" He was very charitable to the poor, provided they were not the idle, or the profligate, who did not frequent any church,
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LE CLEEC'S CHABACTEE OF LOCKE. 273
or who spent their Sundays in an alehouse. 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 neighbour- hood, and gave them the wherewithal to relieve their wants, or to buy the medicines which he prescribed for them if they were sick, and had no medical aid.
" He did not like anything to be wasted ; which was, in his opinion, losing the treasure of which G-od has made us the economists. He himself was very regular, and kept exact accounts of everything.
" If he had any defect, it was the being somewhat passion- ate ; but he had got the better of it by 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 no- thing 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 bis 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 anything which could prove injurious, although he had not been enjoined secrecy ; nor did 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 anybody, 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 sensible people, and he courted their conversation. He possessed all the re- quisite qualities for keeping up an agreeable and friendly in- tercourse. 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 pro-
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274 LIFE AND LETTEBB OP JOHK LOCKS. H^
Eosed it, and said it was only an amusement for tHose who ave no conversation.
^' In bis habits he was clean without affectation or singu- larity ; he was naturally yery active, and occupied himself as much as his health would admit of. Sometimes he took pleasure in working in a garden, which he understood per- fectly. He liked exercise, But the complamt 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 com- panion, 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 *iimself 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 siffht, which was not much impaired at the end of his life ; for he could read by candle-light aU sorts of books, un- less 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 pleasures of conversation, he doubted whether olind- ness 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 flattered descriptionof this great man."
It has been observed in this character of Locke, that he knew something of almost everything, and that he had learned so much of the Arts that he seemed to have made them his peculiar study. The truth and accuracy of this remark is fully confirmed by the numerous receipts, memoranda, and observations, scattered throughout the Journal. All, or very nearly all, these have been omitted, because their publication would now be useless, considering the improvements that have been made in arts and manufactures during the last century and a half. As they exist in the original Journal, they afford a striking proof of the activity of his mind, of
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HIS CHABA.CTEB. 275
his industry in obtaining information, and of the accuracy of his descriptions. It is sufficient to say, that if he sees a cannon foundry, or a manufacture of fire-arms, he notes down in great detail the exact process of casting and boring, and of making the best French or G-erman gun-barrels. He does the same of optical glasses, and of microscopes. He is as curious in observing the fermentation of wine, the method of making soap or verdigris, as he is to collect the most ac- curate information respecting the weights and measures or the true proportion of alloy in the different coins of every country in*Europe. In one page he describes the manage- ment of vines, oUves, and fruit-trees ; in another, the prepar- ation of Spanish perfomes; and in another, he writes on the metaph;^sical questions of space and extension.
The religious opinions of this great man may best be col- lected from his own writings : to an ardent piety and a firm belief in the religion he professed, was joined a truly Christian charity for all those who differed in opinion from him. The religion of Locke was that revealed in the Scriptures, which, in his opinion, was the most reasonable religoin in the world. Of the particular form of his faith, it is more difficult to speak, because he was always averse to vain and idle disput- ations : but for the dogmatical and mystical doctors of the Church he certainly had no predilection. Eeason was his rule and guide in everything ; toleration was his text ; and he abhorred tho^e only who pervert that divine precept, which teaches — to promote peace on earth, and good-will towards man. Those who rely upon his authority, and make use of his name, would do well to consider what manner of Christian he was; and, "when they bid others believe because he be- lieved, let them also teach as he taught, and practise those virtues which he practised.
He lived in communion with the Church of England ; but it will appear most clearly, from extracts which will be -given from an unpublished reply to a work of Dr Stillingfleet's, that he entertained a strong opinion that the exclusive doc- trines of the Church of !l^gland were very objectionable ; that he thought them much too narrow and confined, and that he wished for a much larger and easier comprehension of Protestants.
The following paper, in Locke's hand-writing, was drawn T 2
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276 LIFE AKD LETTERS OF JOHN LOCKE. [I688.
up by him apparently for the rule and guidance of a religious society, whilst he resided in Holland, as it is dated 1688. It may be considered as his idea of a pure Christian community, or church untainted by worldly considerations, or by profes- sional arts.
PACiriC CHBISTIANS.
1. We think nothing necessary to be known or believed for salvation, but what Q-od hath revealed.
2. We therefore embrace all those who, in sincerity, receive the Word of Truth revealed in the Scripture, atfd obey the light which enlightens every man that comes into the world,
3. We judge no man in meats, or drinks, or habits, or days, or any other outward observances, but leave every one to his freedom in the use of those outward things which he thinks can most contribute to build up the inward man in righteousness, holiness,^ and the true love of G-od, and his neighbour, in Christ Jesus.
4. If any one find any doctrinal parts of Scripture difficult to be understood, we recommend him, — 1st, The study of the Scriptures in humility and singleness of heart ; 2nd, Prayer to the Father of lights to enlighten him ; 3rd, Obedience to what is already revealed to him, remembering that the prac- tice of what we do know is the surest way to more know- ledge ; our infallible guide having told us. If any man will do the will of Him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine, John vii. 17. 4th, We leave him to the advice and assistance of those whom he thinks best able to instruct him. No men, or society of men, having any authority to impose their opinions or interpretations on any other, the meanest Chris- tian. Since, in matters of religion, every man must know, and believe, and give an account for himself. *
5. We hold it to be an indispensable duty for all Christians to maintain love and charity in the diversity of contrary opinions : by which charity we do not mean an empty sound, but an effectual forbearance and good-will, carrying men to a communion, friendship, and mutual assistance one of an- other, in outward as well as spiritual things ; and by debar- ring all magistrates from making use of their authority, much less their sword (which was put into their hands only against evilrdoers), in matters of faith or worship.
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1688.] IDEA or A PUEE CHRISTIAN COMMUyiTT. 277
6. Since the Christian religion we profess is not a notional science, to furnish speculation to the brain, or discourse to the tongue, but a rule of righteousness to influence our lives, Christ having given himself to redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people zealous of good works,* we profess the only business of our public assemblies to be to exhort thereunto, laying aside all controversy and speculative questions, instruct and encourage one another in the duties of a good life, which is acknowledged to be the great busi- ness of true religion, and to pray God for the assistance of his Spirit for the enlightening our understanding and subdu- ing our corruptions, that so we may return unto him a rea- sonable and acceptable service, iand show our faith by our works, proposing to ourselves and others the example of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as the great pattern for our imitation.
7. One alone being our Master, even Christ, we acknow- ledge no masters of our assembly ; but if any man in the spirit of love, peace, and meekness, has a word of exhort- ation, we hear him.
8. Nothing being so oppressive, or having proved so fatal to unity, love, and charity, the first great characteristical duties of Christianity, as men's fondness of their own opin- ions, and their endeavours to set them up, and have them followed, instead of the G-ospel of peace ; to prevent those seeds of dissension and division, and maintain unity in the difference of opinions which we know cannot be avoided — if any one appear contentious, abounding in his own sense rather than in love, and desirous to draw followers after him- self, with destruction or opposition to others, we judge him not to have learned Christ as he ought, and therefore not fit to be a teacher of others.
9. Decency and order in our assemblies being directed, as they ought, to edification, can need but very few and plain rules. Time and place of meeting being settled, if anything else need regulation, the assembly itself, or four of the ancientest, soberest, aild discreetest of the brethren, chosen for that occasion, shall regulate it.
10. From every brother that, after admonition, walketh disorderly, we withdraw ourselves.
♦ Titus ii. 14.
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278 LITB AKD LETTEBS OF JOHN LOCKE.
11. We each of us think it our duty to propagate the doctrine and practice of universal good-will and obe£ence in all places, and on all occasions, as Gk>d shaU give us oppor- tunity
Thus lived this great and upright man, whose private history I have endeavoured to inake more known from the memorials he has left, and from the best information that I have been able to collect. From these and from his works, it is evident that his understanding was alike fitted for specu- lation or practice ; and that his mind was capable of compre- hending tne greatest subjects, and of adaptmg itself to the smallest details. He regulated his afi&irs, his time, and his employments with the truest economy, and the most exact attention to method and order. He was ever ready to assist his friends, and he had the satisfaction of retaining their attachment to the end of his life. He possessed those great requisities of happiness, equanimity, cheerfulness of temper, and the habit of constantly employing his mind in the pur- suit of noble or useful objects. He was engaged not only in metaphysical and logical researches, but in most of the great questions which agitated men's minds in religion and politics daring the period in which he lived ; and greater questions certainly never were decided than those contended for between the time of the Civil Wars of Charles the First and the Eevolution of 1688. Whatever may be the inaccuracies or errors in his abstract principles, and many exceptionable pas- sages may no doubt be found in his works, yet it is allowed that, when writing on political questions, he thoroughly weighed and maturely considered the practical results, and arrived at conclusions which are always just, generous, and prudent.
It was within the compass of his life thai the great ques- tion of Toleration was first agitated, and by his exertions in great part decided. For it must not be supposed that the Keformatiou conferred a general freedom of conscience, or liberty of inquiry in religious concerns. No greater latitude of examination (except in that one sense as set forth by Authority), was either intended or permitted after the Reform- ation, than had been allowed under the Boman Church
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HIS GHABACTEB. 279
One tyranny was replaced by another ; and the new .Church was no less intolerant than its predecessor. The civil magis- trate first assumed the direction of the Eeformation in Eng- land, then formed a league with the Church (falsely so called), and usurped that dominion over Opinion and faith which the Popes had usurped before. The State-Church now made the same imperious demand for the prostration of the under- standing, and the will of the people committed to their charge, always sp much coveted by every priesthood* which has the power to enforce it. "We exchanged at the Eeformation a foreign spiritual head for an equally supreme dictatorship at home. AH who presumed to differ from the established rule, were smitten by that double-edged sword which the civil power wielded against the Papists on one side, and the "fanatics" on the other. Ultra dtraque nefa^^ it treated with equal severity those who yielded too much to authority, and those who yielded too little.
In one respect, the Eeformation conferred an unmixed benefit ; it dispersed the wealth and broke the power of the priesthood : as for toleration, or any true notion of religious liberty, or any general freedom of conscience, we owe them not in the least degree to what is called the Church of Eng- land. On the contrary, we owe all these to the Independents in the time of the Commonwealth, and to Locke, their most illustrious and enlightened disciple.
If we consider the political changes which it was his for- tune to witness, and the important effects produced by his opinions and his writings in promoting the free exercise of reason, which he considered as the highest of all the high in- terests of mankind, and that on the security of which all others depended ; we shall be of opinion that his lot was cast at the time the most fortunate for hmiself, and for the impirove- ment of mankind. Had he lived a century earlier, he might have been an inquirer indeed, or a reformer, or perhaps a martyr ; but the Reformation, which was brought about by passion and interest, more than by reason, was not the occa- sion for the exercise of his peculiar talents. Had he lived at a later period, the season and the opportunity suited to his genius might have passed by.
It was also withm the compass of his life that the other * See Locke, Common-place Book, article Sacerdos.
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280 LIFE AKD LETTEES OF JOHN LOCKE.
great contest was decided in England ; whether the rights of Kings were to be paramount to all laws, to supersede all laws, and to dispense with all laws ; or whether the subjects of Eng- land were to possess and enjoy their ancient imdoubted rights and liberties, as claimed and asserted at the Eevolution, of which Locke was the most successful advocate. His object in the treatise on Civil Government, was, as he says, "to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William ; to make good his title in the consent of the people, which being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom ; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with the resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin."
Sir James Mackintosh, after praising the caution for which Locke's Treatise on G-ovemment is so remarkable, bearing, as he says, everywhere the marks of his own considerate mind, has observed that " the circumstances of his life rendered it a long warfare against the enemies of freedom in philosophiziug, freedom in worship, and freedom from every political restraint which necessity did not justify. In his noble ze^ for liberty of thought, he dreaded the tendency of doctrines which might gradually prepare mankind to * swallow that for an innate principle which may suit his purpose who teacheth them.^ He might well be excused, if in the ardour of his generous con- flict, he sometimes carried beyond the bounds of calm and neutral reason, his repugnance to doctrines which, as they were then generally explained, he justly regarded, as capable of being employed to shelt'Cr absurdity from detection, to stop the progress of free inquiry, and to subject the general reason to the authority of a few mdividuals."
The same accurate judge has observed, that " every error of Mr Locke in specidation, may be traced to the influence of some virtue ; at least every error, except some of the erroneous opinions generally received in his age, which with a sort of passive acquiescence he suffered to retain their place in his mind."
After selecting this favourable apology for Locke's errors, I may be accused of partiality if I omit noticing the opinion of another most acute writer, who speaking of the Essay has
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HIS OHABACTEB. 281
declared, "that few books can be named from whicb it is possible to extract more exceptionable passages.*' It is, bow- ever, thought by many, that Mr Stewart scarcely does justice to Locke's principles, and that he too much distrusted their tendency. On the subject of free will, he says, " Locke is more indistinct, midecided, and inconsistent, than might have been expected from his powerful mind when directed to so important a question." He seems to think that he had made various concessions to his adversaries, in which he yielded all that was contended for by Hobbes. He has accordingly been numbered, with some appearance of truth, with those who have substantially adopted the scheme of necessity, while they verbally oppose those doctrines.
That some of the principles contained in the Essay may possibly lead to these extreme consequences, that they may be pushed thus far, that these grave objections have been brought forward, cannot be denied, I should, however, have profited little from the example and precepts of that upright man, whose life I have endeavoured to make more generally knoi^Ti, whose sincerity and simplicity, whose constant search for truth, are among the most distinguished features of his character, if I attempted to palliate or disguise those im- puted errors and mistakes, which he himself, if convinced, would have been the first to retract. " Whatever I write," these are his own words, " as soon as I shall discover it not , to be truth, my hand shall be forwardest to throw it in the fire."
The delineation of his true character, whatever may be its defects, the most faithful portrait of him, will, I believe, con- tribute more effectually to his real fame, than any praise, however laboured and brilliant it might be, and I am con- vinced it is the only panegyric which is worthy of him.
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EXTEACTS
FROM
LOCKE'S COMMON-PUCE BOOK.
(On the first page is written, ** Nat. 29 August, 1632, Adversaria, 1661.**)
EBBOB.
The great division amoDg Christians is about opinions. Every sect has its set of them, and that is called Orthodoxy ; and be who professes his assent to them, though with an im- plicit faith, and without examining, he is orthodox and in the way to salvation. But if be examines, and thereupon ques- tions any one of them, he is presently suspected of heresy, and if he oppose them or hold the contrary, be is presently condemned as in a damnable error, and in the sure way to perdition.
Of this, one may say, that there is, nor can be, nothing more wrong. For be that examines, and upon a fEur exam- ination embraces an error for a truth, has done his duty, more than he who embraces the profession (for the truths them- selves be does not embrace) of the truth without having ex- amined whether it be true or no. And be that has done bis duty, according to the best of his ability, is certainly more in the way to Heaven than he who has done nothing oi it. For if it be our duty to search after truth, he certainly that has searched after it, though be has not found it, in some points has paid a more acceptoble obedience to the will of bis Maker, than be that ha9 not searched at all, but professes to have found truth, when be has neither searched nor found it. For he that takes up the opinions of anj Church in the lump, without examining them, has truly neither searched after nor found truth, but has only found those that he thinks have
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EXTRACTS FEOM HIS COMMOK-PLACE BOOK. 283
found truth, and so receives what they say with an implicit faith, and so pajs them the homage that is due only to God, who cannot be deceived, nor deceive.
In this way the several Churches (in which, as one may ob- serve, opinions are preferred to life, and orthodoxy is that which they are concerned for, and not morals) put the terms of salvation on that which the Author of our salvation does not put them in. The believing of a collection of certain pro- positions, which are called and esteemed fundamental articles, because it has pleased the compilers to put them into their confession of faith, is made the condition of salvation. But this believing is not, in truth, believing, but a profession to believe ; for it is enough to join with those who make the same profession ; and ignorance or disbjelief of some of those articles is well enough borne, and a man is orthodox enough and without any suspicion, till he begins to examine. As soon as it is perceived that he quits the implicit faith expected though disowned by the Church, his orthodoxy is presently questioned, and he is marked out for a heretic.
In this wajr of an implicit faith, I do not deny but a man who believes in God the Father Almighty, and that Jesus Christ is his only Son our Lord, may be saved, because many of the articles of every sect are such as a man may be saved without the explicit belief of. But how the several Churches who place salvation in no less than a knowledge and belief of their several confessions, can content themselves with such an implicit faith in any of their members, I must own I do not see.
The truth is, we cannot be saved without performing some*- thing which is the explicit believing of what G^d in the Gospel has made absolutely necessary to salvation to be ex- plicitly believed, and sincerely to obey what he has there commanded. To a man who believes in Jesus Christ, that he is sent from God to be the Saviour of the world, the first step to orthodoxy is a sincere obedience to his law.
Objection — But 'tis an ignorant day-labourer that cannot so much as read, and how can he study the Gospel, and be- come orthodox that way? Answer — A ploughman that cannot read, is not so ignorant but he has a conscience, and knows in those few cases which concern his own actions, what is right and what is wrong. Let him sincerely obey this
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light of nature, it is the transcript of the moral law in the Q-ospel ; and this, even though there be errors in it, wiU lead him into all the truths in the Gospel that are necessary for him to know. For he that in earnest believes Jesus Christ to be sent from God, to be his Lord and ruler, and does sincerely and unfeignedly set upon a good life as far as he knows his duty ; and where he is in doubt in any matter that concerns himself, he cannot fail to inquire of those better skilled in Christ's law, to tell him what his Lord and Master has commanded in the case, and desires to have his law read to him concerning that duty which he finds himself concerned in, for the regulation of his own actions ; for as for other . men's actions, what is right or wrong as to them, that he is not concerned to know ; his business is to live weU with him- self, and do what is his particular duty. This is knowledge and orthodoxy enough for him, which vdll be sure to bring him to salvation, — an orthodoxy which nobody can miss, who in earnest resolves to lead a good life ; and, therefore, I lay it down as a principle of Christianity, that the right and only way to saving orthodoxy, is the sincere and steady pur- pose of a good life.
Ignorant of many things contained in the Holy Scriptures we are all. • Errors also concerning doctrines delivered in Scripture, we have all of us not a few : these, therefore, can- not be damnable, if any shall be saved. And if they are dangerous, 'tis certain the ignorant and illiterate are safest, for they have the fewest errors that trouble not themselves with speculations above their capacities, or beside their con- cern. A good life in obedience to the law of Christ their Lord, is their indispensable business, and if they inform themselves concerning that, as far as their particular duties lead them to inquire, and oblige them to know, they have orthodoxy enough, and will not be condemned for ignorance in those speculations which they had neither parts, oppor- tunity, nor leisure to know.
Here we may see the difference between the orthodoxy required by Christianity, and the orthodoxy required by the several sects, or, as they are called, Churches of Christians. The one is explicitly to believe what is indispensably re- quired to be believed as absolutely necessary to salvation, . and to know and believe in the other doctrines of faith de-
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livered in the wori of God, as a man has opportunity, helps, and parts ; and to inform himself in the rules and measures of his own duty as far as his actions are concerned, and to pay a sincere obedience to them. But the other, viz. the orthodoxy required by the several sects, is a profession of believing the whole bundle of their respective articles set down in each Church's system, without knowing the rules of every one's particular duty, or requiring a sincere or strict obedience to them. For they are speculative opinions, con- fessions of faith that are insisted on in the several commu- nions ; they must be owned and subscribed to, but the pre- cepts and rules of morality and the observance of them, 1 do not remember there is much notice taken of, or any great stir made about a collection or observaiice of them, in any of the terras of church communion.
But it is also to be observed, that this is much better fitted to get and retain church members than the other way, and is much more suited to that end, as much as it is easier to make profession of believing a certain collection of opinions that one never perhaps so much as reads, and several whereof one could not perhaps understand if one did read and study (for no more is required than a profession to believe them, expressed in an acquiescence that suffers one not to question or contradict any of them) ; than it is to practise the duties of a good life in a sincere obedience to those precepts of the Gospel wherein his actions are concerned. Precepts not hard to be known by those who are willing and ready to obey them. J. L.
EELiaio. — They that change their religion without full conviction, which few men take the way to (and can never be without great piety), are not to be trusted, because they have either no God, or have been false to him ; for religion admits of no dissembling. J. L.
DispuTiiTio. — One should not dispute with a man who, either through stupidity or shamelessness, denies plain and visible truths. J. L.
LiNGiTA. — Tell not your business or design to one that you are not sure will help it forward. All that are not for
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you count against you, for so they generally prove, either through folly, envy, malice, or interest. J. L.
Do not hear yourself say to anotiier what you would not have another hear from him. J. L.
VoLTTBrTAS. — Let vour will lead whither necessity would drive, and you will always preserve your liberty. J. L.
8A.0EBD0S.
There were two sorts of teachers amongst the ancients : those who professed to teach them the arts of propitiation and atonement, and these were properly their priests, who for the most pajrt made themselves the mediators betwixt the gods and men, wherein they performed all or the principal part, at least nothing was done without them. The laity had but a small part of the performance, unless it were in the charge of it, and that was wholly theirs. The chief, at least the essential, and sanctifying psurt of the ceremony, was always the priests', and the people could do nothing without them. The ancients had another sort of teachers, who were called philosophers. These led their schools, and professed to instruct those who would apply to them in the knowledge of things and the rules of virtue. These meddled not with the public religion, worship, or ceremonies, but left them en- tirely to the priests, as the priests left the instruction of men in natural and moral knowledge wholly to the philosophers. Theae two parts or provinces of knowledge thus under the government of two distinct sorts of men, seem to be founded upon the supposition of two clearly distinct originals, viz. revelation and reason : for the priests never for any of their ceremonies or forms of worship pleaded reason ; but always urged their sacred observances from the pleasure of the gods, antiquity, and tradition, which at last resolves all their estab- lished rites into nothing but revelation. " Cum de religione agitur, T. Coruncanum, P. Scipionem, P. ScsBvolam, pontifices maximos, non Zenonem aut Cleanthem aut Chrysippum sequor . . . A te philosopho rationem accipere debeo religionis, majoribus autem nostris etiam nullS, ratione red- dit£t credere." Cic. de Nat. Deor. The philosophers, on the other side, pretended to nothing but reason in all that they
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said, and from thence owned to fetch all their doctrines ; though how little their lives answered their own rules, whilst they studied ostentation and vanity, rather than solid virtue, Cicero tells us, Tusc. Qusest. 1. 2, c. 4.
Jesus Christ, bringing by revelation from Heaven the true religion to mankind, reunited these two again, religion and morality, as the inseparable parts of the worship of Gk>d, which ought never to have been separated, wherein for the obtaining the favour and forgiveness of the Deity, the chief part of what man could do consisted in a holy life, and little or nothing at aD. was left to outward ceremony, which was therefore almost wholly cashiered out of this true religion, and only two very jjlain and simple institutions introduced, all pompous rites being wholly abolished, and no more of out- ward performances commanded but just so much as decency and order required in the actions of public assemblies. This being the state of this true reli^on coming immediately from God himself, the ministers oi it, who also call themselves
Eriests, have assumed to themselves the parts both of the eathen priests and philosophers, and claim a right not only, to perform all the outward acts of the Christian religion in public, and to regulate the ceremonies to be used there, but also to teach men their duties of morality towards one another and towards themselves, and to prescribe to them in the con- duct of their lives.
Though the magistrate have a power of commanding or for- bidding things indifferent which have a relation to religion, yet this can only be within that Church whereof he himself IS a member, who being a lawgiver in matters indifferent in the commonwealth under his jurisdiction, as it is purely a civil society, for their peace, is fittest also to be lawgiver in the religious society (which yet must be understood to be only a voluntary society and during every member's pleasure), in matters indifferent, for decency and order, for the peace of that too. But I do not see how hereby he hath any power to order and direct even matters indifferent in the circumstances of a worship, or within a Church whereof he is not professor or member. ' It is true he may forbid such things as may tend to the disturbance of the peace of the commonwealth to be done by any of his people, whether they esteem them civil or reh'gious. This is his proper business ; but to com-
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mand or direct any circumstances of a worship as part of the religious worship which he himself does not profess nor ap- prove, is altogether without his authority, and absurd to sup- pose. Can any one think it reasonable, yea, or practicable, that a Christian prince should direct the form of Mahometan worship, the whole religion being thought by him false and profane ? and vice versa ; and yet it is not impossible that a Christian prince should have Mahometan subjects who may deserve all civil freedom; and de facto the Turk hath Christian subjects. As absurd would it be that a magistrate, either Popish, Protestant, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Quaker, &c., should prescribe a form to any or all of the different Churches in their ways of worship ; the reason whereof is because re- ligious worship being that homage which every man pays his God, he cannot do it in any other way, nor use any other rites, ceremonies, nor forms, even of indifferent things, than he himself is persuaded are acceptable and pleasing to the Q-od he worships ; which depending upon his opinion of his God, and what will best please him, it is impossible for one man to prescribe or direct any one circumstam»e of it to an- other: and this being a thing different and independent wholly from every man's concerns in the civil society, which hath nothing to do with a man's affairs in the other world, the magistrate hath here no more right to intermeddle than any private man, and has less right to direct the form of it, than he has to prescribe to a subject of his in what manner be shall do his homage to another prince to whom he is feud- atory, for something which he holds immediately from him, which, whether it be standing, kneeling, or prostrate, bare- headed or barefooted, whether in this or that habit, &c., con- cerns not his allegiance to him at all, nor his well govern- ment of his people. For though the things in themselves are perfectly indifferent, and it may be trivial, yet as to the worshipper, when he considers them as required by his God, or forbidden, pleasing, or displeasing to the invisible power he addresses, they are by no means so until you have altered his opinion (which persuasion can only do), — you can by no means, nor vsdthout the greatest tyranny, prescribe him a way of worship ; which was so unreasonable to do, that we find scarce any attempt towards it by the magistrates in the several societies of mankind till Christianity was well gro^n
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up in the world, and was become a national religion ; and since that it hath been the. cause of more disorders, tumults, and bloodshed, than all other causes put together.
But far be it from any one to thin\ Christ the author of those disorders, or that such fatal mischiefs are the conse- quence of his doctrine, though they have grown up with it. Antichrist has sown those tares in the field of the Church, the rise whereof hath been only hence, that the clergy, by degrees, as Christianity spread, affecting dominion, laid claim to a priesthood, derived by succession from Christ, and so independent from the civil power, receiving (as they pretend) by the imposition of hands, and some other ceremonies agreed on (but variously) by the priesthoods of the several factions, an indelible character, particular sanctity, and a power im- mediately from Heaven to do several things which are not lawful to be done by other men. The chief whereof are — 1st, To teach opinions concerning God, a future state, and ways of worship. 2nd, To do and perform themselves cer- tain rites exclusive of others, 3rd, To punish dissenters from their doctrines and rules. Whereas it is evident from Scripture, that all priesthood terminated in the G-reat High Priest, Jesus Christ, who was the last Priest. There are no footsteps in Scriptures of any so set apart, with such powers as they pretend to, after the Apostles' time ; nor that had any indelible character. That it is to be made out, that there is nothing which a priest can do which another man without any such ordination (if other circumstances of fit- ness, and an appointment to it, not disturbing peace and order, concur), may not lawfully perform and do, and the Church and worship of God be preserved, as the peace of the state may be by justices of the peace, and other officers, who had no ordination, or laying on of hands, to fet them to be lustices, and by taking away their commissions may cease to be so ; so ministers, as well as justices, are necessary, one for the administration of religious public worship^ the other of civil justice ; but an indelible character, peculiar sanctity of the function, or a power immediately derived from Heaven, is not necessary, or as much as convenient, for either.
But the clergy (as they call themselves) of the Christian religion, in imitation of the Jewish priesthood, having, almost ever since the first ages of the Cfhurch, laid claim to this
V
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power, separate from civil government, as received from God nimself^ have, wherever the civil magistrate hath been Chris- tian and of their opinion, and superior in power to the clergy, and they not able to cope with him, pretended this power only to be spiritual, and to extend no further; but yet still pressed, as a duty on the magistrate, to punish and persecute those whom they disliked and declared against. And so when they excommunicated, their under officer, the magis- trate, was to execute ; and to reward princes for their doing their drudgery, they have (whenever princes have been ser- viceable to their ends) been careful to preach up monarchy juredivino; for commonwealths have hitherto been less favourable to their power. But notwithstanding the jus divmum of monarchy, when any prince hath dared to dissent from their doctrines or forms, or been less apt to execute the decrees of the hierarchy, they have been the first and forwardest in giving check to his authority, and disturbance to his government. And princes, on the other side, being apt to hearken to such as seem to advance their authority, and bring in religion to the assistance of their absolute power, have been generally very ready to worry those sheep who have ever so little straggled out of those shepherds' folds, where they were kept in order to be shorn by them both, and to be howled on both upon subjects and* neighbours at their pleasure : and hence have come most of those calamities which have so long disturbed and wasted Christendom. Whilst the magistrate, being persuaded it is his duty to punish those the clergy please to call heretics, schismatics, or fanatics, or else taugnt to apprehend danger from dissen- sion in religion, thinks it his interest to suppress them — per- secutes all who observe not the same forms in the religious worship which is set up in his country. The people, on the other side, finding the mischiefs that &11 on them for wor- shipping God according to their own persuasions, enter into confederacies and combinations to secure themselves as well as they can ; so that oppression and vexation on one side, self-defence and desire of religious liberty on the other, create dislikes, jealousies, apprehensions, and factions, which seldom fiul to break out into downright persecution, or open war.
* It is thus in the original, but, I confess, it is not intelligible.
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But notwithstanding the liberality of the clergy to princes, when they have not strength enough to deal with them, be very large ; yet when they are once in a condition to strive with them K)r the mastery, then is it seen how far their spiritual power extends, and how, in ordine ad spiritualia, absolute temporal power comes in. So that ordination, that begins in priesthood, if it be let alone, will certainly grow up to absolute empire ; and though Christ declares himself to have no kingdom of this world, his successors have (when- ever they can but grasp the power) a large commission to execute ; and that a rigorously civil dominion. The Pope- dom hath been a large and lasting instance of this. And what Presbytery could do, even in its infancy when it had a little humbled the magistrates, let Scotland show.
PiiTBiiB Amob is from the idea of settlement there, and not leaving it again, the mind not being satisfied with any thing that suggests often to it the thoughts of leaving it, which naturally attends a man in a strange country. Por though, in general, we think of dying, and so leaving the place where we have set up our rest in this world, yet, in particular, deferring and putting it off from time to time, we make our stay there eternal, because we never set precise bounds to our abode there, and never think of leaving it in good earnest.
Amob PiiTBi-ai. — The remembrance of pleasures and con- veniences we have had there ; the love of our friends, whose conversation and assistance may be pleasant and useful to us ; and the thoughts of recommending ourselves to our old ac- quaintance, by the improvements we shall bring home, either of our fortunes or abilities, or the increase of esteem we ex- pect for having travelled and seen more than others of this world, and the strange things in it ; all these preserve in us, in long absence, a constant affection to our country, and a desire to return to it. But yet I think this is not all, nor the chief cause, that keeps in us a longing after our country. "Whilst we are abroad we look on ourselves as strangers there, and are always thinking of departing ; we set not up our rest, but often see or think of the end of our being tnere ; and the mind is not easily satisfied with anything it can reach to the end of. But when we are returned to our country,
u2
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where we think of a lasting aboae, wherein to set up our rest, an everlasting abode, for we seldom think of anything beyond it, we do not propose to ourselves another country whither we think to ^move and establish ourselves after- wards. This is that, I imagine, that sets mankind so con- stantly upon desires of returning to their country, because they think no more of leaving it again ; and, therefore, men married, and settled in any place, are much more cold in these desires. And, I believe, when any one thinks often of this world, as of a place wherein he is not to make any long abode, where he can have no lasting fixed settlement, but that he sees the bounds of his stay here, and often reflects upon his departure, he will presently upon it put on the thoughts of a stranger, be much more indifferent to the particular place of his nativity, and no more fond of it than a traveller is of any foreign country, when he thinks he must leave them all indifferently to return and settle in his native soiL
The following remarkable passage, containing, as it does, the substance of Paley's argument, must have been written very early, being found in the tenth page of the first Com- mon-Place Book, dat^d 1661.
" Virtue, as in its obligation it is the will of Gk)d, dis- covered by natural reason, and thus has the force of a law ; so in the matter of it, it is nothing else but doing of good, either to oneself or others ; and the contrary hereunto, vice, is nothing else but doing of harm. Thus the bounds of tem- perance are prescribed by the health, estates, and the use of our time : justice, truth, and mercy, by the good or evil they are likely to produce ; since everyboay allows one may with justice deny another the possession of his own sword, when there is reason to believe he would make use of it to his own harm.
" But since men in society are in a far different estate than when considered single and alone, the instances and measujres of virtue and vice are very different under these two con- siderations ; for though, as I said before, the measures of temperance, to a solitary man, be none but those above-men- tioned ; yet if he be a member of a society, it may, accord* ing to the station he has in it, receive measures from reputa» tion and example ; so that what would be no vicious excess
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in a retired obscurity, may be a very great one amongst peo- ple who think ill of such excess, because, by lessening his esteem amotigst them, it makes a man incapable of having the authority, and doing the good which otherwise he might. For esteem and reputation being a sort of moral strength, whereby a man is enabled to do, as it were, by an augmented force, that which others, of equal natural parts and natural power, cannot do without it ; he that by any intemperance weakens this his moral strengfth, does himself as much harm as if by intemperance he weakened the natural strength either of his mind or body, and so is equally vicious by doing harm to himself.
" This, if well considered, will give us better boundaries of virtue and vice, than curious questions stated with the nicest distinctions ; that being always the greatest vice whose con- sequences draw after it the greatest harm ; and therefore the injury and mischiefs done to society are much more culpable than those done to private men, though ^ith greater personal aggravation!. And so many things naturaUy become vices amongst men in society, which without that would be inno- cent actions. Thus for a man to cohabit and have children by one or more women, who ate at their own disposal ; and when they think fit to part again, I see not how it can be condemned as a vice, since nobody is harmed, supposing it done amongst persons considered as separate from the rest of mankind. But yet this hinders not but it is a vice of deep dye when the same thing is done in a society wherein modesty, the great virtue of the weaker sex, has often other rules and bounds set by custom and reputation, than what it has by direct instances of the law of nature in a solitude or an estate separate from the opinion of this or that society. For if a woman, by transgressing those bounds which the re- ceived opinion of her country or religion, and not nature or reason, have set to modesty, has drawn any blemish on her reputation, she may run the risk of being exposed to infamy,- and other mischiefs, amongst which the least is not the danger of losing the comforts of a conjugal settlement, and therewith the chief end of her being, the propagation of mankind."
ScBiPTUBA Sacba. — A Vindication of the Divine Authority
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and Inspiration of the Writings of the Old and New Testa- ment. By William Lowth. 8vo. Ox. 92, p. 288.
*A11 the books have not an equal inspiration.' 1 Q. What is equal inspiration ? if the New be inspired, the Old is, be- cause of the testimony given to the Old by the New. 2 Q. Inspired, because designed by Q-od for the perpetual use and instruction of the Church, and to be a rule of the Christian faith in all ages. 3 Q. Whether, by the same reason, they must not be very plain, and their sense infallibly intelligible to those to whom they are to be a rule ?
* An inspired writing is what is wrt by the incitation, di- rection, and assistance of G-od, and designed by him for the perpetual use of the Church.' Q. What is meant by incita- tion, direction, and assistance in the case P 4 Q. Whether that may not be inspired which is not designed for the per- petual use of the Church ? ' Ood designed to provide a means for preserving the doctrine of Christ to the end of the world.' 5 Q. Will it thence follow that all that St Luke writ was inspired ?
'Writing, the best ordinary means of conveying doctrine to after-ages ; for Gtoi never works more miracles than needs must.' 6 Q. Whether, therefore, all in the New Testament was appointed by Ood to be written ?
*Oral tradition not so good. Particular revelation not pretended to but by enthusiasts.' 7 Q. Whether the name, enthusiasts, answers their arguments for particular revela- tion.
By writings, preserved in the ordinary methods of provi- dence, men may as weU know the revealed will of God, as they can know the histories of former ages, and the opinions of philosophers,' &c. 8 Q. Will as wefl serve the turn, for that is with great uncertainty.
* God made use of writing for the instruction of the Jewish Church. Moses, by God's direction, wrote his law in a book.' 10 Q. Whether then the argument be not, the Old Testament was inspired, therefore the New is ?
* It is natural to suppose that the Apostles should take care to provide some certain means of instruction for the Christian Church in conformity to the Jewish.' 11 Q. When the author writ this, whether he thought not of it as a hu- man contrivance? 'St Matthew writ particularly for the
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use of the Jews he had preached to.' 12 Q. Whether then he had any thoughts that it should be a uniyersal rule ?
BLECTIO.
I cannot see of what use the Doctrine of Election and Perseverance is, unless it be to lead men into presumption and a neglect of their duties, being once persuaded that they are in a state of grace, which is a state they are told they cannot fall from. Eor, since nobody can ^ow that be is elected but by having true faith, and nobody can know when he has such a faith that he cannot fall m)m, common and saving faith, as they are distinguished, being so alike that he that has faith cannot distinguish whether it be such as he can fall from or no (vide Calvin, Inst. 1. 3, c. 2, 6, 12), — who is elected, or has faith from which he cannot fall, can only be known by the event at the last day, and therefore is in vain talked of now till the marks of such a faith be cer- tainly given.
EccLESiA. — Hooker's description of the Church, 1. 1, § 15, amounts to this, that it is a supernatural but voluntary society, wherein a man associates hunself to God, angels, and hol^ men. The original of it, he says, is the same as of other societies, viz. an inclination unto sociable life, and a consent to the bond of association, which is the law and order they are associated in. That which makes it supernatural is, that part of the bond of their association is a law revealed concern- ing what worship God would have done unto him, which natural reason could not have discovered. So that the wor- ship of Gk)d so far forth as it has anything in it more than the law of reason doth teach, may not be invented of men. From whence I think it will follow : 1st, That the Church being a supernatural society, and a society by consent, the secular power, which is purdy natural, nor any other power, can compel one to be of any particular Church society, there being many such to be found. 2nd, That the end of entering into such society being only to obtam the favour of God, by offering him an acceptable worship, nobody can impose any ceremonies unless positively and clearly by revelation en- joined, any further than every one who joins in the use of them is persuaded in his conscience they are acceptable to
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God ; for if his conscience condemns any part of unreyealed worship, he cannot by any sanction of men be obliged to it. 3rd, That since a part of the bond of the association is a re- Tealed law, this part only is unalterable, and the other, which is human, depends wholly on consent, and so is alterable, and a man is neld by such laws, or to such a particular so- ciety, no longer than he himself doth consent. 4tb, I imagine that the original of the society is not from our inclination, as he says, to a sociable life, for that may be fully satisfied in other societies, but from the obligation man, by the light of reason, finds himself under, to own and worship G-od pub- licly in the world. J. L.
SuPEESTiTio. — The true cause and rise of superstition is indeed nothing else but a false opinion of the Deity, that renders him dreadful and terrible as being rigorous and imperious ; that which represents him as austere and apt to be angry, but yet impotent and easy to be appeased again by some flattering devotions, especially if performed with sanctimonious shows and a solemn sadness of mind : this root of superstition diversely branched forth itself sometimes into magic and exorcisms, oftentimes into pedantical rites and idle observations of things and times, as Theophrastus has largely set forth. Superstition is made up of apprehen- sion of evil from God, and hopes, by formal and outward ad- dresses to him, to appease him without real amendment of Ufe. J. L.
Teaditio. — ^The Jews, the Eomanists, and the Turks, who all three pretend to guide themselves by a law revealed from Heaven, which shows them the way to happiness, do yet all of them have recourse very frequently to tradition, as a rule of no less authority than their own written law, whereby they seem to allow that the divine law (however God be willing to reveal it) is not capable to be conveyed by writings to man- kind, distant in place and time, languages and customs ; and so, through the defect of language, no positive law of right- eousness can be that way conveyed sufficiently and with exact- ness to all the inhabitants of the earth in remote generations ; and so must resolve all into natural religion and that light which every man has born with him. Or else they give oc-
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casion to inquiriiig men to suspect the integrity of tbeir
Eriests and teachers, who, unwilling that the people should ave a standing known rule of faith and manners, have, for the maintenance of their own authority, foisted in another of tradition, which will always be in their own power, to be varied and suited to their own interests and occasions.
J.L. Q. Whether the Bramins, besides their book of Sandscrit, make use also of tradition, and so of others who pretend to a revealed religion ?
Fkitabia. — The Eathers before the Council of Nice speak rather like Arians than orthodox. If any one desire to see undeniable proofs of it, I refer him to the Quatemio of Cur- cillasus, where he will be ftdly satisfied.
There is scarcely one text sJleged to the Trinitarians which is not otherwise expounded by their own writers : you may see a great number of these texts and expositions in a boot entitled Scriptura S. Trin. Eevelatrix, under the name of St Gtdlus. There be a multitude of texts that deny those things of Christ which cannot be denied of God, and that affirm such things of him that cannot agree to him if he were a person of Oroa, In like manner of the Holy Ghost, which 01 both sorts you may find urged and defended in the two books of Jo. Crellius, touching one G-od the Father, and abridged in Walzogenius Praepar. ad Ftil. Lection. N. T. 2, 3, 4, and also in the Brief History, let. 1, 6.
ViTii ETEBirii. — There was no particular promise of eternal life until the coming of Christ ; so the Church of Christ have tdw&ys understood it, as any one may be satisfied who reads J. Vossius's Answer to Bavenspergerus, c. 23, where he shows that the ancient Doctors, especiaUy St Austin, looked upon the Old Testament as containing properly and directly the promises only of earthly and temporal things.' Patrick, 667. Eeade, b. 2.
LiBBBiTM Abbitbium. — Of the ancient philosophers who have i^Titten either professedly or incidentally of hberty and necessity, the chief of these Plato de Eepub. 1. 2 and 3 ; G-orgia, Tim., Ph»dro, and often elsewhere; Plutarch de
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Fato ; Hierodes in Aurea Carmina and de Fato ; Maximus Tyrius an fdiquid sit in nostr^ Fotestate; Plotinus, 1. 1; Chalcidius Coment. in TimsBum ; Alexander Aphrodisiensis de Fato ad Imperatores Antoninos; Ammonius Herm. in Arist. de Interpret. ; Chrysippus a]^ud A. Gellium, 1. vi. c. 11. The Pharisees neld freedom of choice, Josephus Ant. 1. piii. c. 11 ; and all the Jews, Maimonidos Duct. I)ubit. part iii. c. 17 and 18. All the Fathers before St Austin held free-will ; most Christian writers since deny it. That external objects and natural complexion, custom, &c» &c., are occasions of a great part.
Tehjitt. — ^The Papists deny that the doctrine of the Trinity can be proved by the Scripture ; see this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Card. Hosius de Auth. S. Script. 1. iii. p. 63 ; Gt)rdonius Hunlieius Contr. Tom. Cont. de Verbo Dei, c. 19 ; Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio lEtattisbon. Yega. Possevin. Wiekus. These learned men, ^ecially Bellarmin, and Wiekus after him, have urged all the Scriptures they could, with their utmost industry, find out in this cause, and yet, after all, they acknowledge their insufficiency and obscurity.
CurcillflBus has proved, as well as anything can be proved out of ancient writings, that the doctrine of the I^Huiityy about the time of the Council of Mce, was of a special union of three persons in the Deity, and not of a numerical, as it is now taught, and has been taught since the chimerical school- men were hearkened unto.
Concerning the original of the Trinitarian doctrines, from whom they are derived or by whom they were invented, he that is generally and indeed deservedly confessed to have writ the most learnedly, is Dr Cudworth, in his Intellectual System.
Teikitt. — The Divinity of the Holy Spirit was not believed, or, as I think, so much as mentioned, by any in the time of Lactantius, i. e. anno 800, vide Lact. Inst. 1. 4, c. 29; Petavius de Trin. 1, c. 14, § 14, 21 ; Huet. Originian. 1. 2, c. 2, 6. 2, §.
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MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.
JXTDGINO — ELECTION — BESOLUTIOK.
JxTDGiKa is a bare action of the understanding, whereby a man, several objects being proposed to him, takes one of them to be best for him.
But this is not Election ?
Election then is, when a man, judging anything to be best for him, ceases to consider, examme, and inquire any further concerning that matter ; for, till a man comes to this, he has not chosen, the matter stiU remains with him under delibera- tion, and not determined. Here, then, comes in the will, and makes Election voluntary, by stopping in the mind any further inquiry and examination. This Election sometimes proceeds further to
Eirm Eesolution, which is not barely a stop to further in- quiry by Election at that time, but the predetermination, as much as in him lies, of his will not to take the matter into any further deliberation ; i. e. not to employ his thoughts any more about the eligibility, i. e. the smtableness, of that which he has chosen to himself as making a part of his hap- piness. Eor example, a man who would be married has se- veral wives proposed to him. He considers which would be fittest for him, and judges Mary best ; afterwards, upon that continued judgment, makes choice of her ; this choice ends his deliberation ; he stops all further consideration whether she be best or no, and resolves to fix here, which is not any more to examine whether she be best or fittest for him of all proposed ; and consequently pursues the means of obtaining her, sees, frequents, and falls desperately in love with her, and then we may see Eesolution at the highest ; which is an act of the will, whereby he not only supersedes all further examination, but will not admit of any information or sug- gestion, wiU not hear anything that can be offered against the pursuit of this match.
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Thus we may see how the will mixes itself with these ac- tions, and what share it has in them ; viz. that all it does is hut exciting or stopping the operative faculties ; in all which it is acted on more or less vigorously, as the uneasi- ness that presses is greater or less. At first, let us suppose his thoughts of marriage in general to he excited only hy some consideration of some moderate convenience offered to his mind ; this moves hut moderate desires, and thence mo- derate uneasiness leaves his will almost indifferent ; he is slow in his choice amongst the matches offered, pursues coolly till desire grows upon him, and with it uneasiness proportion- ably, and that quickens his will ; he approaches nearer, he is in love — is set on fire — the flame scorches — this makes him imeasy^ with a witness ; then his will, acted by that pressing uneasmess, vigorously and steadily employs all the operative faculties of body and mind for the attamment of the oeloved object, without which he cannot be happy.
OK THE DIFEEEENCE BEITWEEN CIVIL AJSTD ECCLESIASTICAL
PQWEE, INDOESED EXCOMMUNICATION. Dated 1673-4.
There is a twofold society, of which almost all men in the world are members, and that from the twofold concernment they have to attain a twofold happiness : viz. that of this world and that of the other : and nence there arises these two following societies, viz. religious and civiL
CIVIL SOCIETY, OE THE EELIGIOTJS SOCIETY, OE THE
STATE. CHIJEOH.
1. The end of civil society 1. The end of religious so- is civil peace and prosperity, ciety is the attaining happi- er the preservation of the so- ness after this life in another ciety and every member there- world.
of in a free and peaceable en- 'ovment of all the good things of this life that belong to each of them ; but beyond the con- cernments of this life, this so- ciety hath nothing to do at all.
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2. The terms of communion with, or being a part of, this society, is promise of obedi- ence to the laws of it.
3. The proper matter, circa quam, of the laws of this so- ciety, are all things conducing to the end above-mentioned, i. e. civil happiness ; and are in effect almost all moral and indifferent things, which yet are not the proper matter of the laws of the society, tiU the doing or omitting of any of them come to have a tendency to the end above-mentioned.
4. The means to procure obedience to the laws of this society, and thereby preserve it, is force or punishment ; i. e. the abridgment of any one's share of the good things of the world within the reach of the society, and sometimes a total deprivation, as in capi- tal punishments. And this, I think, is the whole end, lati- tude, and extent of civil power and society.
2. The terms of communion or conditions of being mem- bers of this society, is promise of obedience to the laws of it.
3. The proper matter of the laws of rhis socieir, are all things tending to the attain- ment of future bliss, which are of three sorts : 1. Oredenda, or matters of faith and opin- ion, which terminate in the understanding. 2. Cultus re- ligiosua, which contains in it both the ways of expressing our honour and adoration of the Deity, and of address to him for the obtaining any good from him. 3. Moralia, or the right management of our actions in respect of our- selves and others.
4. The means to preserve obedience to the laws of this society, are the hopes and fears of happiness and misery in another world. But though the laws of this society be in order to happiness in another world, and so the penalties annexed to them are also of another world ; yet the society being in this world and to be contmued here, there are some means necessary for the pre- servation of the society here, which is the expulsion of such members as obey not the laws of it, or disturb its order. And this, I think, is the whole end, latitude, and extent of ecclesi- astical power and religious so- ciety.
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This being, as I suppose, the distinct bounds of Churcli and State, let us a little compare them together :
THE PABALLEL.
1. The end of civil society is present enjoyment of what this world affords.
2. Another end of civil so- ciety is the preservation of the society or government itself for its own sake.
3. The terms of communion must be the same in all so- cieties.
4. The laws of a common- wealth are mutable, being made within the society by an authority not distinct from it, nor exterior to it.
5. The proper means to procure obedience to the law of the civil society, and there- by attain the end, civil hap- pmesSjis force or punishment. 1st, It is effectiml and ade- quate for the preservation of tne societv, and civil happi- ness is tne immediate and natural consequence of the execution of the law. 2nd, It is just, for the breach of
1. The end of Church com- munion, future expectation of what is to be had in the other world.
2. The preservation of the society in religious com- munion, is only in order to the conveying and propagat- ing those laws and truths which concern our well-being in another world.
4. The laws of religious so- ciety, bating those which are only subservient to the order necessary to their execution, are immutable, not subject to Miy authority of the society, but only proposed by and within the society, but made by a lawgiver without the so- ciety, and paramount to it.
5. The proper enforcement of obedience to the laws of religion, are the rewards and punishments of the other world; but civil punishment is not so. 1st, Because it is ineffectual to that purpose; for punishment is never suffi- cient to keep men to the obe- dience of any law, where the evil it brings is not certainly greater than the good which
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laws being mostly the pre- judice and diminution of an- other man's rights, and always tending to the dissolution of the society, in the continu- ance whereof every man's particular right is compre- hended, it is lust that he who has impaired another man's good, should suffer the dimi- nution of his own. 3rd, It is within the power of the society, which can exert its own strength against offend- ers, the sword being put into the magistrate's hands to that purpose. But civil society has nothing to do without its own limits, which is civil hap- piness.
is obtained or expected from the disobedience ; and there- fore no temporal worldly punishment can be sufficient to persuade a man to or from that way which he be- lieves leads to everlasting happiness or misery. 2na, Because it is unjust in refer- ence both to Credenda and Oultus, that I should be de- spoiled of my good things of this world, where I disturb not in the least the enjoyment of others ; for my faith or re- ligious worship hurts not another man in any concern- ment of his; and in moral transgressions, the third and real part of rehgion, the re- ligious society cannot punish, because it then invades the civil society, and wrests the magistrate's sword out of his hand. In civil society one man's good is involved and complicated with another's, but in religiouB societies every man's concerns are se- parate, and one man's trans- gressions hurt not another any further than he imitates him, and if he err, he errs at his own private cost ; there- fore I think no external pun- ishment, i. e. deprivation or diminution of the goods of this life, belongs to the Church. Only because for the propagation of the truth (which every society believes
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to be its own religion), it if equity it should remove thste two evils which will Jrfftder , ^ its propagation; 1. disturb-
ance withiu, which is contra- diction or disobedience of any of its members to its doc- trines and discipline; 2. in- famj without, which is the scandalous lives or disallowed profession of any of its mem- bers ; and the proper way to do this, which is in its power, is to exclude and disown such vicious members. 6. Church-membership is perfectly voluntary, and may end whenever any one pleases vrithout any {jreiudice to him- self, but in civil society it is not so.
But because religious societies are of two sorts, wherein their circumstances very much differ, the exercise of their power is also much different. It is to be considered that all mankind (very few or none excepted) are combined into civil societies in various forms, as force, chance, agreement, or other accidents have happened to constrain them : there are very few also that have not some religion : . and hence it comes to pass, that very few men but are members both of some Church and of some commonwealth ; and hence it comes to pass —
Ist, That in some places the civil and religious societies are coextended, i. e. both the magistrate and every subject of the same commonwealth is also member of the same Church ; and thus it is in Muscovy, whereby they have all the same civil laws, and the same opinions and religious worship.
2nd, In some places the commonwealth, though all of one religion, is but a part of the Church or religious society which acts, and is acknowledged to be one entire society; and so it is in Spain and the principalities of Italy.
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3rd. In some places the religion of the commonwealth, i. e. the public established religion, is not received by all the subjects of the commonwealth ; and thus the Protestant re- ligion in England, the Eeformed in Brandenburgh, the Lu- theran in Sweden.
4th. In some places the religion of part of the people is different jfrom the governing part of the civil society ; and thus the Presbyterian, Independent, Anabaptists, Quakers, and Jewish in England, the Lutheran and Popish in Cleve, &c. ; and in these two last the religious society is part of the civil.
There are also three things to be considered in each re- ligion as the matter of their communion : —
1. Opinions or speculations, Credenda.
2. Cultus religiosus.
3. Mores.
Which are all to be considered in the exercise of church power, which I conceive does properly extend no further than excommunication, which is to remove a scandalous or turbulent member.
In the first case there i^ no need of excommunication for immorality, because the civil law has provided, or may suf- ficiently, against that by penal laws, enough to suppress it ; for the civil magistrate has moral actions under the dominion of his sword, and therefore it is not like he will turn away a subject out of his country for a fault which he can compel him to reform. But if any one differ from the Church in "fide aut cultu," I think first the civil magistrate may pun- ish him for it where he is fully persuaded that it will disturb the civil peace, otherwise not ; out the religious society maj certainly excommunicate him, the peace wherdof may by this means be preserved ; but no other evil ought to follow him upon that excommunication as such, but only upon the con- sideration of the public peace.
In the second case I tnink the church may excommunicate for faults in faith and worship, but not those faults in man- ners which the magistrate has annexed penalties to, for the f reservation of civil society and happiness. The same also think ought to be the rule in the third case.
In the fourth case, I think the Church has power to excom- municate for matters of faith, worship, or manners, though
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the magistrate punish the same immoralitj with his sword, because the Church cannot otherwise remove the scandal which is necessary for its preservation and the propagation o£ its doctrines ; and this power of being judges who are fit to be of their society, the magistrate cannot deny to any religious society which is permitted within his dominions. This was the state of the Church till Constantine. But in none of the former cases is excommunication capable to be denounced by any Church upon any one but the members of that Church, it being absurd to cut off that which is no part ; neither ought the civil magistrate to inflict any punishment upon the score of excommunication, but to punish the fact or forbear, just as he finds it convenient for the preservation of the civil peace and prosperity of the commonwealth (within which his power is confined), without any regard to excom- munication at all.
THUS I THINK
It is a man^s proper business to seek happiness and avoid misery.
Happiness consists in what delights and contents the mind ; misery, in what disturbs, discomposes, or torments it.
I will therefore make it my business to seek satiafactiou and delight, and avoid uneasiness and disquiet ; to have as much of the one, and as little of the other, as may be.
But here I must have a care I mistake not ; for if I prefer a short pleasure to a lasting one, it is plain I cross my own happiness.
Let me then see wherein consists the most lasting plea- sures of this life ; and that, as far as I can observe, is in these things:
1st. Health, — without which no sensual pleasure can have any relish.
2nd. Eeputation, — for that I find everybody is pleased vnth, and the want of it is a constant torment.
3rd. Knowledge, — ^for the little knowledge I have, I find I would not sell at any rate, nor part with for any other plea- sure.
4.th. Doing good, — ^for I find the well-cooked meat I eat to-day does now no more delight me, nay, I am diseased after
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a full meal. The perfumes I smelt yesterday now no more affect me with any pleasure ; but the good turn I did yester- day, a year, seven years since, continues stiU to please and delight me as often as I reflect on it.
5th. The expectation of eternal and incomprehensible hap- piness in another world is that also which carries a constant pleasure with it.
If then I wiQ faithfully pursue that happiness I propose to myself, whatever pleasure offers itself to me, I must carefully look that it cross not any of those five great and constant pleasures above mentioned. For example, the fruit I see tempts me with the taste of it that I love, but if it endanger my health, I part with a constant and lasting for a very short and transient pleasiu*e, and so. foolishly make myself unhappy, and am not true to my own interest.
Hunting, plays, and other innocent diversions delight me : if I make use of them to refresh myself after study and busi- ness, they preserve my health, restore the vigour of my mind, and increase my pleasure ; but if I spend all, or the greatest part of my time in them, they hinder my improvement in knowledge and useful arts, they blast my credit, and give me up to the uneasy state of shame, ignorance, and contempt, in which I cannot but be very unhappy. Drinking, gaming, and vicious delights will do me this mischief, not oi3y by wasting my time, but by a positive efficacy endanger my health, im- pair my parts, imprint ill habits, lessen my esteem, and leave a constant lasting torment on my conscience ; therefore all vicious and imlawful pleasures I will always avoid, because such a mastery of my passions will afford me a constant plea- sure greater than any such enjoyments ; and also deliver me from the certain evil of several kinds, that by indulging myself in a present temptation I shall certainly afterwards simer.
All innocent diversions and delights, as far as they will con- tribute to my health, and consist with my improvement, con- dition, and my other more solid pleasures of knowledge and reputation, I will enjoy, but no further, and this I will care- ftdly watch and examine, that I may not be deceived by thr flattery of a present pleasure to lose a greater.
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OF ETHICS IN GENEBAL.
1. Happiness and misery are the two great springs of human actions, and though through different ways we find men so busy in the world, they all aim at happiness, and de- sire to avoid misery, as it appears to them in different places and shapes.
2. I do not remember that I have heard of any nation of men who have not acknowedged that there has been right and wrong in men's actions, as well as truth and falsehood in their sayings; some measures there have been everywhere owned, though very different ; some rules and boundaries to men's actions, by which they were judged to be good or bad ; nor is there, I think, wiy people amongst whom there is not distinction between virtue and vice ; some kind of morality is to be found everywhere received ; I will not say perfect and exact, but yet enough to let us know that the notion of it is more or less everywhere, and that men think that even where politics, societies, and magistrates are silent, men yet are un- der some laws to which they owe obedience.
3. But, however morality be the great business and con- cernment of mankind, ana so deserves our most attentive application and fltudy ; yet in the very entrance this occurs very strange and worthy our consideration, that morality hath been generally in the world rated as a science distinct firom theology, religion, and law ; and that it hath been the proper province of philosophers, a sort of men different both from divines, priests, and lawyers, whose profession it has been to explain and teach this knowledge to the world ; a plain argu- ment to me of some discovery still amongst men, of the law of nature, and a secret apprehension of another rule of action which rational creatures had a concernment to conform to, besides what either the priests pretended was the immediate command of their God (for all the heathen ceremonies of worship pretended to revelation, reason failing in the sup- port of them), or the lawyer told them was the command of the Government.
4. But yet these philosophers seldom deriving these rules up to their original, nor arguing them as the commands of the great God of heaven and earth, and such as according to
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wlilcli he would retribute to men after this life, the utmost enforcements they could add to them were reputation and disgrace by those names of virtue and vice, which thev en- deavoured by their authority to make names of weight to their scholars and the rest of the people. Were there no human law, nor punishment, nor obligation of civil or divine sanctions, there would yet still be such species of actions in the world as justice, temperance, and fortitude, drunkenness, and theft, which would also be thought some of them good, -some bad ; there would be distinct notions of virtues and vices ; for to each of these names there would belong; a com- plex idea, or otherwise all these and the like words which express moral things in all languages would be empty, in- significant sounds, and all moral discourses would be perfect jargon. But all the knowledge of virtues and vices which a man attained to, this way, would amount to no more than taking the definitions or the significations of the words of any language, either from the men skilled in that language, or the common usage of the country, to know how to apply them, and call particular actions in that country by their right names ; and so in effect would be no more but the skill how to speak properly, or at most to know what actions in the country he lives in are thought laudable or disgraceful ; i. e. are called virtues and vices : the general rule whereof, and the most constant that I can find is, that those actions are esteemed virtuous which are thought absolutely necessary to the preservation of society, and those that disturb or dissolve the bonds of community are everywhere esteemed ill and vicious.
6. This would necessarily fall out, for were there no obliga- tion or superior law at all, besides that of society, since it cannot be supposed that any men should associate together and unite in the same community, and at the same time allow that for commendable, i. e. count it a virtue, nay not dis- countenance and treat such actions as blameable, i. e. count them vices which tend to the dissolution of that society in which they were united ; but all other actions that are not thought to have such an immediate influence .on society I find not (as far as I have been conversant in histories), but that in some countries or societies they are virtues, in others vices, and in others indifferent, according as the authority of
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some esteemed wise men in some places, or as inclination or fashion of people in other places, have happened to establish them virtues or vices ; so that the ideas of virtues taken up this way teach us no more than to speak properly according to the fctfhion of the country we are in, without any very great improvement of our knowledge, more than what men meant by such words ; and this is the knowledge contained in thr common ethics of the schools ; and this is not more but to know the right names of certain complex modes, and the skill of speaking properly.
