## 1. Historical Background and Locke's Life



John Locke (1632-1704) was one of the greatest philosophers in
Europe at the end of the seventeenth century. Locke grew up and lived
through one of the most extraordinary centuries of English political
and intellectual history. It was a century in which conflicts between
Crown and Parliament and the overlapping conflicts between
Protestants, Anglicans and Catholics swirled into civil war in the
1640s. With the defeat and death of Charles I, there began a great
experiment in governmental institutions including the abolishment of
the monarchy, the House of Lords and the Anglican church, and the
establishment of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate in the 1650s.
The collapse of the Protectorate after the death of Cromwell was
followed by the Restoration of Charles II--the return of the
monarchy, the House of Lords and the Anglican Church. This period
lasted from 1660 to 1688. It was marked by continued conflicts between
King and Parliament and debates over religious toleration for
Protestant dissenters and Catholics. This period ends with the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which James II was driven from England
and replaced by William of Orange and his wife Mary. The final period
during which Locke lived involved the consolidation of power by
William and Mary, and the beginning of William's efforts to
oppose the domination of Europe by the France of Louis XIV, which
later culminated in the military victories of John Churchill--the
Duke of Marlborough.


### 1.1 Locke's Life up to His Meeting with Lord Ashley in 1666



Locke was born in Wrington to Puritan parents of modest means. His
father was a country lawyer who served in a cavalry company on the
Puritan side in the early stages of the English Civil War. His
father's commander, Alexander Popham, became the local MP, and
it was his patronage which allowed the young John Locke to gain an
excellent education. In 1647 Locke went to Westminster School in
London.



From Westminster school he went to Christ Church, Oxford, in the
autumn of 1652 at the age of twenty. As Westminster school was the
most important English school, so Christ Church was the most important
Oxford college. Education at Oxford was medieval. Locke, like Hobbes
before him, found the Aristotelian philosophy he was taught at Oxford
of little use. There was, however, more at Oxford than Aristotle. The
new experimental philosophy had arrived. John Wilkins,
Cromwell's brother in law, had become Warden of Wadham College.
The group around Wilkins was the nucleus of what was to become the
English Royal Society. The Society grew out of informal meetings and
discussion groups and moved to London after the Restoration and became
a formal institution in the 1660s with charters from Charles II. The
Society saw its aims in contrast with the Scholastic/Aristotelian
traditions that dominated the universities. The program was to study
nature rather than
 books.[1]
 Many of Wilkins associates were people interested in pursuing
medicine by observation rather than the reading of classic texts.
Bacon's interest in careful experimentation and the systematic
collection of facts from which generalizations could be made was
characteristic of this group. One of Locke's friends from
Westminster school, Richard Lower, introduced Locke to medicine and
the experimental philosophy being pursued by the virtuosi at
Wadham.



Locke received his B.A. in February 1656. His career at Oxford,
however, continued beyond his undergraduate days. In June of 1658,
Locke qualified as a Master of Arts and was elected a Senior Student
of Christ Church College. The rank was equivalent to a Fellow at any
of the other colleges, but was not permanent. Locke had yet to
determine what his career was to be. Locke was elected Lecturer in
Greek at Christ Church in December of 1660 and he was elected Lecturer
in Rhetoric in 1663. At this point, Locke needed to make a decision.
The statutes of Christ Church laid it down that fifty five of the
senior studentships should be reserved for men in orders or reading
for orders. Only five could be held by others, two in medicine, two in
law and one in moral philosophy. Thus, there was good reason for Locke
to become a clergyman. Since his graduation Locke had been studying
medicine. Locke decided to become a doctor.



John Wilkins had left Oxford with the Restoration of Charles II. The
new leader of the Oxford scientific group was Robert Boyle. He was
also Locke's scientific mentor. Boyle (with the help of his
astonishing assistant Robert Hooke) built an air pump which led to the
formulation of Boyle's law and devised a barometer as a weather
indicator. The work on the air pump led to a controversy with Thomas
Hobbes because Boyle's explanations of the working of the air
pump were incompatible with Hobbes' micro-corpuscular theory.
This controversy continued for ten years. Boyle was, however, most
influential as a theorist. He was a mechanical philosopher who treated
the world as reducible to matter in motion. But he had no
micro-corpuscular account of the air.



Locke read Boyle before he read Descartes. When he did read Descartes,
he saw the great French philosopher as providing a viable alternative
to the sterile Aristotelianism he had been taught at Oxford. In
writing *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding* Locke adopted
Descartes' 'way of ideas'; though it is transformed
so as to become an organic part of Locke's philosophy. Still,
while admiring Descartes, Locke's involvement with the Oxford
scientists gave him a perspective that made him critical of the
rationalist elements in Descartes' philosophy.



In the Epistle to the Reader at the beginning of the *Essay*
Locke remarks:



> 
> 
> The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without
> master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will
> leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but everyone
> must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that produces
> such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton,
> with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough to be employed
> as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing
> some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge .... (N:
> 9-10; all quotations are from the Nidditch edition of *An
> Essay Concerning Human Understanding* [N])
> 
> 
> 



Locke knew all of these men and their work. Locke, Boyle and Newton
were all founding or early members of the English Royal Society. It is
from Boyle that Locke learned about atomism (or the corpuscular
hypothesis) and it is from Boyle's book *The Origin of Forms
and Qualities* that Locke took the language of primary and
secondary qualities. Sydenham was an English physician and Locke did
medical research with him. Sydenham championed careful observation of
disease and rejected appeal to underlying causes. Both Boyle and
Newton did work on colors that did not involve micro-corpuscular
explanations. Locke read Newton's *Principia Mathematica
Philosophiae Naturalis* while in exile in Holland, and consulted
Huygens as to the soundness of its mathematics. Locke and Newton
became friends after Locke's return from Holland in 1688. It may
be that in referring to himself as an 'under-labourer',
Locke is not only displaying a certain literary modesty, he is
contrasting the positive discoveries of these men, with his own
attempt to show the inadequacies of the Aristotelian and Scholastic
and to some degree the Cartesian philosophies. There are, however,
many aspects of Locke's project to which this image of an
under-labourer does not do justice (see Jolley 1999: 15-17).
While the corpuscular philosophy and Newton's discoveries
clearly influenced Locke, it is the Baconian program of producing
natural histories that Locke makes reference to when he talks about
the *Essay* in the Introduction. He writes:



> 
> 
> It shall suffice to my present Purpose, to consider the discerning
> Faculties of a Man, as they are employ'd about the Objects,
> which they have to do with: and I shall imagine that I have not wholly
> misimploy'd my self in the Thoughts I shall have on this
> Occasion, if in this Historical, Plain Method, I can give any Account
> of the Ways, whereby our Understanding comes to attain those Notions
> of Things, and can set down any Measure of the Certainty of our
> Knowledge.... (I.1.2, N: 43-4--the three numbers, are
> book, chapter and section numbers respectively, followed by the page
> number in the Nidditch edition)
> 
> 
> 



The 'Historical, Plain Method' is apparently to give a
genetic account of how we come by our ideas. Presumably this will
reveal the degree of certainty of the knowledge based on such ideas.
Locke's own active involvement with the scientific movement was
largely through his informal studies of medicine. Dr. David Thomas was
his friend and collaborator. Locke and Thomas had a laboratory in
Oxford which was very likely, in effect, a pharmacy. In 1666 Lord
Ashley, one of the richest men in England, came to Oxford in order to
drink some medicinal waters there. He had asked Dr. Thomas to provide
them. Thomas had to be out of town and asked Locke to see that the
water was delivered. As a result of this encounter, Ashley invited
Locke to come to London as his personal physician. In 1667 Locke did
move to London becoming not only Lord Ashley's personal
physician, but secretary, researcher, political operative and friend.
Living with him Locke found himself at the very heart of English
politics in the 1670s and 1680s.


### 1.2 Locke and Lord Shaftesbury 1666 to 1688



Locke's chief work while living at Lord Ashley's
residence, Exeter House, in 1668 was as Ashley's physician.
Locke used his medical training to organize a successful operation on
Ashley. This was perhaps the most carefully documented operation in
the 17th century. Locke consulted doctors across the country to
determine what the best practices were for this operation and made
cleanliness a priority. In doing so he saved his patron's life
and thus changed English history.



Locke had a number of other jobs. He worked as secretary of the Board
of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietors of the
Carolinas. Lord Ashley was one of the advocates of the view that
England would prosper through trade and that colonies could play an
important role in promoting trade. Ashley persuaded Charles II to
create a Board of Trade and Plantations to collect information about
trade and colonies, and Locke became its secretary. In his capacity as
the secretary of the Board of Trade Locke was the collection point for
information from around the globe about trade and colonies for the
English government. Among Ashley's commercial projects was an
effort to found colonies in the Carolinas. In his capacity as the
secretary to the Lords Proprietors, Locke was involved in the writing
of the fundamental constitution of the Carolinas. There is some
controversy about the extent of Locke's role in writing the
 constitution.[2]
 In addition to issues about trade and colonies, Locke was involved
through Shaftesbury in other controversies about public policy. There
was a monetary crisis in England involving the value of money, and the
clipping of coins. Locke wrote papers for Lord Ashley on economic
matters, including the coinage crisis.



While living in London at Exeter House, Locke continued to be involved
in philosophical discussions. He tells us that:



> 
> 
> Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should
> tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and
> discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves
> quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After
> we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a
> resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my
> thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves
> upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own
> abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not,
> fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily
> assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our first
> inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject I had never
> before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the
> first entrance into this Discourse; which having been thus begun by
> chance, was continued by intreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and
> after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour or
> occasions permitted; and at last, in a retirement where an attendance
> on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now
> seest it. (Epistle to the Reader, N: 7)
> 
> 
> 



James Tyrrell, one of Locke's friends was at that meeting. He
recalls the discussion being about the principles of morality and
revealed religion (Cranston 1957: 140-1). Thus the Oxford
scholar and medical researcher came to begin the work which was to
occupy him off and on over the next twenty years.



In 1674 after Shaftesbury had left the government, Locke went back to
Oxford, where he acquired the degree Bachelor of medicine, and a
license to practice medicine, and then went to France (Cranston 1957:
160). In France Locke went from Calais to Paris, Lyons and on to
Montpellier, where he spent the next fifteen months. Much of
Locke's time was spent learning about Protestantism in France.
The Edict of Nantes (promulgated by Henry IV in 1598) was in force,
and so there was a degree of religious toleration in France. Louis XIV
was to revoke the edict in 1685 and French Protestants were then
killed while some 400,000 went into exile.



While Locke was in France, Shaftesbury's fortunes fluctuated. In
1676 Shaftesbury was imprisoned in the tower. His imprisonment lasted
for a year. In 1678, after the mysterious murder of a London judge,
informers (most notably Titus Oates) started coming forward to reveal
a supposed Catholic conspiracy to assassinate the King and put his
brother on the throne. This whipped up public anti-Catholic frenzy.
Though Shaftesbury had not fabricated the conspiracy story, nor did he
prompt Oates to come forward, he did exploit the situation to the
advantage of his party. In the public chaos surrounding the
sensational revelations, Shaftesbury organized an extensive party
network, exercised great control over elections, and built up a large
parliamentary majority. His strategy was to secure the passage of an
Exclusion bill that would prevent Charles II's openly Catholic
brother from becoming King. Although the Exclusion bill passed in the
Commons it was rejected in the House of Lords because of the
King's strong opposition to it. As the panic over the Popish
plot receded, Shaftesbury was left without a following or a cause.
Shaftesbury was seized on July 21, 1681 and again put in the tower. He
was tried on trumped-up charges of treason but acquitted by a London
grand jury (filled with his supporters) in November.



At this point some of the Country Party leaders began plotting an
armed insurrection which, had it come off, would have begun with the
assassination of Charles and his brother on their way back to London
from the races at Newmarket. The chances of such a rising occurring
were not as good as the plotters supposed. Memories of the turmoil of
the civil war were still relatively fresh. Eventually Shaftesbury, who
was moving from safe house to safe house, gave up and fled to Holland
in November 1682. He died there in January 1683. Locke stayed in
England until the Rye House Plot (named after the house from which the
plotters were to fire upon the King and his brother) was discovered in
June of 1683. Locke left for the West country to put his affairs in
order the very week the plot was revealed to the government and by
September he was in exile in
 Holland.[3]



While in exile, Locke finished *An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding* and published a fifty-page advanced notice of it in
French. (This was to provide the intellectual world on the continent
with most of their information about the *Essay* until Pierre
Coste's French translation appeared in 1704.) He also wrote and
published his *Epistola de Tolerentia* in Latin. Richard
Ashcraft, in his *Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two
Treatises of Government* (1986) suggests that while in Holland,
Locke was not only finishing *An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding* and nursing his health, he was closely associated
with the English revolutionaries in exile. The English government was
much concerned with this group. They tried to get a number of them,
including Locke, extradited to England. Locke's studentship at
Oxford was taken away from him. In the meanwhile, the English
intelligence service infiltrated the rebel group in Holland and
effectively thwarted their efforts--at least for a while. While
Locke was living in exile in Holland, Charles II died on Feb. 6, 1685,
and was succeeded by his brother, who became James II of England. Soon
after this, the rebels in Holland sent a force of soldiers under the
Duke of Monmouth to England to try to overthrow James II. The revolt
was crushed, and Monmouth was captured and executed (Ashcraft 1986).
For a meticulous, if cautious review, of the evidence concerning
Locke's involvement with the English rebels in exile see Roger
Woolhouse's *Locke: A Biography* (2007).



