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==Early Life==

==Early Life==

John Locke was born at Wrington, to m. W. of Belluton, in Somersetshire, on the 29th of August 1632, six years after the death of Bacon, and three months before the birth of Spinoza. His father was a small landowner and attorney at Pensford, near the northern boundary of the county, to which neighbourhood the family had migrated from Dorsetshire early in that century. The elder Locke, a strict but genial Puritan, by whom the son was carefully educated at home, was engaged in the military service of the parliamentary party. " From the time that I knew anything," Locke wrote in 1660, "I found myself in a storm, which has continued to this time." For fourteen years his education, more or less interrupted, went on in the rural home at Belluton, on his father's little estate, half a mile from Pensford, and 6 m. from Bristol. In 1646 he entered Westminster School and remained there for six years. Westminster was uncongenial to him. Its memories perhaps encouraged the bias against public schools which after-wards disturbed his philosophic calm in his Thoughts on Education.

John Locke was born at Wrington, to m. W. of Belluton, in Somersetshire, on the 29th of August 1632, six years after the death of Bacon, and three months before the birth of Spinoza. His father was a small landowner and attorney at Pensford, near the northern boundary of the county, to which neighbourhood the family had migrated from Dorsetshire early in that century. The elder Locke, a strict but genial Puritan, by whom the son was carefully educated at home, was engaged in the military service of the parliamentary party. " From the time that I knew anything," Locke wrote in 1660, "I found myself in a storm, which has continued to this time." For fourteen years his education, more or less interrupted, went on in the rural home at Belluton, on his father's little estate, half a mile from Pensford, and 6 m. from Bristol. In 1646 he entered Westminster School and remained there for six years. Westminster was uncongenial to him. Its memories perhaps encouraged the bias against public schools which after-wards disturbed his philosophic calm in his Thoughts on Education.

===College Education===

===College Education===

In 1652 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, then under John Owen, the Puritan dean and vice-chancellor of the university. Christ Church was Locke's occasional home for thirty years. For some years after he entered, Oxford was ruled by the Independents, who, largely through Owen, unlike the Presbyterians, were among the first in England to advocate genuine religious toleration. But Locke's hereditary sympathy with the Puritans was gradually lessened by the intolerance of the Presbyterians and the fanaticism of the Independents. He had found in his youth, he says, that " what was called general freedom was general bondage, and that the popular assertors of liberty were the greatest engrossers of it too, and not unfitly called its keepers." And the influence of the liberal divines of the Church of England afterwards showed itself in his spiritual development. Under Owen scholastic studies were maintained with a formality and dogmatism unsuited to Locke's free inquisitive temper. The aversion to them which be expressed showed thus early an innate disposition to rebel against empty verbal reasoning. He was not, according to his own account of himself to Lady Masham, a hard student at first. He sought the company of pleasant and witty men, and thus gained knowledge of life. He took the ordinary bachelor's degree in 1656, and the master's in 1658. In December 1660 he was serving as tutor of Christ Church, lecturing in Greek, rhetoric and philosophy.

In 1652 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, then under John Owen, the Puritan dean and vice-chancellor of the university. Christ Church was Locke's occasional home for thirty years. For some years after he entered, Oxford was ruled by the Independents, who, largely through Owen, unlike the Presbyterians, were among the first in England to advocate genuine religious toleration. But Locke's hereditary sympathy with the Puritans was gradually lessened by the intolerance of the Presbyterians and the fanaticism of the Independents. He had found in his youth, he says, that " what was called general freedom was general bondage, and that the popular assertors of liberty were the greatest engrossers of it too, and not unfitly called its keepers." And the influence of the liberal divines of the Church of England afterwards showed itself in his spiritual development. Under Owen scholastic studies were maintained with a formality and dogmatism unsuited to Locke's free inquisitive temper. The aversion to them which be expressed showed thus early an innate disposition to rebel against empty verbal reasoning. He was not, according to his own account of himself to Lady Masham, a hard student at first. He sought the company of pleasant and witty men, and thus gained knowledge of life. He took the ordinary bachelor's degree in 1656, and the master's in 1658. In December 1660 he was serving as tutor of Christ Church, lecturing in Greek, rhetoric and philosophy.

====Oxford====

====Oxford====

At Oxford Locke was nevertheless within reach of liberal intellectual influence tending to promote self-education and strong individuality. The metaphysical works of Descartes had appeared a few years before he went to Oxford, and the Human Nature and Leviathan of Hobbes during his under-graduate years. It does not seem that Locke read extensively, but he was attracted by Descartes. The first books, he told Lady Masham, which gave him a relish for philosophy, were those of this philosopher, although he very often differed from him. At the Restoration potent influences were drawing Oxford and England into experimental inquiries. Experiment in physics became the fashion. The Royal Society was then founded, and we find Locke experimenting in chemistry in 1663, also in meteorology, in which he was particularly interested all his life.

At Oxford Locke was nevertheless within reach of liberal intellectual influence tending to promote self-education and strong individuality. The metaphysical works of Descartes had appeared a few years before he went to Oxford, and the Human Nature and Leviathan of Hobbes during his under-graduate years. It does not seem that Locke read extensively, but he was attracted by Descartes. The first books, he told Lady Masham, which gave him a relish for philosophy, were those of this philosopher, although he very often differed from him. At the Restoration potent influences were drawing Oxford and England into experimental inquiries. Experiment in physics became the fashion. The Royal Society was then founded, and we find Locke experimenting in chemistry in 1663, also in meteorology, in which he was particularly interested all his life.