6. The ethics of the schools, built upon the authority of Aristotle, but perplexed a ^reat deal more with hard words and useless distinctions, telhngus what he or they are pleased to call virtues and vices, teach us nothing of morahty, but only to understand their names, or call actions as they or Aristotle does ; which is, in effect, but to speak their language properly. The end and use of morality oeing to direct our lives, and by showing us what actions are good, and what bad, prepare us to do the one and avoid the other ; those that pretend to teach morals mistake their business, and become only language-masters where they do not do this, — when they teach us only to talk and dispute, and call actions by the names they prescribe, when they ao not show the inferments that may draw us to virtue and deter us from vice.
7. Moral actions are only those that depend upon the choice of an understanding and free agent. And an under- standing free agent natur^y follows that which causes plea- sure to it and flies that which causes pain ; i. e. naturally seeks happiness and shuns misery. That, then, which causes to any one pleasure, that is good to him ; and that which causes him pain, is bad to him : and that which causes the greater pleasure is the greater good, and that which causes the ^ater pain, the greater evil. For happiness and misery consisting only in pleasure and pain, either of mind or body^ or both, according to the interpretation I have given above of those words, nothing can be good or bad to any one but as it tends to their happiness or misery, as it serves to pro- duce in them pleasure or pain : for good and bad, being re- lative terms, do not denote anything in the nature of the thing, but only the relation it bears to another, in its apt- ness and tendency to produce in it pleasure or pain; and
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tlius we see and say, that which is good for one man is bad for another.
8. Now, though it be not so apprehended generally, yet it is &om this tendency to produce to us pleasure or pain, that moral good or evil has its name, as well as natural. Yet perhaps it will not be found so erroneous as perhaps at first sight it will seem strange^ if one should affirm, that there is nothing morally good which does not produce pleasure to a man, nor nothing morally evil that does not bring pain to him. The difference between moral and natural good and evil is only this ; that we call that naturally good and evil, which, by the natural efficiency of the thing, produces plea- sure or pain in us ; and that is morally good or evil which, by the intervention of the will of an intelligent fre^ agent, draws pleasure or pain after it, not by any natural conse- quence, but by the intervention of that power. Thus, drink- ing to excess, when it produces the head-ache or sickness, is a natural evil ; but as it is a transgression of law, bv which a punishment is annexed to it, it is a moral evil. For re- wards and punishments are ihe good and evil whereby su- periors enforce the observance of their laws ; it being impos- sible to set any other motive or restraint to the actions of a free understanding agent, but the consideration of good or evil ; that is, pleasure or pain that vnll follow from it.
9. Whoever treats of morality so as to give us only the definitions of justice and temperance, thefb and incontinency, and tells us which are virtues, which are vices, does only settle certain complex ideas of modes with their names to them, whereby we may learn to understand others well, when they talk by their rules, and speak intelligibly and properly to others who have been informed in their doctrine. But whilst they discourse ever so acutely of temperance or justice, but show no law of a superior that prescribes temperance, to the observation or breach of which law there are rewards and punishments annexed, the force of morality is lost, and eva- porates only into words, disputes, and niceties. And, how- ever Aristotle or Anacharsis, Confucius, or any one amongst us, shall name this or that action a virtue or a vice, their authorities are all of them alike, and they exercise but what power everyone has, which is to show what complex ideas their words shall stand for: for without showing a law that
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commands or forbids them, moral goodness will be but an empty sound, and those actions which the schools here call virtues or vices, may by the same authority be called by con- trary names in another country; and if these be nothing more than their decisions and determinations in the case^ they will be still nevertheless indifferent as to any man's practice, which will by such kind of determinations be under no obligation to observe them.
10. But there is another sort of morality or rules of oup actions, which though they may in many parts be coinci- dent and agreeable with the former, yet have a different foundation, and we come to the knowledge of them a differ- ent way ; these notions or standards of our actions not beinff ideas of our own making, to which we give names, but depend upon something without us, and so not made by us, but for us, and these are the rules set to our actions by the declared will or laws of another, who hath power to punish our aber- rations ; — these are properly and truly the rules of good and evil, because the conformity or disagreement of our actions with these bring upon us good or evil ; these influence ou!P lives as the other do our words, and there is as much differ- ence between these two as between living well and attaining happiness on the one hand, compared with speaking properly and understanding of words on the other. The notion of one men have by making to themselves a collection of sim- ple ideas, called by those names which they take to be names of virtues and vices ; the notion of the other we come by from the rules set us by a superior power : but because we cannot come to the knowledge of those rules without, 1st, making known a lawgiver to all mankind, with power and will to reward and punish ; and, 2nd, without showing how he hath declared his will and law, I must only at present suppose this rule, till a fit place to speak of these, viz. Qt)d and the law of nature ; ana only at present mention what is immediately to the purpose in hand, 1st, That th^ rule of our actions set us by our law-maker is conversant about, and ultimately terminates in, those simple ideas before mentioned ; viz. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 2nd, That the law being known, or supposed known by us, the relation of our actions to it, i. e. the agreement or disagreement of anything we do to that rule, is as easy and clearly known as
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any other relation. 3rd, That we have moral ideas as well as others, that we come hy them the same way, and that they are iwthing hut collections of simple ideas. Only we are carefully to retain that distinction of moral actions, that they have a double consideration , 1st, As they have their proper denominations, as liberality ^ modesty , frugality^ &c. &c., and thus they are but modes, i. e. actions made up of such a pre- cise collection of simple ideas ; but it is not thereby deter- mined that they are either good or bad, virtues or vices. 2nd, As they refer to a law with which they agree or disagree^ eo are they good or bad, virtues or vices. EvrpaireXia was a name amongst the Gf^reeks, of such a peculiar sort of actions ; i. e. of such a collection of simple ideas concurring to make them up ; but whether this collection of simple ideas, called EvrpaircXia, be a virtue or vice, is known only by comparing it to that rule which determines virtue or vice, and this is that cdhsideration that properly belongs to actions, i. e. their agreement with a rule. In one, ^nj action is onl;^ a collection of simple ideas, and so is a positive complex idea ; in the other it stands in relation to a law or rule, and according as it agrees or disas;rees, is virtue or vice. So education and piety, feasting and gluttony, are modes alike, being but certain complex ideas called by one name : but when they are con- sidered as virtues and vices, and rules tof life carrying an ob- ligation with them, they relate to a law, and so come under the consideration of relation.
To establish morality, therefore, upon its pro^ basis, and such foundations as may carry an obligation with them, we must first prove a law, which always supposes a law-maker: one that has a superiority and right to ordain, and also a
Eower to reward and punish according to the tenor of the kw established by him. This sovereign law-maker, who has set rules and bounds to the actions of men, is G-od, their Maker, whose existence we have already proved. The next thing then to show is, that there are certain rules, certain dictates, which it is his will aU men should conform their actions to, and that this will of his is sufficiently promulgated and made known to all mankind.
f Dbits. — Descartes's Proof of a God, from the Idea of necessary Existence, examined. 1696.
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Thouffli I had heard Descartes's opinion concerning the being of a God often questioned by sober men, and no ene- mies to his name, yet I suspended my judgment of hiiA, till lately setting myself to examine his proof of a God, I found that by it senseless matter might be the first et.emal being and cause of all things, as weU as an immaterial intelligent spirit ; this, joined to his shutting out the consideration of filial causes out of his philosophy, and his labouring to invali- date all other proofs of a God but his own, does unaroidably draw upon him some suspicion.
The fallacy of his pretended great proof of a Deity appears to me thus : — The question between the Theists and Atheists I take to be this, viz. not whether there has been nothing from eternity, but whether the eternal Being that made, and still keeps all things in that order, beauty, and method, in which we see them, be a knowing immatenal substance, or a senseless material substance; for that something, either senseless matter, or a knowing spirit, has been from eternity, I think nobody doubts.
The idea of the Theists' eternal Being is, that it is a knowing immaterial substance, that made and still keeps all the beings of the imiverse in that order in which they are preserved. The idea of the Atheists' eternal Being is sense- less matter. The question between them then is, which of these really is that eternal Bein^ that has always been, ^ow I say, whoever will use the idea of necessary existence to prove a God, i. e. an immaterial eternal knowing spirit, will have no more to say for it from the idea of necessary existence, than an Atheist has for his eternal, all-doing, senseless matter, v. g. The complex idea of God, says the Theist, is substfuice, immateriality, eternity, knowledge, and the power of making and producing all things.
I allow it, says the Atheist ; but how do jon prove any real being exists, answering the complex idea in which these simple ideas are combined r B^ another idea, says the Car- tesian Theist, which I include in my complex idea of Gk)d, viz. the idea of necessary existence.
If that will do, says the Atheist, I can equally prove the eternal existence of my first being, matter ; for it is but add- ing the idea of unnecessary existence to the one which I have, wherein substance, extension, solidity, eternity, and the power
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of making and producing all things are combined, and my eternal matter is proved necessarily to exist upon as certain grounds as the immateiial Otod ; for whatsoever is eternal must needs have necessary existence included in it. And who now has the odds in proving by adding in his mind the idea of necessary existence to his idea of the first being ? The truth is in this way, that which should be proved, viz. existence, is supposed, and so the question is only begged on both sides. *
I have the complex idea of substance, solidity, and extension joined together, which I call matter / does this prove matter to be P No, I, with Descartes, add to this idea of matter a bulk as large sa space itself; does this prove such a bulk of matter to be ? No. I add to it this complex idea, the idea of eternity ; does this prove matter to be eternal ? No. I add to it the idea of necessary existence ; does this prove matter necessarily to exist ? No. Try it in spirit, and it will be just so there. The reason whereof is, that the putting together or separating, the putting in or leaving out, any one or more ideas, out of any complex one in my head, has no influence at all upon the being of things, without me to make them exist so, as I put ideas together in my mind.
But it will be said that the idea of God includes necessary existence, and so God has a necessary existence.
I answer : The idea of God, as far as the name Ood stands for the first eternal cause, includes necessary existence.
And so far the Atheist and the Theist are agreed ; or ra- ther, there is no Atheist who denies an eternal first Being, which has necessary existence. That which puts the differ- ence between the Theist and the Atheist is this : that the Theist says that this eternal Being, which has necessary ex- istence, is a knowing spirit ; the Atheist, that it is blind unthinking matter ; for the deciding of which question, the joining the idea of necessary existaice to that of eternal first Being or Substance, does nothing. Whether that eternal first Being, necessarily existing, be material or immaterial, thinking or not thinkmg, must be proved some other way ; and when thus a God is proved, necessary existence wiU oe included in the idea of God, and not till then. For an eter- nal necessary existing Being, material, and without wisdom, is not the Theist's Gbd.
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So that real existence is but supposed on either side ; and the adding in our thoughts the idea of necessary existence to an idea of a senseless material substance, or to the idea of an immaterial knowing spirit, makes neither of them to exists nor alters anything in the reality of their existence, because our ideas alter nothing in the reality of things, v. g. The Atheist would put into his idea of matter, necessary existence ; he may do that as he pleases, but he will not thereby at all prove the real existeiice of anything answering tBat idea ; he must first prove, and that by other ways than that idea, the exist- ence of an eternal all-doing matter, and then his idea will be proved evidently a true idea ; till then it is but a precarious one, made at pleasure, and proves nothing of real existence, for th^ reason above mentioned, viz. our ideas make or alter no- thing in the real existence of things, nor will it follow that anything really exists in nature answering it, because we can make such a complex idea in our minds.
By ideas in the mind we discern the agreement or disagree- ment of ideas that have a like ideal existence in our mmds, but that reaches no further, proves no real existence, for the truth we so know is only of our ideas, and is applicable to things only as they are supposed to exist answering such ideas. But any idea, simple or complex, barely by being in our minds, is no evidence of the real existence of anything out of our minds, answering that idea. Beal existence can be proved only by real existence ; and, therefore, the real ex- istence of a Qod can only be proved by the real existence of other things. The real existence of other things without us can be evidenced to us only by our senses ; but our own ex- istence is known to us by a certainty yet higher than our senses can give us of the existence of other thmgs, and that is internal perception, a self-consciousness, or intuition ; from whence therefore may be drawii, by a train of ideas, the surest and most incontestable proof of the existence of a GK)d. J. L.
BESUBBECTIO ET QtTJ! SEQUTTNTUB.
St Paul, treating expressly of the Besurrection, 1 Cor. xv., teUs us, 1st, that Si men, by the benefit of Christ, shall be restored to life, ver. 21, 22. 2nd, That the order of the Besur- rection is this : first, Christ rises; second, those that are at hiip
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his second coming, ver. 23 ; third, that the saints shall then have spiritual and immortal bodies, ver. 42 ; and they shall then bear the image of the heavenly Adam, i. e. be immortal, as they before bore the image of the earthly, i. e. were mortal, ver. 44 — 49. It is plain St Paul, in the vrord we, ver. 49, 61, 67, 58, speaks not of the dead in general, but of the saints vrho v^ere to put on incorruption, ver. 64, and over whom Death was never to have any more power, because they were dead of all sin, ver. 56. He that will read this chapter carefully may observe that St Paul, in speaking of the Kesurrection, men- tions first Christians, then that of believers, ver. 23, which he gives an account of to the end of the chapter and discourse, and so never comes to the resurrection of the wicked, which was to be the third and last in order ; so that from verse 27 to the end of the chapter is a description only of the resur- rection of the just, though he calls it by the general name of the resurrection of the dead, ver. 42,which is plain from almost every verse of it, from 41 to the end. First, tnat which he here speaks of as raised, is raised in glory, ver. 43 ; but the wicked are not raised in glory. 2nd, He says, we shall bear the image of the heavenly Adatn, ver. 49, which cannot belong to the wicked. 3rd, Jve shall all be changed, that, by putting on incorruptibility and immortality, death may be swallowed up in victory, which God giveth us through our Lord Jesus Christ, ver. 61 — 54, 67, which cannot Skewise belong to the damned ; and then, for we and us here must be under- stood to be spoken of in the name of the dead that are Christ's, who are to be raised before the rest at his coming. He says, ver. 52, that when the dead are raised, they that are alive shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Now that the dead are only the dead in Christ, which shall rise first and shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, is plain from 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17. 4th, He teaches that by this cor- ruptible putting on incorruption is brought to pass that saying, that death is swallowed up of victory. But I think nobody will say that the wicked have victory over death ; yet that, according to the Apostle, here belongs to all those whose corruptible bodies have put on incorruption, which must therefore be only those that rise the second in order, and therefore their resurrection alone is that which is here men- tioned and described, a farther proof whereof is given, ver. 56,
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57, in tbat their sins being taken away, the sting whereby death kills is taken away ; and therefore St Paul says, God has ^iyen us the victory ; which must be the same we which shomd bear the image of the heavenly Adam, ver. 49, and the same we which should all be changed, ver. 51, 52, all which places can therefore belong to none but those who are Christ's, which shall be raised by themselves, the second in order, be- fore the rest of the dead. It is very remarkable what St Paul says in the 51st verse, we shall not all sleep, but we shall alt be changed in the twinkling of an eye. The reason he gives for it, ver. 53, because this corruptible thing must put on incorruption, and this mortal thing put on immortality. JBEow ? By putting off flesh and blood by an instantaneous change ; because, as he tells them, ver. 50, flesh and blood can- not inherit the kingdom of God, and therefore to fit believers for that kingdom, those who are alive at the soimd of the trumpet shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, ver. 51, and those that are in their graves, changed likewise at the instant of their being raised, and so all the whole collection of the saints be put into a state of incorruptibility, ver. 52. Taking the resurrection here spoken of to be the resurrection of all the dead in general, St Paul's reasoning in this place is very hard to be understood ; but upon the supposition that he here describes the resurrection of the just only, those who are mentioned, ver. 23, to rise next in order after Christ, it is very easy, plain, and natural, and stands thus. Men alive are flesh and blood, the dead in the fi^ve are but the remains of corrupted flesh and blood ; but flesh and blood cannot in- herit the kingdom of God, neither can corruption inherit in- corruption, i. e. immortality. Therefore, to make those who are Christ's capable to enter into the eternal kingdom of life, as well those of them who are alive as those of them who are raised from the dead, shall aU be changed, and their cor- ruptible shall put on incorruption, and their mortal shall put on immortality, and thus God give them the victory over death through their Lord Jesus Christ. This is what St Paul argues here, and the account he gives of the resurrection of the blessed ; but how the wicked, which were afterwards to come to life, were to be raised, and what was^ to become of them, he here says nothing, as not being to his purpose, which was to assure the Corinthians, by the
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resurrection of Christ, of happy resurrection to believers, and thereby to encourage them to continue i^ the faith which had such a reward. That this was his desire may be seen by the beginning of his discourse, ver. 12 — 21, and by the conclu- sion, ver. 68, in these words, " Therefore, my beloved, be ye stedfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of tne Lord ; forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord : " which words plainly show, that what he had been speaking of in the immediately preceding verses, viz. their being changed, and the putting on of incorruption and immortality, and their having therefore the victory through Jesus Chnst, belonged solely to the saints as a reward to those who remained stedfast, and abounded in the works of the Lord ; the like use of the like, though shorter, discourse on the resurrection, wherein he describes only thdt of the blessed, he makes to the Thessalonians, 1, iv. 13 — 18, which he concludes thus : — ^Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Nor is it in that place alone that St Paul calls the resurrection of the lust by the general name of the re- surrection of the dead ; he does the same, Phil, iii., where he speaks of his sufferings, and endeavours if by any means he might attain to the resurrection of the dead : whereby he can- not mean the resurrection of the dead in general, which, since it will overtake all men, there needs no endeavours to attain. Our Saviour likewise speaks of the resurrection of the just in the same general terms of the resurrection, Matt. xxii. 30, and theresurrection from the dead, Luke xxv.o5,by which is meant only the resurrection of the just, as is plain from the context.
How long after this the wicked shall rise shall be inquired hereafter. I shall only at present take notice ; only I think it is plain it shall be before our Saviour delivers up the king- dom to his Father, for there is the end. The whole' dispens- ation of God to the race of Adam will be at an end, 1 Cor. XV. 24. Yet these two things are plainly declared in Scrip- ture concerning them.
Ist. That they shall be cast into hell fire to be tormented there, is so express, and so often mentioned in Scripture, that there can be no doubt about it. Matt. xxv. 41, 46, xiii. 42, 50, xviii. 8.
2nd. That they shall not live for ever. This is so plain in Scripture, and is so everywhere inculcated, — that the wages
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of sin is death, and the reward of the righteous is everlasting life, — the constant language of the Scripture in the current of the New Testament as well as Old, is life to the just, to believers, to the obedient, and death to the wicked and un- believers,— ^that one would wonder how the readers could be mistaken where death is threatened so constantly, and declared everjrwhere to be the ultimate punishment and last estate to which the wicked must all come. To solve this, they have invented a very odd sig^nification of the word death, which they would have stand for eternal life in torment. They who will put so strange and contrary a signification upon a word in a hundred places, where, if it had not its true and literal sense, one would wonder it should be so often used, and that in opposition to life, which in those places is used liter- ally, ought to have good proofs for giving it a sense in those places of Scripture mrectly contrary to what it ordinarily has m other parts of Scripture and everywhere else. But leaving this interpretation of the word death to shifb for itself as it can in the minds of reasonable men, there are places of Scrip- ture which plainly show the different state of the just and the wicked to be ultimately life and death, wherein there is no room for that evasion. I shall name one or two of them — Luke XXV. 35, 36. Our Saviour tells the Sadducees that they who are accounted worthy to attain that world in the resur- rection from* the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more ; for they are equal unto me angels, and are the children of Gk)d, bein^ the children of the resurrection. Where Christ plainly decWes of the children of GK)d alone who have been accounted worthy to obtain the resurrection, i. e. the resurrection before the others, that they are like the angels, and can die no more ; which exception of the saints from dying any more after their resurrection is a confirmation that the rest of mankind may and shall die again. Accordinglv St John, Eev. xx. 6, 6, says of this, which he calls the hrst resurrection, " Blessed and holy is he who has put on the first resurrection ; on such the second death hath no power."
I crave leave to observe here, that as St Paul, speaking of the resurrection of the dead, 1 Cor. xv. 42, in general terms, yet means only the first resurrection, or the resurrection of the just ; so our Saviour does here, where by resurrection he
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plainly means only the first resurrection, or the resurrection of the blessed, and not the resurrection of adl mankind, as is plain Qot only by making them the children of Q-od who are the jhildren of the resurrection, but by saying that those who are accounted worthy obtain the resurrection ; which distinction of worthiness can belong only to those who are Christ's, and cannot promiscuously take in all mankind.
Another text that declares the death and final end of the wicked is Gal. vi. 7, 8, " Be not deceived : Gk)d is not mocked ; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap : for he that soweth to his fiesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." In other places, where life everlasting and death are opposed, say these interpreters, by everlasting life, is meant everlasting perfect happiness joinea to life ; by death is meant eternal sv^erings and torments without death. But here corruption and life everlasting are (n)posed. I^ow ^op, corruption, signifies the dissolution and mial destruction of a thing, whereby it ceases to be ; but corruption can by nobody be pretended to signify the endless sense of pain and tormeiit in a being subsisting and continued on to eternity. Cor- ruption is the spoiling anything, the divesting it of the being it had. Accorcongly St Paul, 1 Cor. xv., uses incorruption for «an indefinable estate of immortality. That which gives some colour to their understanding by death an endless life in torment, is the everlasting fire threatened by our Saviour to the wicked, Matt, xviii. 8, xxv. 41, 46. But not to trouble you with the various significations of duration of the word ever- lasting in Scripture, and what else has been answered by orthodox divines to show that these texts did necessarily im- ply eternal or endless torments,^ especially by Archbishop Tillotson, it may suffice to sav, that everlasting, in a true Scripture sense, may be said of that which endures as long as the subject it affects endures. So everlasting priesthood, Exod. xl. 15, was a priesthood that lasted as long as the people lasted in an estate capable of the Mosaical worship, rsal. xxiv. 7, everlasting doors, i. e. that should last as long as the temple which they belonged to. Isa. xxxv. 10, ever- lasting joy, i. e. that continue as long as they lived. A like expression is that of hell &i^e, Mark ix. 13, 44, that never shall be quenched, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is
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not quenched ; an expression taken from Isa. Ixvi. 24, which, though we translate hell, is in the original Gehenna, or the valley of Hinnom, where was kept a constant fire to hum up the carcases of heasts and other filth of the city of Jeru- salem,— where though the fire never was quenched, yet it does not follow^ nor is it said that the hodies that were humt in it were never consumed, only that the worms that gnawed and the fire that humt them were constant, and never ceased till they were destroyed. So, though the fire was not put out, yet the chaff was humt up and consumed, Matt. iii. 12 ; and the tares, ziii. 30 ; in hoth which places, and the parallel, Luke iii. 17, the Qreek word signifies to he consumed by burning, though in our Bibles it is translated bum up but in one of them, viz. Matt. iii. 14. Taking it then for evident that the wicked shall die and be extinguished at last, how long they shall be continued in that inexpressible torment is not, that I know, anywhere expressed ; but that it shall be excessively terrible by its duration as well as its sharpness, the current of the Scripture seems to manifest ; only if one may conjecture, it seems to be before our Saviour's delivering up the Inngdom to his Father. The account ^ye of it by St Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 23, 28, at Christ's second commg, the just rise by themselves ; then Christ shall set up his kingdom, wherein he shall sub- due all rule and all authorities and power that opposes him, . for he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet ; the last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death ; then he shall deliver up the kingdom to G-od his Eather, and then cometh the end, i. e. the full conclusion of G^d's whole dis- pensation to Adam and his posterity. After which there shall be no death, no change ; the scene will then be closed, and everyone remain in the same estate for ever.
One tning upon the occasion may be worth our inquiry ; - whether the wicked shall not rise with such bodies of flesh and blood as they had before ; for that all that is said of the change of bodies, 1 Cor. xv. and 1 Thess. iv., has been already shown to be spoken only of the saints ; • the like whereof may be observed in othw plaoes of Scripture, where bodies changed into a better state are mentioned ; as 2 Cor. v. 1 — 4, it is always spoken of the bodies of the saints, nor do I remember any change of the bodies where the resurrection of the wicked can be supposed to be comprehended; but it is only spoken
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of thus : " The hour is coming, in which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.'* John V. 28, 29. "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of God, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or hm, 2 Cor. V. 10. And so likewise, "Eaise the dead." Acts xxvi. 8; 2 Cor. i. 9. ""Quicken the dead." Eom. iv. 17. But of the change of their bodies, of their being made spi- ritual, or of their putting on incorruption or immortality, I do not remember anything said. They shall be raised, that is said over and over ; but how they are raised, or with what bodies they shall come, the Scripture, as far as I have ob- served, is perfectly silent.
We have seen what the Scripture says of the state of the wicked after the resurrection, and what is the final catastrophe they are doomed to. Let us now see what Scripture dis- covers to us of the state of the just after the Eesurrection ; that whatsoever was earthly, corruptible, mortal about them, shall, at the instant of the sound of the trumpet that is to call them at Christ's coming, be changed into spiritual, in- corruptible, immortal, we have already seen.
The following paper appears to be intended as a supple- ment to the Mode of acquiring Truth ; it illustrates Mr Locke's other works, and shows ho^ deeply his mind was engaged in this particular!
ENTHTTSIASM^-METHOD,
The way to find truth as far as we are able to reach it in this our dark and shortsighted state, is to pursue the hypothesis that seems to us to carry with it the most light and consistency as far as we can without raising ob-» jections, or striking at those that come in our way, till we nave carried our present principle as far as it will go, and given what light and strength we can to all the parts of it. And when that is done, then to take into our consideration any objections that lie against it, but not so as to pursue them as objections against the system we bad formerly ^rect-
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ed ; but to consider upon what foundation they are bottomed, and examine that in all its parts, and then putting the two whole systems together, see which is liable to most excep- tions, and labours under the greatest difficulties ; for such is the weakness of our understandings, that, unless where we hare clear demonstration, we can scarce make out to our- selves any truths which will not be liable to some exception beyond our power wholly to clear it from ; and therefore, if upon that ground we are presently bound to give up our former opinion, we shall be in a perpetual fluctuation, every day changing our minds, and passmg &om one side to another we shall lose all stability of thought, and at last give up all probable truths as if there were no such thing, or, which is not much better, think it indifferent which side we take.
To this, yet as dangerous as it is, the ordinary way of managing controversies in the world directly tends. If an opponent can find one weak pld«e in his adversary's doctrine, and reduce him to a stand, with difficulties rising from thence he presently concludes he has got the day, and may justly triumph in the goodness of his own cause ; whereas victory no more certainrp^ always accompanies truth than it does right. It shows indeed the weakness of the part attacked, or of the defence of it ; but to show which side has the best pretence to truth and followers, the two whole systems must be set by one another, and considered entirely, and then see whicn is most consistent in all its parts, which least clogged with incoherencies or absurdities, and which freest from, begged principles and unintelligible notions.
This is the fairest way to search after truth, and the surest not to mistake on which side she is. There is scarce any con- troversy which is not a full instance of this ; and if a man will embrace no opinion but what he can dear from all diffi- culties and remove all objections, I fear he will have but very narrow thoughts, and find very Httle that he shall assent to.
What, then, will you say, shall he embrace that for truth vehich has improbabilities m it that he cannot master P This has a clear answer. In contradicting opinions, one must be true, that he cannot doubt ; whicn then shall he take P That which is accompanied with the greatest light and evi- * dence, that which is freest from the grosser absur£ties, though our narrow capacities cannot pene&ate it on every side.
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Some men have made objections to the belief of a God, and think they ought to be heard and hearkened to, because, perhaps, nobody can unravel all the difficulties of creation and providence, which are but arguments of the weakness of our understandings, and not against the being of a God. Let us take a view, then, of these men's hypotheses, and let us see what direct contradiction they must be involved in who deny a God. If there be no God from eternity, then there was no thinking thing from eternity ; for the eternal thinking Thing I call God. If from eternity there were no thinking Thing, then thinking things were made out of un- thinking things bv an unthinking power : as great an ab- surdity as that nothing should produce something. If matter be that eternal thinking thing, let us change that deceitful word matter, which seems to stand for one thing when it means the congeries of all bodies, and then the opinion will be that aU bodfies, every distinct atom, is in its own nature a thinking thing. Let any one then resolve with himself how such an infinite number of distinct independent thinking things came to be of one mind, and to consent and contrive together to make such an admirable frame as the world, and the species of things and their successive continuation is. How some of them consented to lie buried for long or num- berless ages in the bowels and centre of the earth, or other massy globes, — places certainly very uneasy for thinking be- ings,— ^whilst others are delighting themselves in the pleasure of freedom and the day. Let them produce harmony, beauty, constancy from such a con^m^ of thmking independent atoms, and one may, I think, allow them to be creators of this world ; and I know not why upon their own grounds they should not think so themselves, smce there is no reason why the think- ing atoms in them should not be as wise as any other in the /universe ; for if they once allow me one atom of matter to have from eternity some degrees of knowledge and power above any other, they must tell us a reason why it is so, or else their supposition will be ridiculous when set up against the supposition of a Being that had from etermty more knowledge and more power than all matter taken together, and so was able to frame it into this orderly state of nature 80 visible and admirable in all the parte of it.
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LETTEB OF H. LS OLEBO TO LOCKE.
** ^ Amsterdam, le 12 d'Aoiit, 1694. " Je re^us, Monsieur, la semaine passee, par la voie de Monsieur Furly, les additions de voire ouvrage, qui m'ont infiniment plu. J'ai It. avidement Faddition du chapitre de la Libert^, qui m'a entierement satisfait, ^tant conyaincu depuis long-temps que la pluspart du temps, les hommes ne se d^terminent pas par la vue distincte ou confuse de ce qui pent ^tre leur plus grand bien, ou qu'ils croient etre tel, mais par le plaisir qu'ils prennent a certaines choses, aux- quelles ils sont habitues. On pourroit seulement demander si ce plaisir, ou cette easiness, comme vous vous exprimez plus commodement que je ne le saurois faire en Fran9ois, est toujours de telle nature, que malgr6 cela, Tesprit ne puisse se determiner du cote oppos6. Pour moi, j'avoue que je ne Yois pas bien comment lorsque je lis avec attention ce que vous dites ; mais je ne sais si le sentiment ne nous en convainc point. Au moins, il me semble qu'en mille choses je puis faire, ou non, et que je ne me determine que parceque je le veux sans trouver plus de plaisir d'un c6te que d'un autre. Mais c'est Ik une matiere qui demande plus d'etendue, qu'un billet ^crit a la h^te. — Pour parler d'autres choses, et pour repondre a un article de vos lettres auquel j'ai oubli6 de r6- pondre trois ou quatre fois, vous disposerez comme il vous plaira de Texemplaire reli6 de ma Geneses, soit que vous le veuillez garder pour vous, ou le donner k quelqu'un de vos amis. J'attenos avec impatience le livre de Monsieur TEv^que de Bath et "Wells, pour voir ce qu'il dira contre moi, car les Fran9ois de Londres, gens envieux et malins, s'il y en eut jamais, ont pris plaisir k semer qu'il me refutoit en termes forts. Cela me facheroit, non a cause des raisons, auxquelles je ne ferai pas difficult^ de me rendre si elles sont bonnes, mais a cause de la consequence : je ne sais si je me trompe, mais je m'imagine que ce sont des raisons de th^olo- gie in g[uibus magis opta/nt vvri pii quam docent. On prescrit k Dieu ce qu*il doit avoir fait comme on le juge a propos, sans rechercher ce qui est effectivement. Quoi qu'il en soit, j'en userai avec lui, avec tout le respect qu'il pourra demander ; et pour Ten convaincre, je lui ai deja envoy^ dix-huit feuilles
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de mon Exode, qu'il m'avoit faites demander par M. Cappel et par M. Limbourg, a qui il avoit ^crit expres pour cela. II J en a a present environ le double d'imprim^eB, et j*espere que nous commen9eron8 bient6t le Levitique. Je ne com- prends pas qui avoit fait courir le bruit d' Oxford, dont M. Cappel m'avoit aussi averti. II n'en est venu aucun vent a mes oreilles que par ce que vous et lui m'avez mand6. Mylord de Salisbury* pourroit beaucoup faire pour moi, s'il vouloit, mais je ne sais s'il le veut. II a un Cbanoine Eran* 9oi8 aupres de lui, qui, feignant de m'estimer, seme par tout que je me suis perdu par ce livre, parce que je n'ai pas donn^ dans les ^tranges visions qu'il a debit6e sur le Mistic, dans ses reflections sur les livres de VEcriture, Je'tenterai nean- moins de ce e^t^ \k^ et je ne crois pas qu'il me nuira s'il ne veut pas m'aider. Enfin il en arrivera ce qu'il pourra, et pourvu que personne de nos gens sadie rien de ma tentative si elle ne reiissit pas, il n'y aura rien de perdu. Mais vos boutiquiers qui sont ici les souverains, et qui regardent leurs ministres comme leurs servantes, me regarderoient de haut en bas plus que jamais, s'ils savoient que je n'eusse pas reiissi. Au contraire, si je pouvois me passer d'eux et me retirer d'ici, je me mettrois peu en peine de ce qu'ils diroient. Ce- pendant il n'est pas bon que des personnes mal-intentionn6es sacbent rien de mes desseins. II ne se passe rien ici de uouveau. Je vous prie de me mander la voie par laquelle vous m'envoyerez ou vous m'avez envoy6 le Pentateuque de M. I'Eveque de Bath.. Je suis de tout mon coBur, Monsieur, votre tres-bumble et tres-obeissant serviteur,
J. Le Clebc."
MB IiOOKE'b ANSVTEB TO M. IE OLEBO. LIBEBTT.
As to the determination of the will, we may take it under three considerations.
1st. The ordinary and successive uneasinesses which take their turns in the common course of our lives, and these ate what, for the most part, determine the will, but with a power still of suspending.
2nd. Violent uneasiness which the mind cannot resist nor away with : these constantly determine the will without any ♦ Bishop Burnet.
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manner of suspension, where there is any view of a possibility of their removal.
3rd. A great number of little and very indifferent actions which mix themselves with those of greater moment, and fill up, as it were, the little empty spaces of our time. In these the will may be said to determine itself without the pre- ponderancy of good or evil, or the motive of uneasiness on either side ; as whether a man should put on his right or left shoe first, whether he should fold a margeant in the paper wherein he is going to write a letter to his friend, whether he should sit stSl or walk, or scratch his head whilst he is in a deep meditation ; there are a thousand such actions as these which we do every day, which are certainly voluntary, and may be ascribed to the will determining itself. But there is so little thought precedes them, because of the little conse- quences that attend them, that they are but as it were ap- pendices to the more weighty and more voluntary actions to which the mind is determined by some sensible uneasiness, and therefore in these the mind is determined to one or the other side, not by the preferable or ^ater good it sees in either, but b^ the desire and necessity of despatch, that it may not be hindered in the pursuit of what is judged of more moment by a lingering sus{)ense between equal and indiffer- ent things, and a deHberation about trifles ; in these, the uneasiness of delay is sufficient to determine and give the preference to one, it matters not which side. — Mem. This writ to Mr Le Clerc, 9th Oct., 1694, in answer to his of 12th Aug.
The following articles properly belong to the Journal. Their date will show when eacn was written.
1677.— SPECIES.
The species of things are distinguished and made by chance, in order to naming and names imposed on those things which either the conveniences of life or common observation bring into discourse. The greatest part of the rest, sine nomine herhcBy lie neglected, neither differenced by names, nor dis- tinguished into species ; viz. how many flies and worms are there which, though they are about us in great plenty, we
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hsLYe not yet named nor ranked into species, but come tinder the general names of flies or worms, wnich yet are as distinct as a horse and a sheep, though we never have had so great occasion to take notice of them.
So that our ideas of species are almost voluntary, or at least different from the idea of Nature by which she fbrms and distinguishes them, which' in animals she seems to me to keep to with more constancy and exactness than in other bodies and species of things : those being curious engines do perhaps require a greater accurateness for their propagation and continuation of their race ; for in vegetables we hnd that several sorts come from the seeds of one and the same indi- -vidual, as much different spedes as those that are allowed to be so by philosophers.
This is very familiar in apples, and perhaps other sorts of fruits, whereof some have distinct names and others only the general, though they begin every day to have more and more given them as they come into use. So that species, in re- spect of us, are but things ranked into order, because of their agreement in some ideas which we have made essential in order to our naming them, though what it is essentially to belong to any species in reference to Nature be hard to de- termine ; for if a woman should bring forth a creature per- fectly of the shape of a man, that never showed any more appearance of reason than a horse, and had no articular lan- guage, and another woman should produce another with nothing of the shape, but with the language and reason of a man, I ask which of these you would call by the name man P — ^bqth or neither ?
UNDBBSTANDIKO. — ABOUMEKTS POSITIVE AJSTD ITEGATrVB.
1677.
In questions where there are arguments on both sides, one positive proof is to preponderate to a great many negatives, because a positive proof is always founded upon some real existence, which we mow and apprehend ; whereas the nega- tive arguments terminate generally in nothing, in our not being able to conceive, and so may be nothing but conclusions from our ignorance or incapacity, and not from the truth of things which may, and we have experience do, really exist,
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though thej exceed our comprehension. This amongst the things we snow and lie ohyious to our senses is very evident ; for though we are very well acquainted with matter, motioD, and distance, yet there are many things in them which we can hy no means comprehend ; for, even in the things most obvious and familiar to us, our understanding is nonplussed, and presently discovers its weakness; whenever it enterd upon the consideration of anything that is unlimited, or would penetrate into the modes or manner of being or opera- tion, it presently meets with unconqu^^ble difficulties. Matter, and fi^;ure, and motion, and the degrees of both, we have clear notions of; but when we begin to think of the ex- tension or divisibility of the one, or the beginning of either,* our understanding sticks and boggles, and knows not which way to turn. We also have no other notion of operation but of matter by motion,— at least I must confess I have not, and should be glad to have any one explain to me intelligibly any other ; and yet we shall find it hard to make out any phenomenon by those causes. We know very well that we think, and at pleasure move ourselves, and yet, if we will think a negative argument sufficient to build on, we shall have reason to doubt whether we can do one or other ; it being to me inconceivable how matter should think, and as incomprehensible how an immaterial thinking thing should be able to move material, or be affected by it. We having therefore positive experience of our thinking and motion, the negative arguments against them, and the impossibility of understanding them, never shake our assent to these truths, which perhaps will prove a considerable rule to determine ua in very material questions.
Alt ESSAY CONCEBNINO EECBEATION, IN ANSWEB TO n. G.'S DESIBE. — 1677.
As for re^eation, thus I think ; that recreation being a thing ordained, not for itself, but for a certain end, that end is to be the rule and measure of it.
Becreation then seeming to me to be the doing of some easy or at least delightful thing to restore the mind or body, tired with labour, to its former strength and vigour, and thereby fit it for new labour, it seems to me, —
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Ist. That ther^ can be no general rule set to different persons concerning the time, manner, duration, or sort of recreation that is to be used, but only that it be such as their experience tells them is suited to them, and proper to re- fresh thepart tired.
2nd. Tfiat if it be applied to the mind, it ought certainly to be delightful, because it being to restore and enHven that, which is done by relaxing and composing the agitation of the spirits, that which delights it without employing it much, is not only the fittest to do so, but also the contrary, i. e. what is ungrateful doth certainly most discompose and tire it.
3rd. That it is impossible to set a standing rule of recre- ation to one's self; because not only the unsteady fleeting condition of our bodies and spirits requires more at one time than another, which is plain in other more fixed re&eshments, as food and sleep, and likewise requires very different accord- ing to the employment that hath preceded the present tem- per of our bodies and inclination of our minds ; but also be- cause variety in most constitutions is so necessary to delight, and the mind is so naturally tender of its freedom, that the most pleasant diversions become nauseous and troublesome to us when we are forced to repeat them in a continued fixed round.
It is further to be considOTed : —
1st. That in things not absolutely commanded nor forbid- den by the law of God, such as is the material part of recre- ation, he in his mercy considering our ignorance and frail constitution, hath not tied us to an indivisible point, nor confined us to a way so narrow that allows no latitude at all in things in their own nature indifferent ; there is the liberty of great choice, great variety, within the bounds of innocence.
2nd. That God delights not to have us miserable either in this or the other world, but having given us all things richly to enjoy, we cannot imagine that in our recreations we should be denied delight, which is the only necessary and useful part of it.
This supposed, I imagine : —
1st. That recreation supposes labour and weariness, and therefore that he that labours not hath no title to it.
2nd. That it very seldom happens that our constitutions
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(thougli there be some tender ones that require a great deal) require more time to be spent in recreation than in labour.
3rd. We must beware that custom and the fashion of the world, or some other by-interest, doth not make that pass with us for recreation which is indeed labour to us, though it be not our business ; as playing at cards, though no other- wise allowable but as a recreation, is so far from fitting some men for their business and giving them refreshment, that it more discomposes them than their ordinary labour.
So that God not tying us up of time, place, kind, Ac, in our recreations, if we secure our main duty, which is in sin- cerity to do our duty in our calling as far as the frailty of our bodies or minds will allow us (beyond which we cannot think anything should be required of us), and that we de- sign our diversions to put us in a condition to do our duty, we need not perplex ourselves with too scrupulous an inquiry into the precise bounds of them ; for we cannot be supposed to be obliged to rules which we cannot know : for I doubt first whether there be any such exact proportion of recreation to our present state of body and mind, that so much is exactly enough, and whatsoever is under is too little, what- soever is over is too much ; but be it so or no, this I am very confident of,, that no one can say in his own or another man's case, that thus much is the precise dose ; hitherto you must go and no further ; — so that it is not only our privilege, but we are under a necessity of using a latitude, and where we can discover no determined, precise rule, it is unavoidt able for us to go sometimes beyond, and sometimes to stop short of, that which is, I will not say the exact, but nearest proportion ; and in such cases we can only govern ourselves by the discoverable bounds on the one hand or the other, which is only when we find that our recreation, by excess or defect, serves not to the proper end for which we are to use it, only with this caution, that we are to suspect ourselves most on that side to which we find ourselves most inclined. The cautious, devout, studious man, is to fear that he allows not himself enough ; the gay, careless, and idle, that he takes too much ; to which I can only add these following directions as to some particulars : —
1st. That the properest time for recreating the mind is
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when it feels itself weary and flagging ; it may be wearied .with a thing when it is not weary of it.
2nd. That the properest recreation of studious, sedentary persons, whose laoour is of the thought, is bodily exercise ; to those of bustling employment, sedentary recreations.
3rd. That in all bodily exercise, those in the open air are best for health.
4th. It may often be so ordered that one business may be made a recreation to another, visiting a friend to study.
These are my sudden extemporary thoughts upon this sub- ject, which will deserve to be better considered when I am in better circumstances of freedom, of thought, and leisure. Vale, March, 77. J. L.
MSlfOBY — IlCAGnrATION — MADNESS.
Memobt. When we revive in our minds the idea of any- thing that we have before observed to exist, this we call memory ; viz. to recollect in our minds the idea of our father or brother. But when, from the observations we have made of divers particulars, we make a general idea to represent any species in general, as man ; or else join several ideas together, which we never observed to exist together, we call it imagina- tion. So that memory is always the picture of something, the idea whereof has existed before in our thoughts, as near the life as we can draw it ; but imagination is a picture drawn in our minds without reference to a pattern.
And here it may be observed that the ideas of memory, like painting after the life, come always short, i. e. want some- thing of the original. For whether a man would remember the dreams he had in the night, or the sights of a foregoing day, some of the traces are ^ways left out, some of the cir- cumstances are forgotten ; and those kind of pictures, like those represented successively by several looking-glasses, are the more dim and fainter the further they are off from the original object. For the mind, endeavouring to retain only the traces of the pattern, losing by degrees a great part of them, and not having the liberty to supply any new colours or touches of its own, the picture in the memory every day fades and grows dimmer, ana oftentimes is quite lost.
But the imagination, not being tied to any pattern, but
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334 LIFE AKD LETTEBS OE JOHN LOOKE.
adding what colours, what ideas it pleases, to its own work- manship, making originals of its own which are usually very- bright and clear in the mind, and sometimes to that degree that they make impressions as strong and as sensible as those ideas which come immediately by the senses from external objects, — so that the mind takes one for the other, and its own imagination for realities.
And in this, it seems, madness consists, and not in the want of reason ; for allowing their imagination to be right, one may observe that madmen usually reason right from them : and I guess that those who are about madmen, wiU find that they make very little use of their memory, which is to recollect particulars past with their circumstances : but having any particular idea suggested to their memory, fancy dresses it up affcer its own fashion, without regard to the original.
Hence also one may see how it comes to pass that those that think long and intently upon one thing, come at last to have their minds disturbed about it, and to be a little cracked as to that particular. For by irepeating often with vehemence of imagination the ideas that do belong to, or may be brought in about, the same thing, a great many whereof the fancy is wont to furnish, these at length come to take so deep an im- pression, that they all pass for clear truths and realities, though perhaps the greater part of them have at several times been supplied only by the fancy, and are nothing but the pure effects of the imagination.
This at least is the cause of several errors and mistakes amongst men, even when it does not wholly unhinge the brains, and put all government of the thoughts into the hands of the imagination ; as it sometimes happens when the im- agination, .being much employed, and getting the mastery about any one thing, usurps the dominion over all the other faculties of the mind in all other. But how this comes about, or what it is that gives it on such an occasion that empire, — how it comes thus to be let loose, I confess, I cannot guess. If that were once known, it wolild be no small advance towards the easier curing of this malady ; and perhaps to that purpose it may not be amiss to observe what diet, temper, or other circumstances they are, that set the imagination on fire, and make it active and imperious. This I think, that having ofben recourse to one's memory, and tying down the mind strictly
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to the recollecting things past precisely as they were, may be a means to check those extravagant or towering flights of the imagination. And it is good often to divert the mind from that which it has been earnestly aaaployed about, or which is its ordinary business, to other objects, and to make it attend to the informations of the senses and the things they ofler to it. J. L. 1678.
MADKESS.
Madness seems to be nothing but a disorder in the imagin- ation, and not in the discursive faculty ; for one shall find amongst the distract, those who fancy themselves kings, <&c., who discourse and reason right enough upon the suppositions and wrong fancies they have taken. And any sober man may find it in himself in twenty occasions, viz. — ^in a town where he has not been long resident, let him come into a street that he is pretty well acquainted with at the contrary end to what he imagined, he will find all his reasonings about it so out of order and so inconsistent with the truth, that should he enter into debate upon the situation of the houses, the turnings on the right or left hand, &c. &c., with one wSo knew the place perfectly, and had the right ideas which way he was gomg, he would seem little better than frantic.
This, I believe, most people may have observed to have happened to themselves, especially when they have been earned up and down in coaches, and perhaps may have found it sometimes difficult to set their thoughts right, and reform the mistakes of their imagination. And I have known some who, upon the wrong impressions which were at first made upon their imaginations, could never tell which was north or south in Smithfield, though they were no very ill geographers : and when by the sun and the time of the day they were con- vinced of the position of that place, yet they could not tell how to reconcile it to other parts of the town that were ad- joining to it, but out of sight ; and were very apt to relapse again, as soon as either the sun disappeared, or they were out of sight of the place, into the mistakes and confiision of their old ideas. From whence one may see of what moment it is to take care that the first impressions we settle upon our minds be conformable to the truth and to the nature of
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886 LIFE AXTD LETTEBS OF JOHIT LOCKE.
things ; or else all our meditations and discourse thereupon will be nothing but perfect raving.
*^BB0B.
The foundation of error and mistake in most men lies in haying obscure or confused notions of things, or by reason of their confused ideas, doubtful and obscure words ; our words always in their signification depending upon oiu! ideas, being clear or obscure proportionablj as our notions are so, and sometimes have little more but the sound of the word for the notion of the thin^. For in the discursive faculty of the mind, I do not find that men are so aj^t to err ; but it avails little that their syllogisms are right, if their terms be insignificant and obscure, or confused and indetermined, or that in their internal discourse deductions be regular, if their notions be wrong. Therefore, in our discoiirse with others, the greatest care is to be had that we be not misled or im- posed on by the measure of their words, where the fallacy oftener lies than in faulty consequences.
And in considering by ourselves to take care of our notions, where a man argues right upon wrong notions or terms, he does like a madman ; where he makes wrong consequences, he does like a fool : madness seeming to me to lie more in the imagination, and folly in the discourse.
SPACE. — 1677.
Space, in itself, seems to be nothing but a capacity, or possibility, for extended beings or bodies to be, or exist, which we are apt to conceive infinite ; for there being in nothing no resistance, we have a conception very natural and very true, that let bodies be already as far extended as you will, yet, if other new bodies should be created, they might exist where there are now no bodies : viz. a globe of a foot diameter might exist beyond the utmost superficies of all bodies now existing; and because we have by our acquaintance with bodies got the idea of the figure and distance of the super- ficial pait of a globe of a foot diameter, we are apt to imagine the space where the globe exists to be reaUy something, to have a r^al existence before and after its existence there.
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Whereas, in truth, it is really nothing, and so has no opposi- tion nor resistance to the being of such a body there ; though we, applying the idea of a natural globe, are apt to conceive it as something so far extended, and these are properly the imaginary spaces which are so much disputed of. But as for distance, I suppose that to be the relation of two bodies or beings near or remote to one another, measurable by the ideas we have of distance taken from solid bodies ; for were there no beings at aU,* we might truly say there were no dis- tances. The fallacy we put upon ourselves which inclines us to think otherwise is this, that whenever we talk of dis- tance, we first suppose some real beings existing separate from one another, and then, without t^ing notice of that supposition, and the relation that results from their plaeing one in reference to another, we are apt to consider that space as some positive real being existing without them : whereas, as it seems to me, to be but a bare relation ; and when we suppose them to be, viz. a yard asunder, it is no more but to say extended in a direct line to the proportion of three feet or thirty-six inches distance, whereof by use we have got the idea : this gives us the notion of distance, and the vacuum that is between them is understood by this, that bodies of a yai'd long that come between them, thrust or remove away nothing that was there before.
1. I take it for granted that I can conceive a space vdth- out a body ; for, suppose the universe as big as you will, I can, vnthout the bounds of it, imagine it possible to thrust out or create anv the most solid body of any figure, without removing from the place it possesses anything that was there before. Neither does it imply any contradiction to suppose a space so empty vnthin the bounds of the universe, that a body may be brought into it without removing from thence any other ; and if this be not granted, I cannot see how oqe can make out any motion supposing your bodies of what figures or bulk you please,^ as 1 imagine it is easy to demon- strate. •
If it be possible to suppose nothing, or, in our thoughts, to remove all manner of beings from any place, then this imaginarjr space is just nothing, and signifies no more but a bare possibility that body may exist where now there is none. If it be impossible to suppose pure nothing, or to extend our
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338 LITE AJSTD LETTEfiS OF JOHN LOCKE.
thoughts where there is, or we can suppose, no being, this space Toid of body must be something belonging to the being of the Deity. But be it one or the other, the idea we have of it we take from the extension of bodies which fall under our senses ; and this idea of extension being settled in our minds, we are able, by repeating that in our thoughts, with- out annexing body or impenetrability to it, to imagine spaces where there are no bodies — ^which imaginary spaces, if we suppose all other beings absent, are purely nothing, but merely a possibility that body might there exist. Or i£ it be a necessify to suppose a being there, it must be God, whose being we thus make, i. e. suppose extended, but not impene- trable : but be it one or the other, extension seems to be mentally separable from body, and distance nothing but the relation of space, resulting from the existence of two positive beings ; or, which is all one, two parts of the same being.
EBLA.TI01!r — SPACE. 1678.
Besides the considering things barely and separately in themselves, the mind considers them also vdth respect, i. e. at the same time looking upon some other, and this we call relation. So that if the mind so considers anything that another is necessarily supposed, this is relation ; there is that which necessarily makes us consider two things at once, or makes the mind look on two things at once, and hence it is that relative terms or words that signify this relation so de- nominate one thing, as that they always intimate or denote another ; viz. father, countryman, bigger, distant ; so that whatsoever necessarily occasions two things, looked on as distinct, this connection in our thoughts of whatsoever it be founded in, that is properly relation, which perhaps may serve to give a little fight to that great obscurity which has caused so much dispute about the nature of space, whether it be something or nothing, created or eternal. For when we speak of space (as of dinarily we do) as the abstract dis- tance, it seems to me to be a pure relation, and we call it distance ; but when we consider it as die distance or space between the extremities of a continued body, whose con- tinued parts do, or are supposed to, fill all the interjacent space, we call it extension, and it is looked on to be a posi-
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tive inherent property of the body, because it keeps con- stantly with it, always the same, and every particle has its share of it ; whereas, whether you consider the body in whole mass, or in the least particles of the body, it appears to me to be nothing but the relation of the distance of the extremi- ties. But when we speak of space in general, abstract and Beparate from all consideration of any body at all or any other bemg, it seems not then to be any real thing, but the con- sideration of a bare possibility of body to exist : to this, I foresee, there will lie two great objections : —
1st. The Cartesians will except against me as speaking of space without body, which they make to be the same thing ; to whom let me say, that if spacium be corptis, and corpus spacium, then it is as true too that extensio is corpus, and corpus eatensio, which is a pretty harsh kind of expression, and that which is so distant from truth, that I do not re- member that I have anywhere met with it from them ; and yet I would fiiin know any other difference between extensio and spacium than that which I have above mentioned. If they will say omne extensum et omnis res positiva extensa cor* puSy et vice versd, I fully consent. But then it is only to say that body is the only being capable of distance between its own parts, which is extension (for I do not know why angels may not be capable of the relation of distance, in re- Bpeeb of one another), which shows plainly the difference of the words extension, which is for distance, a part of the same body, or that which is considered but as one body, and that of space, which is the distance between any two bein^, without the consideration of body interjacent.
Besides this, there seems to me this great and essential difference between space and body, that body is divisible into separable parts, but space is not. This, I think, is so plain that it needs no proof; for if one take a piece of matter, of an inch square, for example, and divide it mto two, the parts will be separated if set at further distance one from another ; but yet nobody, I think, amongst those who are most for the leali^ of space, say the parts of space are or can be removed to a mrther distance one from another. And he that, im- agining the idea of a space of an inch square, can tell how to separate the parts of it, and remove them one from an* other, haa, I confess, a much more powerful fancy than I.
z2
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340 LIFE AND LETTEES OF JOHN LOCKE.
It is no more strange, therefore, that extension, which is the relation of distance between parts of the same being, should be proper only to body, which alone has parts, than that the relation of filiation should be proper only to men.
To my supposition, that space, as it may be conceived an- tecedent to and void of all bodies, or, if you will, all deter- minate beings, is nothing but the idea of the possibility of the existence of body ; for, when one says there is space for another world as big as this, it seems to me to be no more than there is no repugnancy why another world as big as this might not exist ; and in this sense space may be said to be infinite ; and so in effect space, as antecedent to body, or some determinate being, is in effect nothing — To this 1 say will be objected, that space being, as it is, capable of greater and less, cannot properly be nothing.
To this I say, th^Ct space, antecedent to all determinate beings, is not capable oi greajber or less. The mistake lies in this, that we, having been accustomed to the measures of a foot, an ell, a mile, &c. &c., can easily frame ideas of them, where we suppose no body to be even beyond the bounds of the world, but our having ideas in our head proves not the existence of anything without us. But you will say, is not the space of a foot beyond the extremity of the universe less than the space of a yard ? I answer, yes ; that the idea of one, which I place there, is bigger than the idea of the other ; but that there is anything real there existing, I deny ; or by saying or imagining the space of a foot or yard beyond the extremity of the world, would suppose or mean anythmg more than that a body of a foot or a yard (of which I have the idea) may exist there, I deny. Indeed, should a body be placed a foot distant from the utmost extremity of the universe, one might say it was a foot distant from the world, which seems to me to be a bare relation, resulting from its position there, without supposing that space to be any real being existing there before, and interposed between them, but only that a real body of such dimensions may be placed between them without removing them further one from the other. Por the relation makes itself appear in this, that whatsoever is so spoke of requires its correlative ; and therefore, speaking of the universe, one cannot say it is distant, because without it
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MISCELLAJJEOUS PAPEES. 341
we suppose no other determinate or finite being which may be the other term of this relation.
It will be answered, perhaps, that one may suppose a point in that empty space, and then say it is a foot from that point. I answer, one may as easily suppose a body as a point, if the point be quid reale; if not, it being nothing, one cannot say the extremity or superficies of the world is a foot from no- thing ; so that be it a point, or body, or what other being one pleases, that is supposed there, it is evidence there is always required some real existence to be the other term of the relation.
And after all the suppositions that can be made, it can never truly be said that the utmost superficies of the world is a foot distant from anything, if there be nothing really ex- isting beyond it, but only that imaginary space*
That which makes us so apt to mistake in this point, I think, is this, that having been all our lifetime accustomed to speak ourselves, and hear all others speak of space, in phrases that import it to be a real thing, as to occupy or take up so much space, we come to be possessed with this preju- dice, that it is a real thing, and not a bare relation. And that which helps to it is, that by constant conversing with real sensible things, which have this relation of distance one to another, which we, by the reason just now mentioned, mistake for a real positive thing, we are apt to think that it as really exists beyond the utmost extent of aU bodies, or finite beings, though there be no such beings there to sustain it, as it does here amongst bodies, which is not true. For though it be true that the black lines drawn on a rule have the relation one to another of an inch distance, they being ' real sensible things ; and though it be also true that I, knovmig the idea of an inch, can imagine that length without imagining body, as well as I can imagine a figure without imagining body ; yet it is no more true that ther© is any real distance in that which we call imaginary space, than that there is any real figure there.
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ADVERSARIA THEOLOGICA.
Ik a book with this title, commenced 1694, Mr Locke had written several pages, of which the following have been se- lected as specimens; they may be considered also as indi- cations of his opinions. The other subjects in the book are: —
Anima humana materiaHs. Spiritus sanctus Deus. Christus merns homo. Lex operum.
Anima humana non materialis. Spiritus sanctus non Deus. Christus non merus homo. Lex fidei.
TEIKITAS.
>. Gen. i. 26. Let us.
2. Man is become as one of us.
3. Gen. iii. 22; Gen. xi. 6, 7 j Isa. vi. 8.
NON TEINITAS.
Because it subverteth the unity of God, introducing three gods.
Because it is inconsistent with the rule of prayer directed in the SS. Tor if God be three persons, how can we pray to him through his Son for his Spirit ?
The rather alone is the most high God. Luke i. 32, 35.
There is but. one first independent cause of all things, which is the most high God. Eom. xi. 36.
The Lord shall be one, and his name one. Zech. xiv. 9.
The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Mark xii. 29.
'Tis life eternal to know thee [Father], the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. John xvii. 3. If the Holy Spirit were God, the know- ledge of him would be necessary, too, to
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XEINITAS. IfON TBI^IflTAS.
eternal life. It is eternal life to know Christ as sent, not as eternally begot- ten, nor as coessential to the Eather. Biddle, 124. 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6.
There is one Spirit manifestly dis- tinguished from Gtod, i. e. one created airit by way of excellency ; i. e. the )ly Spirit. 2. There is one Lord distmguished from G-od, and therefore made, else there would be two unmade Lords ; i. e. one made Lord by way of excellency, which is Jesus. Eph. iv. 4 —6 ; Acts iL 22, 23, 83, 36 ; Matt. xiiv. 36 ; Mark xiii. 32.
Bom. XV. 6.
John vi. 27.
James iii. 9.
John viii. 64. The Jews knew no God but the Father, and that was St Paul's God.
2 Tim. i. 3; Acts iii. 13, v. 30, 31, xxii. 14 ; Neh. ix. 6. Thou art Lord alone. Thou denoteth a single person.
1. Let us make man, no more proves the speaker to be more persons than one, than the like form, Mark iv. ^0 ; John iii. 2 ; 2 Cor. x. 1, 2.
This, if anything, proves only that there was some other person with Gtod whom he employed, as in the creation of other things so of man, viz. the Spirit, ver. 2; Psal. dv. 30; Job xxvi. 13, xxxiii. 4.
Gten, iii. 22. This was spoken also to the Holy Spirit, as also that, G^n. xi. 6, 7 ; Isa. vi. 8.
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LIFE AND LBTTEES OF JOHN LOCKS.
CHRISTUS DEITS SUPBEMUS.
1. If Christ were not G-od, he could not satisfy for our sins.
2. He is called the mighty Q-od, Isa. ix. 6.
3. Bom. ix. $, tov eiri iravTiDV Qeog tvkoyrjTog eiQ tovq
CHEISTUS NON DEITS SUPBEMUS.
Because we are to honour him, for that the Father hath committed all judgment to him. John v. 22, 23. But the highest is to be honoured with the highest honour for himself, and for no other reason but his own sake.
Because the love to the Father is made the ground and reason of love to the Son. 1 John v. 1. He is the* Son of the Most High, Luke i. 32, and thereby distinguished from the Most High. The Father is greater than he. John xiv. 28.
Phil. ii. 5—8; v. Biddle, 5-24, nobody can be equal with himself; equality is always between two. lb.
1 Cor. viii. 6. By Vhom are all things, i. e. pertaining to our salvation, ib. 7. G-od has made him Lord, Acts ii. 39; Phil. ii. 9, 10.