Ultimately, however, the rebels were successful. James II alienated
most of his supporters, and William of Orange was invited to bring a
Dutch force to England. After William's army landed, James II,
realizing that he could not mount an effective resistance, fled the
country to exile in France. This became known as the Glorious
Revolution of 1688. It is a watershed in English history. For it marks
the point at which the balance of power in the English government
passed from the King to the Parliament. Locke returned to England in
February 1689.


### 1.3 The End of Locke's Life 1689-1704



After his return from exile, Locke published *An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding* and *The Two Treatises of Government*.
In addition, Popple's translation of Locke's *A Letter
Concerning Toleration* was also published. It is worth noting that
the *Two Treatises* and the *Letter Concerning
Toleration* were published anonymously. Locke took up residence in
the country at Oates in Essex, the home of Sir Francis and Lady Masham
(Damaris Cudworth). Locke had met Damaris Cudworth in 1682 and became
involved intellectually and romantically with her. She was the
daughter of Ralph Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonist, and a philosopher
in her own right. After Locke went into exile in Holland in 1683, she
married Sir Francis Masham. Locke and Lady Masham remained good
friends and intellectual companions to the end of Locke's life.
During the remaining years of his life, Locke oversaw four more
editions of the *Essay* and engaged in controversies over the
*Essay* most notably in a series of published letters with
Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester. In a similar way, Locke
defended the *Letter Concerning Toleration* against a series of
attacks. He wrote *The Reasonableness of Christianity* and
*Some Thoughts on Education* during this period as well.



Nor was Locke finished with public affairs. In 1696 the Board of Trade
was revived. Locke played an important part in its revival and served
as the most influential member on it until 1700. The new Board of
Trade had administrative powers and was, in fact, concerned with a
wide range of issues, from the Irish wool trade and the suppression of
piracy, to the treatment of the poor in England and the governance of
the colonies. It was, in Peter Laslett's phrase "the body
which administered the United States before the American
Revolution" (Laslett 1954 [1990: 127]). During these last eight
years of his life, Locke was asthmatic, and he suffered so much from
it that he could only bear the smoke of London during the four warmer
months of the year. Locke plainly engaged in the activities of the
Board out of a strong sense of patriotic duty. After his retirement
from the Board of Trade in 1700, Locke remained in retirement at Oates
until his death on Sunday 28 October 1704.


## 2. The Limits of Human Understanding



Locke is often classified as the first of the great English
empiricists (ignoring the claims of Bacon and Hobbes). This reputation
rests on Locke's greatest work, the monumental *An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding*. Locke explains his project in
several places. Perhaps the most important of his goals is to
determine the limits of human understanding. Locke writes:



> 
> 
> For I thought that the first Step towards satisfying the several
> Enquiries, the Mind of Man was apt to run into, was, to take a Survey
> of our own Understandings, examine our own Powers, and see to what
> Things they were adapted. Till that was done, I suspected that we
> began at the wrong end, and in vain sought for Satisfaction in a quiet
> and secure Possession of Truths, that most concern'd us whilst
> we let loose our Thoughts into the vast Ocean of *Being*, as if
> all the boundless Extent, were the natural and undoubted Possessions
> of our Understandings, wherein there was nothing that escaped its
> Decisions, or that escaped its Comprehension. Thus Men, extending
> their Enquiries beyond their Capacities, and letting their Thoughts
> wander into those depths where they can find no sure Footing;
> 'tis no Wonder, that they raise Questions and multiply Disputes,
> which never coming to any clear Resolution, are proper to only
> continue and increase their Doubts, and to confirm them at last in a
> perfect Skepticism. Wheras were the Capacities of our Understanding
> well considered, the Extent of our Knowledge once discovered, and the
> Horizon found, which sets the boundary between the enlightened and the
> dark Parts of Things; between what is and what is not comprehensible
> by us, Men would perhaps with less scruple acquiesce in the
> avow'd Ignorance of the one; and employ their Thoughts and
> Discourse, with more Advantage and Satisfaction in the other. (I.1.7,
> N: 47)
> 
> 
> 



Some philosophers before Locke had suggested that it would be good to
find the limits of the Understanding, but what Locke does is to carry
out this project in detail. In the four books of the *Essay*
Locke considers the sources and nature of human knowledge. Book I
argues that we have no innate knowledge. (In this he resembles
Berkeley and Hume, and differs from Descartes and Leibniz.) So, at
birth, the human mind is a sort of blank slate on which experience
writes. In Book II Locke claims that ideas are the materials of
knowledge and all ideas come from experience. The term
'idea', Locke tells us "...stands for
whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding, when a man
thinks" (I.1.8, N: 47). Experience is of two kinds, sensation
and reflection. One of these--sensation--tells us about
things and processes in the external world. The
other--reflection--tells us about the operations of our own
minds. Reflection is a sort of internal sense that makes us conscious
of the mental processes we are engaged in. Some ideas we get only from
sensation, some only from reflection and some from both.



Locke has an atomic or perhaps more accurately a corpuscular theory of
 ideas.[4]
 There is, that is to say, an analogy between the way atoms or
corpuscles combine into complexes to form physical objects and the way
ideas combine. Ideas are either simple or complex. We cannot create
simple ideas, we can only get them from experience. In this respect
the mind is passive. Once the mind has a store of simple ideas, it can
combine them into complex ideas of a variety of kinds. In this respect
the mind is active. Thus, Locke subscribes to a version of the
empiricist axiom that there is nothing in the intellect that was not
previously in the senses--where the senses are broadened to
include reflection. Book III deals with the nature of language, its
connections with ideas and its role in knowledge. Book IV, the
culmination of the previous reflections, explains the nature and
limits of knowledge, probability, and the relation of reason and
faith. Let us now consider the *Essay* in some detail.


### 2.1 Book I



At the beginning of *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding*
Locke says that since his purpose is "to enquire into the
Original, Certainty and Extent of human knowledge, together with the
grounds and degrees of Belief, Opinion and Assent" he is going
to begin with ideas--the materials out of which knowledge is
constructed. His first task is to "enquire into the Original of
these Ideas...and the ways whereby the Understanding comes to be
furnished with them" (I.1.3, N: 44). The role of Book I of the
*Essay* is to make the case that being innate is not a way in
which the understanding is furnished with principles and ideas. Locke
treats innateness as an empirical hypothesis and argues that there is
no good evidence to support it.



Locke describes innate ideas as "some primary
notions...Characters as it were stamped upon the Mind of Man,
which the Soul receives in its very first Being; and brings into the
world with it" (I.2.1, N: 48). In pursuing this enquiry, Locke
rejects the claim that there are speculative innate principles (I.2),
practical innate moral principles (I.3) or that we have innate ideas
of God, identity or impossibility (I.4). Locke rejects arguments from
universal assent and attacks dispositional accounts of innate
principles. Thus, in considering what would count as evidence from
universal assent to such propositions as "What is, is" or
"It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be"
he holds that children and idiots should be aware of such truths if
they were innate but that they "have not the least apprehension
or thought of them". Why should children and idiots be aware of
and able to articulate such propositions? Locke says:



> 
> 
> It seems to me a near Contradiction to say that there are truths
> imprinted on the Soul, which it perceives or understands not;
> imprinting if it signify anything, being nothing else but the making
> certain Truths to be perceived. (I.2.5, N: 49)
> 
> 
> 



So, Locke's first point is that if propositions were innate they
should be immediately perceived--by infants and idiots (and
indeed everyone else)--but there is no evidence that they are.
Locke then proceeds to attack dispositional accounts that say,
roughly, that innate propositions are capable of being perceived under
certain circumstances. Until these circumstances come about the
propositions remain unperceived in the mind. With the advent of these
conditions, the propositions are then perceived. Locke gives the
following argument against innate propositions being
dispositional:



> 
> 
> For if any one [proposition] may [be in the mind but not be known];
> then, by the same Reason, all Propositions that are true, and the Mind
> is ever capable of assenting to, may be said to be in the Mind, and to
> be imprinted: since if any one can be said to be in the Mind, which it
> never yet knew, it must be only because it is capable of knowing it;
> and so the Mind is of all Truths it ever shall know. (I.2.5, N:
> 50)
> 
> 
> 



The essence of this argument and many of Locke's other arguments
against dispositional accounts of innate propositions is that such
dispositional accounts do not provide an adequate criterion for
distinguishing innate propositions from other propositions that the
mind may come to discover. Thus, even if some criterion is proposed,
it will turn out not to do the work it is supposed to do.



When Locke turns from speculative principles to the question of
whether there are innate practical moral principles, many of the
arguments against innate speculative principles continue to apply, but
there are some additional considerations. Practical principles, such
as the Golden Rule, are not self-evident in the way such speculative
principles as "What is, is" are. Thus, one can clearly and
sensibly ask reasons for why one should hold the Golden Rule true or
obey it (I.3.4, N: 68). There are substantial differences between
people over the content of practical principles. Thus, they are even
less likely candidates to be innate propositions or to meet the
criterion of universal assent. In the fourth chapter of Book I, Locke
raises similar points about the ideas which compose both speculative
and practical principles. The point is that if the ideas that are
constitutive of the principles are not innate, this gives us even more
reason to hold that the principles are not innate. He examines the
ideas of identity, impossibility and God to make these points.



In Book I Locke says little about who holds the doctrine of innate
principles that he is attacking. For this reason he has sometimes been
accused of attacking straw men. John Yolton has persuasively argued
(Yolton 1956) that the view that innate ideas and principles were
necessary for the stability of religion, morality and natural law was
widespread in England in the seventeenth century, and that in
attacking both the naive and the dispositional account of innate ideas
and innate principles, Locke is attacking positions which were widely
held and continued to be held after the publication of the
*Essay*. Thus, the charge that Locke's account of innate
principles is made of straw, is not a just criticism. But there are
also some important connections with particular philosophers and
schools that are worth noting and some points about innate ideas and
inquiry.



At I. 4. 24. Locke tells us that the doctrine of innate principles
once accepted "eased the lazy from the pains of search"
and that the doctrine is an inquiry stopper that is used by those who
"affected to be Masters and Teachers" to illegitimately
gain control of the minds of their students. Locke rather clearly has
in mind the Aristotelians and scholastics at the universities. Thus
Locke's attack on innate principles is connected with his
anti-authoritarianism. It is an expression of his view of the
importance of free and autonomous inquiry in the search for truth.
Ultimately, Locke holds, this is the best road to knowledge and
happiness. Locke, like Descartes, is tearing down the foundations of
the old Aristotelian scholastic house of knowledge. But while
Descartes focused on the empiricism at the foundation of the
structure, Locke is focusing on the claims that innate ideas provide
its first principles. The attack on innate ideas is thus the first
step in the demolition of the scholastic model of science and
knowledge. Ironically, it is also clear from II.1.9. that Locke sees
Descartes' claim that his essence is to be a thinking thing as
entailing a doctrine of innate ideas and principles.


### 2.2 Book II



In Book II of the *Essay*, Locke gives his positive account of
how we acquire the materials of knowledge. Locke distinguishes a
variety of different kinds of ideas in Book II. Locke holds that the
mind is a *tabula rasa* or blank sheet until experience in the
form of sensation and reflection provide the basic
materials--simple ideas--out of which most of our more
complex knowledge is constructed. While the mind may be a blank slate
in regard to content, it is plain that Locke thinks we are born with a
variety of faculties to receive and abilities to manipulate or process
the content once we acquire it. Thus, for example, the mind can engage
in three different types of action in putting simple ideas together.
The first of these kinds of action is to combine them into complex
ideas. Complex ideas are of two kinds, ideas of substances and ideas
of modes. Substances are independent existences. Beings that count as
substances include God, angels, humans, animals, plants and a variety
of constructed things. Modes are dependent existences. These include
mathematical and moral ideas, and all the conventional language of
religion, politics and culture. The second action which the mind
performs is the bringing of two ideas, whether simple or complex, by
one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting
them. This gives us our ideas of relations (II.12.1, N: 163). The
third act of the mind is the production of our general ideas by
abstraction from particulars, leaving out the particular circumstances
of time and place, which would limit the application of an idea to a
particular individual. In addition to these abilities, there are such
faculties as memory which allow for the storing of ideas.



