344. John Locke, (born at Wrington near Bristol, 1632, died 1704), renounced the intricacies of Scholastic philosophy for the more congenial study of the classics. The writings of Descartes inspired him with fresh ardour, particularly for the cultivation of Medicine and Metaphysics. He rejected indeed many of his master's notions, more particularly that of Innate Ideas; but was not the less captivated by his love of perspicuity and distinctness. The endless disputations of the learned led him to suspect that they had their origin in an improper use of words and a defective use of conceptions; which he proposed to rectify by ascertaining the grounds and extent of human knowledge, through investigation of the properties of the human understanding. This was the origin of his renowned work on the Human Understanding, by which he justly acquired the greatest distinction for the modesty und tolerance of his way of thinking, the clearness and rectitude of his understanding, evinced in the course of a correspondence with the most accomplished men of his day, and his penetrating acuteness and manly honesty. He so far adopted Bacon's principles that he pursued the method of experiment and observation, in preference to that of speculation; applying it principally to our inner nature. His method of philosophizing has many advantages, but at the same time some great defects; especially that of avoiding the great obstacles and difficulties in the course of philosophical knowledge instead of directly sounding them by a more radical and a deeper research. Notwithstanding, the opposition which he encountered was not so much the consequence of this radical fault, as of certain deductions from his system. (See § 346, note, and 348, note). By his treatises on Toleration and Education, Locke has rendered indisputable and undisputed services to mankind.

345. Locke's great object and merit, was the investigation of the origin, reality, limits, and uses of knowledge. He contested the hypothesis of Innate Ideas, throwing great light on one side of the question; and endeavoured to prove by an induction which was necessarily incomplete, that all our representations are acquired by experience. The two ultimate sources of all our representations are impressions through the external Senses, and Reflection, or the perception

of the operations of our minds; which has caused his system to be called one of Sensationalism; since he gives even to Reflection the appellation of an Internal Sense. Our representations are partly simple, partly compound: among the first are those of Solidity, Space, Extension, Figure, Motion, Rest: those of Thought and Will: those of Existence, Time, Duration, Power, Enjoyment, and Pain. Our simple notions have an objective, or absolute and independent reality. The soul, like a piece of white paper (tabula rasa), merely receives their impressions through perception, without adding anything thereto of her own. They represent partly primary, partly secondary qualities or properties: among the first are Extension, Solidity, Figure, Number, Movement: among the latter, (which are deduced and derived as the first are direct and original), Colour, Sound, Scent. Compound notions are deduced from simple ones by an activity of the understanding, for instance by Connection, Opposition, Comparison, or Abstraction. The representations so acquired are those of Accident, Substance, and Relation. The understanding either applies Experience and Observation to the formation of compound notions, or by a totally different course, develops simple and absolute ones, such as those belonging to Mathematics and Ethics.

Locke has also suggested some admirable ideas on Language, and the abuses to which it is liable. He defines knowledge to be the perception of the Connection and Agreement or the want of Connection and Disagreement of certain representations, which may be reduced to four sources; Identity or Discrepancy-Relation-Co-existence or necessary connection, and Real Existence.1 As relates to the mode of this perception, knowledge becomes either Immediate or Mediate: Immediate, if the result of intuition, and Mediate, if produced by demonstration: to these must be added a third class relating to particulars ascertained by sensational cognition, and confined to matters presented to our Senses. It must be remarked, however, that his observations on the limits and use, etc. of knowledge do not penetrate far enough, nor, by any means, exhaust the question: he may even be said to have pronounced judgment upon the

1 Essay, B. IV, ch. I, § 1—3.

reality of knowledge, before he had set up his theory on the subject. His reasoning is far from being satisfactory on the principles of thought and knowledge, all of which, (even that of contradiction) he describes as derived and secondary. His analysis only embraces the material, without extending to the formal part of knowledge; and unravels only a few of the least intricate of our compound notions. He deduces all knowledge from experience, yet nevertheless proposes to support and confirm the latter by various inadequate proofs; and in this manner he maintains the possibility of a demonstrative knowledge of the Existence of God,' and the Immortality of the Soul; and endeavours to erect a system of Metaphysics on the uncertain foundation of empirical knowledge.

346. It was the object of Locke to liberate philosophy from vain disputations and unprofitable niceties; but his work had the effect of discouraging, by the facility and accomodating character of its method, more profound investigation; at the same time that he gave a popular air to such inquiries, diminishing the interest they excited, and affording advantages to Eclecticism and Materialism. In Morals he adopted the principles of Experiment and a theory of Eudæmonism. On the other hand his system promoted the knowledge of Metaphysics on the grounds of Experience, and contained a variety of admirable rules relative to Method, as well as many valuable hints on points up to that time neglected, His theory gained a great number of adherents in England, France, and the Netherlands, where J. Le Clercs and Gravesand embraced his principles.

2

1 In Books IV. X. he developes his Cosmological proof.

2 On the faults of Locke's Empiricism consult Lord Shaftesbury : Letters written by a Nobleman to a young man at the University, Lond. 1716.