All the summer of 1704 he continued to decline, tenderly nursed by Lady Masham and her step-daughter Esther. On the 28th of October he died, according to his last recorded words, in perfect charity with all men, and in sincere communion with the whole church of Christ, by whatever names Christ's followers call themselves." His grave is on the south side of the parish church of High Laver, in which he often worshipped, near the tombs of the Mashams, and of Damaris, the widow of Cudworth. At the distance of 1 m. are the garden and park where the manor house of Otes once stood.

All the summer of 1704 he continued to decline, tenderly nursed by Lady Masham and her step-daughter Esther. On the 28th of October he died, according to his last recorded words, in perfect charity with all men, and in sincere communion with the whole church of Christ, by whatever names Christ's followers call themselves." His grave is on the south side of the parish church of High Laver, in which he often worshipped, near the tombs of the Mashams, and of Damaris, the widow of Cudworth. At the distance of 1 m. are the garden and park where the manor house of Otes once stood.

Locke's writings have made his intellectual and moral features familiar. The reasonableness of taking probability as our guide in life was in the essence of his philosophy. The desire to see for himself what is true in the light of reasonable evidence, and that others should do the same, was his ruling passion, if the term can be applied to one so calm and judicial. " I can no more know anything by another man's understanding," he would say, " than I can see by another man's eyes." This repugnance to believe blindly what rested on arbitrary authority, as dis-tinguished from what was seen to be sustained by self-evident reason, or by demonstration, or by good probable evidence, runs through his life. He is typically English in his reverence for facts, whether facts of sense or of living consciousness, in his aversion from abstract speculation and verbal reasoning, in his suspicion of mysticism, in his calm reasonableness, and in his ready submission to truth, even when truth was incapable of being fully reduced to system by man. The delight he took in exercising reason in regard to everything he did was what his friend Pierre Coste remarked in Locke's daily life at Otes. " He went about the most trilling things always with some good reason. Above all things he loved order; and he had got the way of observing it in everything with wonderful exactness. As he always kept the useful in his eye in all his disquisitions, he esteemed the employments of men only in proportion to the good they were capable of producing; for which cause he had no great value for the critics who waste their lives in composing words and phrases in coming to the choice of a various reading, in a passage that has after all nothing important in it. He cared yet less for those professed disputants, who, being taken up with the desire of coming off with victory, justify themselves behind the ambiguity of a word, to give their adversaries the more trouble. And whenever he had to deal with this sort of folks, if he did not beforehand take a strong resolution of keeping his temper, he quickly fell into a passion; for he was naturally choleric, but his anger never lasted long. If he retained any resentment it was against himself, for having given way to so ridiculous a passion; which, as he used to say, " may do a great deal of harm, but never yet did anyone the least good." Large, " round-about " common sense, intellectual strength directed by a virtuous purpose, not subtle or daring speculation sustained by an idealizing faculty, in which he was deficient, is what we find in Locke. Defect in speculative imagination appears when he encounters the vast and complex final problem of the universe in its organic unity.

Locke's writings have made his intellectual and moral features familiar. The reasonableness of taking probability as our guide in life was in the essence of his philosophy. The desire to see for himself what is true in the light of reasonable evidence, and that others should do the same, was his ruling passion, if the term can be applied to one so calm and judicial. " I can no more know anything by another man's understanding," he would say, " than I can see by another man's eyes." This repugnance to believe blindly what rested on arbitrary authority, as dis-tinguished from what was seen to be sustained by self-evident reason, or by demonstration, or by good probable evidence, runs through his life. He is typically English in his reverence for facts, whether facts of sense or of living consciousness, in his aversion from abstract speculation and verbal reasoning, in his suspicion of mysticism, in his calm reasonableness, and in his ready submission to truth, even when truth was incapable of being fully reduced to system by man. The delight he took in exercising reason in regard to everything he did was what his friend Pierre Coste remarked in Locke's daily life at Otes. " He went about the most trilling things always with some good reason. Above all things he loved order; and he had got the way of observing it in everything with wonderful exactness. As he always kept the useful in his eye in all his disquisitions, he esteemed the employments of men only in proportion to the good they were capable of producing; for which cause he had no great value for the critics who waste their lives in composing words and phrases in coming to the choice of a various reading, in a passage that has after all nothing important in it. He cared yet less for those professed disputants, who, being taken up with the desire of coming off with victory, justify themselves behind the ambiguity of a word, to give their adversaries the more trouble. And whenever he had to deal with this sort of folks, if he did not beforehand take a strong resolution of keeping his temper, he quickly fell into a passion; for he was naturally choleric, but his anger never lasted long. If he retained any resentment it was against himself, for having given way to so ridiculous a passion; which, as he used to say, " may do a great deal of harm, but never yet did anyone the least good." Large, " round-about " common sense, intellectual strength directed by a virtuous purpose, not subtle or daring speculation sustained by an idealizing faculty, in which he was deficient, is what we find in Locke. Defect in speculative imagination appears when he encounters the vast and complex final problem of the universe in its organic unity.