Having set forth the general machinery of how simple and complex ideas
of substances, modes, relations, and so forth are derived from
sensation and reflection, Locke also explains how a variety of
particular kinds of ideas, such as the ideas of solidity, number,
space, time, power, identity, and moral relations arise from sensation
and reflection. Several of these are of particular interest.
Locke's chapter on power gives rise to a discussion of free will
and voluntary action (see the entry on
 Locke on freedom).
 Locke also made a number of interesting claims in the philosophy of
mind. He suggested, for example, that for all we know, God could as
easily add the powers of perception and thought to matter organized in
the right way as he could add those powers to an immaterial substance
which would then be joined to matter organized in the right way. His
account of personal identity in II. xxvii was revolutionary. (See the
entry on
 Locke on personal identity).
 Both of these topics and related ones are treated in the
supplementary document:
 Some Interesting Issues in Locke's Philosophy of Mind




In what follows, we focus on some central issues in Locke's
account of physical objects. (See also the entry
 Locke's philosophy of science,
 which pursues a number of topics related to Locke's account of
physical objects that are of considerable importance but largely
beyond the scope of this general account of Locke's philosophy.)
These include Locke on knowledge in natural philosophy, the
limitations of the corpuscular philosophy and Locke's relation
to Newton.



Locke offers an account of physical objects based on the mechanical
philosophy and the corpuscular hypothesis. The adherents of the
mechanical philosophy held that all material phenomena can be
explained by matter in motion and the impact of one body on another.
They viewed matter as passive. They rejected the "occult
qualities" and "causation at a distance" of the
Aristotelian and Scholastic philosophy. Robert Boyle's
corpuscularian hypothesis treated the material world as made up of
particles. Some corpuscularians held that corpuscles could be further
divided and that the universe was full of matter with no void space.
Atomists, on the other hand, held that the particles were indivisible
and that the material world is composed of atoms and the void or empty
space in which the atoms move. Locke was an atomist.



Atoms have properties. They are extended, they are solid, they have a
particular shape and they are in motion or rest. They combine together
to produce the familiar stuff and physical objects, the gold and the
wood, the horses and violets, the tables and chairs of our world.
These familiar things also have properties. They are extended, solid,
have a particular shape, and are in motion and at rest. In addition to
these properties that they share with the atoms that compose them,
they have other properties such as colors, smells, tastes that they
get by standing in relation to perceivers. The distinction between
these two kinds of properties goes back to the Greek atomists. It is
articulated by Galileo and Descartes as well as Locke's mentor
Robert Boyle.



Locke makes this distinction in Book II Chapter 8 of the
*Essay* and using Boyle's terminology calls the two
different classes of properties the primary and secondary qualities of
an object. This distinction is made by both of the main branches of
the mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth and early eighteenth
century. Both the Cartesian plenum theorists, who held that the world
was full of infinitely divisible matter and that there was no void
space, and the atomists such as Gassendi, who held that there were
indivisible atoms and void space in which the atoms move, made the
distinction between these two classes of properties. Still, the
differences between these two branches of the mechanical philosophy
affect their account of primary qualities. In the chapter on Solidity
(II.4) Locke rejects the Cartesian definition of body as simply
extended and argues that bodies are both extended and impenetrable or
solid. The inclusion of solidity in Locke's account of bodies
and of primary qualities distinguishes them from the void space in
which they move.



The primary qualities of an object are properties which the object
possesses independent of us--such as occupying space, being
either in motion or at rest, having solidity and texture. The
secondary qualities are powers in bodies to produce ideas in us like
color, taste, smell and so on that are caused by the interaction of
our particular perceptual apparatus with the primary qualities of the
object. Our ideas of primary qualities resemble the qualities in the
object, while our ideas of secondary qualities do not resemble the
powers that cause them. Locke also distinguishes a second class of
secondary properties that are the powers that one substance has to
effect another, e.g. the power of a fire to melt a piece of wax.



There has been considerable scholarly debate concerning the details of
Locke's account of the distinction. Among the issues are which
qualities Locke assigns to each of the two categories. Locke gives
several lists. Another issue is what the criterion is for putting a
quality in one list rather than another. Does Locke hold that all the
ideas of secondary qualities come to us by one sense while the ideas
of primary qualities come to us through two or is Locke not making the
distinction in this way? Another issue is whether there are only
primary qualities of atoms or whether compounds of atoms also have
primary qualities. And while Locke claims our ideas of primary
qualities resemble the primary qualities in objects, and the ideas of
secondary qualities do not resemble their causes in the object, what
does 'resemble' mean in this context? Related to this
issue is how we are supposed to know about particles that we cannot
sense. It seems clear that Locke holds that there are certain
analogies between the middle sized macroscopic objects we encounter in
the world, e.g. porphyry and manna for example, and the particles that
compose these things. Maurice Mandelbaum called this process
'transdiction'. These analogies allow us to say certain
things about the nature of particles and primary and secondary
qualities. For example we can infer that atoms are solid and that heat
is a greater rate of motion of atoms while cold is a slower motion.
But these analogies may not get us very far in grasping the necessary
connections between qualities in nature. Yet another issue is whether
Locke sees the distinction as reductionistic. If what we mean by
reductionistic here is that only the primary qualities are real and
these explain the secondary qualities then there does not seem to be a
clear answer. Secondary qualities surely are nothing more than certain
primary qualities that affect us in certain ways. This seems to be
reductionistic. But on Locke's account of "real
ideas" in II.30 both the ideas of primary and secondary
qualities count as real. And while Locke holds that our ideas of
secondary qualities are caused by primary qualities, in certain
important respects the primary qualities do not explain them. Locke
holds that we cannot even conceive how the size, figure and motion of
particles could cause any sensation in us. So, knowing the size,
figure and motion of the particles would be of no use to us in this
regard (see IV.3.11-40, N: 544-546).



Locke probably holds some version of the representational theory of
perception, though some scholars dispute this. On such a theory what
the mind immediately perceives are ideas, and the ideas are caused by
and represent the objects which cause them. Thus perception is a
triadic relation, rather than simply being a dyadic relation between
an object and a perceiver. Such a dyadic relational theory is often
called naive realism because it suggests that the perceiver is
directly perceiving the object, and naive because this view is open to
a variety of serious objections. Some versions of the representational
theory are open to serious objections as well. If, for example, one
treats ideas as things, then one can imagine that because one sees
ideas, the ideas actually block one from seeing things in the external
world. The idea would be like a picture or painting. The picture would
copy the original object in the external world, but because our
immediate object of perception is the picture we would be prevented
from seeing the original just as standing in front of a painting on an
easel might prevent us from seeing the person being painted. Thus,
this is sometimes called the picture/original theory of perception.
Alternatively, Jonathan Bennett called it "the veil of
perception" to emphasize that 'seeing' the ideas
prevents us from seeing the external world. One philosopher who
arguably held such a view was Nicholas Malebranche, a follower of
Descartes. Antoine Arnauld, by contrast, while believing in the
representative character of ideas, is a direct realist about
perception. Arnauld engaged in a lengthy controversy with Malebranche,
and criticized Malebranche's account of ideas. Locke follows
Arnauld in his criticism of Malebranche on this point (Locke, 1823,
Vol. IX: 250). Yet Berkeley attributed the veil of perception
interpretation of the representational theory of perception to Locke
as have many later commentators including Bennett. A.D. Woozley puts
the difficulty of doing this succinctly:



> 
> 
> ...it is scarcely credible both that Locke should be able to see
> and state so clearly the fundamental objection to the picture-original
> theory of sense perception, and that he should have held the same
> theory himself. (Woozley 1964: 27)
> 
> 
> 



Just what Locke's account of perception involves, is still a
matter of scholarly debate. A review of this issue at a symposium
including John Rogers, Gideon Yaffe, Lex Newman, Tom Lennon, and Vere
Chappell at a meeting of the Pacific Division of the American
Philosophical Association in 2003 and later expanded and published in
the *Pacific Philosophical Quarterly* (2004, volume 85, issue
3) found most of the symposiasts holding the view that Locke holds a
representative theory of perception but that he is not a skeptic about
the external world in the way that the veil of perception doctrine
might suggest.



Another issue that has been a matter of controversy since the first
publication of the *Essay* is what Locke means by the term
'substance'. The primary/secondary quality distinction
gets us a certain ways in understanding physical objects, but Locke is
puzzled about what underlies or supports the primary qualities
themselves. He is also puzzled about what material and immaterial
substances might have in common that would lead us to apply the same
word to both. These kinds of reflections led him to the relative and
obscure idea of substance in general. This is an "I know not
what" which is the support of qualities which cannot subsist by
themselves. We experience properties appearing in regular clumps, but
we must infer that there is something that supports or perhaps
'holds together' those qualities. For we have no
experience of that supporting substance. It is clear that Locke sees
no alternative to the claim that there are substances supporting
qualities. He does not, for example, have a theory of tropes (tropes
are properties that can exist independently of substances) which he
might use to dispense with the notion of substance. (In fact, he may
be rejecting something like a theory of tropes when he rejects the
Aristotelian doctrine of real qualities and insists on the need for
substances.) He is thus not at all a skeptic about
'substance' in the way that Hume is. But, it is also quite
clear that he is regularly insistent about the limitations of our
ideas of substances. Bishop Stillingfleet accused Locke of putting
substance out of the reasonable part of the world. But Locke is not
doing that.



Since Berkeley, Locke's doctrine of the substratum or substance
in general has been attacked as incoherent. It seems to imply that we
have a particular without any properties, and this seems like a notion
that is inconsistent with empiricism. We have no experience of such an
entity and so no way to derive such an idea from experience. Locke
himself acknowledges this point (I.4.18, N: 95). In order to avoid
this problem, Michael Ayers has proposed that we must understand the
notions of 'substratum' and 'substance in
general' in terms of Locke's distinction between real and
nominal essences and particularly his doctrine of real essences
developed in Book III of the *Essay* rather than as a separate
problem from that of knowing real essences. The real essence of a
material thing is its atomic constitution. This atomic constitution is
the causal basis of all the observable properties of the thing, from
which we create nominal essences. Were the real essence known, all the
observable properties could be deduced from it. Locke claims that the
real essences of material things are quite unknown to us.
Locke's concept of substance in general is also a
'something I know not what'. Thus, on Ayers'
interpretation 'substance in general' means something like
'whatever it is that supports qualities' while the real
essence means 'this particular atomic constitution that explains
this set of observable qualities'. Thus, Ayers wants to treat
the unknown substratum as picking out the same thing as the real
essence--thus eliminating the need for particulars without
properties. This proposed way of interpreting Locke has been
criticized by scholars both because of a lack of textural support, and
on the stronger grounds that it conflicts with some things that Locke
does say (see Jolley 1999: 71-3). As we have reached one of the
important concepts in Book III, let us turn to that Book and
Locke's discussion of language.


### 2.3 Book III



Locke devotes Book III of *An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding* to language. This is a strong indication that Locke
thinks issues about language were of considerable importance in
attaining knowledge. At the beginning of the Book he notes the
importance of abstract general ideas to knowledge. These serve as
sorts under which we rank all the vast multitude of particular
existences. Thus, abstract ideas and classification are of central
importance in Locke's discussion of language and its importance
for knowledge. Without general terms and classes we would be faced
with the impossible task of trying to know a vast world of
particulars.



There is a clear connection between Books II and III in that Locke
claims that words stand for ideas. In his discussion of language Locke
distinguishes words according to the categories of ideas established
in Book II of the *Essay*. So there are ideas of substances,
simple modes, mixed modes, relations and so on. It is in this context
that Locke makes the distinction between real and nominal essences
noted above. Perhaps because of his focus on the role that kind terms
play in classification, Locke pays vastly more attention to nouns than
to verbs. Locke recognizes that not all words relate to ideas. There
are also the many particles, words that "...signify the
connexion that the Mind gives to Ideas, or Propositions, one with
another" (II.7.1, N: 471). Still, it is the relation of words
and ideas that gets most of Locke's attention in Book III.



Norman Kretzmann calls the claim that "words in their primary or
immediate signification signify nothing but *the ideas in the mind
of him that uses them*" (III.2.2) "Locke's main
semantic thesis" (see Kretzmann 1968:179). This thesis has often
been criticized as a classic blunder in semantic theory. Thus Mill,
for example, wrote, "When I say, 'the sun is the cause of
the day', I do not mean that my idea of the sun causes or
excites in me the idea of day" (Mill 1843: bk 1, ch. 2, SS
1). This criticism of Locke's account of language parallels the
"veil of perception" critique of his account of perception
and suggests that Locke is not distinguishing the meaning of a word
from its reference. Kretzmann, however, argues persuasively that Locke
distinguishes between meaning and reference and that ideas provide the
meaning but not the reference of words. Thus, the line of criticism
represented by the quotation from Mill is ill founded.