Two inconsiderable works in answer to Locke were published by HENRY LEE (Anti-Scepticism) and by JOHN NORRIS, Lond. 1704, 8vo. That by BP. BROWN: The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding, Lond. 1729, 8vo. second edit., made more noise, and was continued under the title of Things Divine and Supernatural conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human, etc. Lond. 1733. (Against the First Part BERKELEY composed his Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher). To these must be added: Two Dissertations concerning Sense and Imagination, with an Essay on Consciousness, Lond. 1728, 8vo.

Clericus; born at Geneva 1657; died 1736.

Thence it gradually extenced its influence into Germany. A great number of eminent men became his partisans, and deduced from his Empiricism its direct or remote consequences, such as the hypothesis of a peculiar sense for the apprehension of Truth in matters of speculation and practice (Reid, Beattie, Rüdiger); the attempt to establish the objective Reality of knowledge, (Condillac, Bonnet, D'Alembert, Condorcet); the analysis of the faculties of the Soul, (Hartley, Condillac, Bonnet); the farther development of excellent rules for the investigation of Truth, (Gravesande, Tschirnhausen); an inadequate view of Metaphysics considered as nothing more than Logical reasonings on given facts (Condillac); the increase of Materialism and Atheism (La Méttrie, Systéme de la Nature: and Priestley); and lastly the conversion of Morality into interested calculation (La Rochefoucauld, Helvetius).

II. Isaac Newton.

Works: Naturalis Philosophiæ Principia Mathematica, Lond. 1687, 4to. Augmented, 1713, and 1726; edid. LESUEUR et F. JAQUIER, Geneva, 1739 and 1760, 3 vols. 4to.; 4 vols. roy. 8vo. Glasg. 1822. Translated by THORP, 4to. 1802; by DAVIS, 3 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1819. Treatise of Optics, etc. Lond. 1704, 4to. Optica; Lat. reddita a SAMUEL CLARKE, Lausann. 1711, 4to.

Opera, comment. illustr. SAM. HORSLEY, Lond. 1779, 5 vols. 4to. A View of Newton's Philosophy, by HENRY PEMBERTON, Lond. 1726, 4to.

GUILL. JAC. S. GRAVESANDE, Physices Elementa Mathematica Experimentis confirmata; sive Introductio ad Philosophiam Newtonianam, Lugd. Bat. 1720, 2 vols. 4to.

VOLTAIRE, Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton, mis à la portée de tout le monde, Amst. 1738; and La Métaphysique de Newton, ou Parallèle des Sentimens de Newton et de Leibnitz, ibid. 1740, 8vo.

WRIGHT'S Commentary on Newton's Principia, 2 vols. 8vo. 1823. REGAUD on Newton's Principia, 8vo. Oxon. 1838.

+ Comparison between the Metaphysics of Newton and Leibnitz, in Answer to M. de Voltaire, by L. M. KAYLE, Gött. 1740, 8vo.

MACLAURIN, Statement of the Discoveries of Newton, 1748; translated into Lat. by GR. FALCK, Vienna, 1761, 4to.

347. The tendency in favour of Empirical philosophy, which had already become prevalent in England, was con

JOH. CLERICI Opera Philosophica, Amst. 1692 et 1693. Euvres complètes, 1710, 4 vols. 4to. et 1722. See § 343.

firmed by the authority of Newton. This illustrious philo sopher, whose great discoveries in Physics, (e.g. the theory of Colours and the laws of Gravitation) achieved by the calm prosecution of experimental observations, naturally inclined him to recommend to others the same career, was so far from giving any encouragement to hypothetical speculation, that he made it his maxim, that "Physics should be on their guard against Metaphysics." Nevertheless he himself occasionally indulged in such inquiries; for instance, when he suggested that Infinite Space, in which the celestial bodies revolve, might possibly be the sensorium of the Deity. He supposed the existence of certain properties inherent in bodies-e.g. that of weight in atoms—and even presumed that when Natural Philosophy should have completed her course of Experiment, she might contribute to the perfection of Moral Philosophy: inasmuch as a more adequate knowledge of the First Great Cause, and of our relations to Him, may assist us in acquiring a fuller sense of our duties towards Him."

III. English School of Moral Philosophy, and Reaction excited against the Empiricism of Locke.

348. A school was formed in England, whose object was to establish the principles of Moral Philosophy on the basis of natural reason, and who to this end adopted the experimental method of Bacon. They sought for our first ideas of moral obligation not in the Understanding itself but in a peculiar and separate sense, (Moral Sense); inasmuch as it is by the senses that we acquire all knowledge of real objects. With the desire of opposing the selfish system of Hobbes (see § 326), and with the hope of exposing some of his inconsistancies, Richard Cumberland endeavoured to established the existence of a principle totally different-of Benevolence towards man and devotion to God; and proceeded to prove by reasoning that such a principle was the

1 Born at Wolstrop in Lincolnshire, 1642; Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge 1669; died 1727.

2 Optic. lib. III, Qu. xxxi, p. 330.

3 Born 1632; died 1719.