The glory and thanks which we give to Christ, and the faith and hope which we place in him, do not rest in him, but through him tend to God the Father, Phil. ii. 9, 10 ; 1 Pet. i. 21 ; John xii. 44 ; Eom. i. 8, xvi. 27 ; and therefore he is equal to God.
He shall deliver up the kingdom, and be subject to the Father. 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25, 28.
And he shall be subject according to his human nature. Eev. 1. This dis- tinction is not to be found in God's word. 2. It begs the question ; for it sup- poses two natures in Christ, which is tne thing in question. 3. It makes two per- sons in Christ; for he is to be subject who ruled and subdued, i. e. a person, forno
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OHBISTUS DEUS CHEISTUS NON" DEUS
SUPBEMUS. SUPBEMirS.
other can be a King ; and therefore they must grant that the person of Christ, which they hold to be a Person of supreme Deity, delivereth up his king- dom, and becomes subject, or that his * human nature is a person. The latter
of these subverts tne Trinitarian doc- trine, the former itself, ib. 7. 4. It is said the Son himself shall be subject: but how can the Son himself become subject, if only a human nature, added to *the Son, is subjected, and not the very person of the Son ? Biddle, 8-24. God has exalted him and made him Lord, Phil. ii. 9, 11, and raised him from the dead, Som. x. 9, iv. 24.
K the eternal Son of God, coequal and coessential with the Eather, were conceived and bom of the Virgin Mary, how said the Angel to Joseph, that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit? Matt. i. 20. Biddle, 11-24.
Luke i. 35.
Acts X. 38.
Luke xxii. 48.
Matt, xxvii. 46.
1. How can Ood satisfy Gk)d ? If one person satisfies another, then he that satisfies is still unsatisfied, or for- gives. Ib. 12.
John XX. 17. Eph. i. 7. Heb. i. 8, 9.
2. A mighty Gk)d ; for in the Heb., El Gtibbor, not Hael Haggibbor, as the Lord of Hosts is called, Jer. xxxii. 18. Besides, the words in the close of ver. 9 distinguished Christ from the Lord
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CHBISTUS DEUS CHEISTUS NON DBXTS
STJPBEMUS. SUPBEMUS.
of Hosts, making his Godhead depend on the bounty of the Lord of Hosts. • Biddle, 15^4.
3. A God over all, for Qebg there is without an article, and so signifies not the supreme Deity. *
Thebe is an unpublished work of some length amongst Mr Locke's papers, but as all interest on the subject to which it relates is now gone by, it would be useless to print any- thing except a few extracts as a specimen. It was an answer to Dr Stillingfleet (Bishop of Worcester), who had preached, 1680, a sermon before the Lord Mayor, slyled " The Mischief of Separation,*' an elaborate and severe attack upon the Non- conformists. This discourse was answered by Mr Baxter, Mr AIsop, Dr Owen, and other leading writers amongst the Presbyterians and Independents. Dr Stillingfleet published, in reply, a larger work, 1683, which he entitled " The Un- reasonableness of Separation," and this is evidently the work on which Mr Locke animadverts.
Bishop Q-. was probably Dr G^uden, Bishop of Exeter, the author of the Eijcwv BatnXiKrj ; P. the Catholic, may be con- jectured to have been Parsons the Jesuit.
DEFEI<rOE OP NONCONEOBMITT.
*****
All the arguments used from the Church, or established Church, &c., amount to no more than this, that there are a certain set of men in the "world upon whose credit I must without further examination venture my salvation, so that all the directions and precepts to examine doctrines, try the spirit, take heed what you believe, hold the truth, &c., are all to no purpose, when all the measure and stamp of truth,
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DEFEKCB or KONCOmPORMITT. 347
whereby I am to receive it, will then be only the hand tfeSt delivers it, and not the appearance of rectitude it carries with it.
This is to deal worse with men in their great eternal con- cernment of their souls, than in the short and trivial concern- ment of their estates ; for though it be the allowed preroga- tive of princes to stamp silver and gold, and thereby m&e them current money, yet every man has the liberty to ex- amine even those very pieces that have the magistrate s stamp and image, and if they have the suspicion and appearance of a false alloy, they may avoid being cozened, and not receive them ; the stamp makes it neither good nor current. But no authority that I know on earth, unless it be the infallible Church of Borne, boldly claims a right to coin opinions into tnlths, and make them current by their authority ; and yet in all places all men are unreasonably required to receive and profess doctrines for truths, because this governor, or that priest, says they are so : yet how senseless soever, it helps not the case, nor profits the opinions of any one sort of them ; for if the Pope demands an obedient faith to him and his emissaries, the Bishops of England tell us that they, and Buch as have episcopal ordination under them, are the true Churchy and are to be beHeved : the Presbyterians tell us those of Presbyterian ordination have no less authority, and that in all matters of doctrine and discipline they are to be believed. The Independents and Anaoaptists think they have, as much reason to be heard as the former ; and the Quakers think themselves the only true guides, whilst they bid us be guided by the light withm us. All these we have within ourselves, every one of them calling on us to hearken to them, as the sole deliverers of unmixed truth in doctrine and discipline : this they all do severally with the same con- fidence and zeal, and, for aught I know, with the same divine authority ; for as for human authority, I am sure that weighs nothing in the case.
If we will look further, and add to these the Lutheran, Greek, Armenian, Jacobite, and Abyssine Churches, and yet tether out of the borders of Christianity, into the Jewish synagogues and Mahometan mosques, the Mufti and the !ttabbis are men of authority, and think themselves as little deceivers or deceived as any of the rest. What will it avail
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then to the Church of England, among so many equal pre- tenders, to say they are the true Church, and must be be- lieved, and h^ve the magistrate on their side, and must be obeyed ? K they are to be believed the true Church because Bishop G-. or Dr S. says so, Mr B. or Dr O. will say as much for the Presbyterian or Independent ; Cardinal H. and Mr P. for the Popish and Quakers ; and upon the same author- ity ; for they are all men that say it, endowed with the like faculties to know themselves, and subject to the same frail- ties of mistaking or imposing.
K they will prove themselves to be in the right, or to be the true Church, they take indeed the right course; but then they lay by their authority in proposing, as I myself lay^t by in considering, their arguments : they appeal to my reason, and that I must make use of to examine and judge ; but then we are but just where we were at first setting out, and where we shall be, whether the Church of England be or be not in the right, whether its constitution be or be not "jure divino," i. e. every one judging for himself of what Church he thinks it best and safest to be.
If it be said, as it is, "we have the law on our side, our constitution is establish^ by the law of the land, you ought to be of our Church because the civil magistrate commands it," I know not how short a cut this may be to peace, or rather uniformity ; but I am sure it is a great way about, if not quite out of the way, to truth ; for if the civil magistrates have the power to institute religions, and force men to such ways of worship they shall thi^ fit to enact, I desire any one, after a survey of the present potentates of the earth, to tell me how it is like to fare vnth truth and religion, if none be to appear and be owned in the world but what we receive out of the courts of princes, or senate-houses of the states that govern it.
I say not this vrith any reflection on the present age we live in ; but let him, if he please, take any other age recorded in history, and then (if the rulers of the earth were to pre- scribe the way to heaven, if their laws were to be the stand- ards of truth and religion) let him tell me what advantage it would ever have been to true religion to subject *it to the power of the magistrate ; and if princes and potentates are not like for the future to be better informed, or more in love
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with true religion, than they have been heretofore ; if they are not like to be more sincerely concerned for the salvation of their people's souls than every man himself is for his own, I do not see what reason we have to expect that these laws should be the likeliest way to support and propagate truth, and make subjects of the kingdom of heaven for the future.
# * * « # Bonds. — The bonds given to their pastors in Independent
Churches show Tiow in this contest Churches are made like bird-cages with trap-doors, which give free admission to all birds, whether they have always been the wild inhabitants of the air, or are got loose from any other cages ; but when they are once in, they are to be kept there, and are to have the liberty of going out no more ; and the reason is, because if this be permitted our volary will be spoiled, but the happiness of the birds is not the business of these bird-keepers.
# * # # #
In the dispute of ceremonies, our men speak of their Church as if it had such a divine power that it needed not consider whether anything were suited to the ends for which they are made use of, and so the Church need not consider whether anything be £t, and therefore appoint it; but as good as say that they make them fit by appointing, which whether G-od himself ever did I much doubt, but I am sure nothing can do but an infinite power
It is not enough to justify the ijaposing of ceremonies, because in^ themselves they are not unlawful ; but if by their number or inconvenience they are burdensome, they cannot be justified who impose them. This was the reason Peter uses against circumcision. Acts xv. 10, because it was a yoke that could not be well borne. To continue them as necessaiy when the ends are ceased for which they were appointed, is to extend the metaphor of pastor and flock a little too far. Circumcision in itself was indiflerent, and in the time of the G-ospel might be used when there was a good end in it, as Paul circumcised Timothy; but if its injunction proved burthensome, as Acts xv., or there was an opinion that it was unnecessary, it became unlawful.
It is not unlawful to separate from a Church which imposes even indifferent things, if those who imposed them had not the power of imposing ; for what is imposed by those who
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have not the authorily to impose, can have no obligation on any to observe it, and therefore they may go where there are no such impositions ; and this is more for the peace of the Church than to continue in it and oppose it. The convoca- tion, with or without the civil magisliate, have not a power to impose on all Englishmen.
The charge of separating from our Church will not reach many of the Dissenters, who were never of it. I suppose it will be allowed that a man may be saved in the Presbyterian, Independent, or Hugonot Church, of which there are now in England, and are or are not distinct Churches from the Church of England. If they are not, they cannot be accused of separation, being still parts of the Church of England : if thev are, and a man be a member of the Presbyterian Church, will he not be guilty of sin if he separate from it, and go to the Independent, unless he can prove any doctrines and ceremonies sinful in the Presbyterian Church ? And if so, the same sin will he be guilty of if he separate from that Church and come over to the Church of England ; for if there be no sin in the doctrine and discipline of the Church he leaves, there is sin in his separating from it by the Doctor's rule, wherever he goes after separation ; for being supposed both of them innocent in their doctrine and dis- ciplme, the only odds upon the Doctor's foundation remaining between them will be the law of the land, which I think I have shown can give neither authority nor advantage to one Church above another, but only in preferments and rewards, and that indeed they have, but are not content with it unless they have dominion too.
But if the Doctor should say that they may without sin come over to ours, because our ceremonies and discipline are better (for we suppose them to agree in doctrine), they are only better as they are better means of salvation : so that it will follow a man may separate from a Church lawfully in whose communion there is no sin, only for better edification ; for suppose the state in England, being again Popish or Heathen, or on any other consideration, should take off all the secular laws that oblige to coiiformity, would it be any more sin, upon the Doctor's ground, to separate from the Presbyterian Church to come to the Episcopal than it would be to qiiit the Episcopal to go to the Presbyterian ?
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If the Doctor, who is so well versed in Church history, would in the heat of dispute have recollected himself a little, he would certainly not fiave said that the great reason of re- taining of the ceremonies in our Church by our Eeformers was the reverence to the ancient Church, since thejr them- selves, in the preface to a book he has every day in his hands, say so much otherwise. In the preface made and prefixed to the Liturgy in Edward the Sixth's time, and continued there till this very day, concerning the service of the Church and ceremonies, they declare that the great reason of the changes they made, and the chief aim they all along had in it, was the edification of the people, wherein, though with great reason, they referred themselves to the ancient Fathers of the Church, yet it was only so far as the Fathers of the Church followed the great rule of edification. Why else did they leave out many of the most ancient ceremonies of the Church, though in themselves innocent, when they sus- pected them rather a burthen than profitable to the people ? And what they say concerning brmging in use again the reading Scriptures in a known tongue ; viz. that the people might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of G-od, and be more inflamed with the love of his true religion : and therefore lefb out a multitude of responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, synodals, anthems, and such like things, as did break the continued course of reading : I suppose A. will not say in themselves unlawful, but the reason they give was because they made the service hard and intricate, and jostled out the more profitable reading of the Scriptures.
And conceminff ceremonies they say thus : " Of suet cere- monies as be used in the Church and have had their begin- ning from the institution of man, some were at first of godly intent and purpose devised, yet at len^h turned to vanity and superstition" ^whereby I think it is plain, that things not only lawful in themselves, but godly in their first insti- tution, may come to be unlawful). " Some entered into the Church by indiscreet devotion, which not only for their un- profitableness, but also because they much blinded the people and obscured the glory of G-od, are worthy to be cut away and rejected ; others there be which, although they have been devised by man, yet it is thought good to reserve them still, as well for decent order in the Church, for which they were
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352 LIFE AND LETTEBS OF JOHN LOCKE.
first devised, as because they are for edification, to which all things done in the Church, as the Apostle teacheth, ought to be referred." "Whereby I think it is plain that no cere- mony devised by man ought to find admittance in the wor- ship of Q-od, even upon pretence of decency and order, unless it some way or other conduces also to edification. V
Now, if we will but take a view of the Eeformation and its discreet and sober progress, we may observe how the Re- formers, in their management of it, kept steady to this great rule and aim, viz. of bringing the people to the knowledge of God and the practice of his true religion. See Burnet's History of the Eeformation, page 73, respecting the Cere- monies.
* ' * « # *
It is plain that several of the ceremonies were retained and allowed only to the desires of the people, and allowed with limitation.
When the Common Prayer Book was reviewed (see Bur- net, page 155, 170), the additions were very sparing, and such as were very necessary for the edification of the people at that time. The other changes, p. 283, 392, History of Seformation.
# * * # *
I have been thus particular to show what governed those wise and pious Eeformers in their proceedings at that time, and we may observe all through, that the great difficulty that pressed them was how they might lessen the ceremonies without lessening their converts ; the men they had to do with were, we see, fond and loth to part with them, and therefore they retained as many of them as they could, and ^dded some again in Queen Elizabeth's time, which had been disused in King Edward the Sixth's time, only to satisfy the people, and as a fit means to hold them in or bring them over to our communion : whereby they plainly kept close to the rule of the Scriptures which they had set to themselves, of doing all things for edification, and had been, besides the precept, the command of St Paul, who became all things to all men, that he might gain some. But is the case so now with us ? have we now any hopes of fresh harvests amongst the Papists, and to gain them over to us by the multitude of lawful ceremonies ? I fear not ; I hear of nobody that after
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SO long an experience to the contrary (and their being now fixed upon quite different fundamentals by the Council of Trent), that thinks it now reasonable to expect it.
But, on the other side, since Protestant Dissenters are so great a part of the people upon the same principles with us, and agree with us penectly in doctrine, and are excluded from our communion, not by the desire of more, but by their scruples against many of those ceremonies we have in our Church, can any one say that the same reason holds now for their rigorous imposing, that did at the Eeformation at first for their retaining, where the Eeformers did not so much contend for as against ceremonies ?
I appeal to the Doctor himself, whether he thinks that if those wise and worthy men were now again to have the re- vising of our liturgy and ceremonies, they would not as well leave out the cross in baptism now (as well as they left it out in confirmation and consecration of the sacramental ele- ments wherein they had once retained it), and as well as they left out several others in use in the ancient Church, to comply with the weakness and perhaps mistake of our dissenting brethren, and thereby hold some and gain others to our commimion, as well as they retained several they had no great liking to, only to avoid offending those who by such compliance were more likely to be wrought upon ? And of this mind I think every one must be who will not say that more charity and Christian forbearance, more care and con- sideration, is to be used for the saving the souls of Papists than of dissenting Protestants.
I hope it will be thought no breach of modesty in me, if from a heart truly charitable to all pious and sincere Chris- tians, I offer my thoughts in the case. At the beginning of the Eeformation, the people who had been bred up in the superstition and various outward forms of the Church of Borne, and had been taught to believe them substantial and necessary parts, nay, almost the ( * * * ) of religion, could not so easily quit their reverent opinion of them ; and therefore, in a Church that endeavoured to bring over as many converts as they could, the r^t^ning ot as many of those ceremonies as were not unlawful, was then to en- large the communion of the Church, and not narrow it: since the people at that time were apt to take offence at the
2 A
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too few rather than too many ceremonies. So that cere- monies then had one of their proper ends, being a means to edification, when they were inducements to the people to join in communion with the Church, where better care was taken for their instruction. But the sad experience of these latter years makes it, I fear, but too plain that the case is now altered : and as we at present stand with the Church of Eome, we have more reason to apprehend we shall be lessened by the apostasy of those of our Church to them, than increased by gaining new proselytes from them to us. The harvest for such converts has been long since at a stand, if not an ebb ; and being therefore likelier to lose than gain by any approaches we make towards them in outward agree- ment of rites and ceremonies, the retaining now of such, though lawful, cannot but in that respect be injurious to our Church, especially if we consider how many there are on the other side who are offended at and shut out by the retaining of them. And, therefore, the taking away of as many as possible of our present ceremonies, may be as proper a way now to bring the Dissenters into the communion of our Chui'ch, as the retaining as many of them as could be, was of making converts at the Eeformation. So that what then was for the enlargement, now tends to the narrowing of our Church, and vice versd.
Since Dissenters may be gained, and the Church enlarged, by parting with a few things, which, when the law which en- joins them is taken away, are acknowledged to be indifferent, and therefore may still be used by those that like them, I ask whether it be not, not only prudent, but a duty incum- bent on those whose business it is to have a care of the sal- vation of men's souls, to bring members into the union of the Church, and so to put an end to the guilt they are charged and lie imder of error, and schism, and division, when they can do it at so cheap a rate ? whereas, whatever kindness we may have for the souls of those who remain in the errors of the Church of Bome, we can have small hopes of gaining much by concessions on that side.
« # « * #
peaking of the obedience required from a rational creature in Church government, it is never obedience for obedience' sake, since the end God has prescribed of Church society,
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. DEPENCE OP NOirOONrOEMITT. 355
, &nd all the institutions thereof, are for the preservation of order and decency ; whatsoever is arbitrarily imposed in the Church, no way subservient to that end, is beyond the au- thority of the imposer, nor can any one be bound by the terms of communion which our Saviour does not allow to be made.
This fundamental mistake is the reason, I suppose, why in this dispute about ceremonies, the champions for conformity speak generally of the Church in such manner as if it had such a divine power that it need not consider whether any- thing were suited to the end for which only its use can be allowed ; and therefore this, our Mother (whether it be the mark of an indulgent one I will not say), need not consider whether anything be fit, and therefore appoint it, but as good as tells us that she makes it fit by appointinff, which whether God our merciful Father ever does in such cases I much doubt ; this I am sure, nothing but an infinite Being can do ; and therefore to make things necessary by an arbitrary power, and continue them as necessary when the ends are ceased for which th^ were appointed, is to extend the metaphor of pastors and flocks a little too far, and treat men as if they were brutes in earnest.
All the Dissenters can be accused of is nothing but their refractoriness in choosing to lose the privileges of our Church communion, which they lawfully may do.
2nd. The Doctor answers : " that there can be no reason- able suspicion that our Church should impose any other ceremony than it has already done, because the Church has rather retrenched than increased ceremonies, as will appear to any one that compares the first and second Liturgies of Edward the Sixth, and since that time no new ceremony has been required as a condition of communion."
If the Doctor can prove that the Church has had these last twenty years the same ground for retaining the ceremo- nies as it had at the beginning of the Beformation, I yield there will be no such reasonable suspicion ; but if, that ground ceasing, the ceremonies have been still retained, and no other ground left for many of them but the will of those that re- tain them being once imposed, the argument he brings that very little has been altered since Edwatd the Sixth*s time, will serve only to make such a suspicion more reasonable, since those who keep up the imposition of ceremonies when
2 A 2
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the ground they were first imposed on had long before ceased, may for the same reason be suspected to have no other re- straint from increasing them, by some accidental hinderance, especially if the Prelates of our Church practise and coun- tenance more ceremonies than are enjoined, and these new and voluntary additions are understood to be the terms of preferment, though the law has not yet made them the terms of communion.
But the Nonconformists (I believe) will not think the pre- sent Church of England gets much advantage upon them, or shows much of her condescension, by the proof the Doctor offers, that the present Church is not like to increase her ceremonies, because in Edward the Sixth's time she did re- view and retrench those of her own appointment; which does only tell us that the Church then did more towards a full reformation in two years than has been done in one hun- dred years since, viz. review her own constitutions, and re- trench the ceremonies as much as the present temper of the people would permit ; and though that Church ana this have the same name of the Church of England, yet I imagine that the Dissenters think they are under far different churchmen, and do very much doubt whether the conduct of these now, and those then, tend both the same way.
As to the law of the land, it can never be judged to be a sin not to obey the law of the land commandmg to join in communion with the Church of England, till it be proved that the civil magistrate hath a power to command and de- termine what Church I shall be of; and therefore all the specious names, established constitution, settled Church, running through all the Doctor's sermons, and on which he seems to lay so much stress, signify nothing, till it be evident the civil magistrate has that power. It is a part of my liberty as a Christian and as a man to choose of what Church or religious society I will be of, as most conducing to the salvation of my soul, of which I alone am judge, and over which the magistrate has no power at all ; for if he can com- mand me of what Church to be, it is plain it follows that he can command me of what religion to be, which, though no- body dares say in direct words, yet they do in effect afi&rm, who say it is my duty to be of the Church of England, be- cause the law of the land enjoins it.
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To understand the extent, distinction, and government of particular Churches, it will be convenient to consider how Christianity was first planted and propagated in the world. The apostles and evangelists went up and down, preaching the new doctrine, and the better to propagate it, went from city to city, or one great town to another, and there published their doctrines, where great collections of men gave them hopes of most converts. Having made a sufficient number of proselytes in any town, they chose out of them a certain number to take care of the concernments of that religion : these they called the elders, or bishops, who were to be the governors of that city, which so became a particular Church, lormed much after the manner of a Jewish synagogue : such a constitution of a Church we find at Ephesus, Acts xx., and in several other cities.
When a Church was thus planted in any city, these itinerant preachers left it to grow and spread of itself, and from thence, as from a root, to take in not only those who from thenceforth should be converted in the city, but in the neighbouring villages ; and having done this, I say, they went to plant the Q-ospel in some other city. And the apostle St Paul, having preached the Gospel, ana made converts in all the cities of Q-reece, stayed not himself to appoint the elders, but left Titus there to do it, whikt he himself went on to publish the doctrines of life and salvation to those that sat yet in darkness.
The particular Churches in difibrent cities, directed by the prudence and enlarged by the preaching of these presbyters under whose care they were left, spread themselves, so that, in succession of time, in some places, they made great numbers of converts in the neighbourhood and villages round about, all which so converted made an accession to and became members of the Church of the neighbouring city, which be- came an episcopacy, Traponcia, from which our own name parish comes, the diocese, which was the name that remained in use for a bishop's diocese a good while in the Church. How far the vapoiKia in the first times of Christianity reached, the signification of the word itself, which denotes neighbour- hood, will easily tell us, and could certainly extend no further than might permit the Christians that lived in it to frequent the Christian assemblies in the city, and enjoy the advantage
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of Church communion. Though the number of believers were in some of these cities more than could meet in one assembly for the hearing of the Word, and performing public acts of worship, and so, consequently, had divers basilicas, or churches, as well as several presbyters to officiate in them, yet they continued one church and one congregation, because they continued under the government of the same presbyters, and the presbyters officiated promiscuously in all their meet- ing-places, and performed all the offices of pastors and teachers indifferently to all the members, as they, on their side, had the liberty to go to which assembly they pleased, a plain instance whereof we have in several Protestant Churches beyond sea, at Nismes, at St Gall.
This, probably, seems to be the constitution and bounds of particular Churches in the most primitive times of Chris- tianity, different from our present parochial congregations and episcopal dioceses ; from the first, because they were inde- pendent Churches, each of them governed within themselves by their own presbytery ; from the latter they differ in this, that everv great town, wherein there were Christians, was a distinct Church, which took no greater extent round about for its parochia, than what would allow the converts round about to have the convenience of communion and church fellowship in common with the assemblies of Christians in that town : but afterwards, when these Churches were formed into episcopacies, under the government of single men, and so became subjects of power and matter of ambition, these parochias were extended beyond the convenience of Church communion ; and human frailty, when it is got into power, naturally endeavouring to extend the bounds of its jurisdic- tion, episcopal parochias were enlarged, and that name being too narrow, was laid by, and the name of diocese, which signifies large tracts of ground, was taken to signify a bishoprick ; which way of uniting several remote assemblies of Christians and Churches under one governor, upon pre- tence of preventing schism and heresy, and preserving the peace and unity of the Church, gave rise to metropoUtans and archbishops, and never stopped (nor indeed upon that foundation weU could it) till it at last ended in supremacy.
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ADDITIONS INTBITDBD BY THE AUTHOR TO HAVE BEEK ADDED TO THE ESSAY ON HITMAK ITNDEBSTANDIKG.
Book ii. c. 21.—God, if he will .♦ Sec. 64.
Perhaps it will be said, if this be so, that men can suspend their desires, stop their actions, and take time to consider and deliberate upon what they are going to do. If men can weigh the good and evil of an action they have in view ; if they have a power to forbear till they have surveyed the con- sequences, and examined how it may comport with their hap- piness or miserv, and what a train of one or the other it may draw after it ; how comes it to pass that we see men abandon themselves to the most brutish, vile, irrational, exorbitant actions, during the whole current of a wild or dissolute life, without any check, or the least appearance of any reflection, who, if they did but in the least consider what will certainly overtake such a course here, and what may possibly attend it hereafter, would certainly sometimes make a stand, slacken their pace, abate of that neight of wickedness their actions rise to ? Amongst the several causes there may be of this, I shall set down some of the most common.
1st. It sometimes happens that from their cradles some were never accustomed to reflect, but by a constant indulg- ing of their passions have been all along given up to the con- duct and swing of their inconsiderate desires, and so have, by a contrary habit, lost the use and exercise of reflection, as if it were foreign to their constitution, and can no more bear with it than as a violence done to their natures. How much fond or careless parents and negligent inspectors of the education of children have to answer on this account, they were best look — for both the poor and rich, I fear, offend this way ; the one in not opening their children's mind at all, the other in letting them loose onljr to sensual pleasures; and hence the one never have their thoughts raised above the necessities of a needy drudging life, on which they are wholly intent, and the other have no thought besides their present pleasures, which wholly possess them. To the
♦ These are the concluding words of the preceding section.
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latter of these, all proposals of consideration are nonsense ; to the other, the names of virtue and worth are utterly un- intelligible ; and to talk of a future state of happiness or misery is looked on as a trick, and mere mockery, and they are ready to answer, You shall not make me such a fool as to believe that. This, in a country of so much preaching as ours, may seem strange, but I have very good witnesses of such instances as these : and I think nobody need go far to find people ignorant and uninstructed to that degree, for it is plain the instructions of the pulpit will not make people knowing if those be begun with and relied on.
2nd. There seems to me to be in the world a great number of men who want not parts, but who, from another sort of ill education, and the prevalency of bad company and ill-im- bibed principles of mistaken philosophy, cast away the thoughts and belief of another world as a fiction of politicians and divines conspiring together to keep the world in awe, and to impose on weak minds. K any of them, by their mis- carriages, have brought this discredit on this fundamental truth, I think thejr have a great deal to answer for ; for this I imagine is certain, that when in this age of the world the belief of another life leaves a man of parts who has been bred up under the sound and opinion of heaven and hell, virtue seldom stays with him ; and then all his happiness being re- solved into the satisfaction of his temppral desires, it is no wonder that his will should be determined, and his life guided, by measures that, by men of other principles, seem to want consideration.
3rd. To these we may add a third sort, who, for want of breeding, not arriving at a learned irreligion, or an argu- mentative disbelief of a future state, find a shorter cut to it firom their own ill manners, than the others do from study and speculation ; for having plunged themselves in all sorts of wickedness and villany, their present lives give them but a very ill prospect of a future state, they resolve it their best way to have no more thoughts about it, but to live in a full enjoyment of all they can set and relish here, and not to lessen that enjoyment by the consideration of a future life, whereof they expect no benefit.
N.B. This addition to the chapter may be spared.
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Book iii. c. 10, § 11. — Organs of Speech.
Bjr this learned art of abusing words and shifting their significations, the rules left us by the ancients for the» con- ducting our thoughts in the search, or at least the examin- ation of truth, have been defeated. The logic of the schools contains all the rules of reasoning that are generally taught, and they are believed so sufficient, that it will probably be thought presumption in any to suppose there needs any other to be sought or looked after. 1 grant the method of syllogism is right as far as it reaches ; its proper business is to show the force and coherence of any argumentation, and to that it woxdd have served very well, and one might cer- tainly have d^ended on the conclusions as necessarily fol- lowing from the premises in a rightly ordered syllogism, if the applauded art of disputing had not been taken for know- ledge, and the credit of victory in such contests introduced a fallacious use of words, whereby even those forms of arguing have proved rather a snare than a help to the understanding, and so the end lost for which they were invented. Tor the form of the syllogism justifying the deduction, the conclu- sion, though never so false, stood good, and was to be admitted for such. This set men, who would make any figure in the schools, to busy their thoughts, not in a search into the nature of things, but in studpng of terms and varying their signification of words with all the nicety and, as it was called, the subtlety they could strain their thoughts to, whereby they might entangle the respondent, who if he let slip the observa- tion and detection of the sophistry whenever any of the terms were used in various significations, he was certainly gone without the help of a like sort of artifice ; and therefore, on the other side, was to be well-furnished with good store of words, to be used as distinctions, whether they signified any- thing to the purpose, or anything at all, it mattered not, they were to be thrown in the opponent's way, and he was to argue against them ; so that whilst one could use his words equivocally, which is nothing but making the same sound to stand for different ideas, and the other but use two sounds, as determining the various significations of a third, whether in truth they had any the least relation to its signification or no, there could be no end of the dispute, or decision of the
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question. Or if it happened that either of the disputants, railing in his proper artillery, was brought to a nonplus, this, indeed, placed the laurels on his adversary's head, victory was his, and with it the name of learning and renown of a scholar : he has his reward, and therein his end ; but truth gets nothing by it : every one says he is the better disputant and carried the day, but nobody finds or judges of the truth by that : the question is a question still, and after it has been the matter of many a combat, and by being carried sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, has afforded a triumph to many a combatant, is still as far from decision as ever. Truth and knowledge have nothing to do in all this bustle ; nobody thinks them concerned, it is all for victory and triumph: so that this way of contesting for truth may be, and often is, nothing but the abuse of words for victory, — a trial of skill, without any appearance of a true consideration of the matter in question, or troubling their heads to find out where the truth lies. This is not the faujt of mode and figure, the rules whereof are of great use in the regulating of argumentation, and trying the coherence and force of men's discourses. But the mischief has been brought in by placing too high a value and credit on the art of dis- puting, and giving that the reputation and reward of learning and knowledge, which is in truth one of the greatest hin- drances of it.
Book iii. c. 10, § 13.— To do so.
We cannot but think that angels of all kinds much exceed us iQ knowledge, and possibly we are apt sometimes to envy them that advantage, or at least to repine that we do not par- take with them in a greater share of it. Whoever thinks of the elevation of their knowledge above ours, cannot imagine it lies in a playing with words, but in the contemplation of things, and having true notions about them, a perception of their habitudes and relations one to another. If this be so, methinks we should be ambitious to come, in this part, which is a CTeat deal in our power, as near them as we can ; we shoiud cast off all the artifice and fellacy of words, which makes so great a part of the business and skill of the dis- puters of this world, and is contemptible even to rational men.
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and therefore must needs render us ridiculous to those higher orders of spirits. Whilst we, pretending to the knowledge of things, hinder as much as we can the discovery of truth by perplexing one another all we can by a perverse use of those signs which we make use of to convey it to one another, must it not be matter of contempt to them to see us make the studied and improved abuse of those signs have the name and credit of learning ? Should not we ourselves think the Chinese very ridiculous, if they should set those destined to knowledge out of the way to it by praising and rewarding their proficiency in that which leads them quite from it ?
The study of such arts as these is an unaccountable wasting of our time ; they serve only to continue or spread ignorance and error, and should be exploded by all lovers of truth and professors of science ; at least, ought not to be supported by the name and rewards of learning given to them. Those who are set apart to learning and knowledge, should not, one would think, have that made the chief, or any part of their study, which is a hiiidrance to their main end — knowledge. The forms of argumentation should be learned and made use of; but to teach an apprentice to measure well, would you com- mend and reward him for cheating by putting off false and sophisticated wares ? It is no wonder men never come to seek and to value truth sincerely, when they have been entered in sophistry, and questions are proposed and argued, not at aU for the resolving of doubts nor settling the mind upon good grounds on the right side, but to make a sport of truth, which is set up only to be thrown at, and to be battled as falsehood, and he has most applause who can most effect* ually do it. What, then, shall not scholars dispute ? how else will they be able to defend the truth, unless th^ under- stand the ways and management of arguments P To this I answer, —
1st. This way of managing arguments is nothing but the forms of syllogism, and may quickly be learned.
2nd. If disputing be necessary to make any one master of those forms, it must be allowed to be absurd for beginners to dispute in any science till they have well studied that science ; if they be accustomed and required to dispute before they know, will it not teach them to take words for things, — to prefer terms to truth, — and take disputing for knowledge ?
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3rd. K disputing be necessary, every one should dispute in earnest for the opinion he is really of; that truth and falsehood might not appear indifferent to him, nor was it matter which he held, victory was all, truth nothing in the case.
4th. But that can never teach a man to defend truth which teaches him not the love of it, and when he gets commenda- tion not by holding the truth, but for well maintaining ialse- hood. Besides, if it find approbation never to come to an end of his syllo^sms or distmctions till he has got the last word, what is this but to persuade a man it is a fine worthy thing never to have done talking, — ^to take no answer as long as he can find any terms of opposing, — ^nor ever to yield to any arguments? than which there can be nothing more odious to those who have a regard to truth, to say nothing of civil conversation and good breeding.
In Locke's fou^ftrlietter for Toleration there is an hiatus, where the Editor informs the reader that " [the two following leaves of the copy are either lost or mislaid] ." That deficiency is now supplied from the original rough draft.
[But since, perhaps, it would have laid the matter a little too open, if you had given the reason why you say I was concerned to make out that there are as clear and solid ar-
fuments for the belief of false religion as there are for elief of the true ; or that men may both as firmly and ra- tionally believe and embrace false religions as they can the true, — I shall endeavour here to do it for you.
Kiiowledge, properly so called, or knowledge of the true religion, upon strict demonstration, as you are pleased to call it, not being to be had, his knowledge could not point out to him that religion which he is by force to promote. The magistrate being thus visibly destitute of knowledge to guide him in the right exercise oi his duty, you will not allow his belief or persuasion, but it must be firmness of persuasion, or full assurance ; and this you think sufficient to point out to him that religion which by force he is to promote. And hereupon you think your cause gained, unless I could prove that which I think utterly false, viz. that there are as clear
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and solid grounds for the belief of false religions as there are for belief of the , true, and that men may l)oth as firmly and as rationally believe and embrace false religions as true. All which is bottomed upon this very false supposition, that in the want of knowledge nothing is sufficient to set the ma- gistrate upon doing his duty in using of force to promote the true religion, but the firmest belief of its truth ; whereas his own persuasion of the truth of his own religion, in what degree soever it be . . .he believes it to be true, will, if he think it his duty, be sufficient to set him to work.
This, as well as several other things in my former letters, stick with some readers, who want to have them clear ; but such poor spirits deserve not to be regarded by a master of fencing, who answers by specimen, and relates by wholesale, and whose word is to be taken for sufficient guarantee of truth — the most commodious way that hath been yet found out for silencing objections, and putting an end to contro- versy.]
ABSTRACT OF THE ESSAY.
On opening the MS. copy of the Essay on Human IJn- derstanoing, dated 1671, 1 found the following paper without title or date : it is an Epitome or Abstract of the Essay, drawn up by Locke himself; — the same which was translated by Le Clerc, and published in the Bibliotheque IJniverselle of 1688, before the Essay was given to the world.
Lib. I. In the thoughts I have had concerning the Under- standing, I have endeavoured to prove that the mind ip at first rasa tabula. But that being only to remove the preju- dice that lies in some men's minds, I think it best in this short view I design here of my principles, to pass by all that preliminary debate which makes the first book, since I pretend to show in what follows the original from whence, and the
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ways whereby, we receive all the ideas our understandings are employed about in thinking.
Lib. II. Chap. 1. The mind having been supposed void of all innate characters, comes to receive them by degrees as experience and observation lets them in ; and we sh^, upon consideration, find they all come from two originals, and are conveyed into the mind by two ways, viz. sensoHoit and reflection.
1st. It is evident that outward objects, by affecting our senses, cause in our minds several ideas which were not there befcJre: thus we come by the idea of red and blue, sweet and bitter, and whatever other perceptions are produced in us by sensation,
2nd. The mind, taking notice of its own operation about these ideas received by sensation, comes to have ideas of those very operations that pass within itself: this is another source of ideas, and this I call reflection ; and from hence it is we have the ideas of thvnhvng^ mllingy reasoning, dotibting, pttr- posing, &c.
jProm these two originals it is that we have all the ideas we have ; and I think I may confidently say that, besides what our senses convey into the mind, or the ideas of its own operations about those received from sensation, we have no ideas at all. From whence it follows — ^first, that where a man has always wanted any one of his senses, there he will always want the ideas belonging to that sense ; men bom deaf or blind are suflScient proof of this. Secondly, it follows that if a man could be supposed void of all senses, he would also be void of all ideas ; because, wanting all sensation, he would have nothing to excite any operation in him, and so woidd have neither ideas of sensation, external objects having no way by any sense to excite them, nor ideas of reflection^ his mind having no ideas to be employed about.
Chap. 2. To imderstand me right, when I say that we have not, nor can have, any ideas but of sensation, or of the oper- ation of our mind aoout them, it must be considered that there are two sorts of ideas, simple and complex. It is of simple ideas that I here speak ; such as are the white colour of tnis paper, the sweet taste of sugar, &c., wherein the mind perceives no variety nor composition, but one uniform per-
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ception or idea; and of these I say we have none but what we receive from sensation or reflection ; the mind is wholly passive in them, can make no new ones to itself, though out of these it can compound others, and make complex ones with great variety, as we shall see hereafter ; and hence it is that though we cannot but allow that a sixth sense may be as possible, if our all- wise Creator had' thought it fit for us, as the five he has bestowed ordinarily upon man, yet we can have by no means any ideas belonging to a sixth sense, and that for the same reason that a man bom blind cannot have any ideas of colours, because they are to be had only by the fifth sense, that way of sensation which he always wanted.
Chap. 3 — 6. I think I need not go about to set down all those ideas that are peculiar objects of each distinct sense, both because it would be of no great use to give them by tale, they are most of them obvious enough to our present purpose, and also because they most of them want names ; lor, bating colours, and some few tangible qualities, which men have been a little more particular in denominating, though far short of their great variety, tastes, smells, and sounds, whereof there is no less a variety, have scarce any names at all, but some few very general ones. Though the taste of milk and a cherry be as distinct ideas as white and red, yet we see they have no particular names ; sweet, sour, and bitter, are almost all the appellations we have for that almost infinite difference of relishes to be found in Nature. Omitting, therefore, the enumeration of the simple ideas pe- culiar to each sense, I shall here only observe that there are some ideas that are conveyed to the mind only by one sense, viz. colours by the sight only, sounds by the hearing, heat and cold by tne touch, &c. Others again are conveyed into the mind by more than one sense, as motion, rest, space, and figure, which is but the termination of space, by both the •sight and touch. Others there be that we receive only from reflection ; such are the ideas of thinking, and willing, and all their various modes. And some again that we receive from all the ways of sensation, and from reflection too, and those are number, existence, power, pleasure, and pain, &c.
These, I think, are in general all, or at least the greater part, of the simple ideas we have, or are capable of, and which contain in them the materials of all our knowledge, out of
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whicH all our other ideas are made, and beyond which our minds have no thoughts nor knowledge at all.
Chap. 7. One thing more I shall remark concerning our simple ideas, and then proceed to show how out of them are made our complex ideas; and that is, that we are apt to mistake them, and take them to be resemblances of something in the objects that produce them in us, which, for the most part, they are not. This, though it lead us into the consider- ation of the way of the operation of bodies upon us by our senses, yet, however unwilling I am to engage in any p»hysical speculations, pretending here to give only an historical ac- count of the understanding, and to set down the way and manner how the mind first gets the materials, and by what steps It proceeds in the attsonment of knowledge ; yet it is necessary a little to explain this matter, to avoid confusion and obscurity. For to discover the nature of sensible ideas the better, and discourse of them intelligibly, it will be con- venient to distinguish them, as they are ideas or perceptions in our minds, and as they are in the bodies that cause such perceptions in us.
"Whatsoever immediate object, whatsoever perception, be in the mind when it thinks, that I call idea ; and the power to produce any idea in the mind, I call quality of the subject wherein that power is. Thus, whiteness, coldness, roundness, as they are sensations or perceptions in the understanding, I call ideas ; as they are in a snow-baU, which has the power to produce these ideas in the understanding, I call them qualities.
The original qualities that may be observed in bodies are, solidity, extension, figure, number, motion, or rest ; these, in whatsoever state body is put, are always inseparable from it.
The next thing to be considered is, how bodies operate one upon another ; and the only way intelligible to me is by im- pulse ; I can conceive no other. When, then, they produce in us the ideas of any of their original qualities which are really in them, — let us suppose that of extension or figure by the sight, — ^it is evident that the thing seen being at a dis- tance, the impidse made on the organ must be by si»^e in- sensible particles coming from the object to the eyes, an\by a continuation of that motion to the brain, those ideas a^ produced in us. Tor the producing, then, of the ideas q
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these origulal qualities in our understandings, we can find nothing but the impulse and motion of some insensible bodies. By the same way we may also conceive how the ideas of the colour and smell of a violet m&j as well be produced in us as of its figure, viz. by a certain impulse on our eyes or noses, of particles of such a bulk, figure, number, and motion, as those that come from violets when we see or smell them, and by the particular motion received in the organ from that im- pulse, and continued to the brain ; it being no more impossible to conceive that God should annex such ideas to such motions with which they have no similitude, than that He should annex the idea of pain to the motion of a piece of steel divid- ing our flesh, with which that idea has also no resemblance.
W hat I have said concerning colours and smells may be applied to sounds and tastes, and all other ideas of bodies produced in us by the texture and motion of particles, whose single bulks are not sensible. And since bodies do produce in us ideas that contain in them no perception of bulk, figiu^e, motion, or number of parts, as ideas of warmth, hunger, blueness, or sweetness, which yet it is plain they cannot do but by the various combinations of these primary qualities^ however we perceive them not, I call the powers in bodies to produce these ideas in us secondary qualities.
From whence we may draw this inference, that the ideas of the primary qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and their archetypes do really exist in the bodies themselves ; but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing existing in the bodies themselves that has any likeness to our ideas. 'Tis only in them a power to cause such sensations in us, and what is blue, sweet, or warm, in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the insensible parts of the bodies them- selves to which we give those denominations. Chap 8 — 10.
Chap. 11. Having showed how the mind comes oy all its simple ideas, in the next place I shall show how these simple ideas are the materials of all our knowledge, and how, from several combinations of them, complex ones are made.
Though the mind cannot make to itself any one simple idea more than it receives from those two sole inlets, sensation and reflection, wherein it is merely passive, yet out of these being lodged in the memory, it can make, by repeating and
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several ways combining them, a great variety of bther ideas, as well as receive such combinations by the senses. I shall give some few instances of this in those that seem the most abstruse, and then proceed to other things.
Chap. 12. That our eyes and touch furnish us with ideaa of space, I think nobody will deny ; we cannot open our eyes nor move our bodies, or rest them upon anything, but we are convinced of it. Having got the idea of the length of our span, or the height and breadth of the door we usually go in and out at, or of the bulk of any body that familiarly comes in our way, we can repeat this idea in our minds as often aa we will, and so increase that idea to what bigness we please by still adding the like or the double to the former ; and by this way, though sensation should supply us with no idea but of a foot, a yard, or a mile long, we could by this repetition attain and form to ourselves the idea of immensity, which had its foundation still in that idea of space we received by our senses, and is nothing but the enlargement of that by repetition. 1 shall not here set down what I have at large written, to show the clear distinction between the idea of body and space, which .some have endeavoured to confound ; it shall suffice only to mention, that when distance is con- sidered between any two things, abstract from any consider- ation of body filling up the interval, it may most properly be called space — when the distance is considered between the extremes of a solid body it may fitly be called extension. The right application of these two terms would, I hope, help us to avoid some confusion, which sometimes happens in discourses concerning body and space.
Chap. 13. Time and duration have a great conformity with extension and space. Had the original, from whence we have our idea of duration, been well considered, I imagine time would never have been thought mensura motile, since it hath truly nothing to do with motion at all, and would be the same it is, were there no motion at all. He that will look into himself and observe what passes in his own mind, will find that various ideas appear and disappear there in train all the time he is waking, and this so constantly, that though he is never without some whilst he is awake, yet it is not one single one that possesses his mind alone, but con- stantly new ones come in and go out again. If any one
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doubts of this, let him try to keep his thoughts fixed upon any one idea without any alteration at all ; for if there be any the least alteration of thought by addition, subtraction, or any manner of change, there is then another, a new idea.
From this perpetual change of ideas observable in our minds, this train of new appearances there, we have the clear idea of succession. The existence of anything commensurate to any part of such succession, we call duration ; and the dis- tance between any two points of duration, we call time. That our ideas of time and duration have their original from this reflection is evident from hence, that whenever this succes- sion of ideas ceases in our minds, we have no idea, no per- ception at all of duration, and therefore a man that sleeps without dreaming perceives no distance betwixt his falling asleep and waking ; but if dreams furnish him with trains of ideas, the perception of duration accompanies them, and that ' comes in to his account of time.
Though mankind have made choice of the revolution of the sun and moon as the fittest measure of time, because they are everywhere observable, and not easily discernible to be unequal, yet this is not because of any connection between duration and motion ; for any other regular periodical appear- ances, that were common to all the world, would measure time as well, were it without any sensible motion.
Chap. 14. And though the word time is usually taken for that part of duration which is taken up by the existence of natural things, or the motions of the heavens, as extension for that part of space which is commensurate and filled by body, yet the mind having got the idea of any portion of time, as a day, or a year, it can repeat it as often as it will, and so enlarge its ideas of duration beyond the being or mo- tion of the sun, and have as clear an idea of the 763 years of the Julian period before the beginning of the world, as of any 763 years since ; and from this power of repeating and enlarging its ideas of duration, wdthout ever coming to an end, frame to itself the idea of eternity, as by endless addi- tion of ideas of space it doth that of immensity.
Chap. 16. The idea of number, as has been observed, is
suggested to us by refiection^ and all the ways of sensation
we count ideas, thoughts, bodies, everything ; and having got
the idea of a unit, by the repetition and addition of one or
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more such units, make any combinations of numbers that we please.
Chap. 16. Whereas the mind can never come to the end of these additions, but finds in itself still the power of adding more in the proportion it pleases, hence we come by the idea of infinite, which, whether applied to space or duration, seems to me to be nothing else but this infinity of number, only with this difierence, that in number, beginning at a unit, we seem to be at one end of the line, which we can extend infinitely forward. In duration we extend the infinite end of number or addition two ways from us, both to duration past and duration to come ; and in space, as if we were in the centre, we can on eyery side add miles or diameters of the orbis magntM, &c., till number and the power of addition fail us, without any prospect or hopes of coming to an end.
That this is the idea we have of infinite, made up of addi- tions, with still an inexhaustible remainder, as much as there is in number, and not in any positive comprehensive idea of infinity, I shall not, in the brevity I now propose to myself, set down the proofs of at large : let any one examine his own thoughts and see whether he can find any other but such an idea of infinity ; in the mean time, it suffices me to show how our idea of infinite is made up of the simple ideas derived from sensation and reflection. Chap. 18, 19.
Chap. 20. Amongst the simple ideas we receive both from sensation and reflection, pleasure and pain are none of the most inconsiderable; they are our great concernment, and they often accompany our other sensations and thoughts. For as there are few sensations of the body that do not bring with them also some degrees oi pleasure or pain, so there are few thoughts of our minds so indifferent to us that do not delight or disturb us; all which I comprehend under the names of pleasure and pain. That satisfaction or delight, uneasiness or trouble, which the mind receives from any either external sensation or internal thought whatsoever, has an aptness to cause, increase, or continue pleasure in us, or to lessen or shorten any pain, we call good, and the contrary we call evil: upon these two, good and evil, all our passions turn, and by reflecting on what our thoughts about them produce in us, we get the ideas of the passions.
Thus any one reflecting upon the thought he has of the de-
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light which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in him, has the idea we call love. For when a man declares in autumn, when he is eating them, or in the spring when there Bxe none, that he loves grapes, he means no more but that the taste of grapes delights him. The being and welfare of a man's children and friends producing constant delight in him, he is said constantly to love them. On the contrary, the thought of the pain which anything present or absent is apt to produce in us, is what we call hatred.
The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it, is that we call desire, which is greater or less as that uneasiness is more or less.
Joy is a delight of the mind from the consideration of the present or future assured possession of a good. Thus a man almost starved has joy at the arrival of relief even before he tastes it ; and we are then possessed of any good when we have it so in our power, that we can use it when we please ; a father, in whom the very well being of his children causes delight, is in the possession of that good always as long as his children are in such an estate ; for he needs but to reflect on it to have that pleasure.
Eear is an uneasiness of the mind upon the thought of fliture evil likely to befall us.
I will not go over all the passions ; they are not my business ; these are enough, I think, to show us how the ideas we have of them are derived from sensation and re* flection.
Chap. 21. I shall only mention one more simple idea, and show how we come by it, and give some instances of some modifications of it, and then put an end to this part of simple ideas and their modes. Every man experiences in himself that he can move his hand or tongue, which before was at rest; that he can apply his mind to other thoughts, and lay by those that he has at present ; hence he gets the idea oifower.
All power regarding action, we have, as I think, the ideas but of two sorts of action : viz. motion and thinking.
The power we find in ourselves to prefer this or that pecu- liar thought to its absence, this or that peculiar motion to
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rest, is that we call unlL And the actual preference of any action to its forbearance, or vice ve-rsd, is volition.
The power we find in ourselves to act, or not to act, con- formable to such preference of our minds, gives us the idea we call liberty.
Chap. 22. Having thus, in short, given an account of the original of all our simple ideas, and in the instances of some of them showed how, from certain modifications of them, the mind arrives at those that seem at first sight to be very far from having their original in any ideas received from sensa- tion, or from any operation of our minds about them, I shall now proceed to those that are more complex, and show that all the ideas we have (whether of natural or moral things, bodies or spirits) are only certain combinations of these simple ideas got from sensation or reflection, beyond which our thoughts, even when they ascend up into the highest heavens, cannot extend themselves.
The complex ideas we have may, I think, be all reduced to these three sorts, viz. —
Substances,
Modes, and
Eelations.
Chap. 23. That there are a great variety of substances in this world is past doubt to every one ; let us then see what ideas we have of those particular substances about which our thoughts are at any time employed. Let us begin with those more general ideas of body and spirit. I ask, what other idea a man has of body, but of solidity, extension, and mobility, joined together, which are all simple ideas received from sense. Perhaps some one here will be ready to say, that to have a complete idea of body, the idea of substance must be added to solidity and extension. But of him that makes that objection, I shall demand what his idea of sub- stance is ? So likewise our idea of spirit is of a substance that has the power to think and to move body, from which, by the way, I conclude that we have as clear an idea of spirit as we have of body ; for in one we have the clear ideas of solidity, extension, and mobility, or a power of. being moved, with an ignorance of its substance, and in the other we have two as clear ideas, viz. of thinking and motivity, if I may so*" say, or a power of moving, with a like ignorance of its sufh
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stance. For substance in both is but a supposed but un- known substratum of those qualities, something, we know- not what, that supports their existence ; so that all the ideas -we have of the suostance of anything is an obscure idea of what it does, and not any idea of what it is. This further I have to add, that our idea of substance, whether spiritual or corporeal, being equally obscure, and our ideas of mohility and motivity (if I may for shortness' sake coin that new word) being equally clear in both, there remains only to compare extension and ihmking. These ideas are both very clear, but the difficulty that some have raised against the notion of a spirit, has been, that they said they could not conceive an uneitended thinking thing, and I, on the contrary, affirm that they can as easily conceive an unex tended think- ing thing as an extended solid. To make an extended solid there must be an idea of a cohesion of parts, and I say it is as easy to conceive how a spirit thinks, as how solid parts cohere ; that is, how a body is extended ; for where there are no cohering parts, there are no parts extra partes, and con- sequently no extension ; for if body be divisible, it must have united parts, and if there were no cohesion of the parts of body, body would quite be lost, and cease to be. He that can tell me what holds together the parts of steel or a dia- mond, will explain a fundamental difficulty in natural philo- sophy. Bemouli, who has endeavoured to explain the coher- ence of the parts of all bodies by the pressure of the other, hath made two great oversights : 1st, That he takes no no- tice that let the pressure of anv ambient fluid be as great as it will, yet that if there be nothing else to hold the parts of any body together, though they cannot be pulled asunder perpendicularly, yet it is demonstrable they may be slid off from one another as easily as if there were no such pressure ; and the experiment of two polished marbles held together by the pressure of the atmosphere makes it evident to sense, since they can so easily by a side motion be separated, though they cannot by a perpendicular.
That he takes no care of the particles of the ether itself, for they too being bodies, and consisting of parts, must have something to hold them together, which cannot be themselves ; for it is as hard to conceive how the parts of the least atom of matter are fEistened together, as how the greatest masses,
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and yet, without this, we have as great a difficulty to conceive body as spirit, an extended as a thinking thing.
But whether the notion of a spirit be more obscure, or less obscure, than that of body, this is certain, that we get it no other way than we do that of the body ; for as, by our senses, receiving the ideas of solidity , extension, motion, and rest, and supposing them inherent in an unknown substance^ we have the idea of body ; so by collecting together the sim- ple ideas we have got by reflecting on those operations of our own minds which we experience daily in ourselves, as ihinhing, wider standing, toilling, knowing, and the power of moving bodies, and by supposing those, and the rest of the operations of our minds, to be coexisting in some substance which also we know not, we come to have the idea of those beings we call spirits.
The ideas we have of understanding and power, which we have, from reflection on what passes in ourselves, joined to duration, and all these, enlaced by our idea of if\finite, gives us.the idea of that Supreme Being we call God ; and to satis- fy us that all our complex ideas contain nothing in them but the simple ideas taken from sensation and ruction, we need but cast our thoughts on the different species of spirits that are or may be ; for though it be possible there may be more species of spiritual beings between us and God upwards, than there are of sensible beings between us and nothing downwards, we being at a greater distance from infinite per- fection than from the lowest degree of being, yet it is certain we can conceive no other difference between those various ranks of angelic natures, but barely different degrees of under- standing and power, which are but different modifications of the two simple ideas we got from reflecting on what passes in ourselves.
As to our ideas of natural substances, it is evident they are nothing but such combinations of simple ideas as have been observed bv sensation to exist together; for what is our idea of gold, out of a certain yellow shining colour, a cer- tain degree of weight, malleablensss, fusibility, and perhaps fixedness, or some other simple ideas put together in our minds, as constantly coexisting in the same substance, which complex idea consists of more or fewer simple ones as his observation who made this combination was more or less ao-
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curate P And thus I think from sensation and reflection^ and the simple ideas got thence, differently combined and modified, we come by all our ideas of substances.
Another sort of complex ideas there is, which I call modes, which are certain combmations of simple ideas, not including the obscure one we have of substance. Of these modes there are two sorts : one where the combination is made of simple ideas, of the same kind as a dozen or a score made up oi a certain collection of units ; the other sort of modes is, when the combination is made up of ideas of several kinds, such are the ideas signified by the words obligation, friendship, a lie. The former sort, whereof I have above given several instances, I call simple modes; the latter I call mixed modes.
These mixed modes, though of an endless variety, yet they are all made up of nothing but simple ideas derived from sensation or reflection, as is easy for any one to observe who will, with ever so little attention, examine them. For exam- ple, if a lie be speaking an untruth knowingly, it comprehends the simple ideas — 1st, Of articulate sounds : 2nd, The re- lation of these sounds to ideas, whereof they are the marks : 3rd, The putting those marks together differentlv from what the ideas they stand for are in the mind of tne speaker : 4th, The knowledge of the speaker, that he makes a wrong use of these marks : all which are either simple ideas, or may be resolved into them. In like manner are all other mixed modes made up of simple ideas combined together. It would be endless, as well as needless, to so about to enumerate all the mixed modes that are m the minds of men, they containing almost the whole subject about which Divinity, Morality, Law, and Politics, and several other sciences, are employed. Chap. 24.
Chap. 26 — 27. Besides the ideas, whether simple or com- plex, that the mind has of things as they are in themselves, there are others it gets from their comparison one with an- other : this we call relation ; which is such a consideration of one thing as intimates or involves in it the consideration of another. Now since anj of our ideas may be so considered by us in one thing as to mtimate and lead our thoughts to another, therefore all, both simple and complex, may be foundations of relation, which however large it is, yet we
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may perceive hereby how it derives itself originally from j^efis- ation and reflection, it having no other foundation but iijieas derived from thence. I shall not need to go over the several sorts of relations to show it; I shall only remark that to relation it is necessary there should be two ideas or things, either in themselves really separate, or considered as distinct, which being not both always taken notice of, makes several terms pass for the marks of positive ideas, which are in truth relative: viz. great and old, &c., are ordinarily as relative terms as greater and older, though it be not commonly so thought ; lor when we say Caius is older than Sempronius, we compare these two persons in the idea of duration, and siguify one to have more than the other ; but when we say^ Caius is old, or an old man, we compare his duration to that which we look on to be the ordinary duration of men. Hence it is harsh to say a diamond or the sun is old, because we have no idea of any length of duration belonging ordinarily to them, and so have no such idea to compare their age tc as we have of those things we usually call old.
This is, in short, what 1 think of the several sorts of complex ideas we have, which are only these three, viz. of substances} modes, and relations, which being made up, and containing in them nothing but several combinations of simple ideas received from sensation and reflection, I conclude that in all our thoughts, contemplations, and reasonings, however ab- stract or enlarged, our minds never go beyond those simple ideas we have received from those two inlets, viz. sensation and reflection. Chap. 28 — 31.
Lib. III. When I had considered the ideas the mind of man is furnished with, how it comes by them, and of what kind they are, I thought I had no more to do but to proceed to the further examination of our intellectual faculty, and see what use the mind made of those materials or instruments of knowledge which I. had collected in the foregoing book; but when I came a little nearer to consider the nature and manner of human knowledge, I found it had so much to do with propositions, and that words, either by custom or ne- cessity, were so mried with it, that it was impossible to dis- course of knowledge with that clearness one should, without saying something first of words and language.
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Cliap. 1. The ideas in men's minds are so wholly but of sight to others, that men could have had no communication of thoughts without some sign of their ideas.
The most convenient signs, both for their variety and quickness, that t^^^ are capable of, are articulate sounds, which we call words. Words then are signs of ideas ; but no articulate sound having any natural connection with any idea, but barely of the sound itself, words are only signs (chap. 2) by voluntary imposition, and can be properly and immediately signs of nothmg but the ideas in the mmd of him that uses them ; for being employed to express what he thinks, he cannot make them signs of ideas he has not, for that would be to make them signs of nothing. It is true, words are frequently used with two other suppositions — 1st. It is commonly supposed that they are signs of the ideas in the mind of him with whom we communicate : this is reason- ably supposed, because, unless this be so, the speaker cannot "be understood ; but it not always happening that the ideas in the mind of the hearer always exactly answer those to which the speaker applies his words, this supposition is not always true. 2nd. it is commonly supposed that words stand not only for ideas, but for things themselves ; but that they should stand immediately for things is impossible, for since they can be signs immediately of nothing out what is in the mmd of the speaker, and there being nothing there but ideas, they stand for things no otherwise than as the ideas in the mind agree to them.
Chap. 3. Words are of two sorts, general terms, or names of particular things : all things that exist being particular, what need of general terms ? and what are those general natures they stand for, since the greatest part of words in common use are general terms ? As to the first ; particular things are so many, that the mind coidd not retain names for them, and in the next place, could the memory retain them, they would be usdess, because the particular beings known to one would be utterly unknown to another, and so their names would not serve for communication where they stood not for an idea common to both speaker and hearer : besides, our progress to knowledge being by generals, we have need of general terms. As to the second, the general natures general terms stand for, are only general ideas, and
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ideas become general only by being abstracted from time and place and other particularities, that make them the represent- atives only of individuals, by which separation of some ideas which annexed to them make them particular, they are made capable of agreeing to several particulars : thus ideas come to represent not one particular existence, but a sort of things as their names, to stand for sorts, which sorts are usually called by the Latin terms of art, genus and species, of which each is supposed to have its particular essence ; and though there be much dispute and stir about genus and species, and their essences, yet in truth the essence of each genus and species, or, to speak English, of each sort of things, is no- thing else but the abstract idea in the mind which the speaker makes the general term the sign of. It is true, every par^ ticular thing has a real constitution by which it is what it is ; and this, by the genuine notion of the word, is called its es- sence or being; but the word essence having been trans- ferred from its original signification, and applied to the arti- ficial species and genera of the schools, men commonly look on essences to belong to the sorts of things, as they are ranked under different general denominations, and in tms sense es- sences are truly nothing but the abstract ideas which those general terms are by any one made to stand for. The first of these may be called the real, the second the nominal essence, which sometimes are the same, sometimes quite different one from another.