In addition to the kinds of ideas noted above, there are also
particular and abstract ideas. Particular ideas have in them the ideas
of particular places and times which limit the application of the idea
to a single individual, while abstract general ideas leave out the
ideas of particular times and places in order to allow the idea to
apply to other similar qualities or things. There has been
considerable philosophical and scholarly debate about the nature of
the process of abstraction and Locke's account of it. Berkeley
argued that the process as Locke conceives it is incoherent. In part
this is because Berkeley is an imagist--that is he believes that
all ideas are images. If one is an imagist it becomes impossible to
imagine what idea could include both the ideas of a right and
equilateral triangle. Michael Ayers has recently argued that Locke too
was an imagist. This would make Berkeley's criticism of Locke
very much to the point. Ayers' claim, however, has been disputed
(see, for example, Soles 1999). The process of abstraction is of
considerable importance to human knowledge. Locke thinks most words we
use are general (III.1.1, N: 409). Clearly, it is only general or
sortal ideas that can serve in a classificatory scheme.



In his discussion of names of substances and in the contrast between
names of substances and names of modes, a number of interesting
features of Locke's views about language and knowledge emerge.
Physical substances are atoms and things made up of atoms. But we have
no experience of the atomic structure of horses and tables. We know
horses and tables mainly by secondary qualities such as color, taste
and smell and so on and primary qualities such as shape, motion and
extension. So, since the real essence (the atomic constitution) of a
horse is unknown to us, our word 'horse' cannot get its
meaning from that real essence. What the general word signifies is the
complex of ideas we have decided are parts of the idea of that sort of
thing. These ideas we get from experience. Locke calls such a general
idea that picks out a sort, the nominal essence of that sort.



One of the central issues in Book III has to do with classification.
On what basis do we divide things into kinds and organize those kinds
into a system of species and genera? In the Aristotelian and
Scholastic tradition that Locke rejects, necessary properties are
those that an individual must have in order to exist and continue to
exist. These contrast with accidental properties. Accidental
properties are those that an individual can gain and lose and yet
continue in existence. If a set of necessary properties is shared by a
number of individuals, that set of properties constitutes the essence
of a natural kind. The borders between kinds are supposed to be sharp
and determinate. The aim of Aristotelian science is to discover the
essences of natural kinds. Kinds can then be organized hierarchically
into a classificatory system of species and genera. This
classification of the world by natural kinds will be unique and
privileged because it alone corresponds to the structure of the world.
This doctrine of essences and kinds is often called Aristotelian
essentialism. Locke rejects a variety of aspects of this doctrine. He
rejects the notion that an individual has an essence apart from being
treated as belonging to a kind. He also rejects the claim that there
is a single classification of things in nature that the natural
philosopher should seek to discover. He holds that there are many
possible ways to classify the world each of which might be
particularly useful depending on one's purposes.



Locke's pragmatic account of language and the distinction
between nominal and real essences constitute an anti-essentialist
alternative to this Aristotelian essentialism and its correlative
account of the classification of natural kinds. He claims that there
are no fixed boundaries in nature to be discovered--that is there
are no clear demarcation points between species. There are always
borderline cases. There is debate over whether Locke's view is
that this lack of fixed boundaries is true on both the level of
appearances and nominal essences, and atomic constitutions and real
essences, or on the level of nominal essences alone. The first view is
that Locke holds that there are no Aristotelian natural kinds on
either the level of appearance or atomic reality. The second view
holds that Locke thinks there are Aristotelian natural kinds on the
atomic level, it is simply that we cannot get at them or know what
they are. On either of these interpretations, the real essence cannot
provide the meaning to names of substances. A.O. Lovejoy in the
*Great Chain of Being*, and David Wiggins are proponents of the
second interpretation while Michael Ayers and William Uzgalis argue
for the first (Uzgalis 1988; Ayers 1991: II. 70).



By contrast, the ideas that we use to make up our nominal essences
come to us from experience. Locke claims that the mind is active in
making our ideas of sorts and that there are so many properties to
choose among that it is possible for different people to make quite
different ideas of the essence of a certain substance. This has given
some commentators the impression that the making of sorts is utterly
arbitrary and conventional for Locke and that there is no basis for
criticizing a particular nominal essence. Sometimes Locke says things
that might suggest this. But this impression should be resisted. Peter
Anstey has characterized Locke's conventionalism about
classificatory terms as both constrained and convergent (Anstey 2011:
209, 212). Locke claims that while the making of nominal essences is
the work of the understanding, that work is constrained both by usage
(where words stand for ideas that are already in use) and by the fact
that substance words are supposed to copy the properties of the
substances they refer to. Locke says that our ideas of kinds of
substances have as their archetype the complex of properties that
produce the appearances we use to make our nominal essences and which
cause the unity of the complex of ideas that appear to us regularly
conjoined. The very notion of an archetype implies constraints on what
properties (and hence what ideas) can go together. If there were no
such constraints there could be no archetype. (For further discussion
of the nominal-real essence distinction see the entry
 Locke on Real Essences).



Let us begin with the usage of words. It is important in a community
of language users that words be used with the same meaning. If this
condition is met it facilitates the chief end of language which is
communication. If one fails to use words with the meaning that most
people attach to them, one will fail to communicate effectively with
others. Thus one would defeat the main purpose of language. It should
also be noted that traditions of usage for Locke can be modified.
Otherwise we would not be able to improve our knowledge and
understanding by getting more clear and determinate ideas.



In the making of the names of substances, there is a period of
discovery as the abstract general idea is put together (e.g. the
discovery of violets or gold) and then the naming of that idea and
then its introduction into language. Language itself is viewed as an
instrument for carrying out the mainly prosaic purposes and practices
of everyday life. Ordinary people are the chief makers of
language.



> 
> 
> Vulgar Notions suit vulgar Discourses; and both though confused
> enough, yet serve pretty well for the Market and the Wake. Merchants
> and Lovers, Cooks and Taylors, have Words wherewith to dispatch their
> ordinary affairs; and so, I think, might Philosophers and Disputants
> too, if they had a mind to understand and to be clearly understood.
> (III.11.10, N: 514)
> 
> 
> 



These ordinary people use a few apparent qualities, mainly ideas of
secondary qualities to make ideas and words that will serve their
purposes.



Natural philosophers (i.e. scientists) come along later to try to
determine if the connections between properties which the ordinary
folk have put together in a particular idea in fact holds in nature.
Scientists are seeking to find the necessary connections between
properties. Still, even scientists, in Locke's view, are
restricted to using observable (and mainly secondary) qualities to
categorize things in nature. Sometimes, the scientists may find that
the ordinary folk had erred, as when they called whales
'fish'. A whale is not a fish, as it turns out, but a
mammal. There is a characteristic group of qualities that fish have
that whales do not have. There is a characteristic group of qualities
that mammals have that whales also have. To classify a whale as a
fish, therefore, is a mistake. Similarly, we might make an idea of
gold that only included being a soft metal and gold color. If so, we
would be unable to distinguish between gold and fool's gold.
Thus, since it is the mind that makes complex ideas (they are
'the workmanship of the understanding'), one is free to
put together any combination of ideas one wishes and call it what one
will. But the product of such work is open to criticism, either on the
grounds that it does not conform to already current usage or that it
inadequately represents the archetypes that it is supposed to copy in
the world. We engage in such criticism in order to improve human
understanding of the material world and thus the human condition. This
is the convergent character of Locke's conventionalism. In
becoming more accurate, the nominal essence converges on the real
essence.



However, we should not forget the master-builders that Locke mentions
at the beginning of the *Essay*. Stephen Gaukroger (2010)
claims that Locke's great achievement was to provide a
philosophical justification for the kind of experimental philosophy
that Boyle's work on the air pump, and his and Newton's
work on colors, as well as Sydenham's observational medicine.
All of these had been attacked for not providing explanations in terms
of matter theory. Thus, Locke is justifying the autonomy of
experimental philosophy. Such experimental explanations depend solely
on the relation between phenomena, even when there is some
micro-corpuscular basis for the phenomena being explained. According
to Gaukroger, this is Locke's contribution to the collapse of
mechanism. For the details of the problem and its solution, see
Chapters 4 and 5 of Gaukroger (2010).



The distinction between modes and substances is surely one of the most
important in Locke's philosophy. In contrast with substances,
modes are dependent existences--they can be thought of as the
ordering of substances. These are technical terms for Locke, so we
should see how they are defined. Locke writes:



> 
> 
> First, *Modes* I call such complex *Ideas*, which
> however compounded, contain not in themselves the supposition of
> subsisting by themselves; such are the ideas signified by the Words
> *Triangle, Gratitude, Murther, etc*. (II.12.4, N: 165)
> 
> 
> 



Locke goes on to distinguish between simple and mixed modes. He
writes:



> 
> 
> Of these *Modes*, there are two sorts, which deserve distinct
> consideration. First, there are some that are only variations, or
> different combinations of the same simple *Idea*, without the
> mixture of any other, as a dozen or score; which are nothing but the
> *ideas* of so many distinct unities being added together, and
> these I call *simple Modes*, as being contained within the
> bounds of one simple *Idea*. Secondly, There are others,
> compounded of *Ideas* of several kinds, put together to make
> one complex one; v.g. *Beauty*, consisting of a certain
> combination of Colour and Figure, causing Delight to the Beholder;
> *Theft*, which being the concealed change of the Possession of
> any thing, without the consent of the Proprietor, contains, as is
> visible, a combination of several *Ideas* of several kinds; and
> these I call *Mixed Modes*. (II.12.5, N: 165)
> 
> 
> 



When we make ideas of modes, the mind is again active, but the
archetype is in our mind. The question becomes whether things in the
world fit our ideas, and not whether our ideas correspond to the
nature of things in the world. Our ideas are adequate. Thus we define
'bachelor' as an unmarried, adult, male human being. If we
find that someone does not fit this definition, this does not reflect
badly on our definition, it simply means that that individual does not
belong to the class of bachelors. Modes give us the ideas of
mathematics, of morality, of religion and politics and indeed of human
conventions in general. Since these modal ideas are not only made by
us but serve as standards that things in the world either fit or do
not fit and thus belong or do not belong to that sort, ideas of modes
are clear and distinct, adequate and complete. Thus in modes, we get
the real and nominal essences combined. One can give precise
definitions of mathematical terms (that is, give necessary and
sufficient conditions), and one can give deductive demonstrations of
mathematical truths. Locke sometimes says that morality too is capable
of deductive demonstration. Though pressed by his friend William
Molyneux to produce such a demonstrative morality, Locke never did so.
The entry
 Locke's moral philosophy
 provides an excellent discussion of Locke's views on morality
and issues related to them for which there is no room in this general
account. The terms of political discourse also have some of the same
modal features for Locke. When Locke defines the states of nature,
slavery, and war in the *Second Treatise of Government*, for
example, we are presumably getting precise modal definitions from
which one can deduce consequences. It is possible, however, that with
politics we are getting a study that requires both experience as well
as the deductive modal aspect.


### 2.4 Book IV



In the fourth book of *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding*
Locke tells us what knowledge is and what humans can know and what
they cannot (not simply what they do and do not happen to know). Locke
defines knowledge as "the perception of the connexion and
agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas"
(IV.1.1, N: 525). This definition of knowledge contrasts with the
Cartesian definition of knowledge as any ideas that are clear and
distinct. Locke's account of knowledge allows him to say that we
can know substances in spite of the fact that our ideas of them always
include the obscure and relative idea of substance in general. Still,
Locke's definition of knowledge raises in this domain a problem
analogous to those we have seen with perception and language. If
knowledge is the "perception of ... the agreement or
disagreement ... of any of our Ideas"--are we not
trapped in the circle of our own ideas? What about knowing the real
existence of things? Locke is plainly aware of this problem, and very
likely holds that the implausibility of skeptical hypotheses, such as
Descartes' Dream hypothesis (he doesn't even bother to
mention Descartes' *malin genie* or Evil Demon
hypothesis), along with the causal connections between qualities and
ideas in his own system is enough to solve the problem. It is also
worth noting that there are significant differences between
Locke's brand of empiricism and that of Berkeley that would make
it easier for Locke to solve the veil of perception problem than
Berkeley. Locke, for example, makes transdictive inferences about
atoms where Berkeley is unwilling to allow that such inferences are
legitimate. This implies that Locke has a semantics that allows him to
talk about the unexperienced causes of experience (such as atoms)
where Berkeley cannot. (See Mackie's perceptive discussion of
the veil of perception problem, in *Problems from Locke*, 1976:
51 through 67.)



What then can we know and with what degree of certainty? We can know
that God exists with the second highest degree of assurance, that of
demonstration. We also know that we exist with the highest degree of
certainty. The truths of morality and mathematics we can know with
certainty as well, because these are modal ideas whose adequacy is
guaranteed by the fact that we make such ideas as ideal models which
other things must fit, rather than trying to copy some external
archetype which we can only grasp inadequately. On the other hand, our
efforts to grasp the nature of external objects are limited largely to
the connection between their apparent qualities. The real essence of
elephants and gold is hidden from us: though in general we suppose
them to be some distinct combination of atoms which cause the grouping
of apparent qualities which leads us to see elephants and violets,
gold and lead as distinct kinds. Our knowledge of material things is
probabilistic and thus opinion rather than knowledge. Thus our
"knowledge" of external objects is inferior to our
knowledge of mathematics and morality, of ourselves, and of God. We do
have sensitive knowledge of external objects, which is limited to
things we are presently experiencing. While Locke holds that we only
have knowledge of a limited number of things, he thinks we can judge
the truth or falsity of many propositions in addition to those we can
legitimately claim to know. This brings us to a discussion of
probability.


