the little that has hitherto been done in it, that it is too hard a task for unassisted reason to establish morality in all its parts, upon its true foundation, with a clear and convincing light; and it is at least a surer and shorter way, to the apprehensions of the vulgar and the mass of mankind, that one manifestly sent from God, and coming with. visible authority from Him, should, as a king and lawgiver, tell them their duties, and require their obedience, than leave it to the long and sometimes intricate deductions of reason, to be made out to them."8 Therefore, as he concluded, revelation is a better basis for morality than reason, at least for most men, for "the day-laborers and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairy-maids," who "want leisure or capacity for demonstration." There was no satisfactory body of ethics "before our Saviour's time;" 10 and all the wise men since Christ have not been able by reason to equal in any way the teachings of the New Testament. Men not only are feeble in intellectual grasp and vigor, but also are swept away by passions and vices. If revelation did not furnish them with an indubitable knowledge of true morality, they might not ever gain such knowledge at all. Thus in spite of his respect for reason, Locke came to the position that "the gospel contains so perfect a body of ethics that reason may be excused from that inquiry.”11 9 3. Nevertheless, though Locke in replying to one of his critics had to acknowledge that he had not demonstrated morality,12 certainly the dominant interest and underlying motive in his work were practical rather than speculative, ethical rather than epistemological. Hel explicitly stated that his purpose in writing the Treatises of Government was "to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William," 13 i. e., to justify the democratic principles involved in the Revolution of 1688 rather than to develop a scientific set of ideas. Likewise he disclosed that he wrote the Thoughts concerning Education in order to help in the proper education of the son of one of his friends, and that he published them in the hope that still others might derive benefit therefrom.14 Certainly he had no other aim in the Letters for Toleration than to promote that ideal cause which throughout his life he had deeply at heart, and mocked at those who placed ceremonial purity ahead of true morality.15 Even in his most abstract work, the Essay concerning Human Understanding, the primary motive was practical. Locke wrote in the Epistle to the Reader 16 that the epis B Idem, Vol. VII, p. 139. • Idem, Vol. VII, p. 146. 10 Idem, Vol. VII, p. 141. 11 In a letter to Molyneux. Idem, Vol. IX, p. 377. 12 Works, Vol. IV, p. 187. 13 Preface. Woks, Vol. V, p. 209. 14 The Epistle Dedicatory. 15 Cf. Works, Vol. VI, pp. 7, 23. 16 Essay; Epistle to the Reader 4. temological problems of the Essay were forced upon his consideration by difficulties which arose in a discussion with some friends; and Tyrrell explained that this discussion was "about the principles of morality and revealed religion." 17 It was in order to reach a sound foundation upon which morality and religion could be based, therefore, that Locke entered upon the task of examining the origin and limits of human knowledge. This task proved to be a greater one than he had at first supposed it would be, and consumed large portions of his time over a period of twenty years before his results were published in the bulky Essay. Yet never in all this time did Locke forget the practical motive with which he began. He said in 1677 that painstaking study is important because “we can make little further progress in doing than we do in knowing."18 And he made the prior importance of conduct to mere thinking still more emphatic in a passage at the outset of the Essay itself: "If we can find out those measures whereby a rational creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions and actions depending thereon, we need not to be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge." 19 Thus even in the most abstruse and abstract of Locke's writings, the practical and ethical interest predominated. 4. The extent to which Locke was dependent upon the work of his predecessors has been a disputed point. Most critics have maintained that he was the originator of a wholly new tradition, building up his philosophy without so much as consulting the writings of others. This view of Locke's rather complete independence from historical relations to earlier thinkers is doubtless a misunderstanding, and can be explained as due to three causes. In the first place, Locke was prone to insist in an exaggerated fashion that he had spun his philosophy out of his own "coarse thoughts," 20 and emphasized the difference between his own direct and fresh observation of facts and the hide-bound traditionalism of the Schools. But he thereby simply intended to express his strong feelings of revolt against the type of philosophy current in the universities of his day, in which the method and subject matter of medieval thought were still employed. He was quite willing to acknowledge his great debt to Descartes 21 and others for the emancipation which they brought him from the narrow channels of academic teaching at Oxford. And it was only because he was aware of the important novelties which in the Essay he was introducing into epistemological theory, that he modestly gave expres 17 This information is derived from a marginal note made by Tyrrell in his own copy of the Essay which is now preserved in the British Museum. Cf. Bourne, Life of Locke, Vol. 1, p. 249. Also Fraser's edition of the Essay, Vol. 1, p. 9, note 2. 18 King: Life of Locke, p. 93. 19 Essay; Introduction ". 20 Essay: Epistle to the Reader 6. 