Chap. 4. The nature and signification of words will be made a little more dear if we consider them with relation to those three several sorts of ideas I have formerly mentioned, viz. simple ideas, substances, and modes, under which also I comprehend relations. 1st. The names of simple ideas and substances intimate some real existence from whence they are taken, as from their patterns ; but the names of mixed modes terminate in the mind, and therefore I think it is they have the peculiar names of notions. 2nd. The names of simple ideas and modes signify always the real as well as nominal essences ; the names of substances seldom, if ever, anything but the nominal essence. 8rd. The names of sim- ple ideas are of all other the least doubtful and uncertain. 4th. But that which I think of great use to remark, and which I do not find anybody has t^en notice of, is, that the
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names of simple ideas are not definable, but those of all com- plex ideas are ; for a definition being nothing but the making known the idea that one word stands for by several others not synonymous words, it cannot have place m any but com- plex ideas. It is very manifest how both the Peripatetics, and even modem philosophers, for want of observing this, have trifled or talked jargon in endeavouring to define the names of some few of the simple ideas, for, as to the greatest part of them, they found it best to lei them alone ; for though they have attempted the definitions of motion and light, yet they have forborne to offer any definitions of the greatest part of simple ideas; and those definitions of light and motion they have ventured at, when strictly examined, will be found to be as insignificant as anything can be said to ex- plain what the term red or sweet signifies ; when a man can DO found that can by words make a blind man understand i^hat idea the word blue stands for, then also may he be able "by a definition to make a man have the true signification of the word motion or light who never had it any other way. 5th. The names of simple ideas have but few assents in linea pradicamentali, as they call it, because these ideas, not being compoimded, nothing can be left out of any of them to make it more general and comprehensive, and therefore the name eolowr^ which comprehends red and hlue, &c., denotes only the simple ideas that come in by the sight.
Chap. 5. As to the names of mixed modes and relations, which are all of them general terms — 1st. The essences of their several sorts are all of them made by the understanding. 2nd. They are made arbitrarily and with great liberty, wherein the mind confines not itself to the real existence of any pat- terns. 3rd. But though the essences or species of mixed modes are made without patterns, yet they are not made at random without reason. Not only signification, but short- ness also, and despatch, is one of the great conveniences of language ; and hence it is suitable to the end of speech not only that we should make use of sounds for signs of ideas, but also that one short sound should be the sign of many distinct ideas combined into one complex one. Suitable to this end, men unite into one complex idea many scattered and independent ones, and give a name to it where they have
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occasion often to think on such combinations and express them to others, and thus several species of mixed modes are made arbitrarily by men giving names to certain combinations of ideas, which have in themselves no more connection than others which are not bv any denomination so united. This is evident in the diversity of languages, there being nothing more ordinary than to find many words in one language which have none that answer them in another.
Chap. 6. The names of substances signify only their nominal essences, and not their real essences, which two essences in substances are far diflferent things, v. g. the colour, weight, malleability, fusibility, fixedness, and perhaps some other sensible qualities, make up the complex idea men have in their minds, to which they give the name gold ; but the tex- ture of the insensible parts, or whatever else it be, on which these sensible qualities depend, which is its real constitution or essence, is quite a different thing, and would give us quite another idea of gold if we knew it ; but since we have no idea of that constitution, and can signify nothing by oiur words but the ideas we have, our name gold cannot signify that real essence. It is therefore by their nominal essences that substances are ranked into sorts under several denomin- ations, which nominal essences being nothing but abstract, complex ideas, made up in various men of various collections of simple ideas which they have observed or imagined to co- exist together, it is plain the essences of the species of sub- stances, and consequently the species themselves as ranked un- der distinct denominations, are of men's making. I do not say the substances themselves are made by men, nor the likeness and agreement that is to be found in them, but the boundaries of the species, as marked by distinct names, are made by men.
But though men make the essences whereby the species of substances are limited and distinguished, yet they make them not so arbitrarily as they do in modes ; for in substances they propose to themselves the real existence of things as the pat- terns they would follow, yet through their variety of skill or attention, their complex idea, made up of a coDection of sensible qualities, signified by the same specific name, is in various men very different, the one putting in simple ideas that the oth^r has omitted ; but the real essences supposed of
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tbe species of things must be, if there were any such, in- variably the same. If the first sorting of individuals into their lowest species depend on the mind of man, as has been shown, it is much more evident that the more comprehensive classes, called genera by the masters of logic, are so, which are complex ideas designedly imperfect, out of which are pur- posely left several of those qualities that are to be found constantly in the things themselves as they exist ; for as the mind, to make general ideas comprehending aeveral particular beings, leaves out those of time and place, and others that make them incommunicable to more than one individual, so, to make others yet more general that may comprehend dif- ferent sorts, it leaves out these qualities that distinguish them, and puts into its new collection only such ideas as are common to several sorts ; so that in this whole business of genus and species, the genus, or more comprehensive, is but a partial conception of what is in the species, and the species but a partial idea of what is to be found in each individual. This is suited to the true end of speech, which is to denote by one short sound a great many particulars as they agree in one common conception genera ; and species, then, seem to me to be nothing but sorting of things in order to denomination, and the essence of each sort is nothing but the abstract idea to which the denomination is annexed ; for a little attention will teach us that to particular things nothing is essential, but as soon as they come to be ranked under any general name, which is the same as to be reckoned of any species, then pre- sently something is essential to them, viz. all that is compre- hended in the complex idea that that name stands for.
This further is to be observed concerning substances, that they alone, of all the several sorts of ideas, have proper names ; to which we may add, that though the specific names of sub- stances can signify nothing but the abstract ideas in the mind of the speaker, and so consequently the substances that agree to that idea, yet men, in their use of them, often substitute them in the room of, and would suppose them to stand for, things having the real essence of that species, which breeds great confusion and uncertainty in their use of words.
Chap. 7. "Words have a double use : 1st, to record our own thoughts ; and for this any words will serve, so they be kept constantly to the same ideas. 2nd. To communicate our
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thoughts with others, and for this use they must be common signs standing for the same ideas in those who have com- munication together. In communication they have also a double use :
1st. Civil.
2nd. Philosophical.
The first of these is that which serves for the upholding of common conversation and commerce. The philosophical use is to convey the precise notions of things, and to express in general propositions certain and undoubted truths, which the mind may rest upon, and be satisfied with in its search after true knowledge.
In this last use of words they are especially liable to great imperfections of uncertainty and obscurity in their signification.
Words naturaUy signifying nothing, it is necessary that their signification, i. e. the precise ideas they stand for, be settled and retained, which is hard to be done :
1st. Where the ideas they stand for are very complex, and made up of a great number of ideas put together.
2nd. Where the ideas that make up the complex one they stand for have no connection in nature, and so there is no settled standard anywhere existing in nature to rectify and adjust them by.
3rd. Where the signification of the word is referred to a standard existing, which yet is not easy to be known.
4th. Where the signification of the word and the real essence of the thing are not exactly the same. The names of mixed modes are very much liable to doubtfulness, for the two first of these reasons; and the names of substances chiefly for the two latter.
According to these rules, as well as experience, we shall find, First, That the names of simple ideas are the least liable to uncertainty, 1st, because they are simple, and so easily got and retained ; 2nd, because they are referred to nothing but that very perception which things in nature are fitted to pro- duce in us.
Second, That names of mixed modes are very uncertain, because the complex ideas they are the signs of have no standing patterns existing in nature whereby to be regulated and adjusted ; their archetypes are only in the minds of men,
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and therefore uncertain to be known, and being very much compounded and often decompounded, are very hardly to be exactly agreed on and retained. Where shall one find an as- semblage of all the ideas the word Olory stands for, existing together ? And the precise complex idea the name Justice is the sign of, is seldom, I imagine, settled and retained.
Third, The names of substances are very uncertain, because their complex ideas not being voluntary compositions, but referred to patterns that exist, are yet referred to patterns that cannot at all be known, or at least can be known but very imperfectly. 1st. As has been showed, sometimes the names of substances are supposed to stand for their supposed real essences. Everything having a real constituticm, whereby it is what it is, this is apt to i)e called its essence, as if it were the essence of a species ; but whether it be or no, this is certain, that, it being utterly unknown, it is impossible to know in such a supposition or reference, of the name which any word stands for. 2nd. Sometimes the ideas the names of substances stand for are copied from the sensible qualities to be observed in bodies existing ; but in this, which is their pro- per use, it is not easy to a(^ust their significations, because the qualities that are to be &und in substances out of which we make their complex ideas, being for the most part powers, they are almost infinite, and one of them having no more right than imother to be put into our complex iaeas, which are to be copies of these originals, it is very hard by these patterns to adjust the signification of their names, and there- fore it is very seldom that the same name of any substance stands in two men for the same complex idea.
Chap. 8. To this natural imperfection of words it is not unusual for men to add voluntary abuses, some whereof I take notice of; as, 1st, the using of words without any clear and determinate signification : this whole sects in philosophy and religion are frequently guilty of, there being very few of them who, either out of affectation of singularity, or to cover some weak part of their system, do not make use of some terms which it is plain have no clear and determinate ideas annexed to them. JBesides these appropriated terms of parties, which never had any distinct meaning, there are others who use ordinary words of common language, without having in their minds any precise ideas they stand for ; it is enough that
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they liave learned the words that are common in the language of their country, which serving well enough to be produced iu talk, they dispense with themselves from being solicitous about any clear notions to be signified by them ; and if men who have them often in their mouths should be examined what they mean by Reason or Orace, &c., they would often be found to have in toeir minds no distinct ideas which these and the like words were the signs of. 2nd. Another abuse is in- constancy, or putting the same word as the sign sometimes of one idea, sometimes of another, in the same discourse. There is nothing more ordinary in all controversies, where one can seldom miss to find the same sound often put for different significations, and that not only in the incidental parts of the discourse, but in those terms which are tlie most material in the debate, and on which the question turns. 3rd. To this may be added an affected obscurity, either in the use of old words, or the coining of new ones. To this nothing has so much contributed as the method and learning of the schools, where all has been adapted to and measured by dispute. This way of proceeding unavoidably runs all into multiplication and perplexity of terms. This perverse abuse of language, having under the esteemed name of subtility gained the re- putation and rewards of true knowledge, how much it has hindered real improvements the world is now satisfied. 4th. The next abuse of language is the taking words for things : this most concerns the names of substances, for men havmg feigned to themselves peculiar and groundless ideas, pro- portionably as they have thought fit to contrive or espouse some certain system of natural philosophy, have suited names to them, which, growing into familiar use, came afterwards among their followers to carry with them the opinion of reality, as if they were the necessary and un- avoidable marks of things themselves. Thus, substantial forms and intentional species, and abundance of such other terms, have by their common and unquestioned use carried men into the persuasion that there were such things, it being hard for them to believe that their &thers and masters, learned men and divines, should make use of names that stood fop fancies only, that never had any real being in the world. The supposing words to stand for the real essences of substances is an abuse which I have already mentioned. 6th Another
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more general, though less observed, abuse of words 'is, to sup- pose their signification so clear and settled that a man cannot De mistaken what ideas they stand for ; and hence men think it strange to ask or be asked the meaning of their words, when yet it is plain that many times the certain signification of a man's words cannot be any otherwise known but by his telling what precise idea he makes any word the sign of. 6th. Pigurative speeches and all the artificial ornaments of rhetoric are truly an abuse of language also ; but this, like the fair sex, has too prevailing beauties in it to suffer itself ever to be spoken against, and it is in vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find a pleasure to be deceived.
Chap. 9. That which has nourished disputes and spread errors m the world being chiefly the imperfection or abuse of words before mentioned, it would be of no small advantage to truth and quiet, if men would apply themselves seriously to a more careful and candid use of language, wherein I shall offer some easy and obvious cautions to those who have a mind to be ingenuous ; for I am not so vain as to think of reforming* 80 prevailing an abuse, wherein so many men imagine they find their account. Thoiigh I think nobody will deny, Ist, That every one should take care to use no word without a signification, — ^no vocal sign without some idea he had in his mind, and would express by it. 2nd. That the idea he uses a sign for should be clear and distinct ; all the simple ideas it is made up of, if it be complex, should be settled. This, as it is necessary in all our names of complex ideas, so is most carefully to be observed in moral names, which being com- pounded Mid decompounded of several simple ones, our ideas are not right as they should be, and consequently our words are full of uncertainty and obscurity, and neither pthers nor we ourselves know what we mean by them till we have so settled in our minds the complex idea we would have each word stand for, that we can readily enumerate all the par- ticulars that make it up, and resolve it into aU its component simple ones. 3rd. These ideas must be accommodated as near as we can to the common signification of the word in its ordinary use. It is this propriety of speech which gives the stamp under which words are current, and it is not for every priyate man to alter their value at pleasure.
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But because common use has left many if not most words yery loose in their signification, and because a man is often unaer a necessity of using a known word in some with a peculiar sense, therefore it is often his duty to show the meaning of this or that term, especially where it concerns the main subject of discourse or question. This showing the meaning of our terms, to do it well must be suited to the several sorts of ideas they stand for. The best, and in many cases the only, way to make known the meaning of the name of a simple idea is by producing it by the senses. The only way of making known the meaning of the names of mixed modes, at least moral words, is by definition ; and the best way of making known the meaning of the names of most bodies is both by showing and by definition together ; many of their distinmiishing qualities being not so easUy made known by words, and many of them not without much pains and preparation discoverable by our senses.
Chap. 10. What words signify, and how much we are to beware that they impose not on us, I have shown, it being necessary to be premised to our consideration of knowledge, the business of the next book ; only, before I conclude this, I take notice of one ordinary distinction of words, because I think it gives us some light into our ideas ; viz. Abstract and concrete terms, concerning which we fliay observe, Ist, That no two abstract ideas ever affirmed one of another. 2nd. That simple ideas and modes have all of them abstract as well as concrete names; but substances only concrete, except some few abstract names of substances in vain affected by the schools, which could never get into common use of eor- porietas and animalitas^ &c. The first of these sfems to me to show us that two distinct ideas are two distinct essences that cannot be affitrmed one of another. The latter carries with it a plain confession that men have no ideas of the real essences of the sorts of substances, since they have put into their languages no names for them.
Lib. IV. The two foregoing books were of ideas and words, this is of knowledge.
Chap. 1. The first chapter shows that knowledge is nothing but the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas.
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▲BSTSAOT OF THE ESSAY. 389
This agreement or disagreement, for the clearer explaining of this matter, is reduced to these four sorts :
1. Identity, 2. Coexistence,
8. Beal Existence, 4. Eelation.
1st. It is the first and fundamental act of our understand- ing to perceive the ideas it has, to know each what, it is, and perceive wherein it differs from any others ; without this, the mind could neither have variety of thoughts nor discourse, judge or reason about them. By this faculty the mind per- ceives what idea it has when it sees a violet, and knows blue is not yellow.
2nd. Our ideas of substances, as I have showed, consist in certain collections of single ideas which the specific name stands for ; and our inquiry, for the most part, concerning substances, is what other qualities they have ; which is no more but this, what other ideas coexist and are to be found united with those of our complex ideas. Thus, whether gold be fixed, is to inquire whether the power of abiding in the fire without wasting be an idea which coexists in the same subject with those ideas of vellowness, weight, malleability, and fusibility, whereof my idea of gold is made up.
The 8rd sort of agreement is, whether a real existence out of my mind agrees to any idea I have there.
4th. The last sort of agreement or disagreement of any ideas is in any other sort of relation between them. Thus, sweetness is not hittemessy is of identity. Iron is susceptible of magnetical impressions, is of coexistence. Ood is, is of existence. Two triangles upon equal basis between two pa^ rallels are equal, is of relation.
Chap. 2. According to the different way of perceiving the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, so is the evidence of our knowledge different. Sometimes the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas imme- diately ; thus it perceives that red is not yellow, that a circle is not a triangle, that three is more than two, and equal to one and two ; and this we may call intuitive knowledge. When the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas can- not be immediately perceived, but the mind makes use of the intervention of other ideas to show it, then (as the woid im- v ports) it is demonstration.
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890 LITE AVD LETTEBS OI" JOUK LOCKS.
Thus the mind not being able to bring the three angles of a triangle and two right ones so together as to be able imme- diately to perceive their equality, it makes use of some other angles to measure them by.
To produce knowledge this way, there must be an intuitive knowledge of the agreement or disagreement of the inter* mediate ideas in each step of the deduction, for without that there can be no demonstration, the agreement or disagreem^it of the two ideas under consideration is not shown ; for where anv agreement or disagreement of any two ideas is not self- evident, i. e. cannot be immediately perceived, there it will always need a proof to show it. This sort, which may be called rational or demonstrative knowledge, however certain, is not so clear and evident as intuitive, because here the memory must intervene to retain the connection of all the parts of the demonstration one with another, and be sure that none is omitted in the account, which in long deductions requires great attention to avoid mistake. Why demonstra- tion is generally thought to belong only to ideas of quantity, I shall not in this short epitome mention.
These two sorts are all the knowledge we have of general truths. Of the existence of some particular finite beings we have knowledge by our senses, which we may call Menntive knowledge.
Chap. 3. From what has been said, it follows :
1st. That we can have no knowledge where we have no ideas.
2nd. That our intuitive knowledge reaches not so far as our ideas, because the greatest part of them cannot be so immediately compared as to discover the agreement or dis- agreement we seek.
drd . Neither can rational and demonstrative knowledge make out the agreement or disagreement of all those of our ideas wherein we fail of intuitive knowledge, because we cannot always find mediums to connect them mtuitively together.
4th. Sensitive knowledge reaching no further than the actual presence of particidar things to our senses, is much narrower than either of the former.
That which I would infer from this is, that our knowledge is not only infinitely short of the whole extent of beings, if
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ABSTBACT OF THE S8SAY. 891
we compare this little spot of earth we are confined ta, to that part of the universe which we have some knowledge o^ which probably is, all of it, but a point in respect to what is utterly beyond our discovery, and consider the vegetables, animals, rational corporeal creatures (not to mention the ranks and orders of spirits), and other things with different qualities suited to senses different from ours, whereof we have no notion at all, which may be in them, we shall have reason to conclude that the things whereof we have ideas are verf few in respect of those whereof we have none at all.
In the next place, if we consider how few, how imperfect, and how superficial, those ideas are which we have of the things that lie nearest our examination, and are best known to us ; and lastly, if we consider how few they are of those few ideas we have, whose agreement or disagreement we are able to discover, we shall have reason to conclude that our understandings were not proportioned to the whole extent of being, nor men made capable of knowing all things, but that it fiEiUs us in the greatest part of the inquiry concerning those ideas we have.
1st. As to identity and diversity, it is true our intuitive knowledge is as large as our ideas themselves ; but, 2nd, on the other side, 11^0 Juvite scarce am/y general knowledae at all of the coexistence of any ideas, because not being able to dis- cover the causes whereon the secondary qualities of substances depend, nor any connection between such causes and our ideas, there are very few cases wherein we can know the co- existence of any other idea with that complex one we have of any sort of substances, whereby our knowledge of sub- stances comes to be almost none at all. Srd. As to other relations of our ideas, how far our knowledfi;e may reach is yet uncertain ; this I think, morality, if rigntly studied, is capable oi^ demonstration as well as mathematics. 4th. As to existence, we have an intuitive knowledge of our own, a demonstrative one of a G-od, and a sensible one of some few other things.
I shall not here, in this short compendium I am giving of my thoughts, mention those particulars which I have set down to show up the narrowness of our knowledge ; that which I have here said may, I suppose, suffice to convince
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men,.tbat what we know bears no proportion to that which we are invincibly ignorant of.
Besides the extent of our knowledge in respect of the sorts of things, we may consider another kind of its extent, which is in respect of its imiversality. When the ideas are abstract, our knowledge about them is general : abstract ideas are the essences of species, howsoever named, and are the found- ations of universal and eternal verities.
Chap. 4. It will perlftips be said, that knowledge placed thus in the consideration of our ideas may be chimerical, and leave us ignorant of things as they really are in themselves, since we see men may often have very extravagant ideas ; to which I answer, that our knowledge is real so far as our ideas are conformable to things, and no further. To be able to know what ideas are conformable to the realities of things, we must consider the different sorts of ideas I have above mentioned.
1st. Simple ideas we cannot but know to be conformable to things, because the mind not being able to make any simple ideas to itself, those it has must needs be conformable to that power which is in things to produce them, which conformity is sufficient for real knowledge.
2nd. All our complex ideas, but those of substances, are conformable to the reality of things ; and this we may cer- tainly know, because they being archetypes made by the mind, and not designed to be copies of anything existing, things are intended in our discourses and reasonings about these ideas no further than as they are conformable to these ideas.
3rd. Our complex ideas of substances being designed to be copies of archetypes existing without us, we can be no further sure that our knowledge concerning any of them is real, than the real existence of things has made it evident that such a collection of simple ideas, as our complex one is made up of, can coexist together ; the reason whereof is, because not knowing the real constitution on which these qualities depend, we cannot but by experience know which of them are, and which are not, capable to exist together in the same subject ; and if we put other than such that are capable to exist together into any complex idea, our knowledge con-
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ABSTBACT 07 THB SSSAT. 893
oeming sucb an idea of a substance will be only concerning a chimera of our own, and not of any real being.
Chap. 5. According to this account of knowledge, we may come to discover what truth is, which appears to be nothing else but the joining or separating of si^s according as things themselves agree or disagree. The joining or separating I here mean is, such as is made by affirmation and negation, and is called proposition, Kow the signs we use being of two sorts, viz. ideas and words ; propositions also are of two sorts, viz. mental or verbal; truth abo is twofold, either real op harely verbal, Eeal truth in any proposition is when the terms are afiBrmed or denied as the ideas they stand for agree or disagree, and as the ideas also themselves agree to their archetypes. Verbal truth is when the affirmation or negation is made according to the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, but the ideas themselves have no conformity with their archetypes.
Chap. 6. Truth being for the most part conveyed to our understandings, or considered by us in propositions, it will be of moment to examine what propositions are capable to convey to our understandings the certain knowledge of general truths.
1st. Then I say, that in all general propositions, where the terms are supposed to stand for species constituted and de- termined by real essences distinct from the nominal, we are not capable of any certain knowledge, because not knowing that real essence, we cannot know what particular things have it, and so can never know what particular things are of that species. This frequently happens in propositions con- cerning substances in otner things, not because in the species of other things there is no supposed real essence different from the nominal.
2nd. In all general propositions where the terms are sub- stituted only in the place of the nominal essence or abstract idea, and so the species determined by that alone, there we are capable of certainty as far as the agreement or disagree- ment of such abstract ideas can be perceived ; but this also reaches but a very little way in substances, because the ne- Cessarv coexistence or inconsistency of any other ideas with any of those that make up one complex one of any sort of BUDstances, is in very few cases discoverable.
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Chap. 7. There are a sort of propositions which, passing under the title of maxims, are hy some men received as in- nates, and by most esteemed as the foundations of know ledge ; but if what we have said concerning self-evident or intuitive knowledge be well considered, we shall find that these dignified axioms are neither innate nor have any other self-evidence than a thousand other propositions, some where- of are known before them, and others altogether as clearly, and therefore they are neither innate, nor be the foundations of all our knowledge or reasonings as they are thought to be.
Whatsoever is, is, and it is impossible for the same to he and not to be, it is granted are self-evident propositions ; but he that considers the native of the understanmng and the ideas in it, and that it is unavoidable for the understanding to know its own ideas, and to know those to be distinct that are so, must needs observe that these supposed fundamental princi- ples of knowledge and reasoning are no more self-evident than that one is one, and red red, and that it is impossible one should be two, or red blue : of these and the like propo- sitions, we have as certain a knowledge as of those other called maxims, and a much earlier ; and can anybody imagine that a child knows not that wormwood is not sugar, but by virtue of this axiom ? That it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. Intuitive Knowledge extends itself to all our ideas in respect of identical agreement or disagreement^ therefore all propositions made concerning this sort of agree- ment or disagreement, whether in more or less general terms, 80 the ideas they stand for be but known, are all equally self-evident. As to the agreement or disagreement of coex- istence, we have very little intuitive knowledge, and therefore concerning that there are very few self-evident propositions and little talk of axioms. In the third sort oi agreement, viz. relation, the mathematicians have dignified several gener- al propositions concerning equality with the title of axioms, though these have no other sort of certainty than all other self-evident propositions ; and though, when they are once made familiar to the mind, they are often made use of to show the absurdity of wrong reasoning and erroneous opinions in particular instances ; yet the way wherein the mind attains Knowledge, is not by oeginning and setting out from these general propositions, but in the quite contrary method ; it
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ABSTBACT 07 THX ESSAY. 895
begins its knowledge in particulars, and thenoe gradually enlarges it to more general ideas.
Chap. 8. Besides these there are other propositions, which are many of them certain, but convey no real truth to our knowledge, being barely about the signification of words.
Ist. Where any part of any complex idea is predicated of the name of that complex idea, such a proposition is only about the signification of the terms, and such are all propo- sitions wherein more comprehensive terms are predicatea of less comprehensive, as genera of species or individuals.
2nd. Wherever two abstract terms are predicated one of another, there the proposition carries no real knowledge in it, but is barely about the import of names. Were such trifling propositions as these shut out of discourses, the way to knowledge would be less perplexed with disputes than it is.
Chap. 9. Universal propositions, that have certain truth or falsehood in them, concern essences only. The knowledge of existence goes no further than particulars of our own ex- istences ; it is plain we have such an intuitive knowledge, that nothing can be more evident.
Chap. 10. Of the existence of God there is demonstration, for which we need go no further than ourselves for a proof, though God has given *****.
Chap. 11. The existence of all other things can be known only by testimony of our senses ; our knowledge reaches in this as fiur as our senses, and no further. For the existence of any other being having no necessary connection with any of the ideas I have in my memory, I cannot from them infer the necessary existence of any particular being, and can re- ceive the knowledge of it only by the actual perception of my senses.
Chap. 12. Por the improvement of our knowledge, we must suit our methods to our ideas : in substances, where our ideas are but imperfect copies, we are capable of very little general knowledge, because few of our abstract ideas have a discoverable agreement or disagreement of coexistence, and therefore in substances we must enlarge our knowledge by experiment and observation in particulars ; but in modes . and relations, where our ideas are archetypes, and real as well as nominal essences of species, there we attain general
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396 LIFE AlH) LETTEBS OF JOHN LOCKE.
knowledge only by views of our own abstract ideas ; and in them our inquiries not being concerning the agreement or disagreement of coexistence, but of other relations more dis- coverable than that of coexistence, we are capable of greater advances in knowledge : and that which is proposed for the improvement of it, is to settle in our minds clear and steady ideas, with their names or signs, and then to contem- plate and pursue their connections, and agreements, and de- pendencies : whether any method may be found out as useful ill other modes as Algebra is in the ideas of quantity, for the discovery of their habitudes and relations, cannot, beforehand, be determined, and therefore not to be despaired of. In the mean time, I doubt not but that Ethics might be improved to a much greater degree of certainty, if men, affixing moral names to clear and settled ideas, could with freedom and in- differency pursue them.
Chap. 13. Knowledge is not bom with us, nor does it always force itself upon our understandings ; animadversion and application is, in most parts of it, required, and that de- pends on the will ; but when we have thoroughly surveyed, and to our utmost traced our idea, it depends not then on our wills whether we will be knowing or ignorant.
Chap. 14. The shortness of our knowledge, not reaching to all the concernment we have, is supplied by that which we call judgment, whereby the mind takes ideas to agree or not agree ; i. e. any proposition to be true or false, without perceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofe.
Chap. 16. The ground on which such propositions are re- ceived for true, is what we call probability , and the entertain- ment the mind gives such propositions is called assent^ belief, or opinion^ which is the admitting any proposition to be true without certain knowledge that it is so. I'he grounds of pro- bability are these two — 1st. The conformity of anything with our own knowledge, observation, or experience. 2nd. The testimony of others, vouching their observation and experience.
Chap. 16. The variety of these in concurring or counter- balancmg circumstances, affording matter for assent in sever- al degrees of assurance or doubting, is too great to be set down in an extract.
Chap. 17. Error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a
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ABSTBAOT OF THE ESSAY. 5^97
mistake of judgment, giving assent to what is not true ; the causes whereof are these —
First. Want of proofs, whether such aa may be or as can- not be had.
Secondly. Want of ability to use them.
Thirdly. Want of will to use them.
Fourthly. Wrong measures of probability, which are these four —
1. Doubtful opinions taken for principles.
2. Eeceiyed hypotheses,
3. Predominant passions.
4. Authori^. ^
Chap. 18. Keason, that serves us to the discovery of both demonstration and probability, seems to me to nave four parts — 1st. The finding out of proofs. 2nd. The laying them in their due order for the discovery of truth. 3rd. In the perception of the more or less clear connection of the ideas in each part of the deduction. 4th, and last of all, The drawing a right judgment and conclusion from the whole. By which it will appear that syllogism is not the great in- strument of reason, it serving but only to the third of these, and that only, too, to show another's wrong arguing ; but it helps not reason at all in the search of new knowledge, nor the discovery of yet unknown truths, and the proofs of them, which is the chief use of that faculty, and not victory in dis- pute, or the silencing of wranglers.
Chap. 19. Faith is by some men so often made use of in opposition to reason, that he who knows not their distinct bounds will be at a loss in his inquiries concerning matters of religion.
Matters of reason are such propositions as may be known by the natural use of our faculties, and are deducible from ideas received from sensation or reflection. Matters of faith, such as are made known by supernatural revelation. The distinct principles and evidence of these two, being rightly considered, show where faith excludes or overrules reason, and where not.
1. Original revelation cannot be assented to contrary to the clear principles of our natural knowledge, because, though God cannot lie, yet it is impossible that any one, to whom a
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898 LIFS AND LETTEBS OF JOWST LOCKE.
rerelation is made, shoald know it to be from Gk)d more certainly than he knows such truths.
2. But original revelation maj silence reason in any pro- position, whereof reason eives but a probable assurance, be- cause the assurance that it is a revelation from Gk)d may be more clear than any probable truth can be.
8. If original revelation cannot, much less can traditional revelation be assented to, contrary to our natural clear and evident knowledge ; because, though what Ghod reveals can- not be doubted of, yet he to whom the revelation is not ori- fldnally made, but has only received it by the delivery or tra- dition of other men, can never so certainly know that it was a revelation made by Q-od, nor that he imderstands the words aright in which it is delivered to him. Nay, he cannot know that he ever heard or read that proposition which is supposed revealed to another, so certainly as he knows those truths. Though it be a revelation that the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, yet it not being revealed anywhere that such a proposition, delivered by a certain man, is a revelation, the believing of such a proposition to be a revelation is not a matter of faith, but of reason ; and so it is if the question be whether I understand it in the right sense.
According to these principles, I condude all with a division of the sciences into three sorts — 1st. ^vtriicri, or the know- ledge of things, whether bodies or spirits, or of any of their affections in their true natures ; the end of this is bare specu- lation. 2nd. UpaKTucrfy or the rules of operation about things in our power, and principally those wmch concern our con- duct; the end of this is action. 8rd. 2i7/iui»rii:4, or the know- ledge of signs, i. e.- ideas and words, as subservient to the other two, which, if well considered, would perhaps produce another kind of logic and critique than has yet been thought on.
At the end of Le Clerc's * translation of the above Ab- stract, in JBiblioiheque Universelle, is the following notifict-
♦ Stated to be translated by Le Clerc, on his own authority, as I find in Mr Locke's copy of that work these words, in Le Clerc*s handwriting: " Tout ce qui est depuis le commencement josqu'^ Hi, p. 261, est de moi."
Vftl will
Vol. viii
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LITE AKD LETTEB8 OF J0H5 LOCKE. 399
tion, published evidently under Locke's immediate direction, and affording one amongst the many proofs of his sincerity in the search for truth.
" C'est li, I'extrait d'un ouvrage Anglois que I'auteur a bien youlu publier, pour satisfaire quelqu'uns de ses amis particuliers, et pour leur donner un abr^g^ de ses sentimens. Si ^uelqu'un de ceux qui prendront la peine de les examiner, croit y remarquer quelque endroit, ou Tauteur se soit tromp6, ou quelque chose d'obscur, et de d^fectueux dans ce syst^me, 11 n'a qu'^ envoy er ses doutes, ou ses objections, a Amsterdam, aux Marchands Libraires, chez qui s'imprime la Bibliotheque Universelle. Encore que I'auteur n'ait pas une grande envie de voir son ouvrage imprim6, et qu'il croie (ju'on doive avoir plus de respect pour le public que de lui offnr d'abord ce que ron croit etre veritable, avant que de savoir si les aulJes I'agr^ront, ou le jugeront utile ; neanmoins il n'est pas si r^serv^, qu'on ne puisse esperer qu'il se disposera k donner au public son traite entier, lorsque la maniere dont cet abr^ge aura ete re9u, lui donnera occasion de croire qu'il ne publiera pas mal k propos son ouvrage. Le lecteur pourra remarquer aans cet version quelques termes, dont on s est servi dans un nouveau sens, ou qui n'avoient peut-^tre jamais paru dans aucun livre Fran9ois. Mais il auroit ^t^ trop long de les ex- primer par des periphrases ; ou a crut qu'en matiere de phi- losophie il ^toit bien permis de prendre en n6tre langue la m6me liberty que Ton prend en cet occasion dans toutes les autres, c'est de former des mots analo^ques quand 1' usage commun ne foumit pas ceux dont on a besoin. L'auteur I'a fait en son Anglois, et on le pent faire en cette langue, sans qu'il soit necessaire d'en demander permission au lecteur. il seroit bien k souhaiter qu'on en pM autant faire en Fran- cois, et que nous puissions ^galer dans I'abondance des termes une langue, que la n6tre surpaase dans I'ezactitude de Tex- pression."
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APPENDIX.
THOMAS BUBKETT TO MB LOCKS.
<' London. "WoBTHY Sib,
" I was sorry I could not see you at my coming back from Tun- bridge in September last, having called twice at your lodgings. I was necessitated to go to the country immediately there^R^er, and made a ramble from the Bath through the West of England to Salisbury, and at last to Oxford, where the good society and most kind treatment from all I made acquaintance with, did charm me for more than three months, and made me at last leave that place with regret.
I have lately received a letter from your worthy admirer, Monsieur Leibnitz. He hath been kept back nrom making his returns to his correspondents this lone time, having more to do in the public af- fairs of that country, as I understand from the new title I find ffiven him, of Conseiller mtime de S. A. E. de Brunswick. In this letter he gives a new proof of the esteem he hath of your writings, having writ seven or eight pages of his observations concerning your dis- pute with the Bishop of Worcester, and seeming to hold the balance oetwixt your learned antagonist and you with all the fairness of an honest man and the judgment of a philosopher ; though the weight of what is thrown into the scales seems to make him mcline some- times to one side, sometimes to another. It appears he hath not yet seen the last letter of the Bishop's nor your two last to him, though I have sent him all that was come out, with several books of other authors, by three packets at several times.
There is a young gentleman who was here a long time to search for records relating to the House of Brunswick, for whom I did buy all the curious oooks that have come out these several years, with whom I have also sent all what he could not find himself out of my own library. He will open his pack at Hanover, and both the Electrix and Monsieur Leibnitz will see what books are for their service. In speaking to the certainty and clearness of idea^, he pleases himself with the difierenoe he makes betwixt the two
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* THOM^lS BTTEKETT to LOCKE. 401
terms of clear and distinct. That he calls clear, which can be dif- ferenced in our notion by a certain characteristic from all things "besides itself. This knowledge he calls distinct, when we know a tJiins in its whole essence or nature with all its conditions and re- quisites, or when we can give its definition. So that the knowledge of substance, in so far as we know its certain differences and acci- dents, may be called clear, but cannot be termed distinct.
But if I may add my own thoughts, this distinct. notion is not applicable to anything else we know, any more than it is to our ideas of substance ; since no human knowledge reaches a complete understanding of the nature of the most minute subject, reasoning so as to exhaust its whole nature, essence, and all that is to be known about it, no more than the understanding of the nature of the least grain of the dust we trample upon : tnis knowledge by comprehensive ideas is too wonderful for us, and can only belong to that infinite Being who is perfect in knowledge.
Monsieur Leibnitz desires the names of all your works, that he may have all sent him. Now you are best able to inform him of that particular. I thought fit to acquaint you (Sir) with this letter, and of two long articles in it relating to the metaphysical subject of ideas, and your discourses of the coin also. I was transcribing all that belongs to these two parts, and sending them to you ; but I imagine you will be no less pleased to see the whole contexture of the letter itself, where there is an account of many other parti- culars that may be interesting.
I need not send you the news of the town ; I only take the liberty to acquaint you of some particulars concerning Dr Bentley's book> which is at last come out. He read to me a great part of the pre- face long before it was nublished, and I then thougnt his narration of the matter-of-fact (if he be to be believed in verho sacerdotis) did justify very much his behaviour to Mr Boyle at the beginning. And as to the controversy itself, if he like, many j^ood judges think he is able to defend himself against the reason, if not against the authority, of his contrary party. He told me then the Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield was so far of his opinion, that he would publish something of his own at the same time upon the same sub- ject, which he had kept by him many years ; wherein, though there were some small things wherein they dissented, the Bishop said it was so much the better, since thereby was taken away all suspicion of combination ; and that the Bishop himself would send the Doctor's book to Mons. Spanheim ; so that Grevius, Mons. Spanheim, and that Bishop, a learned triumvirate, seemed to be engaged on the Doctor's side. But I doubt not that a greater number will be of another sentiment, who would not be thought to be of the unlearned tribe ; and I heard yesterday morning from Mr Gasterell that the Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield hath thought fit to suppress his
2 D
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402 APPENDIX.
own dissertation ; and that there would come forth an' apology for the bookseller by himself within a day or two.
The Doctor told me likewise, the Bishop thought Mr Dodwell's opinion was wholly overturned upon this occasion, who founded his hypothesis upon the authenticness and the supposed antiquity of the Epistles of Phalaris. There is also come out Master Gaste- rell's book, in 8vo, of the Certainty of the Christian Religion, as the second part of his Discourses intended upon Mr Boyle^ Lecture ; and I doubt not but will argue as much of the reason and judgment of the author as his Sermons on that occasion.
I have read over Doctor Bentle/s long preface, and a great part of the book, and have just now finished the new piece that is come out against him, exposing his plagiary, ingratitude, and inhumanity, particularly to Mr Stanley, in the edition {as the Doctor calls it him- self) of his Callimachus. The booksellers Vindication, and Letter of Dr Kinfif s, and the Judgment of Sir Wm. Temple, &c., are annexed to the end. I do profess, upon second thoughts (which sometimes are best), I think, considering Doctor Bentley's magisterial and super- cilious way of treating his adversaries, his hard words, and oppro- brious language to Mr Bennet ; and, on the other hand, Mr Bonnet's manner of justifying himself, and representing the matter in a sober and far less passionate, but more natural, narration of everything, so that his story seemeth the more likely, if not the most true, of the two ; and thouffh the Doctor may have both truth and learning on his side, he hath no ways shown the spirit of meekness in reprovine, but rather hath made not only his own character but that of his order cheap and ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦by writing so
much and in such a manner to take off little reflections upon his civility and breeding, which he had easier wiped off by slighting and forgetting than answering.
I have presumed to communicate to you these accounts, since I have them from immediate hands, I have sent you Mr Leibnitz's letter, consisting of pieces. I shall be glad to receive your orders, if you have anything to charge me with, when you send back the papers, at whicn time I am to write again to Mr Leibnitz. I did write to him from Oxford, at the same time Dr Wallis received a line from him, which was six weeks ago ; and now lately I did write with that gentleman, who is gone to Hanover, but he will expect I should write to him again, since the receipt of this I now send you, wherein
Syou see) he desires to know what things are unclear in what he did brmerly write in the first paper of reflections I sent you. I have not been so well as to write to you sooner, since I had this last letter. To hear of your own health will be the best news to Mr Leibnitz, and to. Sir, your most ready and most obliged " Pali-Mall Street, in London, And humble servant,
17th March, 1699." T. BUKNETT.*'
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1686.] DiLVID THOMAS TO LOCKE. 403
** Sir, I thought once of sending this packet with Mr Cunningham, who told me at my chambers some days ago he was to go out to you ; but now, after waiting longer than his set time, I was resolved to delay no longer. I wish you would indulge him before he leaves you to piece together his proofs of the Christian Religion, that the -world may enjoy that light he hath so long promised. You may send back the papers to Mr C, and I shall send for them; or direct them for me at the Two Pigeons, on the east end of the Fall Mall."
The following letter from Mr Thomas to Locke was the occasion -which led to the acquaintance with Lord Shaftesbury.
*« My deak Fkiend,
/'This town is very barren of news, and therefore you must not expect much. The most considerable is, that the Commissions are
f ranted for raising sixteen troops of horse ; amongst others to Lord airfax. Col. Inglesby, Sir W. W aller, &c. &c. The fleet will set sail the beginning of the next week, if the London be ready, but not without her, as I am now informed by a gentleman of Prince Rupert's, who came yesterday firom the fleet, consisting, as he says, of eighty-nine sail, which are ready, and eighteen, or as some say twenty-five, fire-ships, which -will be made thirty. After all the great noise of a press, I am informed that not above 2200 were sent from hence to the fleet. The Gazette will inform you of more, which is, the story of Capt. Reeves is true, and the Kipg much troubled at it, and has pven orders that the Captain, who was to be exchanged for him, be laid in irons.
" I must request one favour of you, which is to send me word by the next opportunity whether you can procure twelve bottles of water for my Lord Ashley, to dnnk in Oxford Sunday and Monday mornings : if you can possibly do it, you will very much oblige him and me. I have this aay spoke with C. Grant, and will Rive you an account of vipers by my next. I am to-morrow resolved to go for the fleet ; however, let me receive a letter by the next opportunity. Your affectionate friend and servant,
Dayid Thomas." « Half-Moon Street, Bread Street, 9th July, 1666."
The first of the following letters from Limborch to Locke relates to the Letter for Toleration, published anonymously at Tergou in Holland, with Locke's answer, reproaching his friend for having divulged to others the name of the author of that celebrated publica-
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404 APPENDIX.
tion. The other ten letters from Limborch have been selected and printed, because Locke's answers to them have long since been printed in the best editions of his works ; and therefore it is presumed that their publication will not be unacceptable, as it will so far make that correspondence complete.
"Amplissime Vir,
"Postquam tuis postremis respondi, D. Consuli Hadde com- municavi quae de Slado nostro scripsisti, quae gratissima ipsi erant, omnemque simplici quam exhibes narratione smistram suspicionem nuUo negotio dilui posse videt. De Epitaphio virum illustrem in- terpellare ausus non fui : res est hie admodum rara, et a nobis neg- ligi solita : omnes quos consului amici dissuadent de re apud nos- tros exigui admodum momenti compellare Consulem, neque credunt hac in re quicquam suasurum aut dissuasurum hseredibus Sladi. Quare pro more apud nos recepto epitaphio carebit, nisi amici et consanguinei eo propendeant. Veriim id non tam imputandum amicis aliis quam sorori, mulieri fatuee, quae quoniam Sladus absque testamento mortuus est, ex asse haeres est; liberi itaque ejus jam nihil possunt. Male, hac in parte Sladus, cui sororis indoles notissima erat, liberis illius consuluit. Verdm hoc jam mutari nequit.
" Accessit me nuperrimd cognatus Guenellon, dixitque se ex D. d'Aranda intellexisse, amicum quendam meum tractatiis cujusdam valde hie laudati autorem esse idque fratrem D. d'Aranda ex Anglia scripsisse, quasi rem illic notissimam. Ego mirabar admodum: ille me urgebat, primo an ego autor essem ; negavL Tum porro, an nescirem amicum ilium meum esse autorem ? volui quidem dis- simulare : veriim ita ab homine amicissimo prorsus negare non potui. Hactenus autor in patria nostra nulli, nisi mihi uni cognitus fuit : imo nulla, ne levissima quidem de ipso suspicio fuit. Nunc coram homine, et quidem vel indiciis instructo, negare non potui ; qui si postea rescivisset merito succensere potuisset, quod hoc de viro etiam ipsi amicissimo, tam pertinaciter dissimulare nedum negare voluerim. Considerans ergo et intiman illius cum autore familiari- tatem, coram ipso ac socero ipsius autorem me scire feissus sum : obtestans maximopere, ut eadem fide, qua alia ipsis ab autore cre- dita, etiam hoc sibi solis concreditum servent, neque ulli divulgent Ita, quod hactenus uni cognitum fuit, tribus commune factum est. Unitas omnis multiplicationis est expers : sed quamprimiim ab ea receditur, diversae fieri possunt multiplicationes. Ego arcanum mihi creditum, quantum possum, servabo ; quod a me propalatum non est Verum quod nunc inter tres dispersum est, facile inter plures divulgari potest ; idque praecavere jam meae potestatis non est. Ve- rum si expediat autorem non latere? Nomen illius et plures lectores alliciet et tractatui autoritatem conciliabit. Duo illi quos memoravi
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1690.] LETTEHS FEOM LIMBOEOH TO LOCKE. 405
viri, audito autoris nomine, majore cum voluptate ejus lectionem repetere voluerunt. . Ego singulis exemplar dedi, quod hactenus ausus non fueram j typographus mihi pauca dederat, quia correctioni prsBfueram. Idem pluribus futuram presagio ; non eum credo, licet ego fidem datam sanctissime servem, nunc celari posse, quod pluri- bus innotuit j et duobus amicis indicavi, quia eos metaphysics mek circumducere non potui, neque veritatem rogatus negare. Veriim de hisce satis.
" Hactenus nullum si D. Decano Petroburgensi accepi responsnm : sed nee a D. Allix, cui prolixiorem de Albigensium et Valdensium do^matibus ac ritibus, unde illos duas fuisse diversas sectas constat, scnpsi historiam*i quam se accepisse ad D. Clericum scripsit : verum verbis ita tectis ut nomen meum exprimere non iuisse ausus videri debeat : commendat quippe D. Clerico, ut scriptori historise Albi- gensium et Valdensium salutera dicat et gratias agat. Nescio qute tanti timoris causa. An simili metu cohibeatur fi. Decanus, cujus mihi amicitiam conciliavit D. Allix, ignoro. Hoc scio Anglorum amicorum neminem ad literas meas declinare responsum. Nu-
Serrime literas k D. Decano Sarisburiensi accepi, eadem qua antes bertate scriptas. Quis viros hosce eruditos scrupulus urgeat, ignoro.
"Cum hasce hue usque scripsissem, convenit me amicus noster Cyprianus, qui mihi salutem k te dixit, prosperamque tuam valetu- dinem riuntiavit. Nihil mihi hoc nuntio gratius : cum de te tuoque statu ex illis gui tibi adfuerunt audio, quodammodo tibi presens videor, suavissimamque tuam conversationem ac familiaritatem in memoriam revoco, nihilque magis mihi displicet, qudm quod Oceano ab invicem dividamur. Si nunc Clivise haereres, ad te excurrerem, ut eruditissimis tuis sermonibus eadem qua solitus sum voluptate firuerer : nunc grata eonmi recordatione me oblecto. Interim sum- mo cum gaudio te bene valere intellexi : Deus valetudinem hanc velit esse diutumam. Furlseum nostrum ex quo ex Anglia rediit, non vidL Dedit mihi preeterita hebdomade D. Remontius literas illius, cui respondi. Opus Sancti Officii adhuc apud me est. Wet- stenius adhuc cunctatur, credo ob summam chartee caritatem. Re- cepit a te Wetstenius exemplar Actorum Eruditorum anni 1688, quare summa, quam mihi debuisti, detrahendi sunt tres florin! nos- trates, ita ut solummodo restent f. 35 : 8, de quibus me brevi post Pentecostes festum, quando mihi Roterodamum morandum erit, cum FurlsBo transacturum spero. De negotio paciflcationis ecclesiasticaB nihil jam audimus: Videtur tota ilia transactio sufflaminata, et penitus abiisse in iumum. Ecclesise facili negocio scinduntur; scissae ver6 segerrime coalescunt. Omnes causam Christi et Ec- clesiaB praBtendunt : sed nisi propriam agerent, iniquas pacis con- ditiones non praescriberent aliis, nee aequas sibi oblatas respuerent. Deus pacis orandus, ut omnibus earn mspiret mentem, quam sibi
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406 APPENDIX.
quisque Tindicat, et in alio requiiit. Vale, vir amplissime. Uxor mea liberique plurimam tibi precantur salutem. Tui amaDtissimus,
Philippus a Limbobch." 1
<* Amstelodami, 25 Aprilis, 16 90.
18. " Amplissimo doctissimo "Viro D. Joanni Locke, Londinom."
PHILLIPPO A LIMBOKCH JOANNES LOCKE.
«* London, Apr. 22 (1690). "ViR DOCTISSIME,
" Literas tuas 25" datas heri accepi, et perculsus sum legendo ea qu8B transacta esse inter te et Doctorem GuenoUeonem scribis. Miratus sum, ut fatear, tuam in dicendo facilitatem, et quod aliqui hie non nimis benevole in me curiosi id ex te expiscan poterant, quod ego in tuto coUocatum speraveram. Kumores enim Hie ab iisdem orti, cum sine autore spargerentur, nihil me movebant, mox
Sonte interituri. Quid de iis scissitanti GuenoUoni responderim, ex timis ad eum literis scire potest. Sed jam te fatente certum nacti sunt autorem. Hoc solum dicam, si tu hujusmodi arcanum mem commisisses fidei, ego illud nee cognato nee amico nee cuipiani mortalium quavis conditione evulgassem. Nescis in quas res me conjecisti. Quod solum restate fac, si posses, ut quod tu solus tacere non poteras, id duo alii jam taceant. Quod tamen minimi spero ; non dubito enim quin Dr Guenollon (qui non sua sponte tarn intemperanter in alien^ re fuit curiosus, sed Darandse instructu), ante harum adventum DarandsB dixerit. Id si perspexeris, nihil ten- tan dum frustra laboraveris. Actum est, nee remedio restat locus. Vale.
Tui observantissimus, J.L.''
«ViR Amplissime,
"Literse tuae 13 Martii scripts^ demum IJ Maii ad me perlat» stmt, cum parte versionis doctissimi tui de intellectu humano trac- tSLtds. Ubi tam diu hseserint, incertus sum. Furlaeus noster, qui ante paucos Tut audio) dies uxorem suam amisit, has se pridie ac- cepisse scribit. Interim conspectis tuis maxime gavisus sum, quoniam ob diutumum tuum ac inusitatum silentium mens mihi nescio quid mali prsesagiebat Nunc me omni sollicitudine de te ao tua valetudine tuae liberarunt. Quid prioribus meis de Verrini literis, quas ispe Verrinus fascicule chartarum alligayit, accident,
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1691.] LETTEES EEOM LIMBOECH TO LOCKE. 407
nescio. Doleo ego versionem non felicius successisse, med caus^ qui jam uberrimo fructu, quern ex libri tui lectione sperabam, spoil- atus sum. Non autem ut ingenue ac rotunde tecum agam, id plane preeter exspectationem meam evenit : quia semper non satis linguaB AnglicanaB peritum credidi, ut tractatum de materiis philosophicis subtiliter disserentem ita Latine posset scribere, ut et sensum autoris, et argumentorum vim ac ivtpyeiav perspicue representet. Nondum ego mterpretem conveni ; cupio emm integrum scriptum antequam ipse redaam, perlegere. Sed licet non ederetur, non periit ipsi penitus suus labor. Tractatum enim tuum cum attentione legit, plunma non vulgaria (qusB utinam et ego Latine legere possem) et aidicit, et boras suas quae forte alias ipsi periissent, studio sibi utilissimo impendit. Ambiebat nuptias, quas nuper confirmavit : erant impedimenta qusBdam, quse has ad tempus aliquod dififerre coegerunt : ille ut tempus istud, amantibus valde tsediosum, honesto labore transigeret, versionem banc suscepit et perfecit. Interim doleo versionem illam non melius successisse, tum mea, tum et omnium eorum, qui linguam Anglicanam non intelligunt causa. Cum D. Clerico, qui nunc etiam uxoratus est, alusque amicis con- sulam, et interpreti consilium dabimus, quod quale sit futurum, facile vides. Speraveram ego volumen Sententiarum Inquisitionis Tholosanae hoc mense prelo subjiciendum ; venim Wetstenius con- fatur, Diogenis Laertii editionem nondum esse ad finem perductam : nuUius autem no\i operis editionem inchoare cupit, nisi hac prius plene ad finem perducta : denuo itaque quatuor aut quinque mensi- bus editionem dififert. Ego meum quem praemittam tractatum, con- stitui ab initio ad finem relegere, si quid desit supplere, et ita perficere, ut editioni paratus sit, ut quamprimun Wetstenius se paratum dicit, in me'ne minima quidem sit mora : quamquam jam per me inchoare posset. Prsemitto ego brevem narrationem anti- quiorum sseculorum, et sententise patrum (ut vocantur) de here- ticorum persecutione. Non possum quin edicta imperatonun quaedam reprehendam, et maxime doctrinam Augustini, qui omnium apertissime Donatistarum persecutiones propugnavit: singulorum testimonia, tam qui persecutiones impugnarunt, quslm propugnarunt, adscribam : atque ita transibo ad ssBcula quibus Paps Komani se Eoclesiee Dominos confirmaverunt, et imperatorum ac regum sceptra subjecerunt. Proxima occasione mittam tibi Indicem capitum, ut pleniorem totius operis ideam conspicias.
** Hsc jam prsecedente hebdomade scripta erant : verum subito Harlemum evocatus ob funus neptis cujusdam ex fratre uxoris mese, banc non potui nisi jam absolvere et ad te mittere. Ego in- terim tractatiis tui interpretem conveni, inspexit correctiones tuas. Salutem k te plurimam dixi: non se ausum dixit ea libertate in alieno opere uti: an suae versionis correctionem tentaturus sit, ignoro : puto tamen eum literas ad te daturum, quas si mittat meis
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408 APPENDIX.
includam : m iis plenius se explicabit : Ego nondum ipsi scrfptnm reddidi, sed hac hebdomade, postquam perlegero, redditurus sum : turn uberius cum ipso loquar.
" Maxime gratum fuit ex tuis cognoscere, Dominam Cudwortham honestam ibei memoriam servare. Inter amicos Anglos maxime semper D. Doctorem Cudworthum colui. Spirabant ejus epistols eruditionem non vulgarem : unicum doleo quod occupatior rariores ad me dederit. Nunc illustri adeo feminse gratulor, quod non tarn opum paternarum, quam ingenii ac eruditionis paternse haeres sit, patremque ea parte, quk proprie homines sumus, referat. Gaudeo lUi institutum meum ac scribendi methodum probari : spero ipsum opus, quando prodierit, ipsi placiturum, quando interprets m 'eo totum Ulud iniquitatis mysterium revelatum viderit, quod verbis vix exi)rimi potest, qukm atrox ac detestandum sit. Ro^o humillima mei servitia illi offeras, illique dicas, me ardentibus votis precari, ut quicquid honesto lectionis assiduse exercitio oculorum aciei deperiit, Deus judicii acumine aliisque gratiae suae donis compenset, ut sic mente contempletur ea, ad quae oculorum acies, etiam acutissima penetrare nequit. Ipsam ego colere ac venerari non desinam, ejusque dotes minime vul^es semper suspiciam.
" Antequam fimam, memorabile quid, et quod miraculi instar est adjiciam. Novi ego Harlemi puellam, quae jam octayum annum explevit, et nonum ingressa est : nata est penitus surda, ita ut neve clamorem licet vehementem, neve campanarum sonitum, neve quemcunque alium sonum unquam audiverit. Hoc narro non ex relatu aliorum, sed ipse testis sum ocularius, qui a prima infantia puellam illam saepius vidi, et ipsam auditu penitus aestitutam de- prehendi. Surda ciJim esset, nullum sermonem diflferre potuit, neque ullorum verborum significationem comprehendere ; nutibus et ges- tibus omnia praecipiebat, et exprimebat ; et in hisce admodum so- lertem se ostendit. Nunc tamen paucos intra menses arte et industria loqui didicit. Est bic quidam Sweverius, medicus, juvenis viginti quinque circiter annorum, qui artem excogitavit, surdis motu oris, labiorum, ac linguae monstrandi, qua ratione voces for- mare et pronunciare possint. Hie intra spatium quinque mensium, nam decimo quarto die Decembris institutionem puellse inchoavit, eam plurima non tantum verba, sed et integras sententias eloqui, et apte satis pronuntiare, et, quod mireris, legere docuit. Ipse die Adsensionis experimentum cepi : cum uxore mea in parentum SBdi- bus diverti : hospites mei humanissimi coram me producunt filiam, quam anno elapso plane mutam videram : gratulatur ilia mihi et uxori adventum : scribo in charta, verum Uteris majusculis, nomen meum et uxoris : ilia distincte legit : oflfertur ipsi scnedula, quiL hie in funus homines invitari solent, m qu& extabant non tantum literae majusculae, sed et romanae et cursivae, uti vocantur : omnes distincte legit, et, quod miratus sum, singularum totius alphabet! literarum
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1691.] LETTEBS FEOM LIMBOECH TO LOCKE. 409
vim distincte novit, et unamquamque literam primo intra labia formabat, mox totam syllabam pronuntiabat, atque ita pergens totam formabat vocem ; peccabat quidem aliquatenus contra accentum : quia enim auditu caret, necesse est ut aliquoties in accentum erret : sed distincte tamen quicquid legebat et loquebatur intelligebamus : quin et numeros per cifras legebat : id^ue didicerat puella octo an- norum intra tarn breve temporis spatium: recitabat coram nobis integram precationem dominicam : verba percipiebat ex motu oris patemi : si quid vero minus perciperet, innuebat patri ut scriberet, et mox legebat. Cum abirem, et mihi et uxori mesB valedixit, ex- pressis nominibus nostris, quee ex lectione bis tantum repetita memorisB ipsius inhseserant. Plurima jam noverat verba, et vocum significationem, et quotidie plura addiscit. Ita videmus et mutos jam loqui in patria nostra, magno parentum, <^uibu8 unica bcec est soboles, gaudio. Non potui, quin non adeo mirum tibi indicarem : ad certum quendam patris gestum, quem intelligebat, mihi dixit verbis Belgicis, ego sum sur£i, verum ego non sum muta. Omnes non sine admiratione puellam adspiciunt. Et quotidie ex aliis ci- vitatibus plures adveniunt in sedes viri illius ut puellam videant. Tu mecum ipiraberis, et agnosces benignitatem oivinam, quae ea homines solertia extruxit, ut et surdos verba, quae audire nequeunt, pronunciare doceant. Verum ego nimia prolixitate jam pecco. Vale, vir amplissime, et mei memor vive. Salutant te amici omnes, Verrinus, Guenellonus, Grevius advocatus Utrajectinus, praecipue vero uxor mea, ac liberi, imprimis ego,
Tui amantissimus,
Fhilippus a Lxmbobch."
9 <' Amstelodami, 29 Maji, 16 91.
19
"Hodie Archithalassus noster Trompius in hac civitate diem 8uum obiit, lento morbo consmntus.
** For Mr John Locke, at Mrs Sinithby*8 in Dorset Court in Chand® Row, "Westminster."
Mr Locke's answer to this letter, dated June 18, 1691, will be foimd page 407 of the quarto edition of Locke's Works.
** Vnt Amplissime,
'* Acceptis tuis literis non mediocriter gavisus sum, quia anxiam de tua valetudine sollicitudinem exemerunt. Statueram confestim iis respondere, sed impedimento admodum molesto hactenus retentus fui. Cognata qusedam mea moriens me liberorum suorum tutorem designavit. Negotiimi hoc, quod commode declinare non potui, i
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410 APPBITDIX.