### 2.5 Knowledge and Probability



Knowledge involves the seeing of the agreement or disagreement of our
ideas. What then is probability and how does it relate to knowledge?
Locke writes:



> 
> 
> The Understanding Faculties being given to Man, not barely for
> Speculation, but also for the Conduct of his Life, Man would be at a
> great loss, if he had nothing to direct him, but what has the
> Certainty of true *Knowledge*... Therefore, as God has set
> some Things in broad day-light; as he has given us some certain
> Knowledge...So in the greater part of our Concernment, he has
> afforded us only the twilight, as I may say so, of Probability,
> suitable, I presume, to that State of Mediocrity and Probationership,
> he has been pleased to place us in here, wherein to check our
> over-confidence and presumption, we might by every day's
> Experience be made sensible of our short sightedness and liableness to
> Error... (IV.14.1-2, N: 652)
> 
> 
> 



So, apart from the few important things that we can know for certain,
e.g. the existence of ourselves and God, the nature of mathematics and
morality broadly construed, for the most part we must lead our lives
without knowledge. What then is probability? Locke writes:



> 
> 
> As Demonstration is the shewing of the agreement or disagreement of
> two Ideas, by the intervention of one or more Proofs, which have a
> constant, immutable, and visible connexion one with another: so
> Probability is nothing but the appearance of such an Agreement or
> Disagreement, by the intervention of Proofs, whose connection is not
> constant and immutable, or at least is not perceived to be so, but is
> or appears, for the most part to be so, and is enough to induce the
> Mind to judge the Proposition to be true, or false, rather than the
> contrary. (IV.15.1, N: 654)
> 
> 
> 



Probable reasoning, on this account, is an argument, similar in
certain ways to the demonstrative reasoning that produces knowledge
but different also in certain crucial respects. It is an argument that
provides evidence that leads the mind to judge a proposition true or
false but without a guarantee that the judgment is correct. This kind
of probable judgment comes in degrees, ranging from near
demonstrations and certainty to unlikeliness and improbability in the
vicinity of impossibility. It is correlated with degrees of assent
ranging from full assurance down to conjecture, doubt and
distrust.



The new science of mathematical probability had come into being on the
continent just around the time that Locke was writing the
*Essay*. His account of probability, however, shows little or
no awareness of mathematical probability. Rather it reflects an older
tradition that treated testimony as probable reasoning. Given that
Locke's aim, above all, is to discuss what degree of assent we
should give to various religious propositions, the older conception of
probability very likely serves his purposes best. Thus, when Locke
comes to describe the grounds for probability he cites the conformity
of the proposition to our knowledge, observation and experience, and
the testimony of others who are reporting their observation and
experience. Concerning the latter we must consider the number of
witnesses, their integrity, their skill in observation, counter
testimony and so on. In judging rationally how much to assent to a
probable proposition, these are the relevant considerations that the
mind should review. We should, Locke also suggests, be tolerant of
differing opinions as we have more reason to retain the opinions we
have than to give them up to strangers or adversaries who may well
have some interest in our doing so.



Locke distinguishes two sorts of probable propositions. The first of
these have to do with particular existences or matters of fact, and
the second that are beyond the testimony of the senses. Matters of
fact are open to observation and experience, and so all of the tests
noted above for determining rational assent to propositions about them
are available to us. Things are quite otherwise with matters that are
beyond the testimony of the senses. These include the knowledge of
finite immaterial spirits such as angels or things such as atoms that
are too small to be sensed, or the plants, animals or inhabitants of
other planets that are beyond our range of sensation because of their
distance from us. Concerning this latter category, Locke says we must
depend on analogy as the only help for our reasoning. He writes:



> 
> 
> Thus the observing that the bare rubbing of two bodies violently one
> upon the other, produce heat, and very often fire it self, we have
> reason to think, that what we call Heat and Fire consist of the
> violent agitation of the imperceptible minute parts of the burning
> matter.... (IV.16.12, N: 665-6)
> 
> 
> 



We reason about angels by considering the Great Chain of Being;
figuring that while we have no experience of angels, the ranks of
species above us is likely as numerous as that below of which we do
have experience. This reasoning is, however, only probable.


### 2.6 Reason, Faith and Enthusiasm



The relative merits of the senses, reason and faith for attaining
truth and the guidance of life were a significant issue during this
period. As noted above James Tyrrell recalled that the original
impetus for the writing of *An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding* was a discussion about the principles of morality
and revealed religion. In Book IV Chapters 17, 18, and 19 Locke deals
with the nature of reason, the relation of reason to faith and the
nature of enthusiasm. Locke remarks that all sects make use of reason
as far as they can. It is only when this fails them that they have
recourse to faith and claim that what is revealed is above reason. But
he adds:



> 
> 
> And I do not see how they can argue with anyone or even convince a
> gainsayer who uses the same plea, without setting down strict
> boundaries between faith and reason. (IV.18.2, N: 689)
> 
> 
> 



Locke then defines reason as



> 
> 
> the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or
> truths, which the mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas,
> as it has got by the use of its natural faculties; viz, by the use of
> sensation or reflection. (IV.18.2, N: 689)
> 
> 
> 



Faith, on the other hand, is assent to any proposition
"...upon the credit of the proposer, as coming from God, in
some extraordinary way of communication". That is we have faith
in what is disclosed by revelation and which cannot be discovered by
reason. Locke also distinguishes between the *original
revelation* by God to some person, and *traditional
revelation* which is the original revelation
"...delivered over to others in Words, and the ordinary
ways of our conveying our Conceptions one to another" (IV.18.3,
N: 690).



Locke makes the point that some things could be discovered both by
reason and by revelation--God could reveal the propositions of
Euclid's geometry, or they could be discovered by reason. In
such cases there would be little use for faith. Traditional revelation
can never produce as much certainty as the contemplation of the
agreement or disagreement of our own ideas. Similarly revelations
about matters of fact do not produce as much certainty as having the
experience oneself. Revelation, then, cannot contradict what we know
to be true. If it could, it would undermine the trustworthiness of all
of our faculties. This would be a disastrous result. Where revelation
comes into its own is where reason cannot reach. Where we have few or
no ideas for reason to contradict or confirm, these are the proper
matters for faith.



> 
> 
> ...that Part of the Angels rebelled against GOD, and thereby lost
> their first happy state: and that the dead shall rise, and live again:
> These and the like, being Beyond the Discovery of Reason, are purely
> matters of Faith; with which Reason has nothing to do. (IV.18.8, N:
> 694)
> 
> 
> 



Still, reason does have a crucial role to play in respect to
revelation. Locke writes:



> 
> 
> Because the Mind, not being certain of the Truth of that it evidently
> does not know, but only yielding to the Probability that appears to
> it, is bound to give up its assent to such Testimony, which, it is
> satisfied, comes from one who cannot err, and will not deceive. But
> yet, it still belongs to Reason, to judge of the truth of its being a
> Revelation, and of the significance of the Words, wherein it is
> delivered. (IV.18.8, N: 694)
> 
> 
> 



So, in respect to the crucial question of how we are to know whether a
revelation is genuine, we are supposed to use reason and the canons of
probability to judge. Locke claims that if the boundaries between
faith and reason are not clearly marked, then there will be no place
for reason in religion and one then gets all the "extravagant
Opinions and Ceremonies, that are to be found in the religions of the
world..." (IV.18.11, N: 696).



Should one accept revelation without using reason to judge whether it
is genuine revelation or not, one gets what Locke calls a third
principle of assent besides reason and revelation, namely enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is a vain or unfounded confidence in divine favor or
communication. It implies that there is no need to use reason to judge
whether such favor or communication is genuine or not. Clearly when
such communications are not genuine they are "the ungrounded
Fancies of a Man's own Brain" (IV.19.2, N: 698). This kind
of enthusiasm was characteristic of Protestant extremists going back
to the era of the civil war. Locke was not alone in rejecting
enthusiasm, but he rejects it in the strongest terms. Enthusiasm
violates the fundamental principle by which the understanding
operates--that assent be proportioned to the evidence. To abandon
that fundamental principle would be catastrophic. This is a point that
Locke also makes in *The Conduct of the Understanding* and
*The Reasonableness of Christianity*. Locke wants each of us to
use our understanding to search after truth. Of enthusiasts, those who
would abandon reason and claim to know on the basis of faith alone,
Locke writes:



> 
> 
> ...he that takes away Reason to make way for Revelation, puts out
> the Light of both, and does much what the same, as if he would
> perswade a Man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remote
> Light of an invisible Star by a Telescope. (IV.19.4, N: 698)
> 
> 
> 



Rather than engage in the tedious labor required to reason correctly
to judge of the genuineness of their revelation, enthusiasts persuade
themselves that they are possessed of immediate revelation. This leads
to "odd Opinions and extravagant actions" that are
characteristic of enthusiasm and which should warn that this is a
wrong principle. Thus, Locke strongly rejects any attempt to make
inward persuasion not judged by reason a legitimate principle.



We turn now to a consideration of Locke's educational works.


## 3. Locke's Major Works on Education



Locke's *Some Thoughts Concerning Education* and his
*Conduct of the Understanding* form a nice bridge between
*An Essay Concerning Human Understanding* and his political
works. Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov write in the introduction to their
edition of these works:



> 
> 
> The idea of liberty, so crucial to all of Locke's writings on
> politics and education, is traced in the Essay to reflection on the
> power of the mind over one's own actions, especially the power
> to suspend actions in the pursuit of the satisfaction of one's
> own desires until after a full consideration of their objects
> (II.21.47, N: 51-52). The Essay thus shows how the independence
> of mind pursued in the *Conduct* is possible. (G&T 1996:
> xvi)
> 
> 
> 



*Some Thoughts Concerning Education* was first published in
1693. This book collected together advice that Locke had been giving
his friend Edward Clarke about the education of Clarke's son
(and also his daughters) since 1684. In preparing the revision for the
fourth edition of *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding*
Locke began writing a chapter called "The Conduct of the
Understanding". This became quite long and was never added to
the *Essay* or even finished. It was left to Locke's
literary executors to decide what to do with it. The *Conduct*
was published by Peter King in his posthumous edition of some of
Locke's works in 1706. As Locke was composing these works, some
of the material from the *Conduct* eventually made its way into
the *Thoughts*. Grant and Tarcov write that the
*Thoughts* and the *Conduct* "complement each
other well: the *Thoughts* focuses on the education of children
by their parents, whereas the *Conduct* addresses the
self-education of adults" (G&T 1996: vii). Though they also
note tensions between the two that illustrate paradoxes in liberal
society. The *Thoughts* is addressed to the education of the
sons and daughters of the English gentry in the late seventeenth
century. It is in some ways thus significantly more limited to its
time and place than the *Conduct*. Yet, its insistence on the
inculcating such virtues as



> 
> 
> justice as respect for the rights of others, civility, liberality,
> humanity, self-denial, industry, thrift, courage, truthfulness, and a
> willingness to question prejudice, authority and the biases of
> one's own self-interest
> 
> 
> 



very likely represents the qualities needed for citizens in a liberal
society (G&T 1996: xiii).



Locke's *Thoughts* represents the culmination of a
century of what has been called "the discovery of the
child". In the Middle Ages the child was regarded as



> 
> 
> only a simple plaything, as a simple animal, or a miniature adult who
> dressed, played and was supposed to act like his elders...Their
> ages were unimportant and therefore seldom known. Their education was
> undifferentiated, either by age, ability or intended occupation.
> (Axtell 1968: 63-4)
> 
> 
> 



Locke treated children as human beings in whom the gradual development
of rationality needed to be fostered by parents. Locke urged parents
to spend time with their children and tailor their education to their
character and idiosyncrasies, to develop both a sound body and
character, and to make play the chief strategy for learning rather
than rote learning or punishment. Thus, he urged learning languages by
learning to converse in them before learning rules of grammar. Locke
also suggests that the child learn at least one manual trade.



In advocating a kind of education that made people who think for
themselves, Locke was preparing people to effectively make decisions
in their own lives--to engage in individual
self-government--and to participate in the government of their
country. The *Conduct* reveals the connections Locke sees
between reason, freedom and morality. Reason is required for good
self-government because reason insofar as it is free from partiality,
intolerance and passion and able to question authority leads to fair
judgment and action. We thus have a responsibility to cultivate reason
in order to avoid the moral failings of passion, partiality and so
forth (G&T 1996: xii). This is, in Tarcov's phrase,
Locke's education for liberty.



We turn now to Locke's political writings. (See the entry on
 Locke's political philosophy,
 which focuses on five topics (the state of nature, natural law,
property, consent and toleration) and goes into these topics in more
depth than is possible in a general account and provides much useful
information on the debates about them.)