21 Works, Vol. IV, p. 48. sion to what has been to many of his readers a misleading emphasis. The controversy which he had with Stillingfleet led him further to explain what he meant by writing out of his own "coarse thoughts." Stillingfleet accused him both of trying to invent "a new way of certainty by ideas," and also of merely reiterating what everyone knew quite well before the Essay appeared. He retorted to this charge with delightful irony that he was unfortunately not "as well read as your lordship" in the literature of the subject, and then added in a more serious way on the next page that he had come to regard his own theory as original with himself only after he "had in vain hunted for it in the books of others." 22 The discrepancy between these two comments on his relation to other writers is only apparent, and can be explained even aside from pointing out the ironical quality of the first of the two remarks. He had indeed hunted in the works of others such as Descartes; and not having found there what satisfied him as being a correct view of human knowledge, he then turned to observation of his own mind in order to frame his theory. When, however, Stillingfleet asserted that his theory was only a repetition of an established view, he could not deny the charge categorically; for he was but slightly familiar with the writings of the medieval schoolmen and ecclesiastics to whom Stillingfleet was referring. He was none the less acquainted with other writers of the more modern period, and wrote his Essay to supply what seemed to him the deficiencies in them. In the second place, Locke did not state his position in the Essay in a well-balanced form. He took occasion to deal only with the new features which he was aiming to contribute to a theory of knowledge. He did not think it worth while or necessary to specify those other matters upon which he was in entire agreement with current and commonly accepted views. He seems to have taken it for granted that his readers would understand that he assented to that part of the established tradition which he did not deny.23 Only when Stillingfleet began to attack him as a dangerous innovator did he explain his position more adequately. His three lengthy letters to Stillingfleet disclose much more than does the Essay the extent to which he was familiar with earlier writers. However, just as his method of including little but his original ideas in the Essay misled Stillingfleet, it has misled others since. Nevertheless he was not in all respects an innovator, but built largely on the work of his predecessors. In the third place, Locke's Essay shows fewer traces of his familiarity with the writings of earlier thinkers than any of his other works. And the Essay is also that one of his works which is most read, even, in too 22 Idem, Vol. IV, pp. 134–139. 23 The new and old elements in Locke's epistemology are distinguished and discussed below, Cf. Book II, Chapter I. many cases, which is exclusively read. Generalizing from the Essay, many critics have thus been led to suppose that he was unfamiliar with his predecessors. Yet the Treatises of Government, the Thoughts concerning Education, and many allusions in his Journals and Commonplace Books show quite conclusively that he did not escape the influence of the intellectual inheritance of his time. He explicitly mentioned the names of numerous men to whom he was indebted for instruction or from whom he greatly differed. One of his biographers goes so far as to claim that he never ventured to write until "he had acquainted himself with nearly every work of importance that had been offered to the world" on the subject he was considering.24 And though this estimate is guilty of overstatement of the extent of Locke's reading, it is certainly correct in maintaining that Locke was familiar with many of the great philosophers of the past. He did scorn the medieval period as being one of barren and futile disputations; but he used to great profit some of the leading authors both of classical antiquity 25 and, more especially, of his own century. As the particular authors whom he knew best and followed most will be discussed in the next four chapters, they need not, however, be reviewed here. An insistence upon Locke's dependence on his predecessors is even more important in a discussion of his moral and political philosophy than in an account of his epistemology. For, though his theory of knowledge has frequently been misunderstood through failure to appreciate its relations to the rationalism of the seventeenth century,26 yet in many ways Locke, even more than Descartes or Hobbes, stands at the threshold of a new era in epistemological speculation. He opened up new paths of inquiry and formulated new problems for his successors to examine. His connections with subsequent developments are probably more important than his connections to earlier situations. But in ethics almost the opposite is the case. Here he represents rather the conclusion of a period. His moral and political philosophy may well be viewed as the summation of the best thought of the seventeenth century. Though he added new ideas of his own and developed the old ideas which he took over from others, he is rather the ripe fulfilment of the past than the herald of the future. Consequently his historical antecedents are important for an understanding of the significance of his ethical position. 24 Bourne: Life of Locke, Vol. 1, p. 72. 25 As Locke's relation to classical antiquity will not be dealt with elsewhere, it may be mentioned briefly here. In his Thoughts concerning Education, Locke spoke of a knowledge of Latin as "absolutely necessary to a gentleman" (§§ 163–168), and said that "no man can pass for a scholar that is ignorant of the Greek tongue" (§ 195). Among the Greeks he evidently thought most highly of Aristotle, especially of the Politics. Cj. Works, Vol. X, pp. 306–307. He also claimed acquaintance with Plato and others. Cf. King: Life of Locke, pp. 297-298. His knowledge of Latin authors seems to have been of the more literary men rather than of the philosophers. His admiration for Cicero will be referred to in the next chapter. 26 Cf. below, Book II, Chapter I. |