Studiis meis alienum, plures mihi dies abstulit. Jam scribendi op- portunitatem nactus, calamum arripio, ut et me omnesque meas Talere sciaa, et per gratiam divinam totam meam familiam hacte- nus k morbis ac febribus admodum in patria nostra grassantibus fuisse immunem. Scotus, qui tibi renuntiavit historiam S^ Officii jam sub prelo esse, erravit. Wetstenius editionem de die in diem differt : Confatur Diogenem Laertium nondum in lucem exiisse : nullius autem opens novi editionem se inchoaturum antequam ilia prodierit. Cum ur^rem, ut semel tandem tot dilationibus finem imp<meret, respondit se circa Pascha editionem inchoaturum, et ante anni finem absoluturum firmissime promisit. Interim ego his- toriam meam relego; et si quid desit, suppleo; hiantia connecto, superflua reseco, ut nihil editionem a mea parte remorari pos^t. Doctor ille Theologus, qui de Angelis paradoxa ilia docuit^ satis fratrum suorum pro puritate zelo experitur. In Synedrio Amstelo- damensi liber est condemnatus, aut, ut ipsis Synedrii verbis utar, Synedrium librum ilium pronuntiayit abominabilem. Synodus Hollandise Borealis non tantum Synedrii sententiam approbavit; sed etiam Synedrio mandavit, ut ante primum Septembris jam elapsi diem, scandalum illo libro datum, emcaciter repararet : quod si intra constitutum diem non possit, mandatum dedit classi .^- stelodamensi scandalum illud efficaciter reparandi; utque majore cum autoritate classis procedat, illi adjunxit quatuor Synodi depu- tatos. Jam multum sudatum est, ut Doctor hie ad palinodiam cogatur: plures sunt concepti articuli, quibus ut subscribat cu- piunt : his non tanttim continetur rejectio sententiae ipius, veriim etiam approbatio omnium actorum Synedrii contra ipsum. Ille articulos illos rejecit : primo dati ipsi sunt duo menses ad deliber- andum : Magistratus zelum ilium ecclesiasticum temperare conatur : sed ipse n68ti, claves regni coelorum Synedrio creitos, non posse committi magistratui, nee judicium ecclesiasticum ullo modo sseculari esse obnoxium. Interim noc effectum est, ut alterum duorum mensi- um ad deliberandum spatium ipsi concessum sit : ne vero sine ulla censura ecclesiastic^ interea vivat, breve scriptum ^ suggestu Ecclesiae est preelectum, quo indicatur, processum cum Doctore ipso nondum esse ad finem perductum, ideoque rogatur Ecclesia ut duobus adhuo mensibus illius eventum expectare velit. Durius erat conceptum decretum, sed ma^stratu intercedente miti^atum est : k quibusdam etiam, Doctori illi miniis adversis, pronuntiatum est voce adeo sub- miss^ ut vix audiri potuerit : haec dilatio ipsi per Amstelodamenses est procurata : Classis enim sententiam pronuntiare voluit. Multi creaunt Amstelodamenses jam esse mitiores, quoniam metuunt, ne, si hie exauctoretur, illis denegetur facultas alium in ipsius locum vocandi : ne ergo ministerium ipsorum aliquo onere gravetur, hunc creduntur retinere malle, quam illius exauctorati vices supplere : de quo tamen certi nihil affirmare possum. Nunc alterum deliber-
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1692.] LETTEES TBOM LIMBOBCH TO LOCKE. 411
andi spatium elapsum est, et propediem expectatur quid Classis decretura sit : ilia ubi sententiam pronunciaverit, quae tantum inter- locutoria est, Synodus Hollandise borealis, quse proximSi sestate conveniet, seotentiam decretoriam pronuntiatura est. Interea plures adversus ilium calamum stringunt; quidam admodiim imperite et infeliciter : alii felicius paulum : veriim quod miyeris, nee ipse in toto suo tractatu, nee ullus eorum qui ipsum impugnant, hactenus controversice statum rite formarunt : ideoque tota hsec disputatio satis est confusa. Prostat libellus Anglicus, titulo, Doctrina De- monum probata quod sit magna iUa apostasia horum uUimorum tern- porum : scripta ab iV. Orchard^ Ministro in Nova Anglia : illius sen- tentiam noster sequitur, variisque puenat argumentis ex illo libello depromptis : sed et alia plura nabet de demonibus. Negari nequit, multa a Doctore hoc valde imprudenter esse asserta, quae profanis hominibus ScripturaB historias aliquot cavillandi prsebent occasio- nem ; quae tamen salva ipsius sententia abesse potuissent : ipsum etiam absque uUa necessitate qusedam obiter dicere, quee ipsis sus- picionem prsebent heterodoxias, et quidem ejusmodi in capitibus, quae si quis vel leviter tangat heretici infame nomen evadere nequit. Veriim de hoc negotio hactenus.
** Noster D. de Cene haeret Londini : aliquam in Anglia sibi jjro- motionem sperat. Doleo viri illius vicem. Cotnmendatitias ipsi dedi ad Reverendum Episcopum Bathensem et Wellensum nuper electum, qui amicissime mihi rescripit. Ostendit se in epistola pa- cis ecclesiasticae quam maxime studiosum. Yerrinus noster rus con- cessit habitatum, valetudine ejus id flagitante : aliquoties sanguinem evomuit : corpus ejus continuas illas fatigationes non fert : quare ruri degit in otio ; aut potius in studiis ; sed molesto illo medicince praxeos exercitio non fatigatur. Habes jam epistolam prolixiorem, cui malo brevi epistolio respondeas, qu£im longam meoitando nul- 1am mihi mittas. Salveat plurimum D. Cudwortha, cui indicem librorum et capitum historise S^ OjQIcii probari gaudeo. Spero in- tegram histonam, (^uando prodierit, non displicituram. Fortassis jam sedatioribus ammis excipientur, quae in hoc tractatu, qui unice
Sontificiis oppositus videtur, de persecutionibus ob reli^onem k me icentur ; qusg, si yel paucula qusedam de Reformatis mmiiscerem, primo statim aspectu a zelotis rejicerentur. Plerumque enim sua vitia in aliis taxari minus gravate ferunt homines : et fortasse qui- dam meliora docebuntur. Vale, vir amplissime. Salutat te Ver- rinusy Guenellonus, uxor mea ac liberi : imprimis ego
Tm amantissimus, Philippus a Limbobch. 8 << Amstelodami, 22 Jan. 16 92.
13 For Doctor John Locke, at Mr Smithsby's, in Dorset Court, in Chanell Row, Westminster,"
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412 APPENDIX.
Locke's answer, dated Feb. 29, 1692, at page 409, quarto edition of Locke's Works.
" ViR Amplissime,
** Prelum Wetstenianum jam fervet. Historiae sancti Officii editio ex voto procedit. Jam tertia operis pars excusa est. Duo nimirum prela hoc opere occupantur : alterum historisL mea, cujus lam primus liber excussus est ; et in secundo jam pervenimus ad caput de cruce signatis ; in indice tibi misso facile videbis quousque processerimus : alterum prelum occupat Liber Sententiarum In- quisitionis Tholosanse ; et illius. tertia pars jam impressa est. Spero intra tres menses opus integrum proditurum : non eo labore meo defunctus ante finem editionis. Nuperrime mihi liber ad manum venit, unde et nonnulla historiae mese magis expoliendse apta deprom- si, et quotidie, etiam inter excudendum, depromo. Quando liber prodierit, istiusmodi augmentis et correctionibus non erit ampliiis locus. Et tapien is sum, qui, dum opus adhuc in manibus meis est, negligere aut contemnere non possum, quae mihi nova, mihique inaudita suppeditantur. Catalogum autorum, ^ quibus historia mea concinnata est, illi prsemittam, ut unusquisque de fide mek certus esse possit. Yerum est aliud, in quo operam tuam flagito. Non is sum, qui qusB k me eduntur alteri dedicare gestio : noc tamen opus, pro conscientiarum libertate, contra persecutionem ob re- ligionem multo labore deumbratum, dedicare cupiam Archiepis- copo Cantuariensi, viro long^ prae omnibus, quos novi, Theologis, uti dignitate, ita etiam mentis eminentissimo, si reverendissimse illius dignitati meam dedicationem non ingratam fore n6ssem. Et scripta et actiones testantur, favere ipsum doctrinae, quam mihi propugnandum suscepi : quamvis enim historiam solummodo scribam, ipsa ilia historia quod mlendo luculentiua confirmat, quam si multis ad id probandum uterer argumentis. Utinam tu, qui Key. illius non es ignotus, captatk occasione expiscari posses, num dedi- cationem meam beni^ne admissura esset. Nescio an mea professio intra Remonstrantes ipsi apud rigidiores zelotas aliquam sit confla- tura invidiam aut indignationem. Nolim mek oyerk vel minimam creari molestiam viro quem ex animo colo ac veneror. Tu argu- mentum et scopum operis mei ndsti : capitum historiaB meae indicem habes, quem ostendere potes si opportunum duxeris. Nulli rectius opus pro conscientiarum libertate dedicari potest, nisi illi, ^ui non tantilm libertatis illius est patronus, sed et mter patronos dignitate prae aliis est conspicuus. Si dedicationem non respuat^ velim illam ante illius editionem ad te mittere, ut a Rev. su^ videri possit, et si
?[uid incautius a me dictum sit, resecetur, emendetur, amplietur. nterim titulos quibus compellari decet ut mihi scribas expecto. Hoc quicquid sit tuae prudentiae committo, et gratissimum mihi feceris si quamprimiim rescribas, quoniam editio velocissim^ proce-
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1692.] LETTEBS TBOM LIMBOECH TO LOCKE. 413
dit, et spatium ad deliberandum non est amplum. Grevium, cui ante quatriduum Traiecti adfui, tuo nomine salutavi : ille pro sua, qua me complectitur benevolentia, suppeditaturus mihi est, historiam cujusdam ex ordine Francisci, qui adulteratis pontificiis diplomatibus se falso jactavit Episcdpum, et postea Trajecti comprehensus, post degradationem verbalem et actualem ferventi oUse fuit immissus: postea tamen inde ereptus et capite truncatus. Historiam ipsam habeo ex Raynaldo ; sed sententiam, illius pronuntiationem, et exe- cutionem, prout extat in archivis capituli S. Salvatoris, cuius ille est canonicas, mihi Grevius est suppeditaturus. Istiusmodi nosculis undique corrasis, historiam meam exomatam dabo. Ipse Grevius plurimam tibi salutem rescribi jussit. Verrinus ruri bene valet : inter homines sibi amicissimos ac familiarissimos qui villas illius villae vicinas incolunt degit, eorumque quotidiana consuetudine fruitur. Jam ab aliquot hebdomadibus ilium non vidi : recte tamen yalere audio. D. Cudworthae rogo humillima mea officia offeras, salutemque plurimam k me dicas. Salutat te uxor mea liberique. Vale, vir amplissime, et in amore mei persevera
Tui amantissimus,
Philippus a Limboech."
18 " Amstelodamii, 27 Junii, 16 92." 18
Mr Locke's answer, page 410, quarto edition of Locke's Works.
"Amplissime Vie, amice plubium honoeande:
" Tandem Wetstenius, post diutumas ac longas cunctationes, ex- emplaria nautse, (fax hinc in Angliam abit, concredidit. Nudiuster- tius missa sunt Koterodamum : inde prima occasione nauta solvet, fortasse intra biduum aut triduum ; adeo ut jam intra paucos dies, modo ventus faveat, ea habiturus sis. Fasciculus ad te directus est J continet quinque exemplaria ; quatuor incompacta, quia Wet- stenius rigidas Anglise leges veritus compacta mittere ausus non est : quod velim saltem apud honoratissimimi Comitem Pembrok- iensem excuses : indecorum alias foret, ad talem virum incompactum mittere. Exemplar autem reverendissimo Archiepiscopo destmatum compactum est, et capsa inclusum, eodem tamen fascicule conten- tum. Singulis exemplaribus additse sunt epistolae, ex (juibus cog- nosces, cui unumquodque exemplar destinatum est. Qumtum vero, cui nulla addita est epistoia, tibi destinavi. Vldes causam, cur et tibi incompactum mittere debuerim. Rogo ut ipse, si sis Londini, aut per amicum si ruri degas, apud bibliopolam Samuelem Smita fasciculum hunc requiras, ut saltem reverendissimo Archiepiscopo suum exhibeatur exemplar, antequam liber venum posset. Nunc
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414 APPEI^DIX.
candidum tuum ac liberum requiro judicium, et quicquid censuril dignum judices, pro familiaritate nostra rigide censeas. Attulit muii nuperrime ex Brabantia Wetstenius tractatum de Inquisitione Bifontina : ex illo, si ante quinque aut sex menses eum habuissem, aliqua mutuari potuissem : verum hoc infiniti laboris est ; nam et alius posthac quidem mihi ostendetur, qui et alia hoc non contenta, continebit. Ego me hac vice satis defimctum puto. Nunc adhuc sub prelo habeo omnes Episcopii Conciones in unum Tolumen in folio redactas : additee sunt septemdecim aut octodecim, hactenus neutiquam editee. Scribo ego historiam vitse Episcopii, quae con- cionibus preemittetur. Duplici illo labore, Concionum harum, et historisB Inquisitionis, hac eestate fatigatus sum, nunc aliquam de- sidero requiem : verum restat adhuc non contenmenda pars excu- denda, et major longe historise vitse Episcopii pars conficienda: circa proximum ver laboris illius finem me habiturum spero. Pro- cessus contra ministrum qui de Diabolis paradoxam edidit senten- tiam, hac ratione terminatus est. Synodus HoUandise BoreaHs prsescripsit illi formulam palinodiae, qua profiteatur se dolere, quod noc suo libro recesserit a S. Scriptura, et formulis Unioms Refor- matse Ecclesise; quod multis Scripturse locis, et explicationem Bcandalosam tribuere conatus sit : quod variis locis nimis irreveren- ter verbum Dei tractaverit ; quod nimis irreverenter de Servatoris nostri munere prophetic©, et doctrina divina scripserit ; qu6d Ec- clesise B^formatee absurdam sententiam de scientia, et potentia diaboli non tantum preeter varitatem affinxerit, sed et exinde valde odiosis consequentiis graTaverit ; quod non tantum indiscrete, sed et contra decretum C&dinum et Synodi nostrse Belgica$ yersionis interpretes ssepius contumeliose reprehenderit ; et de Baformatis ministris nimis contemtim scripserit, qu^ sua scriptione ministerium ipsorum suspectum et infructuosum reddi possit ; et quod librum suum passim stylo satyrico ac sarcastica scripserit : quse cihn omnia jam maturii!ks expressa ad animum revocet, quod dolens con^iciat, theses suas, et loquendi formas libro ipso comprehensas, Consistorio Amstelodamensi, Classi, et Synodo, justas offensionis et toti Ecclesiie gravis scandali dedisse causas : ac propterea k misericorde Deo, Christiano Synodo, omnibusque quos libri sui editione contristavit, aut scandalum prsebuit, precatur delicti sui veniam : quod ipsorum de suo libro ac pbrsona judicium approbet, et sincere promittat tan- quam coram facie Dei, quod imposterum adhsesurus sit immobilibus nmdamentis EcclesisB Reformats, prout ilia in omnibus et per onmia in formulis Unionis, videlicet, Catechismo, Confessione, et Canonibus Synodi Dordrachtae, juxta verbum Dei definita sunt, nee uUum illius dogma in dubium sit revocaturus : et quod hoc sua subscriptioAe simul promittat prsdictas sententias a se jam retractatas et libro suo contentas, in posterum nee in concionibus, nee catechisationibus, neo scriotis, nee colloquiis, directe nee indirecte docere aut asserere :
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1602.] LETTEES FBOM LIMBOECH TO LOCKE. 416
et quicquid dicturus aut scripturus est, non tantum visitationi Classis subjicere, sed et contrari^ et saniore doctrind, eos auos seduxit, quantilm in se, in rectam viam reducere. Ille hanc paunodiam non tantiim recusavit ; sed oblato scripto, contendit causam suam jam a classe fiiisse judicatam ac decisam ; ac proinde non posse Synodum deniio sententiam pronunciare. Tandem Synodus, auditis omnium classium suffiragiis, hanc in ipsum pronunciavit sententiam : Christ- iana Synodus omni mansuetudine et sequitate sua, ut Doctorem Belthasarum Bennetum ad sufficieniem retractionem inducat; ipseque Synodum pro judice competente agnoscere, et articulos satisiactionis a Christiana Synodo conceptos recipere recuset, et in hac sud recusatione persistat ; auditis Classium sententiis, concordi- bus suffiragiis eundem Doctorem Balthasarum declaravit non posse ut pastorem in Ecclesia B^formata tolerari : ac proinde ipsum k ministerio suo removit, ac hoc suo decreta removet. Ejusque decreti apographum Reverendse Classi de Consistorio Amstelodamiensi mittetur, ut ipsis actionum erga ipsum norma sit. Habes prolixiils
giulo enarratam hanc sententiam, ut in ilia specimen jurisdictionis cclesiasticflB videas. Verum hsec hactenus. Hogo Keverendam Dominam Cudwortham meis verbis qu4m officiosissime salutes. Uxor mea liberique plurimam tibi precantur salutem : imprimis ego
Tui amantissimus, Philibpus a Limboech."
17 *' Amstelodami, 7 NoTem. 16 92 18
For Mr John Tjocke, at Mr Robert Pawlings, in Dorset Court, in Chanell Row, "Westminster. 8."
Locke's answer, duted Nov. 28, 1692, page 411, quarto edition of Locke's Works.
"Vie Amplissime,
"Gratissimas tuas eodem die quo D. Guenellonus suas, rect^ accepi, sed plane laceras, et pluvia madefactas : quse communis om- nium ferunt e|)istolarum eodem die hie ex AngM allatarum sors fuit Gratias tibi maximas habeo, pro labore mei causa suscepto. Sane non id volui, ut tu amoenissimo, quo rure fueris, contubemio relicta, Londinum te conferres, et negotia mea expedires : sed so- lummodo, si forte Londini subsisteres, typographum, alias fortasse tardiorem, excitares, ne uUa in officin^ su4 exemplaria historiae mesa yenalia habeat, antequsbn reverendissimo Archiepiscopo, reliquisque, exemplaria k me ipsis destinata tradidisset : ahis ia negotu amico Londini degenti demandares. Nunc a^osco solitam tuam humani- tatem ac sedulitatem, qua me de novo tibi devinxistL Gaudeo opus
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416 APFEITDIX.
ipBum Archiepiscopo non dispiicuisse ; judicium ipsius benignum admodum facit, ut mihi gratulor auod patronum historise mese, quse forte fdiorum denies non evadet, aaeo benevolum, tantaque autoritate poUentem, elegerim. Episcopus Salisburiensis benevolum suum erga me affectum declarat. Gratissimum tamen erit, benigna ipsorum judicia, Uteris expressa, videre : ut contra eos, quibus omnia nostra displicent, si necesse sit, me tueantur. Ab honoratissimo Comite Pem- brokienisi, nullas literas sperare ausus sum : auodcunque tamen scrip- serit, gratissimum erit Si viri cordati, prsejuoiciis non prsBoccupati, et Bolam spectantes veritatem, mea non improbent, alioi'um iudicia non moror. Animo afiectibus aut prsejudiciis excsBcato, ad veritatem aditus minime patet. Gratum omnibus credo fore, Inquisitionem
Sontificiam genuinis suis coloribus depictam, videre : Multum vero ubito, an eodem quo pontificiam t}Tannidem animo nsevos eorum, quos ut patres mazmie orthodoxos venerantur, lecturi sint : et tamen 81 pontinciorum tvrannidem damnamus, illorum recusari minime potest. Vidi quiaem multorum me reprehensioni expositum : at veritati sincere litandum statui : nee tyrannidem illam anti- christianam extirpari posse credidi, nisi ipsi radici securis admovea- tur. Optas ut hac hyeme Tobiscum sim, ut simul habeamus noqtes Atticas ; et d me sales Atticos expectas. Ego vero nihil tali con- tubemio prsetulerim, ubi Phoebo ac Minervse Deee Atticse assidens oracula Delphicis certiora ex utriusque ore haurirem, et quid in mea historic jure reprehendi queat, cognoscerem. Interim quod presenti denegatum est, ab absentibus exspecto. Kadios sues Phoebus etiam in longissime dissitos ejaculatur. Errata mea corrigi unice opto : ilia autem acutissimum vestrun^ judicium minime fugient. Exemplar manuscriptum libri sententiarum ipse tecum loco nitidissimo, ut ab omnibus mspici possit, collocari optem : idque satis in fine praefati- onis mese indicavi, si forte aliquos iv viripoxy constitutos excitare possim. Ex te autem audire velim, quem locum aliis praeferendum credas. Episcopii vitam jam ad finem perduxi : quoniam con- cionibus Beigicis prsefigitur, etiam Belgice conscripta est. Verum potent ilia in Latinum verti sermonem. W etstenium conveni. Joan- nes Malela nondum hie ad ipsum missus est, neque se brevi ulla illius exemplaria nacturum credit, sed citius a te, vel ad ipsum, vel recta in Galliam ad Toinardum mitti posse. Historiam Gailorum, quse pali- nodise k me perscriptae accenseri posset, libenter audiam. Videntur illi locum in historia Inquisitionis affectare. Utinam tandem, vel sue malo, sapere discant ! In familia tibi amicissima omnia jam pacata sunt. Omnes te salutant peramanter : uti et D. Quina, qui balsamum Capoyvae tibi, tanquam astmati sanando aptissimum commendat: ego, ut urbem tibi mfestam quantum potes, vites, ac run te oblectes docto otio. Clericus literas tuas accepit, mihique quae de me scrip- seras quamprimum acceperat indicavit. Vale, vir amplissime, ac cum laudatissima D. Cudwortha, plurimum a me, uxore, libcrisque
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1693.] LETTERS FBOM LIMBOBCH TO LOCKE. 417
salyere. Deus vobis, nobisque omnibus hiinc, quern modo inchoa- mus annum, feliciter transigere benignus concedat.
Tui amantissimus,
Philippus a Limborch.**
14 <' Amstelodami, 2 Januar. 16 93
6 " For Mr John Locke, at Mr Robert Pawling* s, in Dorset Court, in Chanell Row, "Westminster. 8."
Locke's answer, dated Jan. 10, 1693, page 413, quarto edition of Locke's Works.
« "Amplbssime Vib,
'^Pertinax tuum silentium oppugnare non desinam donee ex- pu^avero. Jam ultra quinque menses elapsi sunt, ex quo Silverius mini tuas, breyissimas quidem, sed gratissunas, tradidit : promittis mihi prolixiores ; sed licet ego mox rescripserim, et postea alteras ad te dederim literas, nihil literarum exinde k te accepi. Tantse dila- tionis causam occupationibus tuis, licet gravioribus, imputare nequeo. Kus ex urbe reverse, vel amica bora superfuit, etiam occupatissimo, optanti amico scribendi epistolam. Quid itaque aliud concludam, nisi te adverse detineri valetudine ? Ea cura me plane soUicitum habet: ^uare si vivas et valeas, hac-quseso me sollicitudine libera. D. Clencus mihi bis urbe k te salutem dixit: verum et jam k pluribus hebdomadibus ille nullas k te literas habuit, quod non mirabatur : valde autem mirabatur, nullas ad me pervenisse. Aber- rasse tuas literas non credo : non enim qusB ad me ex Anglia mittuntur aberr&sse solent Itaque unice de valetudine tua solli- citus sum. <Ees est solliciti plena timoris amor.' Preesertim cimi responsum tuum ad duo flagitaverim : de editione Biblioruna Cas- tellionis, quam hie elegantem et plenam meditantur bibliopols quidam: et de obitu docUssimi Spenseri, ad quem si vivat mihi necessario scribendum est : et inofficiosus sim ac cessator, si falsus de morte illius ad nos rumor perlatus est, quod viro magno hactenus nihil responderim. Expectaveram accuratum ao sincenmi tuum de historic Inquisitionis, jam proculdubio ad finem a te perlect^ judi- cium. Lipsienses in actis suis illius jam mentionem fecerunt: ffeneratim qusedam dixere in iHius laudem, recensent satis prolixe ubrum primum, nihil autem (quod miratus fui) carpunt. An tamen placeat ipsis 7rappfi<Tia mira, ac librum de actionibus quorundam pa- trum judicium, valde dubito. Mihi satis est qudd reprehendere non audeant. Yer^m nee ab illorum judicio pendet causa libertatis; aliorum requirit patrocinium, qui, nullius addicti jurare in verba magistri, absque prsejudicio ac partium studio, omnia flequ& lance ponderant Quare tuum flagito judicium, quod meritd me flagitare
2e
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418 APPEHDIX.
posse credo, utpote (jui te hortatore illius historisB scriptionein aggressus sum. Amici nostri hactenus bene valent. Verrinus rure relicto rursus vitam urbanam amplecti velle videtur. Credo otium viro, hactenus occupatissimo, esse molestum : bine est, quod in ciTi<- tate se ad auietem componere nequeat, sed de novo praxim exerceat* Vivet et valet, et post nuptias valetudo ipsi videtur reddita confir- matior. Filia mea jam octiduum febri continua, qu» suDs habet paroxysmos, laborat : spes tamen blauda nobis affiilget, ipsam con- valituram. Alias omnes jam bene valemus. Salutant te quam amicissime omnes mei. Salutem plurimam a me rogo dicas Dns Cudworthse, cui omnia servitia humiUime offero. Vale, vir amplissime, ac persevera in amore
Tui amantissimi,
P. ▲ LlMBORCH."
19 ** Amstelodami, 10 Nov. 16 93.
6 " For Mr John Locke, at Mr Robert Pawling^s, in Dorset Court, in Chanell Bow, "Westminster. 8."
Locke's answer, page 413, quarto edition of Locke's Works.
"Vir Amplissime,
" UltimsB tuce, quibus te recte valere scribis, non mediocriter me exhilararunt. Omnino enim sinistra qusedam de valetudine tua metuebam. De amiciti^ tua certus eram, nee in ea vel minimum suboriri posse frigusculum persuasissimus sum. Venim cum D. Gericus negaret ad se quicquam de Spenser! obitu scriptum, in eiusque Uteris te brevi ad me scripturum indicares, jamque plures elabuntur hebdomadse, nuUusque amicorum ne tenuem quidem de te rumorem audiret, quid aliud suspicari potui nisi morbum, ipse ignarus plurimarum quae te detinerent occupationum F Interim securum te esse volo de Uteris tuis ad Clericum datis : postremas cum inclusis Comitis Pembrokiensis bene illi esse traditas certo scio; nam ipse statim literas Comitis mihi ostendit. Gratias tibi maximas ago, quod molestissimum ilium laborem, historiam meam Inquisitionis perlegendi, devoraveris. Encomia tua scutum mihi erunt, quo aliorum, si qui exsurgant, criminationes retundam. Maliem tamen ego legere censuras tuas, quas ab erudita et arnica manu profecturas scio, et per quas multum proficere possem. Ego quidem defectus aliquot historiae mese video : sed quod toUere non potui. Aliqua quae inserta cuperem, pauca tamen, post editionem m quibusdam autoribus antea mihi npn visis, reperi. Sed ilia in- tegritati historiae nihil obsunt : solummodo circumstantias quasdam exactiiks narrant. Sed aliud est majoris moment!. Tota historia contexta est ex autorum testimoniis: nihil ego ad eam contuli.
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1693.] LETTEES FEOM LIMBOECH TO LOCKE. 419
prseter solam methodum. Hsec si placet, est quod mihi gratulor. J?otui8set historia esse uberior et concinnior, si uno filo, et eodem stilo conscripta fuisset. Veriim consultius duxi ipsa autorum quos consului verba exhibere, licet in majorem historia excresceret molem ; quia multa adeo sunt torva et atrocia, ut nisi ipsa doctorum pontificiorum verba adscripta fuissent, fidem vix invenissent. Malui itaque prolixior esse, qudm alicui calumniandi ansam prsebere, quam, si meis verbis usus fuissem, fortassis aliqui arripuissent, meque criminandi, quod qusedam minus vera ipsis adscripsissem. Nunc ipsa autorum verba posui, et in margine autores adscripsi, ut unicuique de Me mea constare possit. Interim rem mihi longe gratissimam feceris, si quicquid censurft judicaveris, mihi perscribas, ut id in ex- emplari novo emendem. Ego quicquid mihi in autoribus quibusdam k me prseteritum occurrit, in eodem exemplari annoto, et singula suis locis msero, si forte aliquando usui esse possit ; et si non aliis, mihi saltem usui est. Penultimas meas per juvenem Hibemum, doctum sane, ingeniitjue admodum moderati, ad te misi, quas ilium tibi tradidisse nihil dubito, quia maximo te videndi desiderio flagrabat. Nihil tamen post ejus discessum de ipso audivi. Habuit etiam Uteris d me ad Keverenaissimum Archiepiscopum, quibus pro libro mihi missQ gratias ago. Judicium tuum de editione nova Bibliorum Castelhonis bibliopolce Stulma indicavi : nunc ipsius est decernere quid d re sua fore crediderit. Vellem ego novam illam editionem videre. Sed nee minus videre cupiam Harmoniam Evangelicara doctissimi Toinardi. Non possum quin obnix^ te orem, ne patiaris tantum thesaurum post obitum tuum negligi, aut interire ; sed ilium fideli alicui amico commendes, cujus oper&, si non vivo, saltem mov- tuo autem, lucem adspiciat : autor enim ipse moras sine fine, nectit, et citius elephas pareret, qudm ipse hunc suum fcetum. Filia mea jam multi^m convaluit; continua febris deperit; quotidie tamen aliquos sentit paroxysmos, quibus Integra sanitatis recuperatio re- lardatur. Spero et illos brevi cessaturos. Omnes te amici salutant, imprimis uxor mea, liberique. Salutem rogo dicas D. Cudworthee, cui, uti et tibi, omnia fausta precor.
Tui amantissimus,
P. A LiMBORCH." 16
*' Amstelodami, 4 Decern. 16 93. 14
** For Mr John Locke, at Mr Robert Pawling's, in Dorset Court, Chanell Row, Westminster. 8."
Locke's answer, dated 13 Jan. 1694, page 414, quarto edition of Locke's Works.
2s2
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420 AFPEKDIX.
"ViR Amplissime,
''Ultimas tuas 13 Januar. hujus anni scriptas 14 Febr. accepL Binas aut temas exinde ad te misi. Nihil hactenus responsi tuli. Statim aliquoties alias addem, ut pertinax tuum expugnarem silen- tium: verim, quoniam TheologiflB meae Christianae editio altera sub prelo erat, expectandum duxi, donee ea prodiret : quare nee jam scripissem, quoniam per otium prolixiores, quas tibi destina- veram, jam scribere baud vacat; yenim quoniam Jurisconsultus Grevius has ad me misit, quibus fdias D. Professoris Grseyii inclusas ait, eas diutius apud me heerere nolui. Intra paucos alias i me ex- pecta prolixiores, ut sic tsBdiosa yerbosissimarum literarum lectione nimis diutumi silentii poenam luas. Intra paucos dies alteram TheologiflB mese editionem absolutam fore spero. Paucissima qua&- dam emendavi : et pauca addidi : si limatissimum tuum judicium hie corim audire licuisset, plura, i te monitus, emendare potuissem. Magnam tamen mutationem in secunda editione extare nolui, ut idem esset liber ubique appareat. Volui jam diu accuratam tibi scribere historiam coUoquii mei cum pueUa, quje de religionis Christi- anse yeritate dubia ac yacillans ad Judaismum tota inclinabat. lies est per totam nostram patriam yulgatissima. Panels dicam me in ea deprehendisse tantum ingenii acumen, judicii solertiam, argu- mentandi dexteritatem, et indefei^am yariorum librorum lam in Theologia, qu^m philosophia, lectionem, ut credi yix possit. Annos nata est yiginti auos, sed ea judicii maturitate, ut adultos et in scholis exercitatos longe superet. Cessit ilia rationibus meis, et Jesum Christum suum Seryatorem ingenue professa est Jam plura cum ipsa coUoquia instituerant tres ex prcecipuis hujus civitatis ministris Ecclesise Contraremonstrantium, cujus ipsa membrum est : yerdm sine fine ; neye mirum, quoniam disputationem inchoarunt adjunctione dogmatis de SS. Trinitate et quidem locis h Vet. Test depromptis : quodque magis mirere, Judseis illius credendi necessi- tatem ex Vet. Test, fuisse iinpositam urgebant. Ula facile onmia eiusmodi argumenta elusit. Ego ad earn yocatus, longe aMk me- thodo sum usus, eadem niminim qua Don Balthasarum oppugnayi :
Srius nempe historice Noyi Testamenti, ac prsecipue resurrectionis ominicse, ac missionis Spiritus S adstruxi, iis argumentis,
quibus se nihil solidi opponere posse, ac proinde quibus se per- suasam ingenue fassa est. Exinoe prophetias omnes in Vet Test. suum in historia Novi Testamenti complementum habere probayi : quod, adstructa prius Eyangelii yeritate, mihi difficile non fuit J am multo qu^m antea in rehgione Christian§L confirmatior, mecum
quandoque de VerCim finiendum mihi est : aliafl
plura et exactiora scribam: nunc de plane ig-
narum nolui. Indi^antur mihi, (juos maximas mihi gratias .... : quasi m sui ignominiam cedat, puellam, quam ipsi suis
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1694.] LB CLEBO'S OEATION FOE LTMBOECH. 421
ineptis argumentis alieniorem quotidie ab Evangelio reddebant, meis argumentis ac methodo cessisse. Alii tamen inter ipsos meliora de me loquuntur. Verum finiendum est. Vale, Tir amplissime. Saluta officiosissime meis verbis D. Cudwortham.
Tui amantissimus,
P. A LlMBOECH."
" For Mr John Locke, at Mr Robert Pawling's, in Dorset Court in Chanell Row, Westminster."
The omissions in this letter (where the dotted Knes occur) are oc- casioned by 4&mage in the original. Locke's answer, dated Dec 11, 1694, page 416, quarto edition of Locke's Works*
In the Monthly Repository for 1818, in a note to the correspond- ence between Locke and Limborch, page 479, it is said that there was a letter of the date of 1694, on an interesting subject, as ap- pears by the following account in Le Clerc's oration for Limborch, a small part of which only has been published, page 418, 8yo edition of Locke.
** In 1694 an accident happened which, in the opinion of all equit- able judges, made wonderfully for the honour of Limborch, and of the ifemonstrant divinity. I shall relate it the more nakedly, because the person who was principally concerned in it is since dead. She was a young gentlewoman in this city, of twenty-two years of age, who took a fancy to learn Hebrew of a Jew, and was by this oppor- tunity gradually seduced by him into a resolution of quitting the Christian for the Jewish religion. Her mother, when she came to understand it, employed several divines to dissuade her from that unhappy design, but all in vain, for their arguments had no other influence than to confirm her still more in Judaism ; because they went to prove Christianity a priori, as philosophers speak, omitting generally the authority of the New Testament; and to the passages which they quoted from the Old, she returned the common answers of the Jews, which she had been taught ; nor were they able to make any reply which could give her satisfaction.
"While the yoimg lady, who was otherwise mistress of sense enou|^h, was in the midst of this perplexity, M. Veen, whom I mentioned before, happened to be sent for to visit a sick person, and hearing the motner speak with great concern of the doubts which disturbed her daughter's mind, he mentioned Limborch's dis- pute with Orobio, which put her upon desiring Limborch might discourse with her daughter, in hope he would be able to remove her scruples and bring her back to the Christian religion, which, «he professed, would be the greatest joy she could receive. Limborch
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422 AFFZirDTX.
accordingly came to her the second day in Easter week, which was April 12; and, poceeding with her in the same way and method he had used witn Orobio, ne quickly recovered her to a better judg- ment For whereas she insisted he should, in the first place, prove from the Old Testament that Ood had commanded the Israelites to believe in the Messiah ; he informed her, it was proper first to establish the truth of Christianity, and that afterwards he would show her from the Old Testament that which she desired ; as he really did. In ^e first conference he prevailed so far, that she owned she was not able to answer him ; and at several other inter- views in the same week he so entirely satisfied her, that she had no doubt remaining. Mr Limborch sent the sum of their conferences in a letter to our friend and acquaintance, Mr John Locke, frt>m which, if it should ever be published, they who have a curiosity to know Limborch's exquisite method will understand the whole affair more exactly ; for the narrow limits of this oration will not suffer me to enlarge upon it. I shall only add, that whatever some may whisper, the mother declared she thought it was the hand of Divme Provi- dence which brought Limborcn into her house ; and the daughter herself ever after honoured him as a father.'*
*< Virginis nuper Judaizantis, et ad fidem Chnstianam feliciter retract® historiam, quam petis, ad minutas usque circumstantias deductam, non possem nisi multis paginis comprehendere : col- lationi enim ipsi, per quinque dies continuatse, ultra viginti boras impendi. Sea nee argumenta singula recensere opus est : multa enim paucissimis tantum verbis indiclisse suffecerit Quse te maximd desiderare scio, accurate describam : inde facile dubitationum fontes ipse deteges, et qu^ methodo alii cum ipsa frustra disputaverint in- telliges. Hortatu Venni nostri post habitas aliquot a tribus ecclesice pubEcee concionatoribus irritas collatibnes, k matre virginis illius, mihi antea nunquam visce, ad illam vocatus sum. Primo congressu, qui fuit duodevicesimus ApriHs, sed Paschalis secundus dies, dixi, intellexisse me, aliqua ipsi circa veritatem religionis Christian«e dubia esse enata. Fassa est, priusque sibi de lege Mosis probaii mandatam fuisse Israeli fidem in Messiam. Respondi ego : £x lege quidem divinitatem Evangelii probari posse ; esse autem alia argumenta quibus ilia adstruatur : Bominum Jesum, Johan. cap. v., plura ad probandam doctrinse suse veritatem argumenta proferre; videl. testmionium Johannis Baptistee, miracula sua, et tandem Mosis testimonium. C onsen taneum esse ut pritis agamus de miracu- lis D. Jesu ; et historise Novi Testamenti Veritas, quae miraculorum Christi narrationem continet, adstruatur, qu^ probatd accedamus ad examen vaticiniorum de Christo, quee in Mosi et Prophetis ex- stant. Mirabatur hoc meum responsum, credebatque me methodo non legitimd cum ipsa velle agere. Itaque respondet, Petrum,
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1694.] LETTEES FEOM LIMBOECH TO LOCKE. 423
postquam locutus esset de ^lori^ in monte ostensa, addere, quod nabeamus sermonem propheticum quern appellet firmiorem. 2 Epist. i. 19. Regessi ego Petrum utraque conjungere : nos Petxum imi- taturos : sed banc esse legitimam methodum, ut primo inquiramus argumenta quibus divina Christi missio adstruatur : exinde siquid Moses et Prophetse de ipso praedixerint. Cum ilia urgeret, si Israeli dim fides in Messiam venturum mandata sit, oportere ut in lege Mosis id mandatum exstet, quia omnia quae Israeli mandata sunt lege Mosis continentur : Ego prolix^ meum de fide Israelis in Mes* siam venturum sententiam exposui, perinde uti collatione mek cum Don Balchasare feci. Ilia non sine admiratione boc meum respon- sum sibi prorsus inexpectatum audivit : et bac occasione quorun- dam suorum, qui cum ipsa consulerant, rigores incusavit, qui omnes, non tantum Uentiles et Judaeos sed et discrepantes a se Cbristia- norum ccetus, Oreo adjudicent. Ego arrept^ bac occasione prolixiiis sententiam meam de mutu^ dissentientium Cbristianorum toUeranti^ exposui : quae valde placere videbatur. Addidi quid sentirem de Gentilibus cognitione Evangelii nunquam illustratis : tum de Ju- dsBis quibus veritatis Evangelicae lucem affiilsisse manifestum est : agnovi tamen discrimen aliquod inter JudfEOS Apostolorum praedi- cationem, virtute Spiritus peractam, et miraculis confirmatam, re- spuentes ; et bodiemos, quibus Evangelium saepe ab imperitis et inidoneis predicatur, quibusque multa si Christianis scandala obji- ciuntur : quae etiam fusitis in collatione melt cum Orobio legi pos- sunt. Tandem, ut sermonem meum ad ipsam converterem, et ex ipsius ore elicerem, hie aetemae ipsius salutis negotium agi ; dixi, esse alios qui postquam jam in Jesum Christum crediderint, rursus ab eo deficiunt ; tales non posse Christum rejicere quin simul omnia ipsius beneficia abnegent : sibique nihil cum Christo commune esse aperte profiteantur. Hoc cum legitime sequi agnosceret, dixi : hie est status in quo tu nunc es: tu agnovisti Christum Dominum tuum : non potes ergo ab ipso recedere, nisi abnegatis omnibus ipsius beneficiis : si itaque religio Christiana sit vera, non potes ek desertii amplecti Judaismum, nisi amissione Etemae Salutis. Quod cum legitime consequi admitteret, addidi : quoniam nunc agnosceret quantum ipsius intersit scire utrum religio Cnristiana sit vera, necne, orare me ut quasi chara ipsi esset etema salus, mecum attent^ et in timore Domini expenderet argumenta quibus religionis Chris- tianae divinitatem essem adstructurus. Ilia denuo urgebat initium disputationis esse faciendum ex lege Mosis, vaticiniaque pro Mes- sia ex iUI, esse petenda. Hie diu haesimus qu^ methodo proce- dendum sit. Ego ut meam methodum probarem, dixi, pleris- que prophetiis duplicem inesse sensum, literalem et mysticum: me ultro fateri, literalem olim suum habuisse complementum, venim in typo : mysticum in Christo esse impletum. Cum autem exinde Uqueat, Prophetias olim suum habuisse complementum, licet
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424 APPE]<rDix.
non secundum omnem literse vim et ivepyuav, ipsam facile Tideri, non potuisse olim mysticum ilium sensum distincte cognoscere, sed ilium ex eyentu debuisse innotescere: Ita, et nunc sepo^t^ historiflB Novi Testamenti veritate, non posse me a priore demon- strare quis sensus mysticus sub prophetiis illis lateat, sed necessario prsBcedere oportere probationem veritatis historifle Novi Testamenti ,• qu^ adstructSi, me ex eventu probaturum, vaticiniis illis sublatentem inesse sensum mysticum, eumque in Christo secundum omnem liters IvBpyHav, esse impletum. Addebam obiter hac eidem methodo Apostolos in suis adversus Judeeos disputationibus quse in Actorum libro exstant, esse usos. Cum ilia contrariam metnodum urgeret, dixi, si evidentibus argumentis constat Jesimi Christum k Deo esse missum, an non in ipsum esset credendum, etiamsi nee Moses, nee ProphetsB quidouam de ipso prsedixissent. Cum hie ali^uatenus hsesitavit, ostendi ut fides alicui habeatur nihil aliud requin, nisi ut divina ejus missio probetur, etiamsi nulla de ipsius adventu exstent vaticinia. Id probavi exemplo Mosis, cujus adventum nusquam prsedictum legimus ; non tamen, quoniam missionem suam diyinam evidentibus comprobavit miraculis, Judsei in eum gravantur credere. Hie ilia mihi narravit, quid multi suorum concionatorum de hac ma- teria futiunt, quae mece sententise non admodum consentanea vide- bantur. Rogavi ego, ut non respiceret aliorum hominum, quales- cunquc sint, dogmata et theses, sed solum yerbum Dei, sive libros Veteris et Novi Testamenti : et manum meam sacro,qui aderat, codici imponenS} dixi : hoc esse purum verbum Dei : eo continetur con- fessio mea, extra quam, aliam nullam cui sim adstrictus agnosco : quando tibi probavero, Evangelium perinde esse k Deo ac legem, nihil ultra a me requirere notes : Sermonemque interruptum repe- tens, dixi, unicam cur in Mosem credamus esse causam, quod a Deo sit missus : argumentum autem missionis divinse unicum esse ipsus miracula. Hie querebatur, aliquos sibi objecisse, unde his Mosen k Deo esse missum? aliaque plura contra divinam Mosis missionem ; addens, sic omnia possint m dubiiun vocari, et tandem via premeretur ad Atheismum. Hie ego tam commodam occasionem mihi elabi minime sum passus ; et quia ex sermone ipsius depre- henderam, quanto in pretio ipsi esset Moses, prudenter sermonem meum esse temperandum duxi : Kespondi ego : si relicto Christo se ad Mosen conferre vellet, non debere ipsam mirari, si Chnstianus ex ipsa quserat, quibus rationibus de Mosis divina missione persuasa sit? Ego addebam, de Mosis divina missione nuUatenus dubito, neque de Legis Mosaics divina autoritate : de ea vero, etiamsi alia deessent argumenta, satis me persuasum reddit relig^o Christiana : sed quando tu relicto Christo ad Mosen transis, omnia quae mihi suppeditat religjo Christiana argumenta simul repudias. Possum itaque ut Christianus quserere, quae tibi pro divina Mosis missione argumenta sepersint? Non enim, si (Jnristum relinquas, certum
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1694.] LETTEBS FBOM LIMBOBCH TO LOCKE. 425
est amplectendum esse Mosen. Quid si enim qaeeram, cur non am- plecteris Mahomedis Alcoranum, cur non ad Gentiles abis ? annon tibi arffumenta proferenda sunt, quibus Legis divinitatem adstruas prcB Alcorano et Gentilismo ? Quid si Gentilis i te petat divinita- tem Legis probari) promittCRS se, ek probata, Judsepm futurum, an non officii tui judicares argumentis quibus ille conyinci posset eum adstruere ? Assensit. Itaque aiebam, ego etiam ut Cnristianus a te peto, qusB argumenta, si Christum relinquas, tibi restent, quibus Mosis divinitatem probes : egoque in me recipio, me clard demon* straturum, eadem ilia argumenta validids pro divina Christi missione, quam Mosis concludere ; ac proinde si dlis argumentis de divina Mosis missione te rect^ persuasam credas, oportere ut per eadem argumenta Christum k Deo missum agnoscas. Sic tandem eo (]uo volebam deducta disputatio fuit, quod ma^o molimine qusesivi, quia sine hac methodo felicem disputatioms successum non spera- bam. Hie e^o coUatione inter argumenta et signa quibus Mosis, et quibus Christi divina missio adstruitur, aliquamdiu hsesimus, in qua quicquid ilia mro Mose urgebat, ego certius pro Christo esse arffumentum ostendi. Hie cum diu hsereremus, ego, ut paucis ab- solverem, tandem dixi : Hodie est festum Paschaiis, quo tota £c- clesia Christiana resurrectionib dominicse memoriam celebrat. Si solidis argumentis tibi veritatem resurrectionis Jesu de mortuis probavero, annon agnosces ipsum k Deo esse missimiP Omnino inquiebat, mortuus enim seipsum excitari nequit. Si er^o revixit, a Deo excitatum esse necesse est. Hie ego prolix^ ventatem re* surrectionis dominicsB adstruxi, et ad omnes objectiones et dubia, quae ^uandoque objiciebat, respondL Cum omnia mea argumenta audivisset, respondit^ hsec optimd fluere, siquidem historia prout ab Evangelistis conscripta est vera sit. Prime itaque multis historise Evangelicee veritatem adstruxi. Deinde probavi libros sacrorum scriptorum incorruptos ad nospervenisse, ac tandem majorem multo esse certitudinem traditionis Christian», quam Judaics. Cilkm pro- lixi hujus discursCis finem fecissem, respondit : Non possum imprse* sentiarum argumentis tuis respondere, sed ea attentius considerabo. Perrexi ego, Festo Pentecostes celebramus memoriam missionis Spiriti^s Sancti in Apostolos: si et iUius historise veritatem tibi probavero, annon et ea tibi erit alterum argumentum, quo divina Jesu Christi missio evidenter demonstratur P Concessit. Itaque ego multis probavi, Apostolos certos fuisse, se donum illud opiritus Sancti accepisse, neque de eo dubitare potuisse : deinde se illud k Domino Jesu in cobus regnante accepisse : tertio, ipsos sufe setatis homines argumentis idoneis de dom hujus k Jesu Christo accepti veritate convicisse : tandem et nos hodie argumentis omni excep- tione majoribus de illius veritate esse persuasos. Cum omnia hsec argumenta, quse tibi satis sunt nota, et k me brevitatis caus^ omit- tuntur, fusiiis deduxissem, iterum respondit : Impraesentiarum
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426 APPENDIX.
nihil argumentis tuis opponere possum, sed ea attentius considerabo. Dixi) hoc mihi gratissimum fore ; et quando ea ponderaret exactius, tanto id mihi fore* gratius ; sed petebam, ut, quascunque haberet considerationes mihi aperiret, ut et illis respondere possem. Hoc se facturam promisit: addiditque, accusant me pervicacise; sed im- merito : non certarunt mecum idoneis argumentis : nunc tu mihi opposuisti argumenta, nunquam mihi antea objecta, quibus me im- prsesentiarum respondere non posse fateor : attent^ ea considerabo : si (j^uid alicujus momenti contra ilia reperirem, tibi indicabo : si nihil solidi contra ilia reperire queam, me convictam fatebor. Ego com- mendayi, ut serio consideraret statum suum, agi hie negotiimi cetemae salutis. ' Laudavi illius prudentiam, quod non temere ratio- nibus meis cederet, sed eas accurate ac mature meditari cuperet ; neque me dubitare, quin quanto exactius eas esset consideratura, tanto evidentiiis illarum soliditatem esset agnitura : quibus medita^ tionibus si addat preces ad Deum» felicem hujus coUationis successum esse expectandum. Commendavi etiam ut eximium Hugonis Grotii de ventate religionis Christianae tractatum, quem sibi hactenus visum negabat, et alterum, quem ipse dedi, ex Anglico (cui titulus est, The uentleman's Religion), in linguam Belgicam versum, evol- veret. Hie fuit primse mese collatonis exitus, quam prolixiils paulo descripsi, quia illis quae nunc prolata sunt argumentis propria con- victa est. Duravit haec collatio duabus horis.
" Postridie reversus petii ut considerationes ad argumenta pridie k me allata si quas haberet, mihi aperiret. Ilia ingenue, prsesente matre, fassa est, se attent^ argumenta mea considerasse, sed solidi nihil contra ea reperire potuisse : Fateor, inquiebat, te mihi verita- tem duorum miraculorum, resurrectionis nimirum Jesu Christi, et missionis SpiritQs Sancti in Apostolos, evidentur demonstr^sse': agnosco Jesum Christum a Deo esse missum. Ego, gratias me agere'Deo, inquiebam, de ingenue hfixj confessione : posse nos nunc reliqua coUationis nostree illi confessioni, tanquam fiindamento solido supersedificare. Itaque ut omnis animo ipsius scrupulus eximatur, nos jam ad prophetarum vaticinia progressuros, meque probaturum, quicquid a prophetis de Messia fuit preedictum, in Domino Jesu Christo suum nabere complementum. Verum antequam novam hanc disquisitionem inchoavimus, repetitio argumentorum prioris diei instituta fuit ; et dubiis quibusdam, quae Judsei contra Evan- geliorum scriptores, et traditionem Christianam objicere solent, re- sponsum, multaque prioris diei plenius paul6 fuere explicata. Etiam respondi objectioni quod certi non simus, quo tempore singula Evan-
felia conscripta sint : et quod certius Judsei de ventate resurrectionis )ominic8e potuissent convinci, si Dominus Jesus se ipsis redivivum ostendisset. Cum his aliisque ita respondissem ut se meae respbn- sioni acquiescere fateretur, ad prophetarum valicinia transivimus. Hie ego praemonui non esse a me expectandas mathematicas
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1694.] LETTEBS FEOM LIMBOEOH TO LOCKE. 427
demonstrationes, contra quas homo infidelis nihil (juicquam re- perire posset : quoniam, non probata historiae Novi Testainenti veritate, difficile admodum sit d prophetarum vaticiniis ostendere, ita omnia oportuisse evenire, prout in Christo impleta sunt ; quier pleraque juxta sensum literalem olim suum habere complementum • sed quoniam nunc historiae Novi Testamenti veritatem agnoscebat, me probaturum vaticiniis prophetarum majus quid, prseter id quod olim impletum fuit contineri, eorumque complementum secundum omnem literse Ivspynav esse in Jesu Christo. Eespondit ilia se de- monstrationes mathematicas non requirere, acquieturam verb argu- mentis quibus nihil solidi opponi posset, quseque veritatis studioso . Bufficiunt. Hie ilia aperto sacro quem in mambus habebat codice, initium disquirendi facere cupiebat k celebri Genes, iii. 16, loco. Dixi ego : rogo ut mihi permittas m^a argumenta ordine quem ipse elegero, proferre. Non sequar ordinem librorum sacri codicis, sed eum ex ipsa materie desumam. Itaque hoc ordine procedam. Primo ostendam, Deum certum tempus prsedefinivisse adventui Mes- siee, Dominumque Jesum tempore prsedefinito in mundum venisse : deinde prsedictum esse locum nativitatis, genus ipsius, ac tandem de matre Virgine nasciturum. Hcec autem omnia ver^ in Domino Jesu ita evenisse. Hisce probatis, evincam munera ipsius, prophetiam, sacerdotium et regnum^ ac tandem doctrinse ipsius per totum terrarum orbem prsedicationem, fuisse preedicta, omnesque illas pnedictiones in Dommo Jesu impletas : singula argumenta mea distinct^ propo- nam, et vaticiniis prophetarum adstruam. Tibi ad singula quse k me proferentur, liberum erit tuas dicere considerationes : meum erit, omnes tibi eximere scrupulos. Postquam ego argimientandi fin em fecero, tu, si quas contra religionem Christianam nabes objectiones, eas mOii objicie8,neque desines, quamdiu uUum tibi superest dubium : meum ^nim est tibi per omnia satisfacere. Primo ergo, certum 4 Deo adventui Messiae prsedefinitum esse tempus, probavi ex celebri loco Genes, xlix. 10, de cirjus sensu, et variantious interpretatio- nibus quando sceptrum Judse datum, quando k Juda ablatum sit, prolix^ actum fuit. Addidi alterum ex Hagg. ii. 7 — 10, et de hujus loci sensu multis actum fuit. Hdc occasione qusesivit, quid sentirem de Templo Esechielis. Aperui sententiam meam quam et in coUa- tione me^ cum Orobio expressi, quae valde ipsi placere videba- tur. Tandem addidi locum Dan. xix. 24 — 27, cujus sensum cum aperuissem, etiam Judaeorum objectiones in contrarium dilui. Et quia hie multus eram in dispersionis praesentis Judaeorum causis assignandis, eamque aliam esse non posse ostenderem, nisi MessisB contemtum, mihi objectum fuit, banc dispersionem fuisse praedictam, Levit. xxvi. et Deut. xxviii. : ex iisque capitibus liquere, Judaeos in earn propter defectionem k lege Mosis et idolatriam incidisse, et adhuc liberationem ex 1114* Judaeis esse expectandam. Ego, quia jam hora octava vespertina erat elapsa, paucis respondi, vaticinia haec captivi-
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tstem Babylonicam reroicere : quod ipsi priin6 valde paradoxnm erat : paucis meam expucationem conmrmabam : sed quoniam jam tempus affluxerat, resijue hsec magni erat momenti, unde multorum jraticiniorum explicatio dependet, me id postridie, fus^ et clard demonstraturum promisi. Duravit heec collatio quatuor horis.
" Tertio die sermonis initium feci explicatione cap. Levit. xxvL et Deut. xxviii. Argumenta mea quibus probavi illis cap. contineri comminationem non captivitatis hujus prsesentis, sed Babylcnicfe, scripto comprehenderam, excerpta ^ disputatione mea cum Orobio. Postquam omnia proposuissem, ilia se iis plan^ convictam fassa est. Mox cum attentius ea considerdsset, ait : Hsec est genuina Scrip- turse per Scripturam explicatio: jam clard multarum prophetia- rum, quas adhuc implendas esse hactenus credidi, sensum percipio, easque jam impletas esse comperio. Lux hinc mihi ma^a in pro- phetarum scriptis explicandis exorta est. Tradidi ipsi scriptum meum, ut etiam me absente, omnia loca relegere et expendere pos- set. Exinde Mich. v. 1, indicate prius literaii illius sensu, probavi locum nativitatis Messise fore Bethlehemum, Dominumque Jesum in ilia civitate speciali directione divina esse natum. Cum in hac probatione nihil desideraret, ad genus Domini Jesu processi. Mes- siam ex familia Davidis nasciturum ut probarem opus non fuit, ipsis Judseis id habentibus. Solummodo probandum fuit, Dominum Jesum ex Davide ortum suum habere. Hic multis actum de ge- nealo^a Domini Jesu, et de discrepantia inter Matthseum et Lucam, quos ita conciliavi, ut ilia conciliationi mese acquiesceret. Ilesta- bat tandem probanda nativitas ejus ex matre virgine, juxta Esa. vii. 14, 15, &c. Hic prolixiiis pauld sensum literalem vaticinii illius aperui j atque ex verborum Esaiae iwpyctaprobavi alium sublimio- rem ac mysticum sub eo latere, quern in JDomino Jesu complemen- tum suum habere, veritatemque nativitatis Domini ex virgine, os- tendi. Sicque huic coUoquio finis fuit impositus. Habita est heec collatio die Mercurii, duravitque quinque horis.
"Reversus sum die Veneris, quo die probavi ex Deut xviii. 15 et 18, propheticum Christi munus. Vaticinium hoc Messiam re- spicere probavi. Hic multis actum de prophetico Christi munere, de Lege et Evangelio, quo sensu Evangelium Lege perfectius dici potest: de variorum Legis et Evan^elii praeceptorum sensu: de promissis Evangelii et Legis, et de cuscrimine inter ilia. Exinde ostendi, Dominum Jesum nihil docuisse aut prsecepisse Legi con- trarium. Hac occasione quaedam dicta sunt de dogmatibus qui- busdam Christianorum, quae Judaei Legi repugnare credunt. Ego dixi, ea esse consideranda prout in Script ura extant, non prout pos- tea ab hominibus sunt definita, et vocibus ac phrasibus non in Scriptura extantibus, sed ab hominibus inventis, enuntiata. Et ad ea solum esse respiciendum, quae Scriptura tan^uam fidei salvificae objectum passim inculcat. £t quantum ad dogmata, quorum pro-
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batio non ex Veteri, sed Novo Testamento peti debet, de iis non esse disputationem cum Judaeo inchoandam ; sed, ut ego nunc feci, primtim contra ipsum divinam librorum Novi Testament! autorita* tem esse abstruendam, ut ill^ probatli ex ipsis Novi Testament! Hbris, ouid de tali dogmate sentiendum sit, dnudicet : et tum utri- usque Testament! dicta inter se conferat. Hie ilia subridens, ait : Magnam mihi fieri injuriam credidi, qu6d meam, quam conceperam, metbodum rejiceres : video autem nunc te legitime methodo usum : Nostri concionatores longe ali& methodo sunt usi : nihil attulerunt ad probandam historise Nov! Testament! veritatem ; sed disputandi initium fecerunt a dogmate SS. Trinitatis, idque adstruere volue- runt argumentis ex Veteri Testamento depromptis : Unus ^ nomine ^'^n^ pluralis numeri ; et d locutione in plurali numero, qua Deus in hommis creatione usus est, Faciamus hominem : (alter vir prius argumentum rejiciebat, sed posterius probabat) ex apparitione trium angelorum Abrahamo factd; et sinoilibus. Tum seternam Fili! prseexistentiam ex verbis Dei ad serpentem, Ponam inimicitiam in- ter te et mulieris semen. Genes, iii. 15 : et verbis Evee post Cain! par- tum, Genes, iv. 1. Accepi virum Jehovam : ita enim interpretabatup textum Hebreeum, non, k Jehova : aliisque pluribus. Tantum abest, inquiebat, ut me argumentis suis retraxisseut, ut me in sentent!^ mea obstinatiorem reddidissent. In tua autem methodo legitime proced! video: probatli enim divina Novi Testament! autoritate, quid de hoc aliisque Christianse religionis dogmatibus statuendum sit, ex illo dijudicare, dictaque prophetarum cum Novo Testamento conferre possum. Hac digressione facta, priorem meum sermonem repetii, ostendique, Dominum Jesum Legem Mosis non abrog^e, sea perfectionem introduxisse, quae Legem Mosis divinam esse pne- supponit, sed ad cujus prsesentiam omnes Mosaicee legis imperfecti- ones evanescere debuerunt Hie prolix^ satis sententiam meam de Christianorum k Lege Mosis libertate aperuL Ostendi etiam quo sensu Lex vocatur eetema ; et quomodo Dominus Jesus, perfectiorem annuntiando legem, ad cujus preesentiam lex Mosis evantdt, docuerit consentanea orac^lis prophetarum, Deusque banc Domini Jesu doo- trinam ratam habuerit, et destructione templi, et eversione Reip. Judaicse confirmavit. Quse omnia fusd contra Don Balthasarum disputavi. Hsec collatio duravit quinque horis, et per illam pluri- mum se in veritate Evangelidi confirmatam aliquoties professa est. " Red!! tandem die Sabbath!, quo die actum fuit de morte Christ!. Probavi ex Esa. liii. mortem Messice, et quidem tanquam sacrificium pro peccato, illo in capite apertd praedici. Postquam de capitis nujus sensu fusd actum esset, petiit ut ipsi sententiam meam de sacerdotio Christ! aperirem. Ilespondi ego : Nos hactenus sollicite vitatis omnibus qute inter Christianos controversa sunt dogmatibus, solummodo generalem, quee omnibus Christianis cum Judsis in- tercediti controversiam tracttoe : me autem, si ipsi distincte meam
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de saoerdotio Chiisti Bententiam explicem, a Ti4 hactenus k nobis tritk defecturom : non enim id i me posse fieri, quin sententiam Remonstrantium, quatenus k Contraremonstrantibus recedit, ipsi aperiam. dim ilia instaret, sententiamque meam cognoscere ae- sideraret : ostendi triplicem esse potissimum de sacerdotio Chrisd sententiam : Contraremonstrantium, et Socini, quas tanquam duas extremas inter se direct^ oppositas considerabam ; et nostram, quae inter duas extremas media mtercedit. Dixi, quid in utraque senten- tii extrem4 desideremus ; quomodo nostra sententia omnia aliarum sententiarum incommoda eyitet Addidi me rationem salvationis non oonsiderare in solo Christi sacerdotio, sed etiam in i^us pro- phetii et regno. Hisce omnibus diffuse satis explicatis, petii, an jam yeUet progredi ad munus Christi regium ? Respondit, Non id esse neeesse, de eo enim nullum sibi superesse dubium. Dixi, Quoniam Judffii urgent Messiam nromissum fore re^m terrenum, placere ut examinemus dicta propnetarum, an ilia de terreno regno neces- sario accipienda sint P Kespondit : Non id necesse est : quo- niam per hactenus monstrata jam omnia qu» de illo habui dubia animo exenusti meo. Qusesivi porro ; utrum sibi ea Prophetis probari cu])erety MessisB doctrinam per omnem terram annuntiari debuisse ; idque in Domino Jesu esse impletum ?. Respondit : De eo nullum sibi superesse dubium. Tandem rogavi, quoniam mihi nulla jam ex prophetarum vaticiniis restarent argumenta, ut, si quas contra religionem Christianam haberet objectiones, cas paroferret, ut et illis respondere possem. Turn ilia ita me affistta est : Dubitationes, quas de religione Christiana habui, abundd iis quae a te disputata sunt, omnes mihi sunt sublatse. Agnosco te mihi pro- bavisse yeritatem historiee Noyi Testaraenti, et speciatim illorum duorum ingentium miraculorum, resurrectionis Domini Jesu de mortuis, et effusionis Spiritiis Sancti in Apostolos die Pentecostes : quod mihi probayeris prophetias Vet. Testamenti in Domino Jesu suum habere complementum : qu6d mihi ostenderis connexionem Noyi Testamenti cum Vetere. Agnosco Dominum Jesum Christum Senratorem meum : hsecque jam mihi erit immota yeritas, de oua per ffratiam diyinam nunquam dubitabo. Gratias tibi ago pro fideli tuft mstitutione : rogoque ne coUationes nostras abrumpas, sed in iis mecum pergas ; cupio enim huic fimdamento solidiorem relinonis mecB cognitionem superstruere. Kespondi ego : Deo optati nujus sucoessiu gloriam umc^ esse tribuendam ; me ad summiun tantiim plantftsse aut rigftsse, Deum autem dedisse incrementum. At<|ue ita consumta in ultima hac collatione qiuituor horis, sexto k prima nostra collatione die optatum laboris nrei, Deo benedicente, yidi eyentum. Ex hac autem collatione intima inter nos amicitia coa- luit : ilia me patris instar yeneratur ; ego illam filisB loco diligo.