## 4. The *Two Treatises Of Government*



Lord Shaftsbury had been dismissed from his post as Lord Chancellor in
1673 and had become one of the leaders of the opposition party, the
Country Party. In 1679 the chief issue was the attempt by the Country
Party leaders to exclude James, Duke of York from succeeding his
brother Charles II to the throne. They wanted to do this because James
was a Catholic, and England by this time was a firmly Protestant
country. They had acquired a majority in the House of Commons through
serious grass roots election campaigns, and passed an exclusion bill,
but given the King's unwillingness to see his brother excluded
from the throne, the bill failed in the House of Lords. They tried a
couple of more times without success. Having failed by parliamentary
means, some of the Country Party leaders started plotting armed
rebellion.



The *Two Treatises of Government* were published in 1689, long
after the rebellion plotted by the Country party leaders had failed to
materialize and after Shaftsbury had fled the country for Holland and
died. The introduction of the *Two Treatises* was written after
the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and gave the impression that the book
was written to justify the Glorious Revolution. We now know that the
*Two Treatises of Government* were written during the Exclusion
crisis in 1681 and may have been intended in part to justify the
general armed rising which the Country Party leaders were
planning.



There were serious obstacles to a rebellion to force James'
exclusion from the throne. The English Anglican gentry needed to
support such an action. But the Anglican church from childhood on
taught that: "...men's political duties were
exhaustively determined by their terrestrial superiors, that under
grave conscientious scruples they might rightly decline to carry out
those decrees of authority which were in direct breach of divine law,
they could under no circumstances have a right to resist such
authority". (Dunn, 1968, 48) Since by 1679 it was abundantly
clear that the King opposed excluding his brother from the throne, to
favor exclusion implied "explicit and self-conscious resistance
to the sovereign". Passive resistance would simply not do. On
the other hand, the royal policy "outraged their deepest
religious prejudices and stimulated their most obscure emotional
anxieties." So, the gentry were deeply conflicted and neither of
the choices available to them looked very palatable. John Dunn goes on
to remark: "To exert influence upon their choice it was above
all necessary to present a more coherent ordering of their values, to
show that the political tradition within which the dissenters saw
their conduct was not necessarily empirically absurd or socially
subversive. The gentry had to be persuaded that there could be reason
for rebellion which could make it neither blasphemous or
suicidal." (Dunn, 1968, 49) To achieve this goal Locke picked
the most relevant and extreme of the supporters of the divine right of
Kings to attack. Sir Robert Filmer (c 1588-1653), a man of the
generation of Charles I and the English Civil War, who had defended
the crown in various works. His most famous work, however,
*Patriarcha*, was published posthumously in 1680 and
represented the most complete and coherent exposition of the view
Locke wished to deny. Filmer held that men were born into helpless
servitude to an authoritarian family, a social hierarchy and a
sovereign whose only constraint was his relationship with God. Under
these circumstances, anything other than passive obedience would be
"vicious, blasphemous and intellectually absurd." So,
Locke needed to refute Filmer and in Dunn's words: "rescue
the contractarian account of political obligation from the criticism
of impiety and absurdity. Only in this way could he restore to the
Anglican gentry a coherent basis for moral autonomy or a practical
initiative in the field of politics." (Dunn, 1968, 50)



*The First Treatise of Government* is a polemical work aimed at
refuting the theological basis for the patriarchal version of the
Divine Right of Kings doctrine put forth by Sir Robert Filmer. Locke
singles out Filmer's contention that men are not
"naturally free" as the key issue, for that is the
"ground" or premise on which Filmer erects his argument
for the claim that all "legitimate" government is
"absolute monarchy"--kings being descended from the
first man, Adam, and their subjects being naturally slaves. Early in
the *First Treatise* Locke denies that either scripture or
reason supports Filmer's premise or arguments. In what follows
in the *First Treatise*, Locke minutely examines key Biblical
passages.



While *The Second Treatise of Government* provides
Locke's positive theory of government, it also continues his
argument against Sir Robert Filmer's claims that monarchs
legitimately hold absolute power over their subjects. Locke holds that
Filmer's view is sufficiently incoherent to lead to governments
being established by force and violence. Thus, Locke claims he must
provide an alternative account of the origin of government "lest
men fall into the dangerous belief that all government in the world is
merely the product of force and violence" (*Treatises*
II,1,4). Locke's account involves several devices which were
common in seventeenth and eighteenth century political
philosophy--natural rights theory and the social contract.
Natural rights are those rights which we are supposed to have as human
beings before ever government comes into being. We might suppose, that
like other animals, we have a natural right to struggle for our
survival. Locke will argue that we have a right to the means to
survive. When Locke comes to explain how government comes into being,
he uses the idea that people agree that their condition in the state
of nature is unsatisfactory, and so agree to transfer some of their
rights to a central government, while retaining others. This is the
theory of the social contract. There are many versions of natural
rights theory and the social contract in seventeenth and eighteenth
century European political philosophy, some conservative and some
radical. Locke's version belongs on the radical side of the
spectrum. These radical natural right theories influenced the
ideologies of the American and French revolutions.



Locke's strategy for refuting Filmer's claims that
monarchs have absolute power over their subjects is to show that
Filmer is conflating a whole variety of limited powers, all of which
might be held by one man and thus give the false appearance that a
king has absolute power over wives, children, servants and slaves as
well as subjects of a commonwealth. When properly distinguished,
however, and the limitations of each displayed, it becomes clear that
monarchs have no legitimate absolute power over their subjects.


### 4.1 *The Second Treatise of Government*



An important part of Locke's project in the *Second
Treatise* is to figure out what the role of legitimate government
is, thus allowing him to distinguish the nature of illegitimate
government. Once this is done, the basis for legitimate revolution
becomes clear. Figuring out what the proper or legitimate role of
civil government is would be a difficult task indeed if one were to
examine the vast complexity of existing governments. How should one
proceed? One strategy is to consider what life is like in the absence
of civil government. Presumably this is a simpler state, one which may
be easier to understand. Then one might see what role civil government
ought to play. This is the strategy which Locke pursues, following
Hobbes and others. So, in the first chapter of the *Second
Treatise* Locke defines political power.



> 
> 
> *Political power*, then, I take to be a *right* of
> making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less
> penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of
> employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws,
> and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all
> this only for the public good. (*Treatises,* II, 1,3)
> 
> 
> 



In the second chapter of *The Second Treatise* Locke describes
the state in which there is no government with real political power.
This is the state of nature. It is sometimes assumed that the state of
nature is a state in which there is no government at all. This is only
partially true. It is possible to have in the state of nature either
no government, illegitimate government, or legitimate government with
less than full political power. (See the section on the
 state of nature
 in the entry on Locke's political philosophy.)



If we consider the state of nature before there was government, it is
a state of political equality in which there is no natural superior or
inferior. From this equality flows the obligation to mutual love and
the duties that people owe one another, and the great maxims of
justice and charity. Was there ever such a state? There has been
considerable debate about this. Still, it is plain that both Hobbes
and Locke would answer this question affirmatively. Whenever people
have not agreed to establish a common political authority, they remain
in the state of nature. It's like saying that people are in the
state of being naturally single until they are married. Locke clearly
thinks one can find the state of nature in his time at least in the
"inland, vacant places of America" (*Second
Treatise* V. 36) and in the relations between different peoples.
Perhaps the historical development of states also went though the
stages of a state of nature. An alternative possibility is that the
state of nature is not a real historical state, but rather a
theoretical construct, intended to help determine the proper function
of government. If one rejects the historicity of states of nature, one
may still find them a useful analytical device. For Locke, it is very
likely both.


### 4.2 Human Nature and God's Purposes



According to Locke, God created man and we are, in effect, God's
property. The chief end set us by our creator as a species and as
individuals is survival. A wise and omnipotent God, having made people
and sent them into this world:



> 
> 
> ...by his order and about his business, they are his property
> whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one
> another's pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties,
> sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any
> subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another,
> as if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks
> of creatures are for our's. (*Treatises* II,2,6)
> 
> 
> 



It follows immediately that "he has no liberty to destroy
himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, yet when some
nobler use than its bare possession calls for it"
(*Treatises* II.2.6). So, murder and suicide violate the divine
purpose.



If one takes survival as the end, then we may ask what are the means
necessary to that end. On Locke's account, these turn out to be
life, liberty, health and property. Since the end is set by God, on
Locke's view we have a right to the means to that end. So we
have rights to life, liberty, health and property. These are natural
rights, that is they are rights that we have in a state of nature
before the introduction of civil government, and all people have these
rights equally.



There is also a law of nature. It is the Golden Rule, interpreted in
terms of natural rights. Thus Locke writes:



> 
> 
> The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges
> everyone: and reason which is that law, teaches all mankind who will
> but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to
> harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions....
> (*Treatises* II.2.6)
> 
> 
> 



Locke tells us that the law of nature is revealed by reason. Locke
makes the point about the law that it commands what is best for us. If
it did not, he says, the law would vanish for it would not be obeyed.
It is in this sense that Locke means that reason reveals the law. If
you reflect on what is best for yourself and others, given the goal of
survival and our natural equality, you will come to this conclusion.
(See the section on
 the law of nature
 in the entry on Locke's Political Philosophy.)



Locke does not intend his account of the state of nature as a sort of
utopia. Rather it serves as an analytical device that explains why it
becomes necessary to introduce civil government and what the
legitimate function of civil government is. Thus, as Locke conceives
it, there are problems with life in the state of nature. The law of
nature, like civil laws can be violated. There are no police,
prosecutors or judges in the state of nature as these are all
representatives of a government with full political power. The
victims, then, must enforce the law of nature in the state of nature.
In addition to our other rights in the state of nature, we have the
rights to enforce the law and to judge on our own behalf. We may,
Locke tells us, help one another. We may intervene in cases where our
own interests are not directly under threat to help enforce the law of
nature. This right eventually serves as the justification for
legitimate rebellion. Still, in the state of nature, the person who is
most likely to enforce the law under these circumstances is the person
who has been wronged. The basic principle of justice is that the
punishment should be proportionate to the crime. But when the victims
are judging the seriousness of the crime, they are more likely to
judge it of greater severity than might an impartial judge. As a
result, there will be regular miscarriages of justice. This is perhaps
the most important problem with the state of nature.


### 4.3 Of War and Slavery



In chapters 3 and 4, Locke defines the states of war and slavery. The
state of war is a state in which someone has a sedate and settled
intention of violating someone's right to life (and thus all
their other rights). Such a person puts themselves into a state of war
with the person whose life they intend to take. In such a war the
person who intends to violate someone's right to life is an
unjust aggressor. This is not the normal relationship between people
enjoined by the law of nature in the state of nature. Locke is
distancing himself from Hobbes who had made the state of nature and
the state of war equivalent terms. For Locke, the state of nature is
ordinarily one in which we follow the Golden Rule interpreted in terms
of natural rights, and thus love our fellow human creatures. The state
of war only comes about when someone proposes to violate someone
else's rights. Thus, on Locke's theory of war, there will
always be an innocent victim on one side and an unjust aggressor on
the other.



Slavery is the state of being in the absolute or arbitrary power of
another. On Locke's definition of slavery, there is only one
rather remarkable way to become a legitimate slave. In order to do so,
one must be an unjust aggressor defeated in war. The just victor then
has the option to either kill the aggressor or enslave them. Locke
tells us that the state of slavery is the continuation of the state of
war between a lawful conqueror and a captive, in which the conqueror
delays taking the life of the captive, and instead makes use of him.
This is a continued war because if conqueror and captive make some
compact for obedience on the one side and limited power on the other,
the state of slavery ceases and becomes a relation between a master
and a servant in which the master only has limited power over his
servant. The reason that slavery ceases with the compact is that
"no man, can, by agreement pass over to another that which he
hath not in himself, a power over his own life"
(*Treatises* II.4.24). Legitimate slavery is an important
concept in Locke's political philosophy largely because it tells
us what the legitimate extent of despotic power is and defines and
illuminates by contrast the nature of illegitimate slavery.
Illegitimate slavery is that state in which someone possesses absolute
or despotic power over someone else without just cause. Locke holds
that it is this illegitimate state of slavery which absolute monarchs
wish to impose upon their subjects. It is very likely for this reason
that legitimate slavery is so narrowly defined. This shows that the
chapter on slavery plays a crucial role in Locke's argument
against Sir Robert Filmer and thus could not have been easily
dispensed with. Still, it is possible that Locke had an additional
purpose or perhaps a quite different reason for writing about
slavery.



There has been a steady stream of articles and books over the last
sixty years arguing that given Locke's involvement with trade
and colonial government, the theory of slavery in the *Second
Treatise* was intended to justify the institutions and practices
of Afro-American slavery. If this were the case, Locke's
philosophy would not contradict his actions as an investor and
colonial administrator. However, there are strong objections to this
view. Had he intended to justify Afro-American slavery, Locke would
have done much better with a vastly more inclusive definition of
legitimate slavery than the one he gives. It is sometimes suggested
that Locke's account of "just war" is so vague that
it could easily be twisted to justify the institutions and practices
of Afro-American slavery. This, however, is also not the case. In the
chapter "Of Conquest" Locke explicitly lists the limits of
the legitimate power of conquerors. These limits on who can become a
legitimate slave and what the powers of a just conqueror are ensure
that this theory of conquest and slavery would condemn the
institutions and practices of Afro-American slavery in the
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Nonetheless, the
debate continues. One element of the debate has to do with
Locke's role in the writing of the *Fundamental Constitutions
of the Carolinas*. David Armitage in his 2004 article "John
Locke, Carolina and the Two Treatises of Government" argues that
Locke was involved in a revision of the *Fundamental Constitution
of the Carolinas* at the very time he was writing *The Two
Treatises of Government*. The provision that "Every Freedman
of the Carolinas has absolute power and authority over his negro
slaves" remained in the document unchanged. In his 2016 book
*The Ashley Cooper Plan*, Thomas Wilson gives a detailed
account of Ashley Cooper's intentions for the Carolina colony
and how Cooper's intent was thwarted by Barbadian slave owners
who changed Carolina society from a society with slaves to a slave
society. L. H. Roper, in his 2004 book *Conceiving Carolina:
Property, Planters and Plots 1662-1729*, offers a different
account of what went wrong, focusing on conflicts over the trade in
Indian slaves. James Farr's article "Locke, Natural Law
and New World Slavery" (2008) is one of the best statements of
the position that Locke intended his theory of slavery to apply to
English absolutism and not Afro-American slavery while noting that
Locke's involvement with slavery has ruined his reputation as
the great champion of liberty Roger Woolhouse in his recent biography
of Locke (Woolhouse 2007: 187) remarks that "Though there is no
consensus on the whole question, there certainly seems to be 'a
glaring contradiction between his theories and Afro-American
slavery'".



Recently, there has been a debate over whose theory of slavery and
absolutism Locke was attacking. Johan Olsthoorn and Laurens van
Apeldoorn (2020) argue that Locke's account of slavery and in
particular, that no person can consensually establish absolute rule
over themselves with all its consequences has little force against
other classical contract theories, in particular those of Grotius and
Puffendorf. Both Grotius and Puffendorf defended both absolutism and
colonial slavery.



Felis Waldmann in "Slavery and Absolutism in Locke's Two
Treatises: A Response to Olsthoorn and van Apeldoorn" objects to
a number of their claims finding others not relevant. Most
notably, he objects to these claims: First, "Locke is working
with an idiosyncratic conception of slavery and absolute rule
repudiated by prominent early modern thinkers defending political
absolutism." Second: "Like Filmer, Locke maintains that
absolute rulers may arbitrarily kill and maim their subjects at will,
by dint of having a *dominium* in the latter's
lives." Finally, he objects to the claim that: "Early
modern natural lawyers, from Grotius onward, conceptualized slavery
rather differently, insisting that enslaved people were not
owned in the way we own things (which may be destroyed at
will)" (Waldmann 7).



In brief, Waldmann's response to the first claim is that Filmer
accurately represented the Royalist position in the late 1670s and
early 1680s and so Locke's account is not a straw man. Thus,
Locke is attacking Filmer's account of slavery and not some weak
and extreme version of the argument for absolutism that no one
held. Waldmann suggests that the second claim magnifies this tendency
of the two authors' portrayal of Locke's argument as not
responding to the standard arguments for absolutism. Thus, Olsthoorn
and van Apeldoorn attribute Filmer's position to Locke. Waldmann
concludes that the claims of Olsthoorn and van Apeldoorn that since
Locke's position on slavery was significantly different from
those of Grotius and Puffendorf, it had little force against them is,
in fact, the case. But he thinks this is of little importance since
Locke was not arguing against them. One suggestion he considers
plausible is that Locke is aiming his argument against the possibility
of self-enslavement at Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes was recognized by his
contemporaries as asserting both that one could by contract enslave
oneself and that the king had *dominium,* over his
subjects.



William Uzgalis, in his 2017 chapter "John Locke, Slavery and
Indian Lands," holds that Locke has two theories of slavery, one
of them of legitimate slavery and the other of illegitimate
slavery. Note that the authors discussed above simply
don't make this distinction. If they had, it would be
plain that while Locke shares with Filmer the *dominium*
conception of slavery that allows a master to kill or maim a slave,
neither theory belongs to Filmer, and if Locke is correct about royal
absolutism and given the character of the practices of the slave
trade and colonial slavery, both absolutism at home and the slave
trade and colonial slavery fall under the theory of illegitimate
slavery. Neither Grotius, Puffendorf or Hobbes has an explicit
theory of illegitimate slavery. Uzgalis also notes that Grotius and
Puffendorf provided claims that Locke could have adopted had he wished
to justify the slave trade and slavery in the colonies. Still, he
denies them all, and with good reason. He would have
substantially weakened his argument against the kind of absolutism he
attributed to Filmer and the Stuarts had he done so. This
suggests that he was crafting an alternative theory and not arguing
against its competitors, with the exception, perhaps, of Hobbes.



Holly Brewer in her 2017 article "Slavery, Sovereignty, and
'Inheritable Blood', Reconsidering John Locke and the
Origins of American Slavery" argues for a different approach
to these questions. She presents evidence that the Stuart
kings, and Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York, in
particular, were not just interested in absolute government at home;
they actively promoted the Royal Africa Company, the slave trade and
slavery in the colonies as it provided considerable amounts of money
to the royal coffers. James was the Governor (the President) of the
Royal Africa Company and Admiral of the English fleet. Lord
Shaftesbury, Locke's patron, was the sub-governor, and Locke
assisted him. Using the fleet, James attacked and captured Dutch forts
on the coast of Africa to make bases for the Royal Africa Company and
deprive the Dutch of them. The Stuarts minted *guinea* coins to
celebrate these efforts. After becoming King, James continued as
Governor of the Royal Africa Company. Thus Brewer underlines the
similarities and connections between the absolutism Locke objected to
at home and the slave trade and slavery in the colonies. She argues
that the spread of slavery needs to be understood as an English
imperial policy and not something that occurred in different times and
places unconnected with one another. She also claims that while Locke
was a member of King William III's Board of Trade in the waning
years of the seventeenth century, he sought to undo Stuart policies
concerning slavery in the colonies.


### 4.4 Of Property



Chapter 5 "Of Property" is one of the most famous,
influential and important chapters in the *Second Treatise of
Government*. Indeed, some of the most controversial issues about
the *Second Treatise* come from varying interpretations of it.
In this chapter Locke, in effect, describes the evolution of the state
of nature to the point where it becomes expedient for those in it to
found a civil government. So, it is not only an account of the nature
and origin of private property but leads up to the explanation of why
civil government replaces the state of nature (see the section on
 property
 in the entry on Locke's political philosophy).



In discussing the origin of private property Locke begins by noting
that God gave the earth to all men in common. Thus there is a question
about how private property comes to be. Locke finds it a serious
difficulty. He points out, however, that we are supposed to make use
of the earth "for the best advantage of life and
convenience" (*Treatises* II.5.25). What then is the
means to appropriate property from the common store? Locke argues that
private property does not come about by universal consent. If one had
to go about and ask everyone if one could eat these berries, one would
starve to death before getting everyone's agreement. Locke holds
that we have property in our own person. And the labor of our body and
the work of our hands properly belong to us. So, when one picks up
acorns or berries, they thereby belong to the person who picked them
up. There has been some controversy about what Locke means by
"labor". Daniel Russell claims that for Locke, labor is a
goal-directed activity that converts materials that might meet our
needs into resources that actually do (Russell 2004). This
interpretation of what Locke means by "labor" connects
nicely with his claim that we have a natural law obligation first to
preserve ourselves and then to help in the preservation and
flourishing of others.



One might think that one could then acquire as much as one wished, but
this is not the case. Locke introduces at least two important
qualifications on how much property can be acquired. The first
qualification has to do with waste. Locke writes:



> 
> 
> As much as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it
> spoils, so much by his labor he may fix a property in; whatever is
> beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others.
> (*Treatises* II.5.31)
> 
> 
> 



Since originally, populations were small and resources great, living
within the bounds set by reason, there would be little quarrel or
contention over property, for a single man could make use of only a
very small part of what was available.



Note that Locke has, thus far, been talking about hunting and
gathering, and the kinds of limitations which reason imposes on the
kind of property that hunters and gatherers hold. In the next section
he turns to agriculture and the ownership of land and the kinds of
limitations there are on that kind of property. In effect, we see the
evolution of the state of nature from a hunter/gatherer kind of
society to that of a farming and agricultural society. Once again it
is labor which imposes limitations upon how much land can be enclosed.
It is only as much as one can work. But there is an additional
qualification. Locke says:



> 
> 
> Nor was this *appropriation* of any parcel of *land*, by
> improving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was still
> enough, and as good left; and more than the as yet unprovided could
> use. So that, in effect, there was never the less for others because
> of his inclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another
> can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body could
> consider himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he
> took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left to
> quench his thirst: and the case of land and water, where there is
> enough, is perfectly the same. (*Treatises* II.5.33)
> 
> 
> 



The next stage in the evolution of the state of nature involves the
introduction of money. Locke remarks that:



> 
> 
> ... before the desire of having more than one needed had altered
> the intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their usefulness
> to the life of man; or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow
> metal, which would keep without wasting or decay, should be worth a
> great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn; though men had a right
> to appropriate by their labor, each one of himself, as much of the
> things of nature, as he could use; yet this could not be much, nor to
> the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was left to those who
> would use the same industry. (*Treatises* II.5.37)
> 
> 
> 



So, before the introduction of money, there was a degree of economic
equality imposed on mankind both by reason and the barter system. And
men were largely confined to the satisfaction of their needs and
conveniences. Most of the necessities of life are relatively short
lived--berries, plums, venison and so forth. One could reasonably
barter one's berries for nuts which would last not weeks but
perhaps a whole year. And says Locke:



> 
> 
> ...if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with
> its color, or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling
> pebble or diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded not
> the right of others, he might heap up as much of these durable things
> as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his property not lying
> in the largeness of his possessions, but the perishing of anything
> uselessly in it. (*Treatises* II.5.146)
> 
> 
> 



The introduction of money is necessary for the differential increase
in property, with resulting economic inequality. Without money there
would be no point in going beyond the economic equality of the earlier
stage. In a money economy, different degrees of industry could give
men vastly different proportions.



> 
> 
> This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, men
> have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without
> compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly
> agreeing to the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulate
> the rights of property, and the possession of land is determined by
> positive constitutions. (*Treatises* II.5.50)
> 
> 
> 



The implication is that it is the introduction of money, which causes
inequality, which in turn multiplies the causes of quarrels and
contentions and increased numbers of violations of the law of nature.
This leads to the decision to create a civil government. Before
turning to the institution of civil government, however, we should ask
what happens to the qualifications on the acquisition of property
after the advent of money? One answer proposed by C. B. Macpherson in
*The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism* is that the
qualifications are completely set aside, and we now have a system for
the unlimited acquisition of private property. This does not seem to
be correct. It seems plain, rather, that at least the non-spoilage
qualification is satisfied, because money does not spoil. The other
qualifications may be rendered somewhat irrelevant by the advent of
the conventions about property adopted in civil society. This leaves
open the question of whether Locke approved of these changes.
Macpherson, who takes Locke to be a spokesman for a proto-capitalist
system, sees Locke as advocating the unlimited acquisition of wealth.
James Tully, on the other side, in *A Discourse of Property*
holds that Locke sees the new conditions, the change in values and the
economic inequality which arise as a result of the advent of money, as
the fall of man. Tully sees Locke as a persistent and powerful critic
of self-interest. This remarkable difference in interpretation has
been a significant topic for debates among scholars over the last
forty years. Though the *Second Treatise of Government* may
leave this question difficult to determine, one might consider
Locke's remark in *Some Thoughts Concerning Education*
that



> 
> 
> Covetousness and the desire to having in our possession and our
> dominion more than we have need of, being the root of all evil, should
> be early and carefully weeded out and the contrary quality of being
> ready to impart to others inculcated. (G&T 1996: 81)
> 
> 
> 



Let us then turn to the institution of civil government.


### 4.5 The Social Contract Theory



Just as natural rights and natural law theory had a fluorescence in
the seventeenth and eighteenth century, so did the social contract
theory. Why is Locke a social contract theorist? Is it merely that
this was one prevailing way of thinking about government at the time
which Locke blindly adopted? The answer is that there is something
about Locke's project which pushes him strongly in the direction
of the social contract. One might hold that governments were
originally instituted by force, and that no agreement was involved.
Were Locke to adopt this view, he would be forced to go back on many
of the things which are at the heart of his project in the *Second
Treatise*, though cases like the Norman conquest force him to
admit that citizens may come to accept a government that was
originally forced on them. Remember that the *Second Treatise*
provides Locke's positive theory of government, and that he
explicitly says that he must provide an alternative to the view



> 
> 
> that all government in the world is merely the product of force and
> violence, and that men live together by no other rules than that of
> the beasts, where the strongest carries it ... .
> (*Treatises* II, 1, 4)
> 
> 
> 



So, while Locke might admit that some governments come about through
force or violence, he would be destroying the most central and vital
distinction, that between legitimate and illegitimate civil
government, if he admitted that legitimate government can come about
in this way. So, for Locke, legitimate government is instituted by the
explicit consent of those governed. (See the section on
 consent, political obligation, and the ends of government
 in the entry on Locke's political philosophy.) Those who make
this agreement transfer to the government their right of executing the
law of nature and judging their own case. These are the powers which
they give to the central government, and this is what makes the
justice system of governments a legitimate function of such
governments.