« Vides hie prolixam collationis hujus hibtoriam, in qua fortasse inutiliora quedam consectatus sum : sed ut morem tibi geram sin^
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1694.] LETTEBS PBOM LIMBOBOH TO LOCKE. 431i
^la annotare volui, ut totius historiee seriem haberes. Argumenta sin^a non desideras, nee singula recitare possem, nisi integro con- scnpto tractatu. Turn quid necesse est re^etere, quae in coUatione cum Orobio extant P Quod scjre desider^sti, abundfe hac narratione oomprehensum credo. Kumor hujus collationis, etiam me tacente, mox totam pervasit civitatem, et sicut mihi plurimorum conciliavit benevolentiam, ita et aliorum contra me indignationem proTocavit, et emulationem, eorum prsecipu^, qui irrito conatu virginem illam oppu^arunt: quorum unus ipsam accedens, cum indignatione rogavit, quibus argumentis et quk methodo eco in disputando usus essem ? Ciim ilia responderet, me primo et ante omnia sibi probavisse veritatem historise Novi Testamenti : ille maximo cum contemtu dixit, ]ioc nuUius esse pretii, utens his ipsissimis verbis : Quid tum habebasP Nihilum cum magna cauaa. lUa respondit, se non intelligere quid sibi velit : credere se, multiim se profecisse, quando de veritate historise Novi Testamenti esset per- suasa. Ille nihil effectum aiebat, quamdiu k priore d prophetis solids non esset probatum ; ita omnia, prout evenerunt, debuisse impleri : imo alio die eo usque exorbitavit, ut dicere non erubuerit, nisi omnia seque perfect^ ex Mose possint k priore probari, atque ex Evangelic, se Evangellmn habere pro fabula. Cum autem ula se argumentis meis acquiescere indicaret, ille indignabundus inquit, jam posteriora tua pejora sunt prioribus : adeo ut ipso cum matre, ex sermonibus collegerint, maluisse ipsum, ut ad Judaismum peni- ttis defecisset, qu&m ut meis ar^^umentis revocata ad fidem Qiris- tianam redierit. Non etiam sine stomacho rogavit : Tunc dix- isti, Cocceianos te decepisse P Nequaquam, respondit : sed Coccei* anos esse ineptos qui Judseum convincant lUo quserente an id potest Limburgius ? ilia regessit, Exemplum in me habes. Fostea mater virginis mihi dixit : Nunquam credideram, tantam in concionatori- bus esse semulationem : Ego nescio qua occasione sedes meas ingres- 8US sis : nunquam de te cogitaveram : Verrinum longe alia de causa advocavi ; nescio qua occasione tui mentio sit facta : Deum te in eedes meas immisisse credo: k primo enim quo tu filiam meam compeUasti momento ipsam mutatam vidi. Non tamen omnes con- cionatores huius hominis stomachum prob^runt : Quidam satis be- nimk de me locuti sunt, ingenueque professi, me prsBScivisse quod ooUegse sui frustra tentarunt. Hsec addo, ut et aliorum IfruiKtiav agnoscas. Verum tempus tandem est prolixam banc narrationem abrumpendi.
*' Reliauis epistolse tuse breviterrespondebo. Theologisemese Chris- tianse editionem alteram jam in An^liam appulisse nullus dubito, Dedi in mandatis bibliopolse Samueli Smith, ut tibi exemplar illius tradat. Iden^ tibi alia nuper epistola, cujus Marcus Tent, juvenis statura corporis exilis, sed in^enio magnus, quemque hie seepius vidisti, lator est, significavi. Si ergo biUiopola nondum tibi exem-
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plar dedit, posses id ab ipso petere. Quin multa in mea Theologia emendando restent nullus dubito. Vellem te consultore potuiase uti, multa proculdubio te indicante correxissem, quse nunc a me non animadyersa inemendata prodeunt. Paucula addidi : quse alicujus sunt momenti potissimum reperies Lib. ii. cap. 1, 3, 6, et 8, Cap. xzi. § 23, 26, et 26 ; Lib. iii. cap. iv. § 3 et 11 ; Lib. y. cap. xxxiiL § 7 ; Lib. yii. cap. iy. § 7. Sunt et paucis in locis qusedam addita, rertim ilia sunt breyiora. Occasione libri hie editi paucula dixi de spiritibus maHs, ut preecipua libri illius fundamenta eyerterem : de quibus tuum ayeo scire judicium. Quod aliqui Calyinismum restituere moliuntur, minimi miror : Si ita yerd sentiunt, reprehen- dendi non sunt, (juod sententiam suo judicio yeram aliis persuasam cupiant, sed solidis rationibus confutandi. .Si aliud quid lateat, Deus id judicaturus est. Qud heec tandem eyasura sint, dies doce- bit. Libri tui de intellectu humane yersionem Latinam ayidissimd expecto : ex illius compendio Gallico, quod nobis D. Clericus sup- peditayit, facile perspicio, quantihn exinde laus in arduis Ulis mate- nis philosophicis hauriri possit Non dubito quin eruditis, quibus lingua Anglicana ignota est, ^yissimum sit futurum, ilium Ungu& inter omnes erudites communi, non posse lesi. Quanto latiiis dis- pergetur, tanto illustriorem reddet yeritatem a te monstratam. Ve- rum ubi ipsum yidero, distinctius de singulis judicare potero. Ante menses aliquot ad te misi Episcopii conciones aliquot hactenus in- editas, quibus historiam yitse Episcopii prsefixi. Nescio an omnia distincte intelligas. Varia in ea aayersa quibuscum Episcopius luctatus est, leges. Scripsit Keyerendissimus Bathoniensis et Wei- lensis, ad quern exemplar misi, se alicui yersionem yitse Episcopii in liuffuam Anglicam yertendam mandasse. Itaque fortasse Anghce eam leges. Unum fere oblitus sum. Scripsi tibi historiam colla- tionis mese cum ylrgine nuper judaizante bene longam. Non re-
Sugno quin amicis quibusdam prselegatur, apographa autem null! entur. Cum enim post quinque congressus peoitus omnes suas dubitationes abjecerit, fundamentaque relicionis Christians nunc distinctius cognoscat, et fide solidiore amplectatur quam antehac, omnino quicquid per ignorantiam, siye incogitantiam aut negligen- tiam peccatum est, setemse tradendum est obliyioni. Fieri autem
Sosset, ut quis pia intentione exemplum hoc allegaret ad ostenden^ um legitima methodo plerumque non cum Judseis disputari, et excerpta ex epistola mea sibi communicata ad majorem dictorum suorum fidem scripto suo insereret: ita rei hujus memoria typis expressa nunquam obliteraretur. Video autem hie multos non tam ipsius conyersione gaudere, qu^m dolere quod meis colloquiis ab errore suo reyocata est, maffisque materiam quserere errorem ejus exaggerandi, qu&m conyersionem deprsedicandi. Non enim yeriti sunt passim eam tanc^uam presumtuosam, procacem, pertinacem, et simul, quod mireris, mstabilem, cuique nulla religio cordi sit, tra-
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1694.] LETTEK8 TROM LIMBOBCH TO LOCKE. 483
ducere : quidam e6 usque exorbitarunt, ut et atheam vocaverint. Cum ego, quod vere testor, earn expertus sim modestam, neutiquam refractoriam, sed maxime docilem, attentam, ac sedulam, Deique reverentem : et quod rarum est, ingenii admodum facilis ac prompt!, judiciique peracris ac limati, supra setatem (est enim viginti duorum tantvkm annorum) et sexum, ac incredibiU veritatis mvestigandsB amore incensam, adeo ut proprio Marte sine magistro plurimos libros evolverit, et si quid minus intelligeret indefesso labore illius lec- tion em aliquantenus reperierit, et assidu^ meditata sit, nee con- quieverit, donee omnia distincte intellexerit. Vix annos natj^ qua- tuordecim (ut mihi aliquoties narravit) solita iuit mane hora quarta insciis parentibus ^ lecto surgere, et librorum lectioni incumbere : quando autem post iteratam lectionem sensum non perciperet, ali- quoties quasi desperabunda cum lachrymis librum e manibus pro- jecit : post horam vero ubi puellari lusu se recreasset, librum in manus resumsit, lectionem repetiit, meditata est: et hsec omnia crebro iteravit, donee tandem sensum assecuta esset. Quod sane exemplum rarissimum est in puella, quae in otio et deliciis educata credi posset. Quare hsec ita amicis communicabis, ut nihil ex meis Uteris depromatur, quod ne a malevolo quidem in illius calumniam rapi possit. Verim tandem tempus est manum de tabula tollere. Ultus jam sum silentium tuum probe. Mirabor si non aliquoties prolixitatem meam sis incusaturus, epistolamque antequam ad finem perveneris d manibus abjecturus. Salutem a me quam officiosissime jDominse Masham. Salutat te Verrinus cum uxore, necnon uxor et liberi mei, et me, ut facis, amare ne desine,
Tui amantissimum,
Philippum a Limbokch." 4 <*Amstelodami, 12 Decemb. 16 94." 18.
" Post hasce scriptas tristis me de subita Archiepiscopi Cantuari- cnsis morte nuntius non leviter perculit. Destinaveram ipsi Theo- logiae mesB ChristiansB exemplar: pridie autem antequam tradi potuerit mortuus est. Ecclesise Heformatee tan to patron o, tam pru- dente, perito, pacisque amantissimo antistite, orbatee statum doleo. Utinam Deus qui potens est etiam e lapidibus Abrahse filios exci- tare, alium nobis substituat, illi si non parem, quod vix sperare ausim, tamen vestigia ejus, quantum fieri potest, proxime premen- tem ! lUe tibi et DominsB Masham vitam ad seros usque annot producat ! Interim vale.
" Vides hie additamenta in historiam Inquisitionis. Liber unde aliquot loca descripsi, hunc prsefert titulum : Speculum Inquisitionis Bifuntinae ejus Officiariis exhibitum a R. P. F. Joanne des Loix S. T. D, Ord. praedicat Convent. Audomerensis, per Bifunt. Diver-
2f
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434 A.ppEin)ix,
sum et fol. Comitat. Burgund. Inquisitore general!, &c. Dolee apud Antonium Pinard typographum juratum, 1628 in 8. Continet pagg. 791.
'* Si per otium licet, velim quamprimum certior fieri literas hag recte ad manus tuas pervenisse ; eas enim errlsse nollem, nee diu in incerto heerere : quia multa scripsi, et quse in aliorum manus in- cidere nolim. Clericus tuas rectd acce^it. Inclusas has mihi Cue* nellonus dedit, qui familise su» statum ipse scribit."
** For Mr Jolm Locke, at Mr Pawlin^s, over against the Plough, in Little Lmcoln's Inn Fields, London."
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NOTES
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
DTTBING THE LAST TEARS OF THE BEIGN OF GEORGE I. AND THE EABLT PART OF THE BEIGN OF GEORGE n.
PREFACE,
After the trial of the Earl of Macclesfield, Sir Peter King, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was made Lord Chancellor, and held the Seals from 1725 to 1733, during which period he noted down in short-hand the principal suhiects which occupied the atten- tion of the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. It will be seen, however, that these Memoranda are very much broken and discon- tinued after 1730, in consequence, probably, of the declining health of the writer.
Abundant proof will be found in the following pages of the dis- proportionate importance attached to German pohtics, during the reigns of the two first Princes of the House of Brunswick, who were more interested in the welfare of their Electorate, and in mak- ing some petty addition to their German territories, than in that of Great Britain, which they neither valued nor understood. Many of the questions stirred up by the restless activity of the Queen of Spain, and the projects of the Emperor, for establishing a great trading company at Ostend, to the detriment of English commerce in the East ana West, perplexing as they may have been to the Ministers of that day, have now lost the interest that formerly be- longed to them ; but as they may serve to explain some parts of our history, they are printed verbatim from the snort-hand memoranda.
There are some curious anecdotes of George II. and Queen Caroline, and a remarkable proof is afforded of their early hatred to their eldest son Frederick, afterwards Prince of "Wales, in the plan which they had formed for disinheriting him in England. The project, however, was defeated by the equally inimical feelings
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436 NOTES ON DOMESTIC [l726.
of the reigning King George I. towards his own immediate succes- sor, if not by his sense of right and justice.
Wherever Walpole is mentioned, we may observe the good sense and discretion which distinguished him amongst the Statesmen of his own times. He is, indeed, eminently distinguished above the Statesmen of almost every age by his love of Peace — ^the first and greatest of all virtues in a Minister.
NOTES OF DOMESTIC AND FOEEIGN AFFAIES.
1725. — ^Tuesday, June 1. Monday the 31st May being the last day of the sitting of Parliament, I was introduced into 5ie House of Lords, as Lord King, Baron of Ockham, in the County of Surrey. My introducers were Lord Delaware and Lord Onslow. Baron's robes lent me by Lord Hertford. And this day at noon I went to St James's, and being called into the King's closet, he delivered the seals to me as Lord Chancellor: and soon after I went to the council-chamber, carrying the seals before him. The first thing that was done was to swear me Lord Chancellor, after which I took my place as such. The King then declared that he was going beyond sea, and had appointed a ilegency, whose names were men declared.
2nd. — ^In the morning I received the visits of several lords and others of my friends, and at noon went to wait on the Prince and Princess, and kissed their hands. This day I surrendered my place of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
The King signed a Bill for establishing a Commission in Chancery during my absence ; the Commission was as usual, only the deficient Masters in Chancery were left out, and the Commission was sealed at the seal next day.
3rd. — About ten o'clock I waited on the King, to have two Bills signed, the one for Eyre to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the other for Gilbert to be Chief Baron, and as soon as I left him he went on his voyage to Hanover. And inasmuch as several of the nobility were to wait on him to Greenwich, so that they could not attend me, according to custom, to Westminster Hall, I did from thence take an occasion to go privately to Westminster Hall, which I did this day, being a day of motions. I here took again the oath of a Chancellor, which the Clerk of the Crown read, and the Master of the Rolls held the book.
8th. — News being come of the King's safe arrival in Holland, the
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Itegency first met and a^eed to meet again on the Tuesday, and that there should be a Privy Council every fortnight.
9th. — The Duke of Athol was with my secretary, to desire the names of several persons might be put in Justices of the Peace for Perthshire ; but on talking with Sir R. Walpole, he advised me not to take them from him, because he knew by letters intercepted that the Duke of Athol was in measures with his elder brother, who is attainted.
12th. — ^Went to Ockham, and returned Monday morning.
14th. — Returned from Odkham, and sat in the Court of Chancery.
16th. — ^A Regency, where, amongst other things, was read a Peti- tion of George Lord Murray, setting forth that he was but eighteen years old when he went into the rebellion : that he stands indicted, Dut was never convicted nor attainted, praying the King's mercy : which being referred by the King to the Regency for their opinions, we were all of opinion that there was nothing in law to stand in the way of the King^s pardon, and that if he pleased he might do it. But it was desired that there might be a more explicit opinion, and what we should advise the King to do. I said 1 wished him par- doned, but I was unacquainted with the facts, and therefore could only say that, if the King thought fit to pardon him, there was no- thing in law to obstruct it, but to advise either one way or other I could not, because I was not sufficiently master of the facts. The Archbishop would not advise anything in the case of blood. The Duke of Arg}de strongly against it, because this man's treason was attended wiui perfidy, in deserting the King's troops and running away to the reoels ; and if this man were pardoned, others would immediately make the same application. Roxburgh, Walpole, a majority were for it ; so a letter ordered to advise the King to par- don him.
At my desire the Regency now ordered that Mr Paxton, who had been employed by the Council in the afiair of the Masters, might lay beH)re the Regency an accoimt of the deficiency of the Masters, showing to this time what the particular effects were that . were paid into 9ie Bank ; and the Attorney and Solicitor-General were ordered to take care that the suitors might receive satisfaction for their several demands, lliis I did that care might be taken of the suitors in Chancery, and because it was not proper that I should be both judge and party ; that the Attorney and Solicitor-General might bring all things necessary before the court, and might be the prosecutors in this matter.
The Duke of Argyle and Mr Walpole spoke to me to expedite the Commissions of the Peace for the several shires of Scotland, which commissions, as they said, had been settled by Lord Towns- hend before he went away, and sent to the late Commissioners of
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the SeaL I told them I knew nothing of it — nothing had been said to me about it.
16th. — Mr Scroop came to me from Mr Walpole, to let me know that the lists of the Justices of the Peace for Scotland, sent to the Commissioners, were by them sent to the Crown-office ; and Mr Pynsent, Deputy Clerk of the Crown, now brought the several lists for all the counties in Scotland, and the old lists, and said that he had never received any orders from the late Commissioners of the Seal to make out any commissions upon them. Whilst we were talking, the Master of the Bolls came in, and he said that all he knew of it was, that Mr Bulkley brought these new lists to him from Lord Townshend, without any letter or order, and that being but two or three days before he closed up the seals, he did nothing ui>on it, but sent them to the Crown-omce. I told Mr Scroop that this was not the usual way of putting in Justices of the Peace^ that I would look over the lists, but if any were to be left out I should first know the reason, and whosoever were to be put in I would have a recommendation in writing from the Lord-Lieutenants, desiring they might be put in, and attesting their fitness, or from some other person of quality and known integrity. He said Mr Stewart of the House of Commons should wait on me and give me more particular account of these matters, that be himself was unao- (^uainted with them, but there was a necessity for the new commis- sions, because of levying the malt tax.
17th. — Mr Stewart, a Scotch member of the House of Commons, was with me, and acquainted me that all the lists of the Justices of the Peace for the several coimties of Scotland had been settled by the direction of Lord Townshend, by Lord Islay, with the Members of the House of Commons, and that the setuing these lists had taken up three months' time. I spoke this morning with the Mar- quis of Tweedale, and showed him the lists for Edinburgh, Had- dington, Berwick, and Roxburgh ; he said that no objection could be made to the men put therein, only in Haddington he thought some more new names might be added, but he would not add any because he had not been consulted in it, notwithstanding which he sent me three names, which I put into the commission for Had- dington.
30th. — ^An express came from General Wade, of a tumult that had been at Glasgow on Ibe 24th, the day the malt tax took place, and tiiat among other outrages they had puUed down Daniel Camp- bell's house and gutted it The Duke of Newcastle came to the seal where I was then sitting, in the Liner Tem))le hall, and ac- quainted me of it ; whereupon I told him my opinion, and desired him to get together that evening as many of the Begency as he could, and to have a general meetmg the next morning, and to send out notices accordingly.
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July Ist — ^There was a meetmg of the Regency: present, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, myself, Duke of Devonshire, Duke of King- ston, JDuke of Dorset, Earl of Berkley, Earl Oodolphin, Duke of Newcastle. At the meeting, a letter, amongst others, from General Wade was read, in wluch mere was a passage, that if the commis- sions for the justices of {>eace had been sent down, it might have been of use to them on this occasion : on which I told the Kegents, that when I had the seals I found thirty-one commissions of the
peace for thirty-one of the shires of Scotland, or rather lists of names for those commissions, lying in the Crown-office, and I had been informed that there had been lists likewise for the two other shires
now missing, viz. Peebles and Perth. On which Mr Pynsent, the Deputy clerK of the Crown, was called in, and said that the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal had sent these lists for the several counties of Scotland, but had not given any particular directions ' what to do with them. The Duke of Newcastle informed the Be* gents, that the Earl of Islay had had orders for a considerable time oefore the Xin^ went away to settle proper and fit lists for the jus- tices of peace in Scotland, it bei^ now proper, both for levying the malt tax and disarming the Highlanders, and that such lists had been made and delivered to Lord Townshend, who had desired him to see those lists expedited, and that it was only the hurry of business, just as he went away, that was the occasion it had not been done. The Earl of Islay, who attended at my desire, was called in, and he gave an account that several months ago he re- ceived orders from the King, by Lord Townshend, to go through the lists of all the commissions of the peace in Scotlano, and setUe proper lists ; that to this end he had consulted with the parliament- men of the several counties: that those who were dead, or had never acted, or had no est&tes in the county, they had left out $ that this was the common method of such proceedings, and had added men of estates and character in the respective counties ; that the list took up three months' time in preparing, and was done with great exactness and regard to gentlemen. On this, I told the Begency, that though in England the Great Seal would be a little more con- sulted in matters of this nature, yet, considering the urgency of afiairs, if their Excellencies would order me to pass those commis- sions of the peace, as now settled, I would do it Whereupon they ordered me forthwith to pass these thirty-one commissions, and ako the two others, if the originals could be recovered again, and, in de- fault thereof, such as the Earl of Islay should, from his papers, or memory, or any other way, recollect. Whereupon, I sent by the express that now went to Scotland commissions of the peace for Emnburgh, Haddin^n, Lanark, and Berwick, and the others I ordered to be expedited as fast as possible. 24th. — Sir Robert Walpole went with me to my house at Ockham,
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and lodged there the night. He entered into a firee discourse with roe about foreign affairs. That whilst we had plenipotentiaries at Cambray, the King of Spain, being provoked by the French Court sending back his daughter, had entered into a private treaty with the Emperor ; that the Queen of Spain, who governs all there, was unmeasurably angry with France, and that she was allured by the Emperor, by a proposal that the Emperor's daughter should be married to her son Bon Carlos ; that in this point she trusted the Emperor, and, believing that it would be so, inclined Spain to come into the treaty, whereby the hereditary dominions of Austria are preserved in the Emperor's daughters. That the Emper<» had in- vited us to accede to this treaty, and so to guarantee the succession for his daughters ; that to encourage us, he had proposed his media- tion with Spain to settle all differences between us, and particularly that of Gibraltar and Port Mahon ; we declining to enter into that guarantee, Spain had now intimated to the King her hopes that the King would restore those two places.
He likewise informed me of the state of the North : that the Czarina had pressed the King of Sweden to let her send her fleet to Norkoping, to be ready for her design upon Denmark and Sleswick, and that he had been likely to have granted it, had not we warned him that if this were suffered, the Czarina would by this means turn him out of his kingdom, and put it under the dominion of the Duke of Holstein ; and that to encourage him we were forced to give him £10,000 as part of some subsidies that by treaty we are to give him in case of a war ; that now all things were like to be quiet on that side.
He told me also another secret : that pending the design in France of sending back the young Queen to Spain, there had been a ne- gotiation between the Princess and Count Broglio, the French Ambassador, by the intervention of the late Lady Darlington* for Princess Ann to be give)i in Marriage to the French King, and that the French Court expected it hs a thing sure ; and for that reason, at the same time that the Ambassador notified the resolution of sending the young Queen back, he desired of the King his grand- daughter for his master, but that the King absolutely refused it.
Another negotiation had lately been on foot in relation to the two young Princes, Frederick* and William, f The Prince J and his wife§ were for excluding Prince Frederick from the throne oi
• Afterwards Frederick Prince of Wales. ^ t Afterwards Duke of Cumberland. This is a very curious proof of the early hatred of George the Second and Queen Caroline to Frederick Prince of Wales. It would have been fortunate if the separation of Hanover from England had taken place then or at any time, by fair means, or by any means.
X The then Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Second.
4 The Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline.
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England ; but that, after the King and .Prince, he should be Elector of Hanover, and Prince William King of Great Britain : but that the King said it was unjust to do it without Prince Frederick's con- sent, who was now of age to judge for himself ; and so this matter now stood. But that Sir Bobert Walpole had told- the King, that if he did not in his life-time bring over Prince Frederick, he would never set his foot on English ground ; so that he did not know whether the King, when he returned from Hanover, would not bring that Prince with him.
26th. — ^Received by Lord Townshend from the BLing a warrant to pass a commission under the Great Seal to Lord Townshend to ... ^ treat and contract with such princes and states as the King should direct, which I accordingly passed under the Great Seal.
29th. — The Duke of Newcastle was with me to explain the mean- ing of the commission to Lord Townshend, which was, that the Emperor and King of Spain being now in strict amity, there was a necessity to enter into a league with other powers to preserve the peace of Europe ; that France and the King of Sardinia were ready, and it was hoped that the Protestant Princes of the Empire and Holland would likewise come into it.
Aug. 11th. — At Sir Robert Walpole'sj dined there with Lord Harcourt and Lord Trevor. The end of our dinine there was to consider what was fit to be done with Lord Macclesfield's £30,000, We all agreed that, till the deficiency was known, there could not be any distnbution ; and therefore the safest way would be to lend this £30,000 upon the land-tax, and so it would carry interest, and liiat interest might go to the credit of the suitors, in aid of the defi- ciency.
12th. — ^At a Regency, some of the Regents being then gone, Mr .8troop bringing a warrant from the Lords Justices to sign for striking £30,000 land-tax tallies to Holford and Lovibono, two of tiie masters, for the use of the suitors, to be disposed of as the Court of Chancery should direct, myself. Lord Dorset, Lord Har^ eourt, and Sir R. Walpole signed the said warrant to the Treasury for that purpose. But at the Regency the week after, this was al- tered, because it was said that the first intimation must come from the Court of Chancery ; and thereon, on the motion of the Attorney- General, an order of Court was made that the Treasury should be desired to issue the £30,000 fine, paid in by the Earl of Maccles- field, to Holford and Thruston, the senior and junior Masters, to be by them lent on the land tax, &c., for the benefit of the suitors.
In the month of August, I drew up an order for obliging the Masters in the Court of Chancery to pay their money into tne Bank according to the order of the 26th May, 1725, reciting or confirming the said order, with additions and explanations ; the Master, of the Rolls intimating by the Attorney-General that he was willing to
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join with me therein. I drew up the order to be made by the ad- vice and assistance of the Master of the Rolls, adding the Usher to the same regulations as the Masters' were, and prescribing his fees. Sent it by the Attorney-General to the Master, then at Belbar. The Attorney-General brought back the order amended, or agreed to by the Master of the Rolls ; but at the same time he told me that, since he came from him, he understood the Usher had been with him, and that he now wrote to him to desire me to suspend the order about the Usher. I told him this was an indefinite sus- pension. I thought the order was necessary for the Master and the Usher together ; but inasmuch as the Usher was of his nomina- tion, if he would ^ve it me under his hand, that he was his officer, and it was his business to look after him, so that he would take it upon him to see that office duly executed, I might suspend it for some time, till further consideration could be had thereof^ This was about the 26th or 27th of August, on one of which days I went to Ockham, and did not return to London till Wednesday night, the 8th of September. Thursday morning, the 9th of September, Mr Floyd, his Secretary, delivered me a letter from him, dated at Belbar, 1st of September, 1725, whereby he declares that he will prevent as much as he can the Usher submitting to any such order.
Sept. 7th. — Tuesday night a messenger came to me from Mr Delafaye, with ten instruments from Hanover, with the King's warrant, countersigned by Lord Townshend, to fix the Great Seal to them ; five of the instruments were, — 1st, the treaty entered into by the Kings of England, France, and Prussia ; 2nd, the first se* parate article ; 3rd, the second separate article ; 4tli, a tlurd separate article ; 5th, a secret article. The other five instruments were duplicates of the same to be executed by the King of France. I returned back word by the messenger that I was coming to town, and would there do what was necessary.
8th. — ^Wednesday, at night, I came to town. The Duke of Somer- set came to me, and I asked him, when he was in the Regencyi and the King abroad, as had happened in Kin^ William's time, and the King made a treaty abroad, whether this were communi* cated to the Regency or Council here ? or whether, upon tlie SLing^s warrant from beyond the sea, the Great Seal was affixed to them here ? He said it was always the custom, on the King^s warrant, for the Chancellor to affix the Great Seal. The next day, Mr Delafaye told me this was always the custom, and that it would be absurd to lay them before the Regency, because the King had agreed and signed them already. I therefore put the Great Seal to them, September 9th, in the evening.
9th. — ^In the morning, the Duke of Newcastle came to me, and showed me a letter from Lord Townshend, that the King and peo- ple there were very apprehensive that the Spaniards were about to
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strike a blow against us, and that they intended to seize our mer- chants' effects, and therefore desired that he would speak to me, and such other of the Kind's ministers as he and Sir Robert Walpole should think fit, to consider how to be ready against such an oc- casion. He suggested that it would be proper to have fifteen or sixteen men-of-war ready, with bombs, boats, &c. &c., so that if we had our merchants' goods seized, immediately to go and demand, and in case of refusal, to compel restitution ; to do as had been done in Wingfield's case in Portugal ; and on this he desired me, after the Regency was over, to dine at Sir Robert Walpole's : and accordingly mere dined there with Sir Robert Walpole, the Duke of Newcastle, Earl of Berkeley, Earl Godolphin, myself, and Mr Delafaye. The occasion of this, the apprehension of Lord Towns- hend, that it appeared plainly that the Emperor was at the bottom of all this management of Spain ; that when the Emperor and Spain made their private treaty, the Emperor proposed to us to accede to that treaty, which the King refused, it being made without his par- ticipation ; and, in truth, it was so, guaranteeing an unknown suc- cession to the House of Austria. The Emperor, at the same time, offered his mediation to make up all differences between the Kinff and Spain. The King thanked mm, but told him he knew of no di^ ferences but such as, considering the friendship then between them, might be terminated among themselves, without the intervention of any other Prince. Some short time after, the Queen of Spain let Mi Stanhope, our envoy there, know that the King of Spain expected that Gibraltar and Minorca should be delivered up ; and the like was repeated in another interview between him a^ the King and the Queen of Spain. He then asked whether, if this were not Qone, the friendship between them was to be determined P They said. No, but hoped that the King, considering the advantages he had bv trade and otherwise from Spain, would make no scruple of it. A little after he was gone from theKing and Queen, the Secretary of State, the Marquis de Grimaldi, let him know by letter, that what- ever friendship the King and Queen had exhibited to Great Britain, it was still to be taken with liie condition that Gibraltar was re- stored. Some time after. Stanhope went to Court, to desire an explanation of this letter, and when it was they expected the re- storation ? The Queen said presto, bien tot bien vtte. dtanhope said that was impossible, it could not be done till the Parliament met, which could not be held during the King^s absence. She replied that the Kin^ might go over on purpose to hold the Parliament, that the Parhament would be all for it. He told her that she would find herself deceived in such information, and that his orders were, to declare positively that the King of England thought those places were secured to him by treaty, and that neither he nor the Parlia- ment would give them up. This, we afterwards found, was set on
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foot by the Emperor, who had prevailed over the passion of the Queen of Spain, on her disappointment in France, and on promise to marry Dan Carlos to one of his daughters. Things running thus BO high, occasioned the speculations of Lord Townshend in ms let- ter. But this morning, the Duke of Newcastle received a letter from Mr Stanhope, wherein the Queen of Spain expressed herself now in another manner, and that she did not mean that the restitution should be done instantly, but hoped the King, in friendship, would find out some way to restore it to the throne of Spain. That he told her it was impossible ever to hope England would give up Gibraltar, at least not without some satisfaction : she asked what satisfaction ? he said he had no orders to offer any such thing, or any instruction about it ; but possibly, if they would offer the free cutting of log- wood in the bay of Campeachy, some advantages for the South Sea Company in point of trade, the continuance of the Assciento, it might be considered of. We all now present thought that Mr Stan- hope had gone too far. But, however, it appeared that Spain began now to explain away those demands, which might possibly arise from the apprehension of their inability to go into a war with England and France. However, we all were of opinion that there should not be any present preparation made of any ships, because that would alarm our own people here at home too much ; that it was very probable this would blow over, but that if it did not, and if any seizure should be made of our merchants' ships, the Earl of Berluey said he would engage to have fifteen men-of-war well manned immediately, when there should be occasion : and we were of opinion that on any act of hostility commenced by Spain, we should immediately, without more ado, make reprisals.
The reason of this triple alliance between Great Britain, France, and Prussia was, as I take it, this, llie Emperor, without the knowledge of the Kings of France or Great Britain, who were the mediators at Cambray, unknown to them, clapped up a peace with Spain, the general contents of which peace were to settle the suc- cession of Tuscany, Parma, &c., in Dan Carlos, according to the quadruple alliance, to secure the succession of the hereditary coun- tries of the Empire in his daughters. We understood that there were secret articles relating to the Ostend company, to give them a privilege of sending ships to the South Sea, and that the Emperor would take upon him to mediate all differences between the Courts of Spain and Great Britain. By which was understood, the Eitaperor's interposing to obtain the restitution to Spain of Gibral- tar and Minorca ; and the Queen of Spain was promised by the Emperor that Don Carlos should marry the eldest daughter of the Emperor, and that he should be sent to Vienna, to be there educated in the German manner. By this method there was a prospect of bringing the three greatest monarchies of Europe and Italy into one
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hand. Don Carlos would, by this means, have Italy, and by his marriage the Asturian hereditary dominions — whosoever had these would be fair for the Empire. The Prince of Asturias is hectical, and if jie should drop Don Carlos would have Spain. If the present King of France should die without issue, Don Carlos, likewise, then would have title to France ; and if all or two of these govern- ments should unite in one jjerson, it would be formidable to Europe.
The Queen of Spain, being under great resentment for sendmg back the Infanta Queen, was worked upon by the Emperor, under the view of this marriage of Don Carlos, to do whatever the Emperor desired. The Emperor, as we understood, put the Spaniar(w on demanding Gibraltar and Minorca, and promised to manage it so as that they should accomplish the obtaining it.
When Coimt Staremberg notified this peace to the King, and offered the Emperor's mediation to make up the differences between •Great Britain and Spain, the King told him he was very glad that the peace was made between them, especially since the terms for the main were the same as the mediator Kings had proposed at Cam- bray, but that as for any differences between him and Spain he knew of none, and so there was no need of any mediation.
In the mean time Mr Stanhope, our envoy at Madrid, was given to understand, both by the King and Queen, that they expected the King should give up Gibraltar and Minorca, and do it speedily. And when he remonstrated to them that the King could not do it without his Parliament, and a Parliament could not now be called the King being beyond sea, the Queen said that it was worth the King's while to come over on purpose to hold a Parliament ; that she was sure, as soon as it was proposed, the Parliament would unanimously give it up, rather than lose the advantages of trade they now enjoyed from Spain. Mr Stanhope told her she was mis- informed, and that the Kmg could not give it up.
The Emperor's ministers were exceedingly elated upon this peace, and could not forbear publicly declaring that now, havmg established peace with Spain, and made their alliance, they should be able to manage the Protestants in Germany, and get the Empire and other princes to guarantee this succession. This obliged the Kings of Great Britam, Frsmce, and Prussia, to enter into this treaty, with liberty to other princes to accede.
Thursday, March 10, 1726. — At the desire of Lord Townshend I was this evening at the Duke of Devonshire's, with the said Lord and Duke, the Dukes of Argyle and Newcastle, and Sir Robert Walpole, where the Lord Townshend acquainted us, that when he came from Hanover with the King, as he was at Helvoetslues, Major-General Diemar, agent from the Landgrave of Hesse, had made a proposition to him in writing to furnish the King with 8000 foot and 4000 horse, upon certain terms in the said writmg con-
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tained ; but inasmuch as he had not then the express direction of the Landgrave of Hesse, he expressed it so in the writing, and that these terms were subject to the approbation of the Landgrave ; that since the King came over, the Landgrave had sent a ratification in form, which was then produced, and that the King thought it reasonable to accept this proposaL None present could declare an opinion to the contrary, but agreed it to be reasonable, because the King being by the treaty at Hanover obliged, in case of an attack on any of the allies, to furnish 8000 foot and 4000 horse, here they would by this means be ready, and would be a satisfaction to the King of Prussia and to Holland, who were both desirous to know where these men would be in case of a rupture. Then the method of the ratitication, or acceptance of this declaration of the Landgrave was proposed to me, because Lord Townshend had brought the draught of a warrant under the sign: manual, countersigned by him- self as secretary, purporting the proposition of Diemar, and the ratification by the Landgrave ; after which followed the King's ap- probation and ratification under the Great Seal. This I thought was not the usual and legal form, because there was no minister of the King's to treat with Diemar, and so would be in efiect a treaty made by the Great Seal only. Lord Townshend said that this was only a declaration under the Landgrave's seal, and that after he had ratified no minister could set his hand to it, because that would put the minister on an equality with a Sovereign Prince ; and therefore the other Prince only must ratify : and that this was not properly a treaty, but only a declaration by the Landgrave, on what terms he would furnish the King with so many soldiers, and that there was nothing more to do than for the King to show his approbation by a ratffication under the Great SeaL 1 thought that the form of tiis instrument made no alteration in the substance, and that this was really nothing else than a treaty, and that there was no instance where ever the Great Seal made a treaty by itself, or ratified a treaty which was not first agreed to by some minister or commissioner. And thereupon it was agreed that inquiry should be made in the Secretary's office, whether there had been anything of this nature before ; and, on inquiry the next day, it being found tiiere was none such, it was agreed that Diemar and Lord Townshend should both mutually sign the agreement by way of treaty, and that after such signing, the ratification should pass according to the usual forms. And I having hinted to Lord Townshend that, when I was to be concerned in the conclusion of an affair, it was but reasonable that I should know the beginning and the progress, he did the 12th of March send to me inclosed the copy of mis matter, drawn up in form of a treaty between him and Diemar.
Thursday in Easter week, 14th April, I was at Ockham, where the Duke of Newcastle sent me by a messenger the copies of Ad-
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miral Hosior's instructions for the "West Indies, and of Sir Charles Wager's for the Baltic. Hosier was at this time sailed, and "Wager sail^ a little after, but before this time I never saw the instructions, nor was acquainted with them.
June 20tn. — ^The Duke of Newcastle communicated to me the in- formation given by Mr Keene, the 15th instant, to the Duke, of the discoveries made to Mr Stanhope in Spain by the Duke of Kipperda. After ^e Duke of Ripperda's disgrace he sheltered himself in Mr Stanhope's house, and, whilst there, made such dis- coveries to Mr Stannope that he did not think fit to send in vmting, lest they should fall into the hands of those who might make an ill use of them, therefore sent Mr Keene to acquaint the Duke of Newcastle with them by word of mouth, that so he might lay them before the King.
The account that Mr Keene gave was, that Mr Stanhope having pressed the Duke of Kipperda to inform him of the schemes that had been projected or agreed to by the Emperor and King of Spain, either with rep^ani to the state of Europe in general, or to His Ma* jest)r*s a£Eairs m particular, the Duke began with the secret treaty of Vienna,* consisting of five articles, and three separate ones, the substance of which he dictated to Mr Stanhope, who took them down in writing with his own hand, and are as follows.
Abt. 1. con&ms and ratifies all preceding treaties made between their Imperial and Catholic Majesties.
2. The Emperor gives the eldest Archduchess in marriage to the Infant Don Carlos.
3. The second Archduchess is given to the Infifnt Don Philip.
4. The Emperor and King of Spain enter into reciprocal engage- ments to begin a war for reconquering the Duchy of Burgunay, Franche Comte, Alsace, and all the French conquests in Flanders and encroachments on Lorraine, Navarre, Roussillon, Petite Sar- daigne, which are to be divided after the following manner. Bur- gundy, Franche Comt§, Alsace, and aU that formerly belonged to the House of Austria, is to be settled upon Don Carlos, and looked upon as the Austrian patrimony : Lorraine is to be restored to its Duke : and Navarre, Roussillon, and La Petite Sardaigne, to be re- united to the Spanish Monarchy.
5. The Emperor and King of Spain do mutually oblige them- selves and posterity, never to give an Archduchess or Infanta in marriage to the House of Bouroon in France.
1. Separate article — That in case the present King of France
• The particulars of this secret treaty of Vienna, related bv Ripperda are curious, and almost incredible ; they rest on the veracity oi Eipperda, Kipperda was an adventurer ; bom a Dutchman, he became a Spanish minister, and at last retired to Morocco, where he died, having attempted to establish a new religion.
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should die without issue to inherit that Crown, the Infant Don Philip is to be King of France.
2. The Emperor and King of Spain do solemnly engage to assist the Pretender with their forces, in order to the putting him in pos- session of the throne of Grreat Britain.
3. Is a reciprocal engagement between the Emperor and King of Spain utterly to extirpate the Protestant religion, and not to lay down their arms till this design be fully and ejectually executed.
None of the King of Spaiirs Ministers besides himself knew this treaty, and that it had not been communicated to any person what- soever, except the Emperor, the King and Queen of Spain, and the Ministers who signed it.
His Catholic Majesty was so earnest for the extirpation of the Protestant religion, that in the several letters that had passed directly between the King of Spain and the Emperor upon this subject, the King proposed, in case of necessity, to see the domains of his throne put up grandezaa to the highest bidder, and dispose of all the employments for life in the Indias to the best purchaser, for promoting this scheme ; and in one of his own 'letters he makes use of these extraordinary expressions, "Je vendrai meme ma chemise."
July 28th. — Received the King's orders by the Duke of Newcastle, to make Ric. Edgecombe, Esq. cmtos rotulorum of the County of Cornwall.
Received also a sign manual to put the Great Seal to the power to Lord Glenorchy, envoy in Denmark, to treat with foreign princes.
Wednesday, June 14th, 1727. — About five in the evening, I had a letter from Sir R. Walpole, informing me that the King was dead, and desiring me to meet him immediately at the Duke of Devon- shire's.
I went there immediately, and found that Sir R. Walpole, on re- ceipt of the news from Lord Townshend, had instantly gone to Richmond, and acquainted the Prince with it, and that thereupon the Prince had resolved to be in town as fast as he could that even- ing. In the mean time we prepared, by the Attorney and Solicitor- General, the draft for proclaiming the King, Eind settled the other things necessary to be done. Tne King, in the mean time, came to town, and sent us word that he was ready, whenever we were ready to wait on him. Accordingly, we who were at the Duke of Devonshire's, except the Duke himself, who had the gout, went to Leicester-House, and there being joined by several others of the nobility, we sent in to the King to desire an audience : and al- though the Archbishop was present, yet I made a short speech to the King, according to agreement, setting out the great sorrow we
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were under by the unexpected death of the late King, and that nothing could relieve or mitigate it, but the certain prospect of happiness under his future administration ; and that being now be- come our lieee lord, we desired leave to withdraw into the Council- chamber, to draw up a form of a proclamation for proclaiming him, and to sign it as usual ; which being granted, we retired into the Council-chamber, and there Hie form, which we had before agreed m>on, was produced, engrossed, and thereon all the Lords of the Council then present first sign^ it Then the doors were opened, and the peers in the outer room were desired to walk in and sign it, which they did ; then it was delivered to the gentlemen in me outer room to sign as many as they pleased. And after it had been some time out, the Lords of the Council sent for the parchment, which being returned, secret intimation was given to the Kin^ that the Council were ready to receive him. Whereon he immediately came in, and seating himself in the royal chair, he there read the declaration, that was printed at the desire of the Lords of the Council : it had been prepared at the Duke of Devonshire's, by Sir R. Walpole and liie Speaker. After that, orders were given for the proclaiming of the Sing the next morning at ten o*clock, and several other orders of course were made, which are to be seen in the Coimcil-book, particularly one for proroguing the Parliament, being now, by reason of the king's demise, immediately to meet.
Thursday, 15th.— A little after ten, I came to Leicester-House, and the Heralds and all being ready, about eleven, the Archbishop of Canterbury, myself, and ouier Lords, went into the yard before Leicester-House, and there the Heralds proclaimed the King, we being there on foot uncovered. As soon as that was done, we went into our respective coaches, and in the street before Leicester-House the King was again proclaimed. From thence we went and pro- claimed him at Charmg-Cross, Temple-Bar, the comer of Wood- street, and the Koyal Exchange.
After that I came home, and about four o'clock got to the House of Lords, where the Parliament met, and all the Lords present tak- ing the oaths, I then informed the House that I had a commission from the Kin^ to prorogue the Parliament to the 27th instant, which was the day it stood prorogued to in the late King's time. And thereon the Lords Commissioners seated themselves as usual in such cases, and on messajg^ by the Usher of the Black Rod, the Speaker and Commons, coming to the bar, the commission was read, and I declared the Parliament prorogued to the 27th inst
From hence I went to Leicester-House, a Council being appointed this evening, and there several other orders were made, wnich had been omitted the evening before, and particularly the same pro- clamation, which had been issued out upon the death of Queen Anne, on the foundation of the act Sexto JnnOy for continuing
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persons in their offices, and requiring them to take the oaths, according to the said act.
Friday, 16th. — A Council in the evening, wherein I delivered up tlie Seais to the King, who re-delivered them to me as Chancellor, and thereon I was sworn Chancellor in Council.
Saturday, 17th. — I was sworn Chancellor in the Chancery Court in Westmmster-Hall, and this day I swore all the Judges de novo, and the King's Council, and some of the Welsh Judges, pursuant to the Act of Parliament, Sexto Anna.
Sunday, 18th. — ^Beceived the Sacrament at Ockham, to qualify myself.
Tuesday, 20th. — ^Took the oaths in the King's Bench ; went to Kensington, and presented the Judges, both English and Welsh, Masters in Chancery, and the Kings Council, who all kissed the King's and Queen's hands.
Saturday, 24th. — ^At a Cabinet Council at Lord Townshend's office, the King's speech settled. There then arose a question, whether the King was to take the test on his first coming to Parliament next Tuesday, and the Lords desired me to look into that matter, and I promised them to do it by Monday morning, and lay what I could nnd before them, for their determination.
Monday, 26th. — At Lord Townshend's in the morning, where were present Harcourt, Trevor, Walpole, Newcastle, the Sp^er, Towna- hend, Godolphin, and myself, and I stated the matter to them.
*^ That by the first Gm. et Mar. c. 2, an Act declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the Crown, it is enacted, That every King and Queen of this realm shall, on the first day of the meeting of the first Parliament next after his or her coming to the Crown, sitting m his or her throne, in the House of Peers, in the presence of the Lords and Commons therein assem- bled, or at his or her coronation, which shall first happen, make and subscribe the declaration, &c."
As this Act stood, there could be no doubt when this declaration was to be made, viz. at the coronation, or on the first day of the meeting of the first Parliament, which should first happen ; that at this time the Parliament determined by the demise of the King, and therefore the first Parliament could not be meant, but of the first Parliament called by him, and the first day of the meeting is the day when the King comes to the House of Lords and opens the Parliament, and declares the causes of the meeting, 4 Inst. 7.
That afterwards, by the 7 et 8 Qui. c. 16, it was enacted. That that Parliament, or any other Parliament which should be sum- moned by King William, his heirs or successors, should not deter- mine or he dissolved by the death or demise of the said King, Ins heirs or successors, but stich Parliament should continue^ and was thereby impowered and required immediately to meet, convene, and
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sit, and to act, notwithstanding such death or demise, for six months and no longer, unless the same should be sooner prorogued or dis- solved by the next heir to the Crown in succession, according to the first Gul. et Mar. c. 2. Though the enacting part of the said Act be general, extending to the death or demises of all future Kings, yet the restriction of determining the continuance within the six months being appropriated only to those who were within the limit- ation of the Crown, by the first Gul. et Mar. c. 2, shows that the intention of the legislature was, this Act should extend no further than to the persons inheriting the Crown imder the limitation of the said Act
12 et 13 Gul. 0. 2; an Act for the further limitation of the Crown, &c., thereby enacts that whosoever should inherit the Crown by virtue of the limitations in the said Act, should make, take, sub- scribe, and repeat the declaration in the first Gul. et Mar. c. 2, in the manner and form thereby prescribed.
Anno 1701, 8th March, King William died, the Parliament then sitting ; they met the same da^r, and continued on to do business. Nothmg was discontinued by his death, but they went on just as if he had been living, and the 7 et 8 Gul. c. 15, not reqmring the oaths to be again taken, they did not take the oaths de novo only before the 2dm March, 1702 ; they took the oath of abiuration, ac- cording to the prescription of the 13 et 14 Gul. c. 6, which passed into a Taw but tne nignt before the King's death, whereby all mem- bers of Parliament, as well peers as commoners, were to take the said abjuration before the 2dth March, 1702."
1701, 11th March, the Queen came to the House the first time, made a speech, but did not subscribe the declaration.
The session- in King William's time, and the session in Queen Anne's time, did not make two different sessions, but one session under two different sovereipis. If they had been different sessions, then on Queen Anne's commg to the Chrown, the Houses of Parlia^ ment must separately have begun all things de novo, which they did not ; the consequence of whicn was, that without a particular pro- vision to the contrary, the Acts passed in Queen Anne's time must in law have commenced the beginning of the session in King Wil- liam's time, because all Acts commence in law the first day of the - session, unless a special time of commencement be Hmited and ap- pointed. Therefore an Act was made the same Parliament, 1 Anne, c 8, that that Act and all other Acts to which the royal assent should be ^ven after the 8th March, 1701, and before the end of the,present session of Parliament, shall commence and begin, and be taken in law to commence and be^n, the said 8th day of March, 1701, unless in such Acts some other tune for commencement thereof be specially limited and appointed. This was the case of the King's dyine when the Parliament was sitting, and it seems that they did not take this
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Parliament to be the first Parliament after the Eine's demise, but the first Parliament that should be by him called, and therefore the Queen did not take the declaration, nor at the beginning of the next, because the coronation intervened, when she took it.
The 4 Anne, c. 8, which was made the year before the Union, was after the Union reenacted by 6 Anne, c 7. 6 Anne, c. 7, is entitled an Act for Security of her Majesty's person and goyemment, and of the Succession to the Crown in the Protestant line ; and enacts that that Parliament, or any other Parliament which should be thereafter summoned by the Queen, her heirs or successors, should not be determined or dissolved by the death or demise of the Queen, her heirs or successors, but such Parliament shall and is hereby enacted to continue. — § 5. And if there be a Parliament in being at the time of such demise, but the same happen to be separ- ated by adjournment or prorogation, such Parliament shall imme- diately after such demise meet, convene, and sit, &c
§ 11 takes notice, that it might hapnen that the next Protestant successor might, at the time of the Queen's demise, be out of the realm of Great Britain, in parts beyond the seas, and therefore makes provision for the administration of the Government, and particularly for holding the Parliament during his absence. And
{)articularly § 17, that the Lords Justices shall not dissolve the Par- lament continued and ordered to assemble and sit as aforesaid, with- out express direction from such succeeding King or Queen.
§ 18. That all the members of both Houses of Parliament, who are or shall be continued by this Act as aforesaid, shall take, the oatht &c.
1714, July 9th, the Parliament was prorogued to the 10th of August.
Aug. 1st, Queen Anne died : and the same day the Parliament met, and in the House of Lords they took the oath, according to the 6th Anne ; and so likewise did me Commons, as soon as the Speaker and they could make a House.
25th, the Parliament prorogued to the 23rd of September.
Sept. 20th, the King came to St James's.
23rd, the Parliament prorogued by Commissioners under the Great Seal to the 21st of October.
Oct 21st, further prorogued by Commissioners under the Great Seal to the 13th of January following $ but, in the mean time, viz. the 5th of January, the Parliament was dissolved by proclamation.
King George did not take the tests at the meeting of this Parlia- ment. He was not in England at that time ; neitner did he take them on the 23rd of September, which was after he came into Eng- land, and was a meeting of Parliament, because Lords and Com- mons were both there when the Commissioners prorogued them. This happened in case where the Parliament was separated by pro-
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rogation ; and on the death of the Queen they assembled, according to the Act of Parliament, and made several la^s.
As on the death of King William, the Parliament being then meeting, it was taken to be the same Parliament and the same ses- sion, so now the opinion was that it was the same Parliament but a different session, tne former session having been determined by the prorogation.
Thus, in the Act that passed this session for the civil list, c. 1, there is a recital of the Soap Act, which passed in the same Parlia- ment, just before the last prorogation by the Queen, and it is said to be an Act made in the last session of this present Parliament ; the nature of the thing shows it to be another session, just as in the common case of a prorogation ; and in the session 1 George, c. 2, in the Act to rectirjr Mistakes in the Names of the Commissioners of the land tax, &c., § 8, the laws which would have expired at the end of that session of Parliament, are enacted to continue in force till the end of the next session of Parliament
So that this was a different session of the same Parliament, as the present case is, and the King did not come to the House and take the tests ; so that the apprehension then must be, that the first Parliament in the 1 Gul. et Mar. must be, what certainly was the meaning of the Act when made, a new Parliament called by the authority of the successor."
On these reasons the Lords all present agreed, that there was no need for the King now to take the test ; but he might do it at his coronation, if that intervened before a new Parliament should be chosen.
On the King's coming to the throne, he ordered Sir B. Walpole and Sir S. Gompton to confer together about his affairs, and let him know wh*at they thought fit to be done for his service from time to time. Sir K. Walpole seemed so sensible that he should be laid aside, that he was very irresolute what to do, whether to retire into the House of Lords and give up all business, or whether to continue.
But the King and the Speaker persuading him to continue, he went on, and undertook what the King expected from him, as to the Civil List and the Queen's jointure, which he forwarded in Parliament.
During which time, by his constant application to the King by himself in the mornings, when the Speaker, by reason of the sitting of the House of Commons, was absent, he so worked upon the King that he not only established himself in favour with him, but pre- vented the cashiering of many others, who otherwise would have been put out.
The Speaker for some time came constantly to the King every afternoon, and had secret conferences with him ; but in about three
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weeks' time he saw his credit diminish, and so left off the constancy of his attendance. The Tories and others, who expected great changes and alterations, finding things not to answer their expect- ations, began to retire about the end of the short session of Parlia- ment that was held for settling the Civil List
The King, when he came to the throne, had formed a system both of men and things, and to make alterations in several offices, as to their power, and particularly as to mine. About July 8th be told me that he expected to nominate to all benefices and prebend- aries that the Chancellor usually nominated to. I told mm, with great submission, that this was a right belonging to the office, an- nexed to it by Act of Parliament and immemorial usage, and I hoped he would not put things out of their ancient course. He told me my Lord Cowper* told him, that in the latter part of his Chancellorship, in the Queen's time, he laid before the Queen a list of all persons whom he recommended to benefices, that she might be satisfied they were good Churchmen. I did not give up uiis point, but directly desired him to consider it ; and anerwaras, at another time, he told me that I should go on as usual.
Sunday, July 16th. — I then saw him again : he seemed now very- pleasant, and I gave him a list of all the Judges, both in England and Wales, King's Serjeants, and Council, and other subormnate officers in the law, in his invariable nomination, and told him, that as to those which were not Judges in England, they were many of them Parliament men, and some now stood again. So he ordered me to make out fiaii for such of them as were like to be Parlia- ment men.
He also told me, now that he had heard that I had acted pru- dently in his father's time, as to the commissions of the peace, that
* Lord Cowper's Diary, found amonffst Lord King's papers at Ockham, confirms George the Second's account of the conversation.
EXTBAOT FROM LOBD OOWPEB^S DIABT.
" November 13thj 1705. — I had the Queen's leave to bestow my livings of £40 and under without consulting her.
'^ June 25th, 1706. — ^At cabinet. Before it begun, I had discourse with the ibrchbishop about disposing of the livings in my gift, and mv having promised the Queen to present as she directed in ul the valuable ones ; ne said he feared it wt)uld be under a worse management than under the late Keeper's servants, by the importunity of the women and other hang- ers-on at court, and pronused to endeavour to get that matter into a pro- per method."
These importunate women and other han^rs-on at court, were proba- bly the first and loudest to cry " the Church is in danger," on every occasion that suited their interest or secured their patronage ; and the^ thought the best security of the Church was to be found in the worst distribution of the richest benefices in that Church.
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his pleasure was, that I should put into the commission of the peace all genUemen of rank and qualit}r in the several counties, unless they were in direct opposition to his Government ; but still keep a majority of those who were known to be most firmly in his interest, and he would have me declare the former part as his sentiment.
I did declare this to very few, but I did to Sir T. Hanmer among others, which afterwards occasioned me a great deal of trouble ; for he gave me the names of Sir R. Kemp, Sir C. Blois, and ^ree otiiers, to put into the commission of the peace for Suffolk, which I promisee! him to do, and intended so to have done in the Novem- ber following, when the commission of the peace was renewed. I showed these names to the Duke of Grafton, the Lord-Lieutenant, but he would not hear of them. I told him what the King had told me, and what I had said to Sir Thomas Hanmer ; whereon he went to the King, and complained to the King, who told me of it, and that the Duke of Grafton assured him these men were Jesuits, and that he did not intend that such should be put in. I told him I never intended to put in any such ; but these were certainly gen- tlemen of quality, and recommended to me by Sir T. Hanmer, whom his Majesty knew to be well affected to his Government. But I was not so fond of them ; but if his Majesty did not think fit they should be put in, I should not pu^ them in. He told me that I must in this be guided by the Duke of Grafton, the Lord-Lieuten- ant ; so I did not put them in.
November 24th, Friday. — Sir R. Walpole came to my house, and informed me that there was a treaty on foot between the King and the Duke of Wolfenbuttel, whose resident, Count Dehn, was here ; that it was as good as adjusted, and that Lord Townshend being sick, he could not attend to it ; and that the King would not let it be communicated to the whole Cabinet, but would take the three first of the lay Lords, viz. the Chancellor, President of the Council, Privy Seal, the two Secretaries, and Sir R. Walpole, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I told him I had heard nothing of it, but that whatever the King commanded must be submitted to. He left with me a draft of the intended treaty in English. I desired to see the French, because that must be the original.
At this time, he took occasion to tell me of the great credit he had with the King, and that it was principally by the means of the Queen, who was the most able woman to govern in the world.
However, he wished now he had left off when the King came to the throne, for he looked upon himself to be in the worst situation of any man in England ; that that which engaged him to go on, was seeing every one willing to settle a large Civil List on the King. •He went with the others, and that the &vil List now given ex- ceeded the Civil List ^ven to his father, and all the additions made to it ; so that this Civil List, which was given with unanimity, was
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more than the late King ever had, and so was a justificatioD of his conduct as to that matter in the late reign : that ne was now struck at by a great number of people. All those who had hopes on the King's coming to the throne, seeing themselves disappointed, looked upon him as the cause. All the discontented Whigs, and Carteret, Roxburgh, Berkeley, Bolingbroke, the Speaker, Compton, and Pulteney, were entered into a formal confederacy against him ; and if he could once retire, he never would meddle by way of opposition, but would comply with the Government in everything.
25th. — ^Lord Townshend sent me the French draught of the in- tended treaty.
Sunday, 26th. — At Court. Sir R. Walpble desired me to be at home the next evening, for he would come and talk with me about the treaty. The King spoke to me that he was entering into a treaty with the Duke of Wolfenbuttel ; that it was personal to him, and that he had appointed me a Commissioner. I told him it was usual to appoint the whole Cabinet. He said he did not like it. I told lum I must submit to his pleasure.
27th. — I was at home all the evening to expect Sir R. Walpole ; but he sent me word at eight that evening that he could not come.
28th. — Sir R. Walpole came to me in the evening, and talked to me about the treaty, and that ke was against having the Cabinet ; no good ever came from them.
29th. — ^This being the day in term when I had resolved to go to Ockham, just before I went out, there came a Bill to me by a mes- senger, signed by the King, for passing the Commission under the Great Seal, to treat and sign with the Ministers of the Duke of Wolfenbuttel. The said Bill or Warrant was dated the 28th of November. I immediately put the seal to the Commission, delivered it to the messenger, and forthwith went to Ockham.
30th. — Received at Ockham a letter from the Duke of Newcastle, dated November 29th, wherein he acquainted me that the treaty with the Duke of Wolfenbuttel had been adjusted with Count Dehn ; and he being very pressing to have it signed forthwith, the Duke desired me to be in town this day, that so we might meet, and sign with Count Dehn on Friday. He likewise took notice, that when I came, the Commission must be re-sealed, the reason whereof he would tell me when he saw me. To this I returned answer, that my constant and continued application to the business of the Court of Chancery had brought upon me rheumatical and sciatical pains ; and if I had any regard to myself or family, I must for remedy stay three or four days m the country. And, therefore, I hoped he would excuse my coming this day, especially when there was no necessity, because two are sufficient to sign. *
Dec. 1st. — ^Received a letter from the Duke of Newcastle, dated 80th November, letting me know that there was a mistake in the
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date of the fxill power, and that which made it materia] was, that Count Dehn had writ to his master, on Saturday the 26th, that the treaty was then signed ; and therefore the treaty must be antedated, and the Kind's warrant, and so sent me a new warrant, dated the 26th, to which I put the seal and returned it. And he told me by the same letter, that on the return of this full power new sealed, they could sign the treaty without giving me any ^rther trouble. I received at the same time a letter from Sir R. Walpole, much to the same purpose.
January 2nd, 1728. — In the evening at the Duke of Devonshire's, there being present the said Duke, me Duke of Newcastle, Sir R. Walpole, Lord Trevor, and myself. The Duke of Newcastle and Sir R. Walpole communicated to us that the King of France had sent orders to Count Rottemburg, with memoires or instructions very little different from what had been desired of them : and pro- ducing a copy of these memoires, Sir R. Walpole asked whether anything was to be objected to these memoires, or to our assenting to them. I asked him whether they were not already gone from the Court of France to Rottemburg at the Court of Spain. He told me they were. I then said that our assent was not now of any great importance. On that he went on to read them, and asked particularly whether in that part of the memoires or orders which related to the ship Prince Frederick, that it should be determined at the Congress whether it was contraband or not, et en cette discus- sion all the pretensions of Spain should be considered, and the affair of Gibraltar, or anything relating thereto, was included. We all thought, both from what went before and after, that it was not in- cluded. This ultimatum on our side was sent from the Court of France to Rottemburg, to Madrid, vnth orders that if it were not complied with he should come away in two days after. But before these orders came, Rottemburg prevailed on the King of Spain to propose a new ultimatum on his side, which was ramer more for our advantage than that which we sent.
In the evening of January 19th, a courier brought from France this ultimatum on the Spanish side. Whereon a cabinet was held at Lord Townshend's by the King's orders on Saturday evening, 20th January, whereat were present King, Trevor, Devonshire, Argyle, Bolton, Grafton, Dorset, Wilmington, Sir R. Walpole, Townshend, Newcastle, Scarborough, and Horace Walpole, and all agreed to advise the King to comply with it The principal matter in debate was in the article wherem the pretences about uie Prince Frederick were to be left to the Congress.
There is a general clause, that all reciprocal pretensions shall be left to the Congress generally. Whether the pretension to Gibraltar was included in the general words. The 8th article of the prelimin- aries hath the same word, that all pretensions shall be open at the
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Congress. But it is plain that that excludes any pretension about Gibndtar, because one of the preliminaries is, that all things shall continue as they were by treaties before 1725, and therefore the pretensions to be discussed must be of such things as are consistent with the preliminaries ; and though the words here be general, yet they cannot be construed to design anything agreed to before the preliminaries : and the whole transaction of the affair and of this article shows that it can only be meant of pretensions for prizes, in- demnification for damages and the like, and so is understood by France, the Cardinal having given assurance more than once that the Court of France will support us with respect to Gibraltar. This was afterwards, with an amendment of mutually laying all preten- sions before the Congress, returned to France, and &om thence to Spain, who agreed to it and signed it. •
After this Horace Walpole pressed the Cardinal that the powers of the Hanover alliance might settle between themselves then: several pretensions, and to stick to them at the Congress. The Cardinal, upon the proposal, agreed that the preliminary article must be the ground- work of all our proceedings at the Congress, and that the union of the Treaty of Hanover must still subsist ; but he did not seem disposed to have any particular points reduced into writing, by way of agree- ment or instruction to the respective ministers, saying that as it was impossible to have the secret kept considering the nature of the Butch
fovemment, so it would ^ve an occasion to our adversaries to up- raid us wiUi having previously settled among ourselves all points, without having heard the reasons and pretensions of others.
By Horace Walpole's letter to the Duke of Newcastle of the 23rd March, 1728, N.S., he gives an account, that that day he had been at the Cardinal's at Versailles, where he found the Dutch Ministers with him, and as they had desired that he would be present, they being then to communicate the points they had received in confi- dence from the Pensionary, he joined them, and the said points were then examined.
These were points proposed on the part of the States to the Ministers of France and Great Britain, as well for the form as the matter of the future Congress. The first three points were as to the form of the Congress, the last four as to the matter. They proposed that the matter should be principally to regulate and settle among the allies of Hanover the points which created the misimderstanding and differences in Europe; as, with respect to the Dutch, the abolition of the Ostend trade, and the not granting any further licences to the Imperial ships. And the sixth point was, that the treaties anterior to the year 1725, being to serve as a basis in the negotiations in the Congress, and the States having stipulated by the barrier treaty, 15th November, 1715, for the extension of those limits which were regulated by the posterior convention, 22nd
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December, 1718, and that that stipulation not having yet taken effect, as this is an important point, they TOoposed whether this should not be carried to the Congress. Mx Walpole declared that England, beinff a party and guarantee to the barrier treaty, was ready to do what might be thought proper. The Cardinal said it was to be considered whether it would not be more advisable for the States to renew first their application to the Imperial Court, for the execution of these treaties.
The seventh point was about Embden; that the Dutch having been in possession for more than a hundred ^ears, to put a garrison in the town of Embden, and in the fort of Lierwort, m East Fries- land ; that if in virtue of any decrees given or to be given by the Aulic Chamber at Vienna, in the differences between the prince and the States of East Friesland, or otherwise they should endeavour to oblige the Dutch troops to withdraw out of these places, and put others in their room, in prejudice of so long and just a possession, which is absolutely necessary for their safety on that side, that they cannot neglect to maintain meir garrisons .there, in persuasion and expectation that the allies will, in case of necessity, assist them, and therefore they desired to know their sentiments thereon. If it would be proper to bring this point to the Congress, or if it be suf- ficient that the States be assured of the assistance of France and Qreat Britain in the cases before mentioned ?
As to this, the Cardinal in this conference seemed desirous to be more particularly informed of the titles and facts relating to the States* rights for having a garrison in that place. Mr Walpole was of opinion that the possession of a hundred years, and the States* immediate security, was strong indication of having right and reason on their side, and motives which, on account of the strict union be- tween them, Great Britain, and France, might induce them to con- sider what will be necessary for the security and satisfaction of the States in it.
To this letter of the 23rd March, 1728, N. S., the Duke of New- castle sent two letters to Horace Walpole, by Sharp the messenger, the one private, the other very private, both dated 21st March, 1727-8, O. S. In the private letter he signifies that it was the King's sentiment that the Hanover allies should immediately come to a resolution, not to a^ee to anything at the Congress but what is conformable to the prehminary articles, and to the several engage- ments they are under to each other as to any other power, and that he thought that something of this nature should be put into writing ; and that he thought the Cardinal's objection against reducing the principal points into writing might be obviated, and that the uiing might be kept a secret, it being in effect no more than settling what particular instructions shall be given to the ministers of the several powers ,* that the rejecting any proposal inconsistent with the en-
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gagement that the Hanover allies are xinder to each other, or to any other power, would greatly shorten the business, as indeed comprehenmng most, if not all, the points that came properly in debate. But as it may be thought necessary to insert, particularly in the instructions, such points as relate to each power, Mr Walpole is directed to take care to have those in which his Majesty and his subjects are more immediately concerned, explained and settled, the chief of which are already secured by the Hanover treaty and the preliminary articles, and therefore the Duke doth not enter into particulars, but only in general observes that it should be inserted m the instructions, that any proposal against his Majesty's pos- sessions, and particularly that of Gibraltar, should be rejected ; and that effectual care should be taken to put the trade of England, France, and Holland upon the foot it was before the year 1726. That as some points are referred to the decision of the Congress, relating to the contraband trade carried on by the ship the Prince Frederick, and to the restitution of prizes taken at sea, justice should be done to the King and his subjects, and to all others of that na- ture that might be carried to the Congress.
As to the paper given in by the Dutch ministers containing these points, he suggests to him, that his Majesty is willing to do whatever the Dutch think necessary for their security ; and then answers point by point, and particularly as to the barrier, that his Majesty is ready to give all the assurances imaginable to the Dutch for the execution of the barrier treatj. And as to the -affair of Embden, that the King is willing to give them all possible assurance of his assistance and support.
In the very private letter of the same date, sent by the same messenger, the Duke writes, that though in the paper of points delivered to the Dutch Ministers there are two points which cannot well be said to have been any cause of the present misunderstanding between the Powers now at variance, and consequently cannot be looked upon as an object of the preliminary articles ; viz. what re- lates to the barrier treaty, and to the affair of Embden ; yet the King, out of his great desire to preserve in everything the most perfect unanimity with the States, nas given into it, and hopes that this great facility he has shown in what concerns them, will procure a suitable return from them in whatsoever may assist his Majesty's interest ; and that they will stand by him in regard to any little dispute which the Kins may have to settle with the Emperor and the Congress. The points that occur to his Majesty at present are, the investiture of Bremen and Verden, and what relates to tiie country of Hadelen. It is certain that his Majesty is very hardly dealt with in both these cases ; and it is not natural that there should be a perfect reconciliation with the Emperor till he has done the King justice on these heads.
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Your Excellency will in g^reat confidence mention these points to Mr Pesters, and show him the justice thereof; that as bis Majesty makes no difficulty in what concerns the States, they should show the Kinff the same regard in what touches his particular interest. You will ask Mr Pesters whether he thinks the States will come into it, and whether he can take upon him to answer for it ; and if he cimnot, you will beg of him to write to the Pensionary upon it, and in the mean time not to mention it to Mr Van Hoes, ^ut if Mr Pesters himself is willing to engage for it, you will then speak of it to the Cardinal, or omerwise not say anything of it to him till you have the Pensionary's answers ; and if our friends in Holland do agree to it, as it is hardly possible to imagine they should not, you will then take care to have it inserted in the instructions to the several plenipotentiaries at the Congress.
In the said very private letter, the Duke teUs Mr Walpole that he was sufficiently apprized of the matter of Bremen and Verden ; but as to the country of Hadelen, he enclosed in his letter a pap^ containing a particular statement of that matter, which was ^wn by Mr St Saphorin, the contents of which paper was this. The country of Hadelen, which was part of the estates of the kte Duke of Saxe Lawenburg, was taken mto sequestration by the Emperor ; whilst the Princes of the House of Brunswick put themselves in possession of the rest of the Duchy of Saxe Lawenburg, in virtue of the right of reversion which they had. The ElectorS House of Saxony pretended that both the Duchy and the country of Hadelen ought to come to him, in consequence des expeetatives which the Emperor had sfiven him. But afterwards, the Electoral House of Saxony yielded their rieht to his late Majesty.
On the other side, the Princess of Baden, daughter of the late Duke of Lawenburg, pretended also to the succession ; yet neither she, nor the Princess Palatine her sister, could hinder the present Emperor from giving, in the year 1716, the investitures of the pos- sessor of Lawenburg to his late Majesty. But as to the countiy of Hadelen being taken once into sequestration, it there remains, under pretence that it could not be given to the King before the Aulic Uouncil had decided this dispute by way of law.
It was to no purpose that it was shown on the part of his Majesty that this country was always a part of Lawenburg, and by conse- Quence ought to follow its fate ; and it was in vam to remember tne Court of Vienna of the promises which the Emperor had made to the King in the year 1713, whilst he had a great body of troops at the disposition of the Emperor, that this country should be re- mitted to him. They persisted still at Vienna to say mat they would not invest the King without a previous judgment. The Imperial Court was thereon strongly pressed to examine this dSakc before the Aidic Council.
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At length, after many delays, this Council examined the preten- sions of the Princesses of Saxe Lawenburg, and those of Sweden, which made some also; and both were found to be without any right, and rejected. And then, when every one expected that in consequence thereof the investiture of this country would be giyen to the late King, the Count de Wurmbrand maintained in the Aulic Council, that the fief did not belong to the late King, but was es- cheated, and by consequence devolved to the Emperor. This notion caused great debates in the Aulic Council. But the proposition of the Count de Wurmbrand, in all probability underhand supported by the Court, carried it by the plurality of votes, referring it never- theless to the Emperor, and laying before him the reasons of both opinions. Since which nothing^ publicly had been done thereon, so that it is in the power of the Emperor to do justice to the present King, and to give him possession of this country of Hadelen.
In a letter from Mr Walpole and Lord Waldgrave from Paris to the Duke of Newcastle, dated 30th of March, N. S. 1728, they tell him, that in order to execute his Majesty's commands contained in his Grace's and Lord Townshend's letters of the 11th inst. O. S., to each of them respectively, they waited on the Cardinal that morning at Versailles ; and having thoroughly considered the point upon which they were to endeavour to learn his Eminence's sentiments, and the manner of doing it, they thought it most prudent, instead of communicating to him a French translation of Lord Townshend's letter, to make use of Lord Waldgrave's taking leave of him, on ac- count of his setting put the Monday following for Vienna, to desire to know his thoughts upon some matters about which it was reason- able to expect that the Court of Vienna would sound him upon his arrival there. One of the points was about guaranteeing the Emperor's succession ; another was the Emperor's design of uniting the Duchies of Milan and Mantua, and makmg them a feminine fief to be annexed to the Empire.
The next point was, whether such interests and pretensions as were only collateral, particularly those of the North and the Ger- manic body, should or should not be considered at the Congress. The Cardinal seemed to be of opinion that these matters should be postponed, and considered or not as circumstances might require, after things of more immediate concern should have l^en debated and settled ; though he thinks that the afiiedr of the North, and par- ticularly that of Steswick, is an object of the preliminaries by virtue of an article in them. Lastly, they mentioned to his Eminence the injustice done to his Majesty by the sequestration of the country of Hadelen, and the refusal of the investiture of Bremen and Verden, letting his Eminence know that his Majesty would never make any separate addresses to the Lnperial Court for his undoubted rights in these points, being persuaded that France would be equally steady
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in their engagement to him. His Eminence said that he was con- vinced that the Emperor detained these things without doing his Majesty justice, in the hope of obtaining some particular advantage from it, and therefore he was very sensible of this mark of his Ma- jesty's steadiness and union, and that he might depend at all times upon a suitable return from their Court.
May 19th. — At Lord Townshend's ; met himself, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Trevor, Duke of Newcastle, and Sir R. Walnole ; about renewing the treaties with Holland ; the Dutch usually re- newing all their treaties with us on the accession of a new King ; this was only a renewing of the old treaties with an explanation about rehearing of causes of no great significancy ; and the 27th following, these treaties were signed by us six on the part of Eng- land, and by the Count Welderen and Sylvius on the part of Holland. 2tith May, the Parliament was prorogued to the 8th of August following.
Monday, November. — ^A letter came from Fontainbleau, dated 8th, N. S., from Messrs Stanhope and Walpole, informing us that Count Zinzendorf, on the arrival of a courier from Vienna, was much altered as to his countenance and disposition, and that it appeared to be his orders not to sign without the concurrence of Spam, and that it appeared that he had many personal enemies at Vienna, and he intended to return to Vienna as soon as he had a courier from Madrid, to know how the Duke of Boumonville was there received; and that he would go to Vienna before the Duke of Boumonville returned to Soissons, and hoped by his presence to set things right again.
This seems to put a stop to the affairs of the peace ; thereupon the Duke of Newcastle sent a letter, dated November 6th, O. S., to Mr Stanhope and Mr Walpole, that in case nothing should come of the Duke of Boumonville's journey to Madrid, from which little good could be expected, they should forthwith commimicate to the Cardinal his Majesty's sentiments thereon, in order to be prepared for the worst, and to be determined amongst ourselves what to do in such an emergency which is likely to fall out.
As the notion of a provisional treaty arose from the Court of Vienna, the reason of it was apprehended to be, that if the Congress went on, the several grievances of the empire, the affair of the marriages, and many other points would be brought before them, contrary to the Emperor's inclination, and therefore his Majesty thought that one way of terrifying the Imperial Court would be, to let them see that if the Congress should be resumed, these points would infallibly come into debate, and the Allies must have justice done on them. But the chief point that the King thinks is to be pressed is, that the Allies of Hanover should,«upon the refusal of the Emperor and Spain, take a resolutipn generally, which should be
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commuDicated both to the Imperial Court and to that of Spain, whereby the Allies should declare, that in case the Emperor and Spain will not come into the provisional treaty, as last adjusted by Count Zinzendorf with the English, French, and Spanish Ministers, and promised to be ffenerally supported by them all, that then within a time certain, for example, two months, the Allies will then break off all negotiations, and take the proper measures to obtain Buch satisfaction and redress upon their several grievances, and to procure for themselves that justice which they could not obtain by the way of treaty and negotiation: this his Majesty looking upon to be the only means left for bringing these two powers to a compli- ance. As the declaration, in the King's opinion, would be a right measure with regard to the Emperor and Spain, his Majesty does also look upon it to be what his Allies cannot refuse to come into. The Cardinal will consider that the King is just upon opening the session of Parliament, and had the greatest reason to hope that the negotiation would by this time have been finished to his own and his Ames' satisfaction ; while, on the contrary, matters seem now to be further from a settlement than ever, the Emperor gone back from what his own Minister proposed, and Spain more intractable than it had ever been ; and if his Majesty pannot have the satisfaction to show his Parliament that his Allies are still firm and steady to him, and that if an end of our present difficulties cannot be brought about one way, it will another ; which will be one good effect of the prp^ posed aeclaration. The Cardinal will much reflect what will uien be the notion here of France, and of the manner of that Crown's supporting its engagements, especially when it cannot be denied that if the French Court had showed me vigour they ought to have done, all this must have been over several months ago, and his Ma- jesty doth not conceive that the Cardinal in justice or friendship can refuse this, or that in act or policy he should be inclined to do so.
March 19th, 1728-9.— Lord Townshend sent me some letters from Lord Chesterfield, Ambassador in Holland, to Lord Towns- hend, and his answers ; the first was a private letter from the Hague, from Lord Chesterfield to Lord Townshend, dated 15th March, 1729 ; wherein he wrote that he had been yesterday with the Pen- sionary, to know if he had any positive answer to give upon the subject of a very private letter of the 20th of February, 0. S., of Lord Townshend's, and that the answer he gave was, that he had consulted with the Greffier, and with some few others of his friends, upon the proposition of concerting a plan with England, to oblige the Emperor and Spain to come into measures, ana to excite and press France to join in that design, but that he found it was im- possible for him tjp propose it here ; that they were so sensible of their own weakness, so persuaded of the inactivity of France, and
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SO apprehensive of engaging in measures that may by any accident bring on a war, that he was sure such a proposal would be instantly rejected, and with a good share of indignation upon himself for having done it. That the only possible way of bringing it about, "was for England and France to join in pressing the Republic to come into such measures, in which case, he beheved, they neither could or would refuse, but to act separately with England alone he was sure they would never do it.
The Earl of Chesterfield proceeds further in his letter to give an account of the arguments that he made use of with the Pensionary to induce him to enter into the concerting of the said plan with England, but it was all without success. For the Pensionary told him that he was as much convinced of the truth of those reasonings as Lord Chesterfield could be himself, and as desirous to bring the Republic into vigorous measures if possible ; but that the weakness of the government, the private interest of some, and the reasonable fears of others, made it impossible to carry it through, and conse- quently imprudent to attempt it. That besides, the stay that the Prince of Orange had made at the Hague, though but short, had given so great an alarm, and caused so much uneasiness amongst the anti-Stadtholder party, that they could think of nothing else, and they would apprehend that a war would facilitate the designs of that Prince.
The Earl of Chesterfield says further in that letter, that it is impossible to describe the miserable situation of the Republic The disputes between province and l)rovince engross both the thoughts and the time of the States-General, as the disputes be- tween town and town wholly employ the states of each particular province. Private interest or resentment is to be gratified at the expense of the whole. Present and imminent dangers are neglected for the fear of those remote and chimerical ; and I may venture to say with justice of this government, that the utter ignorance of some, the notorious depravity of many, and the private view of all, render this Republic at present a most contemptible enemy, and a most insignificant ally.
Of the same date with the former letter, the Earl of Chesterfield sent another very secret letter to Lord Townshend, that having mentioned in his private letter something the Pensionary said to him concerning the Prince of Orange, he would in this give him a more particular account of what passed between him and the Pen- sionary on that subject, viz. — that the Pensionary having recapitu- lated everything that had happened during that Prince's stay at the Hague, said that everybody looked upon his coming there as a forerunner of his match with the Princess Royal, and upon that match as a sure forerunner of the Stadhouderat ; that this persua- sion gave the utmost uneasiness there, and imless removed, might
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be attended at the time witli very ill consequences, and that he wished some declaration could be made, or something done on the part of England to quiet their fears. That he was informed the Prince of Orange, was to return here in May at the time of the Kermes, and when the troops were to be exercised, and the militia imder arms. That this would give a general alarm, and might have a very ill effect with regard to England at the time, and Uierefore desired that his return might be prevented. The Pensionary, in further talking about the dSairs of the Stadtholder, said that when he was made Pensionary, he was asked whether he would be for
E reserving the present form of government ? That he had promised e would, and though he plainly said now that sooner or later a Stadtholder would come, ttiat yet he would not betray his trust as a minister, but when that should happen, " il quitteroit la partie," and retire.
The Earl of Chesterfield afterwards goes on in the said letter, and writes that the Prince of Orange's presence at the Hague had had a much better effect than either his friends could have expected, or his enemies apprehended. The people followed him wherever he went, crying out, Long live our Stadtholder ! and uttering bitter invectives against the present government ; so that with a very little trouble a tumult might have been raised equal to that in 1672. His levee was crowded with officers of all ranks, who openly declared themselves for him ; and even those who talked the loudest against him before his arrival, and declared they would not go near him, seeing the fury of the people in his favour, thought it prudent at last to wait upon him, tnough with an ill grace. The great point then to be considered, and by which that Prince, I think, is to direct his con- duct, is, whether his Majesty intends to bestow the Princess Koyal on him or not : and when ? If his Majesty should think fit to make that match this summer, I think it is absolutely necessary he should return to this place at the time I mentioned before, viz. May next at the Kermes, both upon account of the main view of the Stadhouderat, and upon account of his admission into the council of state in September, which is a very important, point, and a leading card to the other. For as I am persuaded the Pensionary and the Greffier can never be brought to approve that match, whenever it shall be made, the scabbard is thrown away, and the main object must be pushed with vigour, and I doubt not with success. On the other hand it is certain that the match, the return of the Prince, and his admission to the council of state, will cause very great disorders here, both parties being now animated in the highest degree, so that it is to be considered how far the present situation of public affairs makes it advisable or not to venture those disorders that will inevit- ably happen. Upon the whole, I am persuaded the Prince is not likely to be Stadtholder by fair means, the power and profit of that
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employment being so much taken away from the most considerable people of the province, who will always oppose it. But I am con- vinced, too, that whenever it shall be thought proper to push that aflfair, a general insurrection of the people may with very little diffi- culty and expense be procured, and a Stadtholder imposed upon the province.
10th March, 1728-9, O. S., Lord Townshend wrote to Lord Ches- terfield, that the King was sorry to see by his letter of the 15th inst. N. S. that it would be in vain to propose to the Republic the concerting of a plan with his Majesty, in order to press France to join in it, and by that means effectually oblige the Emperor and Spain to^come to a speedy determination. But his Maiesty hopes and expects that the States may be induced to join with his Majesty (shoula the provisional treaty be rejected by the Courts of Vienna and Madrid) in preventing our being carried back to the Congresa again ; aad therefore your Excellency may in confidence assure the Pensionary and Gremer that his Majesty is at all events determined not to submit to this. But this is certainly the aim of the Court of Madrid, and we have reason to think that the Court of Vienna has likewise the same view. The term prescribed by the 8th article ot the preliminary treaty for the duration of the Congress, is but four months. Now, not only that number, but above as many more have been spent since the opening of the Congress, and that purely by the fault of Spain, which has not hitherto vouchsafed to give the allies of Hanover an answer upon the provisional treaty. His Ma- jesty might in justice insist upon the execution of the preliminaries in this point, which limits the duration of the Congress to the term before mentioned, and in consequence not permit his plenipoten- tiaries to return thither, unless it be to sign the provisional treaty ; but rather chooses to abide by the preliminaries for the remainder of the seven years prescribed by them as the term for the cessation of hostilities, than begin the Congress again.
Mr Stanhope and Mr Walpole will be going to France the latter end of this week or the beginning of the next, and will be instructed to acquaint the Cardinal with his Majest/s resolution not to go back to the Congress unless to sign. His Majesty must, for the reason before mentioned, insist to know the Pensionary's opinion as to the probability of obtaining from the State the same orders to their Mimsters at Paris, to join with t^hose of England in the par- ticular.
The same 10th March, O.S., Lord Townshend wrote a very secret letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, in answer to the EarPs said very secret letter of the 19th March, 1729, N. S., wherein he writes, " Your Excellency knows that the King, as well as his royal father, always looked upon the States as the only ally upon whose friend- ship they could rely upon all occasions ; and in consequence of this
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principally, his Majesty, as well as the late King, has never suffered any other consideration, but the real good and prosperity of the public, to have any share in his sentiments, or in the part he was acting towards them ; and for this reason, it always has been his in- tention that his ministers residing in Holland should avoid entering into any factions or cabals. It is no secret to the Pensionary that his NJajesty, out of regard to the House of Nassau, and foreseeing from the confused and disunited state of the Commonwealth under its present form, that the Prince might one day arrive at being Stadtholder, has given him reason to hope that, at some time or other, he may have one of his Majesty s daughters in marriage. And in this the King thinks he has acted the part of a true friend, not only to the Prince, but to the Republic ; there being no alliance so desirable for them as that of a Princess of England : further than this the King has not gone. In order to give the Pensionary the most signal proof of the confidence reposed in him, his Majesty is resolved to oreak through the rule he has hitherto prescribed to himself, in not interposing in what relates to the government of the Republic, and to comply with what the Pensionary desires of him, by using his good offices with the Prince, to induce him not to return to the Hague at the time of .the Kermes ; your Excellency will therefore find some way of acquainting, in the utmost secrecy, either the Prince or somebody in his confidence, that his Majesty doth earnestly entreat his Highness to consider most maturely how far it may be advisable for him to return to the Hague at the time of the fair."
25th March, 1729, N. S.— The Earl of Chestei^eld writes from the Hague to Lord Townshend, that he had received his letter of the 10th instant, O. S., and that he had communicated his {>rivate letter to the Pensionary and Greffier ; and after they had considered of it, waited separately on the Pensionary and Greffier, to know their determination upon it. The Pensionary told him that he was persuaded the Republic could never be brought to send orders to their plenipotentiaries not to return to the Congress, unless to sign the provisional treaty, without knowing first what part France would take in that aifair ; that the provisional treaty had never been much relished in Holland, and therefore it was very improb- able that they would agree to break up the Congress for the sake of it ; that he was convinced, should Ins make the proposal to the States, they would look upon the breaking up of the Congress as the beginning of hostilities, the thing they dread here. That they would certainly take the proposal ad referendum^ and consult their principals upon it ; by which means the affair would become public, and if not agreed to at last, as he was persuaded it would not, the attempt proving unsuccessful, he thought would be attended with many verj^ ill consequences, both with regard to his Majesty
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and the alliance. That he thought the most probable way to get this proposition agreed to by the Republic, was for his Majesty's plenipotentiaries to communicate with the plenipotentiaries of those States their orders not to return to the Congress unless to si^n, and to press them, id est, the Dutch ministers, strongly to join with them ; that of course they would write this to the States, and desire instructions upqn it, and that he thought it more likely to obtain such instructions that way than any other, especially if France seemed to come into it, or even did not oppose it. That he was persuaded France would do nothing till they saw what became of the effects of the galleons, and that even afterwards he very much questioned if they could ever be brought to aid : which persuasion he said was so universal here, that it was one of the great causes of the unwillingness and apprehensions of their Republic. The senti- ments of the Gxeffier, on my conversation, were much the same, that, till he had his M^'esty's further orders, he should not show him the letter about the rrince of Orange. That the affairs of the Prince of Orange in Zealand seemed to take a favourable turn, and I think it not impossible that he may be declared Stadtholder of that pro- vince very unexpectedly ; the whole thing depends upon three peo- ple, two of whom are corruptible. I must therefore beg to know whether, if a sum not exceeding ten thousand should absolutely secure that affair, I might, upon a proper occasion, be empowered to promise it P
18th March, 1728, 0. S.— Lord Townshend wrote to Lord Chester- field, to make his Majesty's compliments to the Pensionary, for so freely declaring his opinion, and for suggesting the expedient which he thought the most probable, in order to get his Majesty's proposal agreed to by the States ; in pursuance of which opmion, Mr Stan- hoj>e and Mr Walpole will have his Majesty's instructions, upon their return to Paris, to press the Dutch plenipotentiaries to join with them in declaring the resolution of their masters not to return to the Congress unless to sign ,* and as the Pensionary thinks this the best method of bringing that matter before the States, his Ma- jesty depends, when it does actually come thither, that he will apply nis whole credit and influence towards procuring a favourable reso- lution upon it. That the King approved his not communicating his letter about the Prince of Orange, before he had transmitted an account of his conference with the Pensionary and Greflier. That a new one was now sent him much to the same effect with the first. That as to the proposal that the King should advance a sum of money towards procuring the Stadtholderato of the province of Zealand for the Prince of Orange, his Majesty did not think it at all expedient for him to take a step of that nature at present, when the consequences may be throwing things into disorder, and without any immediate real advantage to the Prmce. Lord Townshend told
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me, after I had read these letters, that there were two material things in them : the refusing to go to the Congress unless to sign, and the King's interfering so far as he doth in these letters, and no further ; I told him I had no objection against either of them.
Monday, March 24th. — Lord Townshend desired me to come to his house in the evening, to consider about the instructions to be given to Horace Walpole and Mr Stanhope on ;their return to France. I went accoroingly about six o'cloiSt, and there met with Lord Townshend, Duke of I)evonshire, Lord Trevor, Duke of New- castle, and Sir Robert Walpole, Mr Stanhope, and Horace Walpole. The latter produced and read a long paper, which he called the state of the case since the passing the preliminaries. The scope of it was to make a narration of me fact, and that though the matters in dispute between us and Spain were by the preliminary articles and the act of the Pardo to be determined in four months, yet Spain had done nothing ; and seeing they did nothing, an expedient of a provisional treaty had been found out, which the Emperor's Minis- ter went into and encouraged, and the answer that Spain gave was^ that the preliminary articles should serve for a basis of a future treaty. But Boumonville was to return to the Court to give an ac- count of what had been done, and then they would give their answers ; that Boumonville returned to Madrid the 5th November last, but no answer had ever yet been given ; and therefore it was proposed that the instructions to our Ambassadors now going, should be, not to return to the Congress unless it were to sisn the provisional treaty ; and that this should be in confidence tmd the Cardinal upon tneir coming over privately, by which m.eans we should put an end to this long negotiation. Some debate arising hereon, and the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Scarborough cominff in towards the conclusion* it was agreed that Horace Wal- pole should afi^ainst Wednesday night draw up these instructions in form, or at least reduce them into writing, and then they would be the better considered. Friday night the same company met at the same place, where the instructions were brought prepared, and read over, much to the same purpose.
Friday, May 16th. — ^In the evening at the Duke of Devonshire's : there were present the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Newcastle, Duke of Grafton, Lord Trevor, Lord Privy Seal, myself. Earl of Scarborough, Earl Godolphin, and Sir Robert Walpole. The Duke of NewcasUe told us that the King being to eo to-morrow, and hav- ing appointed the Queen Kegent, he desired that we would meet, as there should be occasion, and that we would not teU any one either of the message or of this, or of any other meeting that we should have, because there were some others that might expect, to whom it was not fit that everything should be known ; and tne pre- sent occasion of our meeting was to deliberate upon letters come in
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from Mr Keene, importing that the Spaniards had refused to return any answer to his memorial, which they said they had prepared an answer to. But the Marquis del Paz bleing asked whether this was to break off all intercourse with us and to commence hostilities, he said that the reason of it was this, he had sent a letter in the King*s name to the Cardinal, and that the Cardinal had sent back a haughty answer without communicating the letter to his Kin^ ; and that their Ambassadors had advised them that Chauyehn had said, " qvion avait dSjd oris partie,** so that they took it for granted that the Hanover Allies were already engaged to begm hos- tilities, and therefore it was as good for them to break off now as a month hence. And that merefore it lay upon us, before we would have any answer from them, to procure an iclaircisse" merit of the Cardinal's letter. Upon this, it was considered that there was already gone from Pans our iiltimatum in effect, that this bdbre was a sufficient explanation of how far he would go with respect to Don Carlos. And this seemed to be only a method of Spain to bring us to open ourselves more thoroughly on that point, which Mr Keene receiving by way of Paris, would set all this matter clear and plain. On a conference that Patino had with Brancas, he declared that he was not in the interest of the Emperor : that the methods he had brought them into were prejudicial to this country, but they were forced to follow them ; that they were getting out as fast as they could, and there- fore conjured Brancas to treat their King with respect, otherwise he could be forced back again into the Emperor's power.
Thursday, June 6th. — About eleven in the forenoon was at Lord Godolphin s, where were present besides him, Duke of Newcastle, Earl of Scarborough, Lord Trevor, myself. Lord Torrington, and Sir Charles Wager. Where I was informed that the Saturday be- fore, at a meeting at Sir K. Walpole's, it had been agreed to advise the King to send away the fleet immediately from Portsmouth ; but that more letters were since come from Spain, which though not a direct answer to the memorials presented by Mr Keene and Mr Brancas, yet they contained hopes and expectations that Spain would in three or four days give a direct answer to our satisfection | and therefore it was thought advisable that the fleet should stay a few days, till we had a more direct answer from Spain.
We<mesday 11th, and Friday 13th, — ^were meetmgs of the Select Lords at Sir Robert Walpole's, but 1 could not be there. It was there agreed that the fleet should not yet sail, the occasion whereof was this. There were letters from the plenipotentiaries in France, that they had considered with the French Ministers that too much time might be lost at this season of the year, now perhaps a favour- able occasion, should they forbear any longer to let the Court of Spain know the ultimate resolution of England and France relating
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to the raocession of Tuscany and Parma. And being thoroughly eonvinced by the advice from all quarters, that the union and inti* macy between Spain and the Emperor, if not broken, was become very weak and cold j and that the Queen of Spain was at present sincerely disposed to be reconciled with the Hanover Allies, if they did not lose the opportunity of gratifying her in that darling point, of securing the succession of Tuscany and Parma to her son Don Carlos J and therefore they had thought proper to send the English and French Ministers in Spain new instructions, which were sent away the 3rd of June, O. S., a copy of which instructions was sent over, and were instructions to Mr Keene and Mr Brancas, that in ease their Catholic Majesties would not be satisfied with Swiss gar* risons. either neutral or in the pay of Spain, to declare the consent of their masters to Spanish garrisons, on condition that the pre- liminaries be fully and immediately executed, and all our demands satisfied. And if in fifteen days' time after this proposal they should find there was nothing more to hope for, whether by refusal to give an answer, or the answer did not tend to a speedy conclusion, fliey should present a memorial, and thereby declare that the Bangs of Great Britain and France should think themselves obliged imme- diately to take measures the most convenient to procure themselves reparation for those grievances suffered by the inexecution of the preliminaries.
It was thought that on this new method taken, seeing there could not possibly be an answer till the beginning of July, the fleet should stay till that time, and that if a satisfactory answer did not th^i come, that part of the fleet should sail to Gibraltar, and another part to the West Indies.
Tuesday, 17th. — At Lord Godolphin's about eleven o'clock in the morning ; there were present, Lord Godolphin, myself, Lord Trevor, Duke of Newcastle, Earl of Scarborough, Duke of Grafton, and Sir Bobert Walpole. We were informed that at Hanover, the opinion there was against the present sailing of the fleet ; and there wsa a letter read, that came that morning fi'om Lord Townshend, to ac- quaint us firom the King, that the last time that the Engluh and Dutch fleet were formed, all our orders to our fleet were sent to the Dutch for their concurrence, and they joined with us in everjrthinff, and that the same must be done now. I found, by Sir Robert Ww- pole, that he was very uneasy at the junction of the Dutch fleet with ours at Portsmouth, wondered how they came there, and that it would not facilitate but retard our operations. This made me think that this, in some measure, sprung from a misunderstanding between him and Lord Townshend, which to me was visible; and that Townshend, whilst he was in Holland, on his way to Hanover, pro- cured the Dutch fleet to come, who were originally designed for the Baltic ; and it seemed odd to me that tliey should come in this
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manneTi without any concert with us, or any determination what to do.
On the whole, seeing the fleet could not sail till an answer came from Spain, which could not be till about the middle of July, we agreed that the Duke of Newcastle should write to Lord Townshend with names of us present ; that we were entirely of opinion that a good correspondence should be kept with the States General, but desired that the King would forthwith order Lord Chesterfield to agree with the Dutcn upon the orders proper to be given to the fleet, in case of a dissatisfactory answer from Spain ; that so no time may then be spent in concerting measures about our actions, but they may be speedily executed.
After this there was read a draught of a letter from the Duke of Newcastle to Hunter, Governor of Jamaica, to take off an embargo that he had hastily laid upon the ships there, and to let all the trade ships come away.
When this was done, I came away to go to Westminster Hall^ What was done afterwards I know not, and if anything afterwards done was writ in my name as well as others, it was because I was there the beginning, but went away before anything else was done but that whK5h is above written.
The aforesaid letter that came &om Lord Townshend was dated at Hanover ^f June, 1729, to the Duke of Newcastle, wherein he writes him, that his Majesty had ordered him to acquaint his Grace, that since the States have resolved to join their squadron to his Maiesty's fleet at Portsmouth, and it is probable that Admiral Somelsdyke may be already there with the snips under his command, in order to preserve the great harmony and concert that subsists between the J^ing and the States, it will be necessary for the future, when any orders are to be sent to Sir Charles Wager, that they should he transmitted to Lord Chesterfield, to be by his Lordship previously communicated to the Pensionary and Greffier ; that having been the constant practice during the last war, whenever the fleets of the two nations were united.
I afterwards saw the copy of what the Duke of Newcastle sent to the Lord Townshend, in a letter dated June I7th, 1729, as the said resolutions and advice of the said Lords here. The Duke writes, that their Lordships came to the resolution mentioned in the enclosed minute, which was taken in their presence, and is, by the Queen's command, as well as their Lordsmp' request, transmitted to Lord Townshend to be laid before the Kmg.— rThe minute enclosed was this.
"At the Earl of Godolphin's, June 17th, 1729, Present— Lord Chancellor, Duke of Grafton, Earl of Scarborough, Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Godolphin, Sir R. Walpole, Duke of Newcastle.
" My Lord Townshend's letter of the H June, having by the
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Queen's command been laid before the Lords, their Lordships are humbly of opinion that Lord Townshend should be wrote to, ac- ouainting his Lordship that the Lords here were always of opinion that a good correspondence should.be kept up with the .States General, and upon that principle did humbly offer it to his Majesty's consideration in the last letter to my Lord' Townshend (I was not present when this letter was agreed on or wrote, and never saw it) that the orders to be sent to the united fleets should be in concert with them : and in consequence of the same opinion, their Lordships do now humbly offer it to his Majesty as their advice, that imme- diate orders should be sent to Lord Chesterfield to prevail with the States without loss of time to send orders to their Admiral to sail and act in conjunction with his Majesty's fleet, upon the first notice of an unsatisfactory answer from the Court of Spain, that the time of action and execution may not be lost in further concerting mea- sures for it. But their Lordships hee leave still to give it as their humble advice, that whatsoever is to be done in the West Lidies, should be sinely done by his Majesty's fleet, for the reasons men- tioned in the letter, in which case their Lordships think a previous concerting the less necessary, which might possibly disappoint the success of it. In a letter afterwards receivea from Lord Townshend, directed to the Duke of Newcastle from Hanover, ^!^ he writes, that his Majesty had agreed to the introduction of Spanish garrisons into the places of Tuscany and Parma, and that the States nad also agreed to enter into this engagement with Spain, which, considering the conduct throughout the whole negotiation with respect to the quadruple alliance and for some years since, the King had little rea- son to expect they would have obliged themselves. However, it was of great importance to his Majesty, because it engages them jointly with us in all the consequences that our guarantee of the above- mentioned garrisons to Spain may draw upon us, and may likewise be a great inducement to Spain to accept of our last proposal He writes, moreover, that the King agrees entirely with the Lords of the Council in their opinion, that if the Court of Spain should en- deavour by their answer still to amuse and avoid coming to a con- clusion with us, and nothing of consequence should be attempted against the Spaniards this Summer, it will not be hard to foresee Tmat ill effect it may have, not only throughout the whole kingdom, but in the next session of Parliament. And therefore his Majesty is of the same sentiment with your Grace and their Lordships, that a certain day should be fixed for the united squadrons to sail after the expiration of the term prescribed to the Ministers at Madrid, to give in a second memorial, in case the Court of Spain should not comply with what had been proposed. And accordingly he writes by ms Majes^s command to his Ministers in France and Holland to press the Cardinal and the Pensionary upon that subject, and to
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endeavour to bring France and the States to consent to the fixing of a day, as their Lordships have proposed.
As to the operations or the Englisn and Dutch squadrons, pro- posed to be undertaken at the same time, both upon the coast of Spain and in the West Indies, tne two squadrons being now joined, nothing can be determined as to his Majesty's squadron sailing alone to the West Indies, till the sentiments of the States are known upon that head, and my Lord Chesterfield is directed to sound the Pensionary as to the share the Republic will like most to take in the projected operations both in Europe and America. At the same time the King is apprehensiye that the Dutch will not care to let their whole squadron lie without detachments before Cadiz, to hinder the flota or the galleons from sailing from thence to the West Indies, and leave the trade of their subjects in America to be protected only by the King's fleet in those parts. Especially considering the ex- ceeding great losses they have suffered from the Spaniards there, and the interest they have themselves to defend their trade, to take and destroy the Spanish men-of-war and guarda costaa, their bitter enemies, and to avenee and repair their ovni immense sufferings in that part of the world. Wherefore, as it appears probable to his Majesty that the Dutch will be inclined to jom some of their ships to those of the King's that shaU be ordered to the West Indies, which cannot be refused them if they desire it ; his Majesty is of opinion that this part of their Lordships' scheme, which relates to the operation of his fleet alone in those seas, should be kept secret, since the States would most certainly oppose it, and the proposing it to them would most certainly brei^ the union which subsists be- tween them and his Majesty, which would be fatal at this juncture. Besides, the sailing of the joint squadron thither upon some ^neral concert, in common for annoying the Spaniards and protecting the trade of both nations, will not hinder his Majesty from sending some more ships in a reasonable time after, with four Irish battalions on board, under pretence of strengthening our garrisons in those parts, in order to put in execution any attempt on Porto Rico, or any other place of the Spanish dominions there. Such particular expeditions have been several times undertaken in the last war without any communication with our allies, and cannot reasonably be excepted against in case a war should be actually begun with Spain — and this may be done without putting the nation to any greater expense, by finding some pretence to keep back so many of Sir Charles Wafer's squamron as may be thought necessary to con- vey the troops that shall be sent to the West Indies. As to the two thousana men which his Majesty offered to put on board his fleet going to the coast of Spain, in my letter of "^^J^ it was in answer to their address of the 1st of June, N. S., wherein they de- aired his Majesty's thoughts as to the operations which they should
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suggest to the Cardinal for acting jointly against Spain, in case the conduct of that Court should oblige the alnes to come to an imme- diate rupture with them ; and as his Majesty thinks it of the greatest consequence to engage France to^come to open hostilities with Spain, if the Cardinal likes the proposal of embarking troops on board our fleet, to be sent to the Spanish coast to assist the French in any operations on that side, his Majesty, besides the four Irish battalions designed to execute the scheme in the West Indies, would have two English battalions ordered on board Sir Charles Wager*s fleet, which will suffice for that purpose, and may engage the French, according to his Majesty's intentions, to act generafiy with us in the war against Spain.
1729, August 7th, Thursday.— On a letter from Sir Robert Wal- pole, desiring me to dine with him this day, and other Lords whom the King principally intrusts with his affairs to advise the Queen during his absence, I went there, and dined with him, Lord TrcTor, Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Torrington. After dinner he imparted to us two letters from Lord Townshend, intimating the King's plea- sure, that as to the affairs of Spain and the fleet, the orders should be given here immediately, witnout transmitting them to Hanover, and that the King had given orders to the plenipotentiaries at Paris to receive their orders from hence without expecting them from Hanover. Then he informed us, that Tuesday nighS the 5th of August, the Duke of Newcastle had received from Mr Keene the proposals of Spain, delivered by the Marquis del Paz and Mr x^atmo, which we were desired to consider. These proposals were very plain and express in what Spain desired, but very dark and un- intelhgible as to what we were to have. Too much was desired on their side, and it did not plainly appear what would be granted by them to us. But considering the circumstances of the times, and that it appeared plainly by Spain delivering the effects of the galleons^ and promising to deliver the cedulas, and from other facts, that Spain was in a- disposition to conclude a treaty with us, though the Minis- ters of Spain would not speak out plainly what they would do for us, but would rather that it should come from us j therefore we were of opinion that the Queen should write to our Plenipotentiaries at Paris, that the project delivered by the Marquis del Paz to Mr Keene was crude, obscure, and unsatisfactory. But that, however, with proper alterations and amendments, it might be made sufficient for obtaining a general pacification; and therefore to direct the plenipotentiaries to draw up in form such articles as to them should seem proper, and to do it m concert with the French and Dutch. It was likewise thought by us, that until further news from Spain, meaning as to the delivery of the effects of the gaUeons ana the cedulaSf the fleet should stay in the place where they now are.
It was by a letter from Lord Townshend^ dated ^f th of August,
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to the Duke of Newcastle, that it was first intimated that the Xing, being at a distance, had determined, in regard to the uneasiness which he heard the people of Exigland were under, to leave the management of the negotiation with Spain to the Queen, with the advice of those Lords of the Council who are usually consulted upon foreign afiairs, and who, being upon the spot, are better judges of the present temper and disposition of the nation ; and the same he repeated again in a letter dated from Rodenkirk, ^^^
Some time in the month of July, Lord Townshend sent over, by the order of the King, a project of a treaty between the King of France, Holland, and the four Electors, framed by Count Albert, the Duke of Bavarians Minister at Paris, and considered at Hanover by Lord Townshend and M. Plattenburgh, the Elector of Cologne's Minister (by whom some marginal notes were made on the project). This project with these marginal notes had been sent by Lord Townshend to the Duke of Newcastle, with orders from the King to communicate them to those Lords with whom the Queen usually advised in foreign affairs, and to have their opinion. This was some time in July ; I was not at that meeting, but the Lords there, viz. Lord Trevor, Newcastle, Torrington, and Sir R. Walpole, re- turned for answer, that they thought a treaty on proper terms with the four Electors might be advisable ; but the project and the notes . being contradictory to one another, and not knowing what was agreed on, they could not tell how to give an opinion upon it. Upon this, Lord Townshend wrote another letter to the Duke of New- castle, wherein he says, that the King hoped to have had the opinion of the Lords, as well upon the marginal notes as upon the treaty itself. That no part either of the project or the articles were agreed to ; but these were only proposals that might or mi^ht not be agreed to, and therefore the King desired to have the opinion of the Lords upon the project and the notes both, that so having their opinion, he might be at liberty to act upon the whole as he should think fit
Not having time to take this into consideration at this meeting, the 7th August, 1729, we agreed to meet again on the Monday fol- lowing, viz. 11th August, at Sir Robert Walpole's ; and accordingly there then met there the Chancellor, the Privy Seal, Dukes of Grafton and Newcastle, Lord Torrington, and Sir II. Walpole. We all took this letter to be a reprimand for not directly answering the first letter, which we did not care to do, not liking the particulars of tiie treaty. But, however, finding the King had an mclination to this treaty, and that something must be done, we did agree to send now for answer to this effect : — That, considering the present cir- cumstances, we were in a likelihood to agree with Spain, which might provoke the Emperor, it would be advisable to have a body of troops ready in the Empire for our assistance ; but that as to the particulars of this project, we first represented as to the preamble,
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that it was fit the Elector of Mentz should be a party, because otherwise we have not four Electors, and he was party as Elector of Triers to the treaty of 1724 between the four Electors, which is referred to in the preamble, as to which part of the preamble we could not say anything, because we had never seen that treaty ; but that the preamble of this project related only to the Empire, which would not be acceptable here, whilst the foundation of it was for something of advantage to all the contracting parties, and that in the preamble the King is to covenant for himself as King and Elector, whereas we thought it should only be a general covenant for his Majesty's Britannic dominions generally.
The First article, which was of a general friendship, we had no objection to.
Second article, we objected that the view of the treaty therein re- cited was too narrow, confining it to the Roman empire, whereas it should be for the benefit oi all the contracting parties. The amendment in the marginal notes we thought proper.
Third and Fourth articles agreed to with the amendment in the margin.
So the Fifth and Sixth.
Fifth and Sixth articles — ^According to my remembrance we did agree thereto.
Article Seven. — ^We represented the beginning of the article to.be engaging too much, even in the general terms, but the particulars, not to make any convention, alliance, or agreement but in concert and with the approbation of the contracting parties, we thought not to be entered into, nor the addition in the marginal notes, that they will not give any guarantee to any one out of this alliance, because this is, in other words, to say that we will never guarantee the Emperor's succession, which, though it be not proper now to do, may be proper under other circumstances, and however proper it may be at another time, we cannot by this article do it, ana also be- cause the Electors, whose interest is never to do it^ will never permit us to do it.
The Eighth article agreed, leaving out as in the margin.
The Ninth article we thought too narrow, and confined to the Empire too much.
The like our decision as to the Tenth.
The Eleventh article. — We agreed to the amendment made in the marein by the Elector of Cologne's Minister, that this treaty should contmue only for two years, which we thought long enough.
The Twelfth, for keeping the treaty concealed, we agreed to.
First secret article as to the succession of Juliers of Berg, we tnought not reasonable nor proper, but agreed to it as amended in the margin, that the King would not take any engagement with the King of Prussia contrary to the Palatine.
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Second secret article as to Mecklenburg, which was what the King desired, we agreed to.
Third secret article, containing the demands of the Elector of Cologne, we agreed to the amendment in the margin for the King to pay his quota, and that the King would do nothing as to the Ses- sion of Liege without the consent of the States, and would employ all good offices with them — and agreed to what was in the margin.
Fourth secret article relating to Bavaria — disagreed as to what relates to the King. The rest related only to the King of France.
The Duke of Newcastle was desired to draw this into writing, which he did against the next day, and read it to me, Trevor, and the Duke of Grafton the next day at his house in Kensington, Sir R. Walpole and Lord Torrington not being there. He added some- thing by way of amplification and enforcement, which had not been mentioned the day before, which, excepting one, being of no great consequence I did not contradict; but there was one which I could not agree to, and which he struck out, as not being our thought ; which was, in that part relating to the guarantee of the Emperor's succession, he unnecessarily mentioned, a fact, that though Count Kinski offered on the part of the Emperor to give up the Ostend trade if the Kin^ would guarantee the succession, yet the King had refused it. I said that it was a fact I did not know, and if it were so, there was no reason to insert it here. On which it was struck out of the paper, and therefore, if it should be afterwards put in, it is without my consent or knowledge.
Sunday, 17th. — ^I went in the evening from Ockham to visit the Duke of Newcastle at Claremont, who told me that my company was desired in town the next morning to consult upon a letter come from Hanover, which letter he hdft not there, but told me the con- tents of it were, that Lord Townshend wrote, the King did not like the articles proposed by Spain, but looking upon them as a project or foundation to work upon, and that the Spaniards would expect present performance as to Don Carlos, therefore it was fit to add this article, that in case the King should be molested by the Em- peror, or by any other, for this assistance to Don Carlos, that the King of Spain would join with our King against such aggressor. I told him freely my opinion, that I thought our business was to make a definitive treaty at once, not to assist Don Carlos unless the King of Sjjain granted us our points ; and if he granted our points, then to assist him, and care might then be taken according to this additional article proposed by the King ; — but to enter into an exe- cution of what was projected with relation to Don Carlos before the whole was concluded, I thought that was what could not be right. I told him, moreover, that if there was nothing else but this to be considered of the next morning, I thought I might well enough
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Stay at Ockham, and not come up to town ; which he agreed to, and I did not go to London the next morning.
Sunday, 24th. — At the Duke of Newcastle's, present the Duke, myself, Earl Godolphin, Sir R. Walpole, and Mrtelham, Secretary of'^War.
The end of our meeting was to consider of letters of Lord Towns- hend's from Hanover, whereby we were informed that the Kine of Prussia had ordered his forces to begin their march on such a day and to rendezvous at Magdeburg, and this was with an intention either to fall into Mecklenburg or the King's immediate territories ; that the King had ordered tdl his forces in Hanover to be ready^ which were about 22,000 ; had sent to the Landgrave of Hesse for the 12,000 men in his pay, had also sent to France, Holland, Den- mark, and Sweden, and that if this matter went on, the King de- signed to have the same number of men from England as was upon a like occasion intended to have been had over under the conduct of the Earl of Orkney, and therefore ordered us to give an account what that number of men was, where the soldiers lay in the king- dom, and how soon a body of like number of men might be able to be sent over to Hanover. We agreed to send over to the King the last lists returned according to order into the War Office, by which his Majesty would see the number of the whole, and where quartered ; that the number of men intended in the late Kind's time to have been sent over under Lord Orkney, was 10,000 ; viz. 7000 foot and 3000 horse, but what or how many of this force, or how many dragoons, was never settled; that the King would consider the troops were now dispersed, the horses at grass, and it was uncertain by what time vessels for embarkation might be got ready. But whenever his Majesty pleased to ^ve his orders, we should take care to comply with tnem in the best manner we could.
This was the substance of what was agreed to, and the Duke of Newcastle was to write it in form. The Lord Townshend, as I think, sent a copy of an intercepted letter from Chauvelin, the garde des sceaux, to Chamorel, the French Secretary here, wherein he writes him, that the affairs with Spain were not yet determined, but might be if the English would show a little more facility. This I understood to be their yielding in general words to let the affur of Gibraltar be still open.
Monday, 2nd September, 1729, went to town. — ^The next day saw the Queen at Court ; from thence went to Sir K. Walpole's m his chariot, and dined with him and his lady only. He told me, that since the last time I saw him, they had received the draught ot articles for a definitive peace concerted between our plenipotenti- aries and the Cardinal and the garde des sceaux ; that they were so plain and good, that they did not think it worth the while to send for me to come to town to see and agree to them, or to give any
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further instruction ; that they were as good as we could desire, he was afraid too good — but, however, the Cardinal said that he was sure Spain would come into it ; that, for expedition, as soon as they were agreed on in France, they were immediately sent to Spain, and were there by this time. In talking with him about the Kmg*s orders, that orders for the fleet and uie negotiations with Spain should be all from hence without first sending to HanoTer, he told me that Lord Townshend was very much displeased at it ; that he in concert with the Queen gained it by a stratagem ; that the Queen wrote a letter to the King mtimating that some people thought the orders for the fleet were too long coming from Hanover, but that she would not for the world desire the King to send a power to her or to any one — here to give immediate orders ; that would be to execute a power which belonged only to him, and should be only executed by him. Whereon ne wrote her a letter, that he would trust his throne and kingdom entirelv with her, and thereupon ordered, that not only the fleet, but also the plenipotentiaries at Paris, should receive their immediate orders from hence, and not stay for his.
On this occasion he let me into several secrets relating to the King and Queen — that the King constantly wrote to her by every opportunity long letters of two or three sheets, being generally of aU his actions — ^what he did every day, even to minute thinffs, and particularly of his amours, what women he admured and used ; and that the Queen, to continue him in a disposition to do what she 4esired, returned as long letters, and approved even of his amours, and of the women he used ; not scrupling to say that she was but one woman, and an old woman, and that he might love more and younger women, and she was very willing he should have the best of them. By which means, and a perfect subserviency to his will, ^e efiected whatsoever she desired, without which it was impossible to keep him within any bounds.
Tuesday, 3rd. — ^News came from the King, that he desired to return as soon as possible, whereon the yachts and ships were immediately ordered.
Sunday, 7th. — ^At noon, the Duke of Newcastle sent a letter to me from Claremont, desiring me to meet him and the rest of the Lords in town the Monday at dinner at Sir R. "Walpole's, to consider of the project and articles of peace drawn up by our plenipoten- tiaries, and transmitted from them. This looked to me very strange, because last Monday, the 2nd September, when I was in town, Sir R. Walpole told me of these articles, and that they had already been sent to Spain for their concurrence. Whereupon I went to the Duke's in the evening, and not finding him at Claremont, I
followed him to his where I found him, and told him
that I had determined to go a journey into Hampshire to-morrow
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morning, vis. to Lord Delaware's ; that Sir B. Walpole knew of my
rang a journey, and that he who had told me all this matter when was in town, knew that now my coming back afi;ain upon Hub matter would be no significancy. The Duke would not own that there was this early news in town of these articles, and stood to it that he received tnem not till Thursday last. There was some evasion in this. He was out of town, it may be, and might not have them tiU Thursday. But certainly Sir Kobert Walpole told me of them the Monday oefore. And when I desired to know of the Duke, what we were to do at this meeting, seeing they were already gone to Spain, he told me that this meeting was at his desire. That though nothing could now be altered therein, they being gone to Spain, yet the King having left the management of this afiair to the Lords here, he thought it requisite that on the King's coming, now expected, the Lords should be ready to lay before the King what bad been done, and their opinion tnereon. I told him that if this was all, it was not sufficient reason to divert me from my loumeyy which I could not possibly take at any other time, and therefore desired him to get me excused, which m some few words he pro- mised to do, and that he would excuse, me both to the Lords and to the Queen, and also take care of the prorogation of the Parliament, for which there was to be an order of Council next Tuesday, and that on the Clerk of the Crown waiting on him with the Bill for the prorogation, he would procure the Queen to sign it, that so it may be ready for me to see when I came to town, which I intended to do Monday, 15 th October.
November 5th, 1730. — On a summons of the Cabinet Council^ there met at Lord Harrington's office, himself. Lord Wilmington, Lord Torrington, and myself: when Lord Harrington told us that the King had news that a Spanish man-of-war, coming from Car- thagena to Spain with a great quantity t>f money and effects, had been cast away at St Pedro s Shoals, about ten leases from Jamaica ; and that they had help from Jamaica to save wnat could be saved out of the ship, and that an officer had been ashore at Jamaica to desire help for that purpose, and that the King desired us to advise him whether he should not on some pretext or other detain the ttlver and effects, to be disposed of as hereafter should seem rea- sonable. By the treatv of Seville, the Spaniards were to restore the money and effects tney had seized of ours during the rupture ; among which was £200,000 in silver belonging to me South Sea. The King of Spain had given orders to his officers in the West In- dies to restore it, but they said they had contrary orders from Patino to send it home to Europe, which they had done. So that as yet we had no restitution, and if there were the same sums to be met with in this shipwrecked ship, by this means we might obtain re- sptution. On tne whole, we were of opinion that a frigate shoulc^
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1730.] AND FOEBIGN AJPVAIRB. 483
be sent forthwith to Jamaica under pretext of carrying orders to the Governor, to provide place and conveniencies for the two regi- ments of soldiers that were to go thither from Gibraltar ; but that a letter should be writ to him to take care and help the Spaniards in securing all the silver and effects, that he should take an exact ac- count in their presence, and by their concurrence, of all the silver and effects that were saved, put them in safe custody, and then tell them that he would give an account thereof to England, and have orders from thence about the delivery.