Ruth Grant has persuasively argued that the establishment of
government is in effect a two step process. Universal consent is
necessary to form a political community. Consent to join a community
once given is binding and cannot be withdrawn. This makes political
communities stable. Grant writes: "Having established that the
membership in a community entails the obligation to abide by the will
of the community, the question remains: Who rules?" (1987:
114-115). The answer to this question is determined by majority
rule. The point is that universal consent is necessary to establish a
political community, majority consent to answer the question who is to
rule such a community. Universal consent and majority consent are thus
different in kind, not just in degree. Grant writes:



> 
> 
> Locke's argument for the right of the majority is the
> theoretical ground for the distinction between duty to society and
> duty to government, the distinction that permits an argument for
> resistance without anarchy. When the designated government dissolves,
> men remain obligated to society acting through majority rule. (1987:
> 119)
> 
> 
> 



It is entirely possible for the majority to confer the rule of the
community on a king and his heirs, or a group of oligarchs or on a
democratic assembly. Thus, the social contract is not inextricably
linked to democracy. Still, a government of any kind must perform the
legitimate function of a civil government.


### 4.6 The Function Of Civil Government



Locke is now in a position to explain the function of a legitimate
government and distinguish it from illegitimate government. The aim of
such a legitimate government is to preserve, so far as possible, the
rights to life, liberty, health and property of its citizens, and to
prosecute and punish those of its citizens who violate the rights of
others and to pursue the public good even where this may conflict with
the rights of individuals. In doing this it provides something
unavailable in the state of nature, an impartial judge to determine
the severity of the crime, and to set a punishment proportionate to
the crime. This is one of the main reasons why civil society is an
improvement on the state of nature. An illegitimate government will
fail to protect the rights to life, liberty, health and property of
its subjects, and in the worst cases, such an illegitimate government
will claim to be able to violate the rights of its subjects, that is
it will claim to have despotic power over its subjects. Since Locke is
arguing against the position of Sir Robert Filmer who held that
patriarchal power and political power are the same, and that in effect
these amount to despotic power, Locke is at pains to distinguish these
three forms of power, and to show that they are not equivalent. Thus
at the beginning of chapter 15 "Of Paternal, Political and
Despotic Power Considered Together" he writes:



> 
> 
> THOUGH I have had occasion to speak of these before, yet the great
> mistakes of late about government, having as I suppose arisen from
> confounding these distinct powers one with another, it may not be
> amiss, to consider them together.
> 
> 
> 



Chapters 6 and 7 give Locke's account of paternal and political
power respectively. Paternal power is limited. It lasts only through
the minority of children, and has other limitations. Political power,
derived as it is from the transfer of the power of individuals to
enforce the law of nature, has with it the right to kill in the
interest of preserving the rights of the citizens or otherwise
supporting the public good. Legitimate despotic power, by contrast,
implies the right to take the life, liberty, health and at least some
of the property of any person subject to such a power.


### 4.7 Rebellion and Regicide



At the end of the *Second Treatise* we learn about the nature
of illegitimate civil governments and the conditions under which
rebellion and regicide are legitimate and appropriate. As noted above,
scholars now hold that the book was written during the Exclusion
Crisis, and may have been written to justify a general insurrection
and the assassination of the king of England and his brother. The
argument for legitimate revolution follows from making the distinction
between legitimate and illegitimate civil government. A legitimate
civil government seeks to preserve its subjects' life, health,
liberty, and property insofar as this is compatible with the public
good. Because it does this, it deserves obedience. An illegitimate
civil government seeks to systematically violate the natural rights of
its subjects. It seeks to make them illegitimate slaves. Because an
illegitimate civil government does this, it puts itself in a state of
nature and a state of war with its subjects. The magistrate or king of
such a state violates the law of nature and so makes himself into a
dangerous beast of prey who operates on the principle that might makes
right, or that the strongest carries it. In such circumstances,
rebellion is legitimate, as is the killing of such a dangerous beast
of prey. Thus Locke justifies rebellion and regicide under certain
circumstances. Presumably, this justification was going to be offered
for the killing of the King of England and his brother had the Rye
House Plot succeeded. Even if this was not Locke's intention, it
still would have served that purpose admirably.


## 5. Locke and Religious Toleration



The issue of religious toleration was of widespread interest in Europe
in the seventeenth century, largely because religious intolerance with
accompanying violence was so pervasive. The Reformation had split
Europe into competing religious camps, and this provoked civil wars
and massive religious persecutions. John Marshall, in his massive study
*John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture* notes
that the 1680s were the climactic decade for this kind of
persecution. The Dutch Republic, where Locke spent years in exile, had
been founded as a secular state which would allow religious
differences. This was a reaction to the Catholic persecution of
Protestants. However, once the Calvinist Church gained power, they
began persecuting other sects, such as the Remonstrants, who disagreed
with them. Nonetheless, The Dutch Republic remained the most tolerant
country in Europe. In France, religious conflict had been temporarily
quieted by the edict of Nantes. But in 1685, the year in which Locke
wrote the First Letter concerning religious toleration, Louis XIV had
revoked the Edict of Nantes, and the Huguenots were being persecuted.
Though prohibited from doing so, some 200,000 emigrated, while
probably 700,000 were forced to convert to Catholicism. People in
England were keenly aware of the events taking place in France.



In England itself, religious conflict dominated the seventeenth
century, contributing in important respects to the coming of the
English Civil War, and the abolishing of the Anglican Church during
the Protectorate. After the Restoration of Charles II, Anglicans in
parliament passed laws that repressed both Catholics and Protestant
sects such as Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers and Unitarians who did
not agree with the doctrines or practices of the state Church. Of
these various dissenting sects, some were closer to the Anglicans,
others more remote. One reason, among others, why King Charles may
have found Shaftesbury useful was that they were both concerned about
religious toleration. They parted when it became clear that the King
was mainly interested in toleration for Catholics, and Shaftesbury for
Protestant dissenters.



One widely discussed strategy for reducing religious conflict in
England was called comprehension. The idea was to reduce the doctrines
and practices of the Anglican church to a minimum so that most, if not
all, of the dissenting sects would be included in the state church.
For those which even this measure would not serve, there was to be
toleration. Toleration we may define as a lack of state persecution.
Neither of these strategies made much progress during the course of
the Restoration.



When Locke fled to Holland after the discovery of the Rye house plot,
he became involved with a group of scholars advocating religious
toleration. This group included Benjamin Furly, a quaker with whom
Locke lived for a while, the noted philosopher Pierre Bayle, several
Dutch theologians, and many others. This group read all the arguments
for religious intolerance and discussed them in book and conversation
clubs. Members of the group considered toleration not only for
Protestants and Protestant dissenters but Jews, Moslems, and Catholics. A
recent discovery of a page of Locke's reflections on toleration
of Catholics shows that Locke considered even the pros and cons of
toleration for Catholics (Walmsley and Waldmann 2019). Some members
of the group also wrote tolerationist articles and books. They helped
each other get jobs. Some of their members founded journals that
reviewed books and articles on religious, scientific, and other
topics. The group took the notion of free speech, civility, and
politeness in discourse seriously. They called themselves the
'the Republic of Letters' or in Locke's phrase
'the commonwealth of learning.'



What were Locke's religious views and where did he fit into the
debates about religious toleration? This is a quite difficult question
to answer. Religion and Christianity in particular, is perhaps the
most important influence on the shape of Locke's philosophy. But
what kind of Christian was Locke? Locke's family were Puritans.
At Oxford, Locke avoided becoming an Anglican priest. Still, Locke
himself claimed to be an Anglican until he died and Locke's
nineteenth-century biographer Fox Bourne thought that Locke was an
Anglican. Others have identified him with the Latitudinarians--a
movement among Anglicans to argue for a reasonable Christianity that
dissenters ought to accept. Still, there are some reasons to think
that Locke was neither an orthodox Anglican or a Latitudinarian. Locke
got Isaac Newton to write Newton's most powerful
anti-Trinitarian tract. Locke arranged to have the work published
anonymously in Holland though in the end, Newton decided not to
publish (McLachlan 1941). This strongly suggests that Locke too was by
this time an Arian or unitarian. (Arius, c. 250-336, asserted
the primacy of the Father over the Son and thus rejected the doctrine
of the Trinity and was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Nicaea
in 325. Newton held that the Church had gone in the wrong direction in
condemning Arius.) Given that one main theme of Locke's
*Letter on Toleration* is that there should be a separation
between Church and State, this does not seem like the view of a man
devoted to a state religion. It might appear that Locke's
writing *The Reasonableness of Christianity* in which he argues
that the basic doctrines of Christianity are few and compatible with
reason make him a Latitudinarian. Yet Richard Ashcraft has argued that
comprehension for the Anglicans meant conforming to the existing
practices of the Anglican Church; that is, the abandonment of
religious dissent. Ashcraft also suggests that Latitudinarians were
thus not a moderate middle ground between contending extremes but part
of one of the extremes--"the acceptable face of the
persecution of religious dissent" (Ashcraft 1992: 155). Ashcraft
holds that while the Latitudinarians may have represented the
"rational theology" of the Anglican church, there was a
competing dissenting "rational theology". Thus, while it
is true that Locke had Latitudinarian friends, given Ashcraft's
distinction between Anglican and dissenting "rational
theologies", it is entirely possible that *The Reasonableness
of Christianity* is a work of dissenting "rational
theology".



Locke had been thinking, talking and writing about religious
toleration since 1659. His views evolved. In the early 1660s he very
likely was an orthodox Anglican. He and Shaftesbury had instituted
religious toleration in the *Fundamental Constitutions of the
Carolinas* (1669). He wrote the *Epistola de Tolerantia* in
Latin in 1685 while in exile in Holland. He very likely was seeing
Protestant refugees pouring over the borders from France where Louis
XIV had just revoked the Edict of Nantes. Holland itself was a
Calvinist theocracy with significant problems with religious
toleration. But Locke's Letter does not confine itself to the
issues of the time. Locke gives a principled account of religious
toleration, though this is mixed in with arguments which apply only to
Christians, and perhaps in some cases only to Protestants. He excluded
both Catholics and atheists from religious toleration. In the case of
Catholics it was because he regarded them as agents of a foreign
power. Because they do not believe in God, atheists, on Locke's
account: "Promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of
human society, can have no hold upon an atheist" (Mendus 1991:
47). He gives his general defense of religious toleration while
continuing the anti-Papist rhetoric of the Country party which sought
to exclude James II from the throne.



Locke's arguments for religious toleration connect nicely to his
account of civil government. Locke defines life, liberty, health and
property as our civil interests. These are the proper concern of a
magistrate or civil government. The magistrate can use force and
violence where this is necessary to preserve civil interests against
attack. This is the central function of the state. One's
religious concerns with salvation, however, are not within the domain
of civil interests, and so lie outside of the legitimate concern of
the magistrate or the civil government. In effect, Locke adds an
additional right to the natural rights of life, liberty, health and
property--the right of freedom to choose one's own road to
salvation. (See the section on
 Toleration
 in the entry on Locke's Political Philosophy.)



Locke holds that the use of force by the state to get people to hold
certain beliefs or engage in certain ceremonies or practices is
illegitimate. The chief means which the magistrate has at her disposal
is force, but force is not an effective means for changing or
maintaining belief. Suppose then, that the magistrate uses force so as
to make people profess that they believe. Locke writes:



> 
> 
> A sweet religion, indeed, that obliges men to dissemble, and tell lies
> to both God and man, for the salvation of their souls! If the
> magistrate thinks to save men thus, he seems to understand little of
> the way of salvation; and if he does it not in order to save them, why
> is he so solicitous of the articles of faith as to enact them by a
> law? (Mendus 1991: 41)
> 
> 
> 



So, religious persecution by the state is inappropriate. Locke holds
that "Whatever is lawful in the commonwealth cannot be
prohibited by the magistrate in the church". This means that the
use of bread and wine, or even the sacrificing of a calf could not be
prohibited by the magistrate.



If there are competing churches, one might ask which one should have
the power? The answer is clearly that power should go to the true
church and not to the heretical church. But Locke claims this amounts
to saying nothing. For every church believes itself to be the true
church, and there is no judge but God who can determine which of these
claims is correct. Thus, skepticism about the possibility of religious
knowledge is central to Locke's argument for religious
toleration.



Finally, for an account of the influence of Locke's works, see
the supplementary document:
 Supplement on the Influence of Locke's Works