November 8th, 1730. — At Lord Harrington's, present myself, Duke of Newcastle, Lord Wilmington, Lord Harrington, Lord Torrington, and Horace Walpole. The Duke of NewcasUe informed the com- pany that the Kmg had promised the French King to permit him to hst 750 men in Irelana, to fill up the Lrish remments in France, and that French officers were gone over, and at Dublin. But this had made so great a noise there, that the Primate and other justices did not care to meddle therein but by positive and direct orders from hence ; that therefore it was thought reasonable that we should endeavour to get a discharge of this promise from France, and it was proposed to consider in what manner to write to France, to this purpose. The Duke said that it had been thought a proper way to let France know the disturbance the putting it in execution would do at this present, and therefore desure them to waive it ; but if, notwithstanding, they insisted upon it, the King would certainly do it. I gave my opinion that at the first view 1 did not think it proper to enter into any new engagement, but what to do I could not tell till I was first satisfied of the legality of it, and when I was satisfied as to that, I would give the best opinion I could. It was then agreed that the Attorney-General, who had given his opinion for the legality, should wait upon me to show me his opinion, and the reason of it, and when I had considered, this matter should be resumed. When the Duke of Newcastle proposed this, he intro- duced it with telling me that I had been acquainted with and well knew the several steps that had been taken m this matter. I said he was mistaken, for I never heard of it till last Thursday from Lord Harrington.
Wednesday, Nov. 11th. — The same persons as before were at Lord Harrington's, and the Duke of Newcastle desured the company to advise what was best to be done with relation to the permitting the filling up the Lrish regiments in the French Einrs service. As to the legality, this depending upon an Act of Paniament in Lreland, it might be taken for granted that, following the direction of that law, it was legal. As to the prudential part of it, all wished no such promise had been made. But it was affirmed by the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Harrington that such promise had been frequently made, and therefore it was the thought of all that proper
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application should be made to the Court of France to obtain a dia-* cnarge of it ; and the Duke of Newcastle took out a copy of an intended letter to the Cardinal, the purport whereof was to lay be- fore him the great alarm this made in Ireland, and the great impe- diment there would be to the King's affiairs if it were insisted on, which it was hoped the French King would take into consideration, withal assuring him that if he should not like to comply with this reasonable request of our King, upon the return of the courier the King's promise should be performed. I objected against this last clause, and gave it as my opinion that the King 3iould not put himself under any new engagement. What was passed could not be helped, but he should not anew tie himself down. But except Lord Torrington, every one present was against this, alleging that the best way to procure this act of amity from France was to show the King's adherence to his promises. I thought this had no solid argument in it, therefore still declared my opmion that it should not be done. But, at the instance of Lord Torrington, they softened the assurance of doing it the next courier, by saying that if the King of France insists on it, it should be done d^abord.
Friday, Nov. 13th. — In the evening at Lord Harrington's ; pn?- sent the same company. The Memoire of the Marquis de Castelar delivered at Paris was read, and several things said about it, but no resolution taken, the matter only talked over.
Monday, Nov. 16th. — ^At Lord Harrington's ; present m^lf, Lord Wilmington, Duke of Newcastle, Lord Harrington, Sir R. Walpole, and Horace Walpole. The Memoire of Castelar was pro- posed to be considered, and what answer to give to it ; or rather what instnictions should be given to Lord Waldegrave about it. Lord Harrington and Horace Walpole said there was a necessity to instruct Lord Waldegrave that the King was ready to enter into a war to execute the treaty of Seville as soon as a plan of the operations should be settled. Myself and the Duke of Newcastle thought that too much, to say we would enter into a war before the plan of the operations was settled. Sir R. Walpole proposed some other words to the same purpose as the former, against which there was no op- position. As tor the plan of operations. Lord Waldegrave was instructed to hint that he believed we would come into those which were settled in 1727, which I knew nothing of, and so declared, but hoped they had then been well settled.
Wednesday, 25th. The Duke of Newcastle sent me a copy of the letter wrote bjr him to Lord Waldegrave, November 19th, 1730, wherein he wnt in these words to him : " I am now to send you his Majesty's commands, as well upon the answer to be given to the Marquis de Castelar's memorial, as upon the measures to be taken in consequence of it.
** His Majesty, being persuaded that a perfect union among the
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1730.] ATSTD rOEEiaN ArFAIBS. 4S5
Allies is what must have the greatest eflfect not only upon the Court of Spain, but also upon that of Vienna, looks upon it to be abso- lutely necessary that the answer should be made jointly by you all ; and would therefore have your Excellency press the French and Dutch Ministers, that you may all join in a general answer, which, Jn his Majesty's opinion, ought to be such as may give entire satis- faction and security to his Catholic Majesty for the execution of the treaty of Seville. In order to which his Majesty thinks that you should by the said answer jointly declare that the Allies are ready, without loss of time, to enter upon the measures prescribed by the sixth, separate and secret article of that treaty for overcoming the opposition on the part of the Emperor to the introduction of Spanish garrisons, by concerting and fixing a plan of operations, by joining their forces, and beginnmg the war as soon as the season of the year will permit. And that there may no doubt remain of the sincerity of his Majesty's intentions upon this head, your Excellency is to acquaint M. Castelar and the other Ministers, that you are fully informed of the Kind's sentiments as to the measures that his Majesty thinks proper to be taken for that purpose, and the share his Majesty is willing to bear towards them. His Majesty is of opinion, that as the omect and sole end of the war has at last been assigned and declared by all the Allies to be the introduction of the Spanish garrisons, and that this being once effected, the said treaty is fully executed, the Generals and other military officers of the Allies, now at Paris, should forthwith assemble ana consider upon, and form a plan of measures and operations of the war, to be under- taken for the end above mentioned ; that the stress of the war should he in Italy where the object of it lies, and consequently an offensive one should be carried there ; — that in Flanders we snould remain upon the defensive, and in Germany such a disposition should be made of the troops of the Allies as may not only be sufficient for their own security, but also to deter the Emperor from pouring his whole force into Italy, and to be in a condition to act as the circum- stances of affairs may require. That for carrying on the war in Italy with success, your Excellency should propose the renewing forthwith the negotiations with the King of Sardinia, and that in order to gain him, a considerable subsidy should be offered him in all events, and an assurance of acquisitions in case of a war. That his Majesty is willing to engage to give the same subsidy as England ftimished to the Duke of Saxony during the last war, which was about £150,000 per annum, provided the other Allies will contribute in proportion, either in subsidies or troops, which will enable his Sardinian Majesty to provide for his own security, and also to bring a considerable number of troops into the field for the service of the Allies. That your Excellency is to consent to any reasonable plan that may be proposed for attacking the Emperor m Italy, either by
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sea or land, or both ; and if with and above the subsidies above mentioned to the King of Sardinia, which are to be reckoned as part of the contingents, anything more should be required of his Majesty towards the war in Italy, the King is willing to furnish it in ships, but not in land forces, considering the danger and expense that would attend the sending of national troops so far.
" As to the forces to be employed by the Allies in Germany and Flanders, the same numbers may fully suffice as were settled for that purpose by the plan formed in the year 1727, and his Majesty is willing to furnish what was thereby allotted to him. But before any plan is put in execution on that side, it will be absolutely ne- cessary to demand of the King of Prussia to explain himself as to the part he intends to take, which was always proposed to be done before any operations were to be begun. As his Catholic Majesty- must be convinced by this of the sincerity of the Allies towards him, M. Castelar should be given to understand that when the Allies are taking these vigorous measures for the service of Spain, thev can* not but expect an exact performance of the treaty of Seville by his Catholic Majesty towards them and their subjects, which depends singly upon the pleasure of the King of Spain, and can neither be attended with expense or hazard to mm.''
The Duke of Newcastle by ^^n vsme post, and of the same date» wrote another private letter to the Earl of Waldegrave, in which he writes him, that having by his other letter been fully informed of his Majesty's intention, he was persuaded he would make such use of it to satisfy Monsieur de Castelar, of the sincerity with which the King acts towards Spain ; and as his (i. e. Waldegrave's) chief view should be to hinder Castelar, if possible, from midiing the ex- travagant declaration he has so of^n threatened, and returning ab- ruptly to Spain, which might be attended with very ill consequences, his Majesty left it to him to execute his orders in such manner as should be most proper for that purpose.
Hie Duke likewise directs nim to explain to M. Castelar his Maiesty*s conduct ever since the signing of the treaty of Seville, and to show that the non-execution of it could not be attributed to the King.
The only project that was brought to any kind of consistency last sunmier, was the attempt upon Sicily, which had the approbation of all the Allies ; and the King's quota, both of ships and troops, was actually in the Mediterranean time enough to have executed it if the other Allies had thought it proper.
That it will be easy to show M. Castelar that the method the King has now suggested is the only practical one of procuring the introduction of the Spanish garrisons by force ; for the confining the war chiefly to Italy, where that introduction is to be made, is not only Uie most natural, but what aU the Allies can without diffi-
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1730.] ANB rOEBIGW iJTATBS. 487
culty agree in. Whereas tne proposing general and extensive plans, if not done purely to avoid doing anything, must create questions which will necessarily take up a great deal of time, and may possibly be attended with insurmountable difficulties. And M. Castelar must himself see that the flinging out, as M. Chauvelin did, the proposal of attacking Flanders, so far from being a sign of their intention to do anything, is a plain indication of the contrary. For if England and Holland would consent, which they never can, to have any operations there, how would the introduction of Spanish garrisons be forwarded by it ? especially when, in all probability, tke Emperor would not give himsen much trouble about what should be done in those parts, thinking the interest of the maritime powers more concerned in that question than his own. The proposing of an extravagant contingent to be furnished by his Majesty, may possibly be done with the same view, and therefore M. Castelar should see that the insisting upon anything unreasonable is a sure way to have nothing done. His Majesty proposes to give the King of Sardinia a subsidy of £150,000 per annimi, which, according to the usual computation in treaties, is equivalent to above 13,000 foot ; and besides this, to have a squadron of men-of-war in the Mediterranean to act for the carrving on the war in Italy; and when and above all this, by the plan of 1727, his Mdesty was to furnish 12,000 English, 12,000 Hessians, and 20,000 Hanoverians, which ought to be reckoned as part of his M^est/s contingent ; 80 that without reckoning the King's own Hanoverian troops, England will furnish to the value of 37,000 men, besides a squadron of men-of-war.
By the same post, the Duke wrote a very private letter, of the same date, to Lord Waldegrave, wherein he writes, that after what the Cardinal had told him, he had absolutely refnsed M. Castelar to write to England for obtaining such orders to Lord Waldegrave as he desired, his Majesty was surprised to find that M. Chauvelin had done it, as he would see by Mr Broglio*s letter to him, of which he enclosed a copy, as also of his short answer to it. The Duke writes, that no doubt Chauvelin did this at CasteWs instigation, and communicated to him the very letter before he sent it away, thinking by that managem^.nt to pei-suade the Court of Spain of their readiness to fulfil their engagements, when probably they are only shifting off the blame from themselves by proposing to others what they think will not be consented to. That his Majesty has no other way to disappoint them, but by pursuing the same steady and uniform conduct ne has always done, showing his readiness to exe- cute instantly the treaty of Seville, and to enter into the proper measures for that purpose.
The letter of Broglio referred to, was dated at London H Novem- ber, 1730, from Broglio to Uie Duke of NewcasUe, wherein he writes,
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that Monsieur Le Garde des Sceaux had informed him, that he had had a conference with my Lord Waldegrave, M. Hungrogene, and M. Castelar, which last very warmly pressed for a positive answer upon the means to execute the sixth, separate and secret article of the treaty of Seville, and that he had ihtimated to that Minister, that the King, his master, was ready to employ in this expedition all his troops proportionably to what the allies of Spain would do.
Broguo goes on to write that France could not be suspected of preferring war to peace, but that their partial endeavour jointly vnth the Allies having nad but small success, the common honour of all the Allies engaged them not to defer any longer to take all neces- sary measures to make the Court of Vienna know that the engage- ments of the treaty of Seville neither are nor will be illusory ; that it is too long time that people have nourished themselves in the error that the Allies are not of accord among themselves, and that, being animated bv different interests, it will be easy to divide them, or that, being united only in appearance, they will but weakly con- cur in the operations of the war ; that this prejudice is the principal motive whicn hath engaged hitherto the Ministers of the Emperor to be inflexible on the head of the introduction of Spanish garrisons; that one cannot oppose the reasons of M. Castelar, especially when, without abandoning himself to uncertain and general propositions, he demands onl^ the effectuation of Spanish garrisons. That it is no more a question to restrain it to the only war in Italy, which will be impossible to undertake with hope of success, considering the number of the Emperor's troops in Italy, and that he is master of all the posts and places by which an entrance might be made. That it is necessary generally to unite all our forces, to force the Emperor to divide his — ^by attacking him on other sides, and to endeavour to enlist the King of Sardinia in our interest, being the two only means to arrive at the introductions of Spanish garrisons, which engages the King, my master, to desire his Britannic Majesty to labour to form this ^an, by furnishing, in proportion with us, a number of sufficient troops to execute it. That when our forces are thus united and directed in concert, they are so superior, that there is no fear of a long continuance of a war ; that the King, his master^ hones that, upon all these considerations, the King of Great Britain will not refuse to determine himself upon the number of national troops which he will employ for an offensive war generally with those of his master, and also upon the kind of operations. That every moment being precious, it will be too long to expect to de- liberate at the meeting of the Parliament. That the King, hia master, waits only for this determination to give his last orders, and to make speedy dispositions for the opening of the next Campaign.
This letter was writ for an ostensible letter, and to throw the blame of any delay upon us.
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1732.] AND FOBEIGK AFFAIBS. 489
The Duke of Newcastle returned to Broglio a short answer, dated November 19, that the King was always so inclined to the execution of the treaty of Seville that he sees with pleasure the Court of France to be in the same sentiments, who must too well know the conduct of his Majesty not to do him justice to the Court of Spain on this head. As we are agreed upon the /on<^ de V affaire, it now remains only likewise to a^ee upon the means to come to the end proposed : a plan upon wmch the Allies may equally concur will be the only way to fulnl our engagements with Spain, and showing to the Court of Vienna that they neither are nor will be illusory. It is upon this principle that his Majesty hath sent orders to Lord Walde- grave to concert with the ministers of the Allies a unanimous answer to the memorial of the Marquis de Castelar, and the mea- sures to take in consequence.
1732. — In the beginning of October, 1732, in an evening I was at the Duke of Newcastle's in Kensington, where were present most of the Cabinet Council, Sir Charles Wa^er, and Commodore Stewart, to consider of a letter from Mr Petuchio to Mr Keene, complaining of an unjust capture of a rich Spanish register ship in the bay of Campechy, and leaving it to the King's discretion to do therein what he should think just. The fact was this. The 1st of Septem- ber, 1730, on account of the clamours about the Spaniards taking our ships in the West Indies, orders were sent to Commodore Stewart, that if any English, ships were for the future taken by the Spaniards, to go and demand a restitution, and in case of denial to make reprisals. But Stewart, when these orders were sent to him, by the advice of the South Sea Company's factors and others, sus- pended the execution of them. In June, 1731, the Spaniards took an English ship called the Woolball ; but Stewart did not then attempt to make any reprisals, because he had taken upon him to suspend the orders for so doing. In October, 1731, there being fresh hostilities committed, the oraers to n^ake reprisals were renewed to him. Soon after this matters were accommoaated between Spain and England, and the Schedule to the South Sea was sent, dated October 18. January, 1731-2, the Schedule for putting an end to all hostilities was signed at Seville, 1731-2. Capt Stewart received the Schedule the 28th of April, 1732, but before that tune, viz. 6th of April, 1732, he sent Capt. Aubin to Campechy to demand the Woolball, and in case of refusal to make reprisals. Accordingly he made the demand at Campechy the 6th of April, 1731-2, and thev refusing to restore the Woolball, he took a Spanish register rich ship then in the bay of Campechy, and carried it away to Jamaica, where it now is.
This Petucchio insists upon to be an unjust capture, and was like to be of ill consequences in the West Indies. Tms being the fact, the Duke of Newcastle said that the ELing had ordered this meet-
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ing to adTife him what to do : and after debating the matter pro el eot^ it was agreed that the Spanish Ambassador being hourlv ex- Moted, we would suspend the coming to any conclusion till the Duke of Newcastle should first send him word about it, which he accordingly did ; and about a week after this first meeting, there was a second meeting of the Cabinet, when the Duke of Newcastle reported that he had spoke with the Conde de Montejo, who declared that he had no orders about it, but that he had pnvate letters in- forming him of such a fact, that he believed in his own prirate judgment nothing could make Spain easy but a restitution of the ship, which had been taken contrary to all engagements. We thoiight that it was not fit to make a rupture a^ut this mattery and« rather than that should be, to restore the ship.
THE END.
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INDEX.
AbbeTille, town of, 46.
Academy for Painting alid Sculp- ture at Paris, 75.
Addison, Mr, 181.
Adversaria Theologica, 342.
Affairs, domestic and foreign, notes on, 435.
Aigues Mortes, described, 64.
Alceste, the opera of, 75.
Alexander and Caesar, their char- acter as heroes, 96.
Alkmar, town of, 161.
Allebone, Sir Richard, the success- or of Judge Wilkins, 168.
Amor Patriae, remarks on, 291.
Amsterdam, residence of Locke at, 159; interior of a boor's house near, 166.
Angels, exceed us in knowledge, 362.
Anhault, Princess, married to the Prince of Nassau, 163.
Anne, Queen, 451 ; her death, 452.
Appendix, 400.
Arguments, positive and negative, 329 ; mode of managing, 363.
Aristotle, authority of, 310, 311.
Arlington, Lord, 41.
Armstrong, Sir Thomas, executed, 139.
Ashley, Lord (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury), Locke becomes ac- quainted wiUi him, 31 ; his pene- tration and genius, ib. ; created Earl of Shaftesbury, 34. See Shaftesbury.
Assembly of the States, dissolved, 57. Atheists, theory of the, 314. AthoJ, the Duke of, 437. Aureng Zebe, Emperor of Hin-
doostan, 252. Authors, Uie best ones to be read,
108; classical, monopoly of the
works of; 204, 205. Avignon, town of, 52; the Pope's
palace at, ib. ; churches at, ib. ;
the Carthusian Convent at, 69.
B
Bacon, Lord, alluded to, 179, 180.
Badgen, Dr, 44.
Barants, William, a Hollander, his attempt to discover a north-west passage, 132.
Basingstoke, fracas at, 133.
Bayle, his remarks on Locke's phi- losophy, 267, 268.
Beaumont, reckoning at, 48.
Beauvais, the church at, 48.
Bedloe, narrative of, 32.
Belief, religious, remarks on, 103.
Bellay, Bishop of, his reply to Car- dinal Richelieu, 84 ; anecdote of, ib.
Bentley, Dr, particulars concern- ing his book, 401.
Bemier, Mr, information given by, 73.
Bible, French, tne best edition o^ 83.
Birto, Mr, visit to, 58.
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492
INDEX.
Bodiei, coherence of the parts of, 375.
Body, confounaed with space, 339.
Bonds, given to pastors, 349.
Bonzi, Cardinal, Archbishop of Nar- bonne, 55.
Book of Ideas, by Locke, 227.
Books, on the converse with, 108, 118 ; regulations for printing and publishing, 203.
Boor, Dutch, his house described, 166 ; value of land belonging to one, 167.
Bordage, Marquis de, anecdote of, 81.
Bordeaux, tra^e at, 78; the Cha- teau Trompett at, ib. ; the Car- thusian Convent near, 79.
Bouillon, the Duke of, curious mon- opoly enjoyed by, 86.
Boulogne, country around, de- scribed, 46.
Boumonville, the Duke of, 463, 470.
Boyle, Mr, his History of the Air, 30 ; his Book of Colours, 219 ; his process respecting red earth, 221, 222 ; receipt of; 222.
Brandenburgh, affairs at the Court of, 10.
Bristol, advice on going to, 134.
Broglio, Mr, his letter to the Duke of Newcastle, 487.
Burnet, Dr, letters of, 169 ; extract of a letter from Leibnitz to, 196 ; his letter to Locke, 400.
Butterfield, Mr,levelling instrument at his house at Paris, 73.
Cambridge, the Vice Chancellor of,
suspended, 168. Canterbury, Archbishop of, 449. Capuchins, the strictest order in
France, 85. Carlos, Don, projected marriage of,
444,445. Cannes, disappointment of the, 84. Carter, Mr, quarrel of, 133. Cartesians, their ideas of space, 339.
Castelar, M. de, explanation to be
given to, 486. Castries, residence of the MarquiB
de Castries at, 65. Ceremonies, dispute respecting,
349. Charit^, at Lyons, described, 50. Charles II., declaration of, 6; his
letter to Sir George Downing, 41 ;
petition presented to, 120; i>oli-
tical transactions in the reign of,
136; triumph gained by, 138;
Form of Prayer ordered by, 139
— 143; orders the expulsion of
Locke from Christ Church Col- lege, Oxford, 147; illegality of
that proceeding, 153. Charteraux at Toulouse, 80. Chateau at Versailles, 74. Chateau de Richelieu, a magnificent
seat, 78. Chatham, disaster at, 27. Chauvelin, M., 487. Cherubin, Pbre, a Capuchin, famous
for optics, 85. Chesterfield, Lord, secret letters
from, to Lord Townshend, 464,
465, 468. Christ, on the resurrection of, 319 ;
supremacy of, 334. Christ Church, Oxford, state of
aff'airs at, 169. Christening, described, at Cleve, 18. Christianity, not Mysterious, a
work so called, 194; on. the
reasonableness of, 268, 270 ; how
first planted and propagated, 357. Christians, pacific, 276. Church, Communion, 301, 302;
power, on the exercise of, 305 ;
the true one, 347. Civility, a duty of Christianity, 272. Clergy, power of the, 289; their
liberality to Princes, 291. Cleve, letters of Locke from,10— 13.
service in the Churches at, 14.
15, 24 ; antiquity of the Elector's
house at, 17. Clifford, Lord, 35, 36. Coinage, advice of Locke relative to
the, 244.
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INDXX.
49a
Colbert, M., his son's examination in philosophy, 72 ; a Protector of the Academy for Painting and Sculpture, 75. * ,
Collins, Anthony, account given by, 39.
Common-place Book, by Locke, extracts from it, 282.
Conscience, on the liberty of, 168.
Conti, Pruice of, his accomplish- ments, 83.
Conyright. acts of, 1662, 1685, &c., 202. S6e Stationers' Company.
Corinthians* paraphrase on the Epistles of the, 228.
Coste, M., his translation of Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, 192 ; letters of Bayle to, 268.
Covell, M., 81.
Coverly, Lady, 242.
Cowper, Lord, extract from his Diary, 454.
Craven, Lord, 35.
Cudworth, Mr, letter of Locke to, 251.
Dead, resurrection of the, 317.
Death, victory over, 317.
De Duile, plain, review on the, 76.
De Goes, Baron, 12, 13.
Deiren, residence of the Prince of Orange at, 154.
Delamere, Lord, army under, 237.
Des Cartes, philosophy of 3, 179, 186; his' philosophy prohibited, 64 ; his Proof of a God, from the Idea of necessary Existence, examined, 313.
D'Espemon, the Due, Chateau built by, 80.
De Thou, M., his library at Paris, 83.
Devonshire, declaration of the Jus- tices of, 144.
Devonshire, Duke of, 470; con- ference at his house, ib.
Dewenter, Protestant nunneries at, 164.
Diemar, Mtgor-General, 445.
Disputation, remarks on, 285. Distance, supposition respecting,
337. Diversions of life, 307. Doccum, curious taxation at, 163. Doctor of Physic, mode of making
a, 64. Don Carlos, intentions with, regard
to, 479. Downing, Sir George, letter of
Charles II. to, 41. Duncome, Sir John, 35. Dunstan, Dr, vindicates Locke's
Philosophy, 193. Duration, ideas of, 371. Dutch fleet, enter the Medway,
27 ; its junction with the Briiidh,
at Portsmouth, 472, 475,
E
East, mode of computing time in the, 253.
Ecclesia, observations on, 295.
Education, treatise on, 267.
Edwards, Dr, proposal of, 1 93.
Election, on the doctrine of, 295; definition of, 299.
Embden, town of, its possession by the Dutch, 459, 460.
Enchuysen, town of, 161.
England, the sports of, 133 ; home* made drinks in, 135; causes of national distress in (in 1695), 243 ; proposed treaty of Prance, Holland, and the four Electors with, 477.
Enthusiasm— Method, 323.
Error, remarks on, 282 ; its founda- tion, 336.
Essay on Human Understanding, by Locke, 6, a3, 177, 181, 267, 270 ; remarks of Dugald Stewart and Sir James Mackintosh on its merits, ib. ; forms a new epoch in philosophy, ib. ; excites atten- tion at Oxford, 189; successive editions of it, 192 ; forbidden to be read at the University of Oxford* 193; attacked by Dr Stiiling- flee^ Bishop of Worcester, 194 ;
Digitized byCjOOQlC
404
IKDIX.
AddUkmt which Locke intended
to haTe made to it, 359 ; Abetntct
of it, 365. Ethics in general, remark! on, 308. E^ree and touch, fnmish us with
ideal of space, 370.
Facnlties, human, question as to their extent, 106.
Faith, remarks on, 283.
Father, conduct of a, towards his son, 1.
Fell, Dr, Bishop of Oxford, his cor- respondence with the Earl of Sunderland, relatire to the expul- sion of Locke from Christ Church CoUege, 147, 150, 151.
Fermentation, new air generated in, 117.
Filmer, Sir Robert, 7.
Fontainbleau, visit of Locke to, 75.
Foreigner, directions to one, on Tisiting England, 133.
Fox, Mr, remarks of^ 31 ; his ac- count of Locke's expulsion from Christ Church College, Oxford, 147.
France, rent of lands in, 69 ; sorry towns in, 77.
Praneker, the UniTcrsity at, 161.
Frederick, Prince, project concern- ing, 440.
Freke, Mr, a friend of Locke, 236.
Friendship, the great benefit of, 1 15.
Frontignan, town of, 63.
Fume, Sir H., 258.
Gardes du corps, reviewed, 76.
George, Alice, her remarkable lon- gevity, 131 ; some account of her, ib.
George L, affairs during the last years of his reign, 436 ; his dea^, 448.
George II , proclaimed, 449 ; con- ferences with, 453; his trea^
with the Duke of Wolfenbuttel, 455,456.
Gibraltar, pretensions relative to, 457,458.
Glasgow, tumult at, on account of the malt tax, 438.
God, his power and wisdom, 91 ; on the love of, HI ; his intui- tions in regard to man, 1 12 ; a being of infinite goodness, 123; his justice, 124 ; inspiration con- cerning, ib. ; on the worship of, 288, 295; the revealed wiU of, 294 ; proof of his existence, 313; idea of, 315; the children ol^ 320; on the belief of a, 325.
Godolphin, Lord, conferences at his house, 471—473.
Gold, ideas of, 382.
Good and evil, moral and natural, difference between, 311.
Graudier, burnt for witchcraft, 81.
Grave, the poor peasant of^ 79.
GreflSer, conferences with, 468, 469.
Gronovius, oration made by, 165.
Guenelon, M., Physician at Amster- dam, 159.
H
Hadelen, dispute respecting the
country of, 461, 462. Halstead, Captain, 35. Hamilton, Duke, reply of, 120. Hampden, tried for high treason,
139. Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 455. Hanover, treaty of, 458. Happiness, how to attain, 90, 116 ;
on the pursuit of, 306. Harrington, Lord, Cabinet Councils
held at his office, 482—484. Hantbrion, fine vineyard at, 71. Heaven, our great business and in- terest, 97. Hell, on the translation of the word,
322. Hesse, Landgrave of, offer fi^m,
445 ; accepted by the king, 446. Hindoos, inquiries concerning the,
252.
Digitized byCjOOQlC
nn>Ez.
490
Hindoostan, the Mahometans of, 73.
History, on the study of, 5, 96, 109, 118.
Hobbes, Mr, Latin poem by, 135 ; alluded to, 186.
Holland, residence of Locke in, 159.
Home, a large town on the Zuider Sea, 161.
ilorsley, Dr, his edition of New- ton's works, 230.
Hough, Mr, elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford, 169 ; ejected by command of the King, 170.
House of Commons, adrice to a Member of the, 256.
House of Lords, bill for imposing the Bishops' test in, 39 ; debates occasioned by it, 40.
Hudson, the Rev. Dr, keeper of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 269.
Husband, an unbelieving one sancti- fied by his wife, 228, 229.
Hyeres, town of, its beautiful situa- tion, 68 ; nunnery at, ib.
Ideas, true ones requisite to know- ledge, 121, 122; derived from substantial things, 184 ; how ge- nerated, 366; origin of simple ones, 374, 392; three kinds of complex ones, 374 ; another sort of, 377 ; definition of, 381 ; dis- agreement between, 389.
Illuminations, supernatural, 127.
Imagination, on employing the, 334.
Immorality, on excommunications for, 305 ; a matter of grave im- portance, 308.
Immortality of the soul, remarks on, 128.
Inheritance, right of, by the law of Moses, 116.
Inspiration, on the power of, 124, 125.
Invalids, Hospital of, at Paris, 77.
Irish regiments in France, proposed mode of filling them up, 483.
Islay, the Earl of, 439.
Jeana, Mr, a Doctor of Law, 12.
Jesuits' College at Lyons, 49.
John and Timothy, Sir Isaac New- ton's dissertations on the contro- verted texts of, 229.
Joy, fi delight of the mind, 373.
Judgmg, Uie action of the under- standing, 299.
Judgment, on distrusting one's own, 105.
Jugglers, tricks performed by, 252.
Justices of the Peace for Scotland, 437.
Keene, Mr, Jetters from, 471 ; in- structions to, 472, 476.
Kennet, Dr, his answer to Atter- bury, 259.
Kepler, his observation that the planets move in ellipses, 210.
King, P., Esq., M. P. (afterwards Lord Chancellor), letters of his cousin, Mr Locke, to, 196, 254 — 262, 264, 265 ; his notes on do- mestic and foreign afiairs during the last years of the reign of George I. and the early part of the reign of George II., 435.
Knowledge, how derived, 6 ; its ex- tent and measure, 86, 392 ; the result of study, 92 ; inquiry after, 94 ; the various parts of, 97 ; the principal end of, 98; pursuit of, 105 ; two kinds of, 120, 390 ; depends upon true and right ideas, 122 ; definition of, 388 ; intuitive, 394 ; on the improvement of, 395; our limited amount of, 396.
Labadists, Church of the, 162 ;
their religious discipline, ib. Language, abuses of, 386. Languages, on the study of, 95. Languedoc, the Protestants of, 58 ;
government of the country, 61
Digitized byCjOOQlC
4^
nJTDXX.
Learning, true, definition of, 188.
Le Clerc, M., a friend of Locke, 4, 5, 31, 33 ; observation of; 195 ; extracts of letters from, to Locke, 232—234, 326 ; Tract in his pos- session, 234 ; character given by, of Locke, 271 ; his oration for Limborch, 321 ; reply of Locke to, 327 ; translation by, 398.
Leewaerden, the capital of Fries- land, 163; entry of the Prince of Nassau into, ib.
Leibnitz, extract of a letter from, to Dr Burnet, 196 ; his esteem for Locke's writings,- 400.
Leicester House, George II. pro- claimed at, 449.
Lent, observation of, at Paris, 83.
Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Ck>untry, 39.
Lewenhook, his microscopical ob- servations, 166.
Leyden, schools at, 165.
Liberum Arbitrium, 297.
Life, Eternal, 297, 320; on the be- lief in, 360.
Limborch, Philip, a friend of Locke, 159; his letters to Locke, 403, 406, 409, 412, 413, 415, 417, 418, 420, 422 ; his discourses with a young lady, 422.
Lincoln, Bishop of, his letter to the Earl of Shaftesbury, 194.
Liturgy, Preface prefixed to it, 351.
Loadstone, its attraction, 130.
Locke, John, his filial affection, 1 ; dutiful letter of, to his father, 2 ; sent to Westminster School, and thence to Christ Church, Oxford, 3 ; his University education, 4 ; his answer to the Earl of Peter- borough, ib. ; his habits and life at Oxford, 5 ; his Essay on Hu- man Understanding, 6, 33; his earliest work, ib. ; his inclination for the study of medicine, 9 ; be- comes Secretary to Sir Walter Vane, 10 ; his letters from Cleve, to Mr John Strachy, 13, 18, 21, 26, 27 ; returns to England, 26 ; declines a mission to Spain, 27 ;
offered employment abroad, 28 ; refuses Church preferment, 29; has the choice of three roa!ds to fortune, 30 ; his philosophical pursuits, ib. ; makes the acquaint- ance of LoYd Ashley ^afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury), 31 ; resides at Exeter Hous^, in the Strand, 32; anecdote of, 33; appointed Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, 34; playful letters of Lord Shaftes- buiy to, ib., 37 ; extracts from Mr Stringer's letters to, 38 ; relation drawn up by, 40 j afflicted with asthma, 42; his letters to Dr Mappletoft, ib., 43, 44 ; resides in France for the benefit of his health, 45 ; Journal kept by, ib. ; extracts from It, 46; proceeds from Boulogne to Abbeville, ib. ; arrives at Poy, 47 ; at Beauvais and Beaumont, 48 ; his account of Lyons, 49 ; reaches Avignon, 52; visits the amphitheatre at Nismes, 53 ; describes Montpellier and its environs, 54 ; his particu- lars of the Synod of Languedoc, 58 ; on the obligation of the Penal Laws in France, 61 ; proceeds to Castries, 65 ; on imaginary space, 66 ; visits Marseilles, 67 ; Tou- lon, 68 ; Hyeres, ib. ; reads Books of Travels while at Mont- pellier, 70 ; journeys by way of Toulouse and Bourdeaux towards the French capital, 71 1 arrives at Paris, 72 ; visits the King's Li- brary, ib. ; also the Louvre and the Gobelins, 74 ; Versailles, ib. ; witnesses the Opera of " Alceste" at Fontainbleau, 75 ; present at a review of the French troops in the Plain de Duile, 76 ; quits Paris, on his return to Montpellier, 77; arrives at Bourdeaux, 78 ; con- verses with a peasant, 79 ; returns to Montpellier, and, after a short residence there, again proceeds to Paris, 80 ; witnesses a review of the Infantry of the Maison du Roi, 81 i converses with the Prince of
Digitized byCjOOQlC
HffDEX.
497
Gonti, S3 ; acquaintances fonned by, 86, 135 ; quits Paris and re- turns to London, 86 ; his dissert- ation on the extent and measure of Knowledge, ib. ; on the State of the Human Mind, 87 ; on an- other life, 90; on the improve- ment of the mind by study, 92 ; on the great duties of man, 101 ; recommends the reading of the best authors, 108, 118 ; his letters to a friend, on religious topics, 110, 114; his questions relative to fermentation, 117 ; on the great steps to knowledge, 121 ; his re- marks on religion, 124; on the immortality of the soul, 128 ; ex- tracts from his Journal, 131 ; his account of Alice George, ib. ; his directions (apparently) for some foreigner about to visit England, 133; expelled from Oxford, by command of Charles II., 147 ; correspondence between the Earl of Sunderland and Dr Fell, Bishop of Oxford, respecting that proceed- ing, 149, 151, 152; letters of the latter to him, 152, 153 ; demand made by the King's minister at the Hague that he should be de- livered up, 154; his Letter on Toleration, 156; refuses to ac- cept the royal pardon, 157 ; letters of the Earl of Pembroke to him, ib., 158; occupied in scientific pursuits at Amsterdam, 159 ; de- scribes the service performed by an Armenian priest, 160 ; his ac- count of the Labadists of Wein- wert, 162 ; visits the house of a Boor, 166 ; corresponds with his friends in England, 168; letters from Mr Tyrrell to him, ib., 169, 171, 193; offer made to him by Lord Mordaunt on his arrival in England to accept the office of Envoy at one of the German courts, 172 ; his letter to that no- bleman, declining the appoint- ment, ib. ; presents a petition to the King for his restoration at 2 K
Christ Church, 175 ; presses his claims no further, ] 76 ; publica- tion of his Essay on Human Understanding, 177 ; Dugald Stewart's and Sir James Mackin- tosh's opinion of its high merits, 177, 179; Lord Ashley attacks his philosophy, 181 ; letters of his Lordship to him on the sub- ject, 182, 185 ; his Essay recom- mended by Mr Wynne, at the University of Oxford, 189 ; com- plimentaiy letter of that gentle- man to him, ib. ; his reply to it, 191 ; successive editions of his Essay, 192 ; the readmg of it for- bidden, 193; his principles at- tacked by Dr Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, 194 ; writes to Mr King in vindication of his Es- say, 196; his letter to Mr Tyr- rell, on the same subject, 198 ; his varied occupations, 201 ; pub- lishes a second Letter for Toler- ation, 202 ; his observations on the Censorship of the press, ib. ; becomes acquainted with Sir Isaac Newton, and other distinguished persons, 209 ; letters of Newton to him, 217—219, 221, 224, 225, 227, 228 ; his reply to one of these, 226; his magnanimous nature, ib. ; second edition of his Book of Ideas, 227 ; his Paraphrase on the Epistles of the Corinthians, 228 ; his correspondence with the Lord Keeper Somers, 235, 236, 248, 249 ; letters of the Earl of Monmouth to him, 237—243, 247; his advice relative to the coinage, 244 ; appointed Member of the Council of Trade, 245 ; letter of Sir William Trumbull to, ib. ; re- signs his post, in consequence of his increasing infirmities, 246 ; flattering intention of the King towards him, 249 ; his residence at Gates, 251 ; his letter to Mr Cudworth, ib. ; his correspond- ence with his cousin, P. King, Esq., M. P. (afterwards Lord
Digitized byCjOOQlC
498
HTDEX.
Chancellor), 254—262, 264, 265 ; Newton risits him, 262 ; his weak state of health, 266, 274 ; epitaph on his tomb, 266 ; his last mo* ments and death, 267 ; his numer- ous works, ib. ; his Treatise on Education, ib. ; remarks of Ba^le on his philosophy, ib., 268 ; Codicil of his Will relating to his works, 269 ; summary of his character, by Le Clerc, 271 ; his agreeable man- ners and conversation, 272 ; his charity and benevolence, 273; his religious opinions, 275 ; paper drawn up by him on the subject of a pure Christian Community, 276 ; his high attainments, 278 ; influence of his opinion and writings, ib. ; his Treatise on Go- vernment, 280; extracts from his Common-place Books, 282; on the love of coimtry, 291 ; his re- marks on vice and virtue, 292; on the inspired writings, 294 ; on the doctrine of election, 295 ; on the worship of God, ib. ; on super- stition, 296; on tradition, ib. ; on the texts of the Trinitarians, 297 ; on life eternal, ib. ; on the doctrine of the Trinity, 298 ; his miscellaneous papers, 299; Judg- ing, Election, Resolution, ib. ; on the difference between civil and ecclesiastical power, 300 ; on the pursuit of happiness, 306; on Ethics in general, 30^; on the existence of God, 314; on the Resurrection, 316 ; on the mode of acquiring truth, 323 ; letter of M. Le Clerc to, 326 ; his reply to it, 327 ; on the species of things, 328 ; on arguments positive and negative, 329 ; his Essay concern- ing Recreation, 330 ; on Memory, 333; on Imagination, 334; on Madness, 335 ; on Error, 336 ; on matter and space, 337; his Adversaria Theologica, 342; his Miswer to Dr Stillingfleet, in defence of Nonconformity, 346; •additions intended to have been
made by him to his Essay on Human Understanding, 359 ; on the Organs of Speech, 361 ; on the way of managing arguments, 363; his Fourth Letter for Toler- ation, 364 ; Abstract of his Essay, 365; letters of Limborch to, 403^ 406, 409, 412, 413, 415, 417, 418, 420, 422.
Locke, John (the father of John), particulars respecting,] ; affection of his son to him, 2; his disputa- tion on divinity, 19.
London, things worth seeing in, 133 ; noted men of, in their respective arts, 134; George II. proclaimed in, 449.
Louis XIV., taxes paid to, 72 ; visits the Opera, 75 ; reviews the gardes du corps, 76 ; his great devotion, 81 ; reviews his Infantry, 82.
Louvre, Garde Meubles at the, 74, 77.
Lyons, the Jesuits* College at, 49; St John's Church at, ib. ; the Castle of Pierre en Cise, ib. ; the Hotel Dieu, 150; the Charit6, ib. ; aspect of the country near, ib.
M
Macclesfield, Lord, discussioii re- specting, 441.
Mackintosh, Sir James, his opinion of Locke, 1 77 ; his remarks on his character, 280.
Madness, observations on, 335.
Magdalen College, Oxford, commis- sioners sent by the King to, 169.
Mahometans of Hindoostan, 73.
Man, knowledge requisite for, 89; his duties, 101 ; opinions planted in him, ib. ; ought to.study him- self, 108 ; principal spring of his actions, 109 ; his state in this world one or mediocrity, 113; his actions in general things, ib., 359 ; in what his happiness con- sists, 116; matters that govern him, 120; ought to obtain true ideas, 121 ; rules for his actions.
Digitized byCjOOQlC
INDEX.
499
312 ; remarks on his recreations,
330. Mappletoft, Dr, letters of Locke to,
43,44. Marius, triumphal arch of, at
Orange, 51. Marriage, on- the thoughts of, 299,
300. Miu^illes, some account of the
town of, 67. Marrel, Mr, 41. Masham, Lady, 217, 219, 221, 224,
258 ; her agreeable manners,
251. Masham, Sir Francis, 218, 229. Matter, ideas respecting, 315. Meary, Dr, 2.. Memory, help to the, 107 ; remarks
on, 333. Mercury, changes its colours and
properties, 222. Metals, multiplication of, 224. Mind, human, its constitution, 87 ;
its labours, 99; its sympathies
and antipathies, 100 ; ideas of
the, 378. Minutol, letter of Bayle to, 267. Miracles, remarks on, 125; in
ancient times, 225. Modesty, the great virtue of woman,
293. Monmouth, the Earl of, 217, 218,
221 ; his letters to Locke, 237
—240. See Peterborough. Montaigne, Essays of, 159. Montejo, Ck)nd6 de, 490. Montespan, Madame, 75. Montpellier, town of, and its en-
yirons, 54; its population, 59;
the Consistory of, 60; Carnival
at, ib. ; police at, 61 ; murders
at, 64, 66. Morality, the plain duties of, 103 ;
capable of demonstration, 121. Mordaunt, Lord (afterwards Earl of
Peterborough], letter of Locke to,
declining to become Envoy at one
of the German courts, 17^. Munster, Bishop of, 164. Murray, Lord George, his petition to
the King, 437
2 K 2
Muscat wine,its goodness dependent on two causes, 63.
N
Nassau, Prince of, married to the Princess of Anhault, 163 ; enter- tainment given to, 164.
Nature, phenomena of, 106 ; on the law of, 198, 201.
Newcastle,Duke of, 438, 439, 441— 444, 447, 456, 470—472, 483, 484 j letters of Lord Townshend to, 473, 474, 476 ; meeting at his house, 480; his letters to Lord Waldegrave, 484, 486, 487 ; let- ter of Mr Broglio to, 487.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 209 ; his demon- stration of Kepler's observation that the planets move in ellipses, 210; his Account of the Cor- ruptions of Scripture, 216; his letters to Locke, 217—219, 221, 224, 225, 227, 228 ; remarks on three of them, 229 ; visits Locke, 262 ; his great knowledge, 263.
Nimegen, town of, 165.
Niort, troops quartered at, 78.
Nismes, the Amphitheatre at, de- scribed, 53; the Protestants o^ 54.
Nonconformity, defence of, 346.
Normoutier, the great Abbey of, 78
Nottingham, Lord, petition against him, 239.
Nunnery at Hyeres, 68.
Gates, near Ongar, retirement of Locke to, in consequence of ill health, 251.
Opinions, planted in man by educa- tion, 101 ; difference and con- trariety of, 102.
Orange, Prince of, camels presented to, 164 ; his stay at the Hague, 465; affairs of, 466.
Orange, Princess of, her marriage, 12.
Orange, the little town o( 51;
Digitized
byGOOglj
coo
IKDEX.
Mariu8*8 triumphal arch at, ib. ;
some account of the place, 52. Orkney, the Earl of, 480. Ormond, Duke of. Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, 28, 37. Orthodoxy, two kinds of, 284. Ostend, project for a great trading
Company at, 435, 444. Outred, his system of Algebra, 122. Owen, Dr, the Independent, 7. Oxford, system of education in the
University of, 4 ; the Colleges at,
134; the Philosophy of Locke
excites attention at, 189. Oyster-shells, remarkable bed of,
56.
Paley, substance of his argument, 292.
Pari8,arrivalofLockeat,72; King's Library at, ib. ; fray among the Jacobins at, 73 ; the Palais Ma- zarin at, ib. ; Garde Meubles in the Louvre at, 74; hangings in the Gobelins at, ib. ; Academy for Painting and Sculpture at, 75 ; Hospital of the Invalides at, 77 ; Library of the Abb6 of St Ger- mains at, 80 ; review of the In- fantry of the Maison du Roi at, 81 ; population and mortality in, 83 ; observation of Lent at, ib. ; houses opened to public inspec- tion at, 84.
Parliament dissolved in 1678, 136; a new one formed, ib. ; advice to a member o^ 256; prorogued, 449, 452.
Patriae Amor, its influence, 291.
Paz, Marquis del, explanation given by, 471,476.
Pembroke, the Earl of, his letters to Locke, 157, 158.
Penal Laws, obligation of, in France, 61.
Penn, William, offer of, 157.
Percy, Mr, encourages Locke's Phi- losophy, 193.
Peterborough, the Earl of, 4 ; his letters to Locke, 241, 242, 262.
Picais, salt made at, 65.
Planets, demonstration that, by their gravity towards the sun, they may move in ellipses, 210.
Pleasure and pain, definition of, 372.
Pomey and Chanson, burnt at Paris, 83.
Pontac, President, his vineyard at Hautbrion, 71.
Pont St Esprit, a bridge over the Rhone, described, 51.
Popish plot, discovered, 32.
Porson, Mr, his letters to Archdeacon Travis, 216, 230.
Port Cette, the mole at, 63.
Portsmouth, Lord, his catalogue of the Newton Manuscripts, 2^.
Power, civil and ecclesiastical, dif- ference between, 300.
Poy, stay of Locke at, 47.
Prayer, form of, ordered by Charles II., 139, 140, 143.
Press, restramt upon the, 206.
Priest, Armenian, service performed, by one, 160.
Priesthoods, of several factions, 289.
Princes, power of the clergy OYer, 290.
Printing, discovery of the art of, 131 ; Act for preventing abuses in, 202 ; objectionable clauses in it, ib. ; its expiry in 1694, 209.
Propositions, self-evident, ^4.
Prudence, study of, 97.
Prussia, King of, his military pre- parations, 480.
Q
Quakers, origin of the, 167.
Reason, the judgments of, 125 ; the
four parts of, 397. Reasonableness of Christianity, by
Locke, 268, 270. Recreation, an Essay concerning,
330.
Digitized byCjOOQlC
INDEX.
501
Beformation, progress of the, 352.
Regency, meetings of the, 439, 441.
Relation of things in space, 338.
Religion, definition of, by Locke, 124; propositions relating to, 126 ; on the change of, 285 ; the true one, 287; obedience to the laws of, 302 ; three things to be considered in, 305 ; knowledge of the true one, 364.
Renaie, Monsieur, sacrifices a child to the DeVil, 64.
Ren^, King of Naples, chalice of gold given by, 69.
Reputation, the aim of mankind, 109.
Resolution, remarks on, 299.
Resurrectio et quae Sequuntur, 316.
Revelation, original remarks oni 397.
Rewards and punishments in an- other life, 199.
Ripperda, Duke of, his disgrace, 447.
Rogation procession^ in France, 70.
Rome, the Church of, 353.
Rottemburg, Ck)unt, instructions to, 457.
Rotterdam, land of a Boor bear, 167.
Royal Louis, French man-of-war, 68.
Royal, the Admiral's galley, 67.
Russell, Lord, resignation of, 137 ; executed, 139, 149.
St Germains, library of the Abbe
of, 80. St John de Croix, canonization of,
58. St John's Church, at Lyons, 49. St Paul, the Apostle, his Chapter on
the Resurrection, 317 ; preaches
the gospel, 357. Saltmarsh, John, Chaplain to Fair- fax, 167. Sardinia, King of, negotiations
with, 485 ; proposed subsidy to,
487.
Saville, Lord (afterwards Eiirl of Sussex), forged letter of, 1 19.
Scalenon, true idea of a, 121.
Schelton, M., his Memorial to tlie States' General, 154.
Schools, Ethics of the, 310.
Scotland, Justices of the Peace for, 437.
Screwin, the Princess of, 163.
Scrip^tura Sacra, remarks on, 293.
Scroop, A|r, 438.
Sensation, ideas of, 366, 367, 372.
Shaftesbury, Earl of, declared Lord Chancellor, 34; appoints Locke his Secretary, ib. ; his letters to him, showing the playful style of his correspondence, ib., 37; ac- count published by, 40; made President of the Coimcil, 136; resigns office, 137 ; his letter to Locke concerning the Elections, ib. ; indicted of high treason, 138 ; retires to Holland, 139 ; his death, ib. ; his attack on Locke's Philosophy, 181 ; his letters to Locke on the subject of it, 182, 185; letter of the Bishop oi Lincoln to, 194.
Shovel, Sir Cloudesly, fleet under, 265.
Sleep, the great balsam of life, 99 ; experience of, 129.
Society, Civil, the end of, 300 ; re- ligious, ib.
Soldiers, artifices for enlisting, in France, 56.
Soldiery, French, their dress de- scribed, 82.
Somers, Lord Keeper, his letters to Locke, 235, 236, 243, 247.
Sophistry and Philosophy, 187, 188.
Soul, faculties of the, 91 ; its im- mortality, 128.
Space, imaginary, remarks on, 66 ; definition of, 336; ideas of, 337, 370 ; relation of things in, 338 ; difference between it and body ,339.
Spain, state of affairs in, 440 ; de- signs of, 443; dispute with, 470, 471 ; fleet to proceed to the coast of, 475; proposals of, 476.
Digitized
by Goo
>j(c
502
ODEX.
Spanish man-of-war, wrecked, 482.
Species of things, 32^.
Speech, on the organs of, 361.
Sports of England, 133.
Stanhope, Mr, letter from, 444, 445.
Staremberg, Count, 445.
Stationers' Company, monopoly of the, 203—205, 208.
Stewart, Dugald, on the progress of philosophy, 9; his character of Locke, 177 ; his remarks on Locke's principles, 281.
Stewart, Mr, a Scotch Member of Parliament, 438.
Stillingfleet, Dr, Bishop of Worces- ter, opposes Locke's Philosophy, 194; reply of. 195; his death, lb.; his attack on the Noncon- formists, 346; Locke's answer to it, ib.
Strachy, John, letters of Locke to, 13, 18. 21, 26, 27.
Strafford, the Earl of, 120.
Stringer, Mr, his illness, 34; ex- tracts from his letters to Locke, ib.
Study, results in knowledge, 92; how to pursue it with profit and advantage, 95 ; time requisite for, 99.
Substances, natural ideas of, 376, 389 ; on the names of, 382, 385.
Succession, idea of, 371.
Sully, M^moires de, 85.
Sunderland, the Earl of, his corre- spondence with Dr Fell, Bishop of Oxford, relative to the expul- sion of Locke from Christ Church, 147, 149, 152, 155.
Superstition, cause and rise of, 296.
Swammerdam, his collection of ani- mal remains, 165.
Swerin, the Prince of, 12.
Sydenham, Dr, his praise of Locke's medical skill, 9 ; alluded to, 44.
Sydney, Algernon, execution of, 139.
Taxes, levied in France, 72.
Tea, Japanese mode of making, 160.
Teachers, two sorts of, among the ancients, 286.
Testament, the New, old manu- scripts of the, 81.
Theists and Atheists, question be- tween the, 314.
Thomas, David, his letter to Locke, 403.
Thought, amendment of the general habits of, ;i80.
Thus I think, 306.
Tilliard, arrival of Locke at, 48.
Tillotson, Archbishop, 321.
Time, improvement of, 93.
Time and Duration, 370 ; ideas of, 371.
Toinard, M., new system of, 83.
Toland, his work entitled Christi- anity not Mysterious, 194.
Toleration, Locke's letter on, 156 ; a Second Letter for, 202 ; Locke's Fourth Letter for, 364.
Tories, ill humour of the, 239.
Toulon, aspect of the coimtry near, 67 ; tiie port of, and vessels there,
" 68.
Toulouse, sacred relics at, 80.
Tours, situation of the town of^ 72 ; taxes levied at, ib.
Townshend, Lord, 445, 446, 449, 450, 455, 463 ; his letters to the Earl of Chesterfield, 467, 469 ; conference at his house, 470 ; his letters to the Duke of Newcastle, 473, 474, 476.
Tradition, recourse to, 296.
Treatise on Government, by Locke, 280.
Trinity, doctrine of the, 194, 196, 298 ; remarks on the, 342.
Trumbull, Sir William, his letter to Locke, 245.
Truth, the proper object of the hu- man mind, 101 ; on the clear con- ception of, 103 ; the duty of man to search after it, 282. 361 ; how to arrive at it, 323, 393.
Tully's Works, imported copy of, seized, 204.
Turf, its value in Holland, 167.
Tuscany and Parma, succession of; 472.
Digitized byCjOOQlC
IKDEX.
503
Tyrrell, Mr, a friend of Locke, 3 ; his letters to Locke, 168, 169, 171, 193, 198.
U
Understanding— arguments positive
and negative, 329. Understanding and Power, ideas of,
376. Unitarians, texts of the, 297. Uzes, town of, near Nismes, 55.
Valence, town of, 50.
Vane, Sir Walter, Envoy to the
Elector of Brandenburgh, 10 ;
Locke appointed Secretary to, ib. Vard, Marquis de, 64. Vaucluse, the famous fountain at,
69. Vemet, the seat of the Abb6 Defiat,
78. Vernules, Due de. Governor of Lan-
guedoc, 58, 61. Versailles, Chateau at, 74. Vice, remarks on, 293. Vienna, secret treaty of, 447. Virtue, things essential to, 116 ;
obligations of, 292. Virtues and vices of mankind, 309. Vita Etema, 297.
W
Wager, Sir Charles, fleet under, 475, 476.
Waldegrave, Lord, instructions to, 484 ; letters of the Duke of New- castle to, ib., 486, 487.
Walpole, Sir Robert, affairs during his administration, 435 ; letter from, 448 ; meeting of the Lords at his house, 471, 477.
Wharton, Mr, 238.
Wichkot, Dr, sermons of, 272.
Wicked, doom of the, 323.
Wienwert, Church of the Labadists at, 162.
William IIL, 238 ; determines upon a Council of Trade, 240; sends for Mr Locke, 249 ; his Majesty's conversation with him, 251; speech of, 260 ; his death, 451.
Wines, French, value of, 71,
Wo Ifenbuttel, treaty between George n. and the Duke of, 455, 456.
Wood, Captain, his attempt to dis- cover a north-west passage, in 1676, 132.
Worcum, approach to, 161.
Words, on the true value of, 93, 387 ; on the abuse of, 361 ; are of two sorts, 379 ; nature and sig- nification of, 380 ; have a double use, 383.
Writings, inspired, remarks on the, 294.
Wynne, Mr, recommends Locke's Essay to the University of Ox- ford, 189 ; his letter to Locke concerning it, ib- ; reply to it, 191.
Yelverton, Sir Henry, his work on Miracles, 225.
Zinzendorf, Count, 433, 464.
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Handbook of Games. By yarioas Amateurs and Professors. Comprising treatises on all the principal Games of chance, skill, and manual dexterity. In all, above 40 games (the Whist, Draughts, and Billiards being especially comprehen- sive). Edited by H. G. Bohn. iZlws- traiei by numerotts Diagrams.
Hogg's (Jabez) Elements of Experi- mental and Natural Philosophy. Con- taining Mechanics, Pneumatics, Hydro- statics, Hydraulics, Acoustics, Optics, Caloric, Electricity, Yoitaism, and Mag- netism. New Edition, enlarged. Up- wards qf 400 Woodcuts.
Hind's Introdnction to Astronomy. With a Vocabulary, containing an Expla- nation of all the Terms in present use. New Edition, enlarged. Numerous En- gravings. 3s. 6d. *
Hnmboldt's Cosmos ; or Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe. Translated by E. C. OrrS and W. & Dallas, F.IJS. Fine Portrait. In five vols. 3s. 6d. each ; excepting VoL Y., 5s. *,* In this edition the notes are placed beneath the text. Humboldt's analytical Summaries and the passages hitherto sup- pressed are included, and new and com- prehensive Indices are added.
-»— Travels in America. In 3 vols.
■' Views of Nature ; or, Con-
templations of the Sublime Phenomena of Creation. Translated by E. C. Orrfi and H. G. BoBK. A fao-simile letter from the Author to the Publisher ; translations of tibie quotations, and a complete Index.
Humphrey's Coin Collector's Ma-
nuaL A popular Introduction to the Study of Coins. SigW/y fnisked Engrao' ings. In 2 vols.
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Hunt's (Bobert) Poetry of Seieaoe;
or. Stndioi of tbe Physical Phenomena of Nature. By Profeaaor Hmrr. New Edi- tion, enlarged.
Index of Datei. See Blair^a Tables.
Joyoo's Scientifle Dialognet. Com-
Sleted to tbe present state of Knowledge, y Or. Griffith. Numerout WoodaUt,
Xnight*8 (Chas.) Knowledge is Power.
A Popaiar Mannal of Political Economy.
Leetores on Painting. By the Royal. Academicians. With fntrodactory Essay, and Notes by R. Wobkuic, Esq. PortraiU.
Kantell's (Br.) Geological Excnr-
slons through the Isle of Wight and Dor- setfihire. New Edition, by T. Rufbrt JoMRS. Esq. numerous beaut^vlly ese- ' cuted Woodcutt^ cund a Geological Map.
■ Medals of Creation ; or,
First Lessons in Geology and the Stody of Organic Remains; including Geological Excursions. New Edition, revised, ffo- loured FUUes, and several hundred beai*- tifvl Woodcuts. In 2 vols., U. ed. each.
- Petri&ctions and their
Teachings. An illustrated Handbook to the Organic nemains in the British Mu- seum. Numerous Engravings. 6s.
■' Wonders of Geology; or, a
Familiar Exposition of Geological Phe- nomena. New Edition, augmented by T. RuFBKTJoism,F.QA. Coloured Geological Map of England, Plates, and nearly 200 beautiful Woodcuts. ln2vols.,7<.6(i.each.
Morphy's Games of Chess. Being
the Matchei; and best Games played /by the American phampton, with Explana- tory aud Analytical Notes, by J. LdWEN- XHAL. Portrait and Memoir.
It contains by far the largest collection of games played by Mr. Morphy extant in any form, and has received his endorse- ment and co-operation.
Oersted's Soul in Nature, fte. Fortrait,
Biehardson's Geology,
Mineralogy and Palaeontology* and enlarged, by Dr. T.WuaBX: rjiiiiii o/4(N) niu»tratum*. Schonw's Earth, Plants, and MamimA Kobell's Sketches from tbe MinerBl KlB^ dom. Translated by A. Bbnvkst, F.ftfiL Coloured Map of the Geograph,^ ef /
Smith's (Pye) Geology and ture ; or. The Relatl(»i between tfa Scriptures and Geological Science.
Stanley's Classified Synopoia of Uto EVindpal Painters of the Dutch ,«wl JPli- misb Schools.
Staunton's Chess-player's Handbodi*
Numerous Diagrams.
Chess Praxis. A Snp^JemflKC
to the Qiess-playefs Handbook. Ooft> taintng. all the most important modiem improvemmts in the Openings. lUoattalid by actual Games ; a revised Code of C3mm I^ws; and a Selection of Mr. M<»pl^f% Games in England and France. 6«.
Chess-player's CompanlM.
Comprising a new Treatise on Odds, OcA- lection of Match Games, and a Seleotiwi of Original Problems.
Chess Tournament of 1891.
Numerous Illustrations.
Stoekhardfs Principles of Cheay**
try, exemplified in a iserles of simple oqM- rlments. TTpwards of 270 /nustroMoits.
Agricultural Chemistry ; otv
Chemical Field Lectures. Addressed iA Farmers. Translated, wlili Note^ I* Professor Hshfbst, F.RA To whKh b added, a Pf^er on liquid Manure, bp J. J. Mrchi. Esq.
lire's t^Dr. A.^ Cotton MannliaetiiM of Great Britain, systematically Inveatl- gated ; with an introductory view of fig comparative state fai Foreign Oountriw. New Edition, revised and completed to the present time, by P. L. SoncoNDe. ims Iwmdiredwnd fifty TUustratitmL In 2 vols*
Philosophy of Uanufaotnret ;
or. An Exposition of the Factory System of Great Britain. New likL, continued to th» present time, t^ P. L. Snnfonn. 7«. «A
zm. Bohn's Cheap Series.
Boswell's Lifo of Johnson, and John-
soniana. Including bis Tour to the Hebrides, Tour In Wales. «c Kdlted, with large additions and Notes, hy tbe Kght Hon. John Wh.som Cbokkb. The second and most completr Copyrlgbt Edition, re- arranged and rf:vlstd ACcurUing to the sug- 14
gestlATif: of Lord Macanlay. by tin* W» John Wbiobt, Esq., with further additlou by Mr. Obojckk. Upwurdt iff SU fvnc M^ gratings on Stsd. In 5 vols, cloth, 30i:
Cape and the Kaffirs. By H, Wabo.
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