John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxfordacademic and medical researcher. Locke’s monumentalAn EssayConcerning Human Understanding (1689) is one of the first greatdefenses of modern empiricism and concerns itself with determining thelimits of human understanding in respect to a wide spectrum of topics.It thus tells us in some detail what one can legitimately claim toknow and what one cannot. Locke’s association with AnthonyAshley Cooper (later the First Earl of Shaftesbury) led him to becomesuccessively a government official charged with collecting informationabout trade and colonies, economic writer, opposition politicalactivist, and finally a revolutionary whose cause ultimately triumphedin the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Among Locke’s politicalworks he is most famous forThe Second Treatise of Governmentin which he argues that sovereignty resides in the people and explainsthe nature of legitimate government in terms of natural rights and thesocial contract. He is also famous for calling for the separation ofChurch and State in hisLetter Concerning Toleration. Much ofLocke’s work is characterized by opposition to authoritarianism.This is apparent both on the level of the individual person and on thelevel of institutions such as government and church. For theindividual, Locke wants each of us to use reason to search after truthrather than simply accept the opinion of authorities or be subject tosuperstition. He wants us to proportion assent to propositions to theevidence for them. On the level of institutions it becomes importantto distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate functions ofinstitutions and to make the corresponding distinction for the uses offorce by these institutions. Locke believes that using reason to tryto grasp the truth, and determine the legitimate functions ofinstitutions will optimize human flourishing for the individual andsociety both in respect to its material and spiritual welfare. This inturn, amounts to following natural law and the fulfillment of thedivine purpose for humanity.

• 1. Historical Background and Locke’s Life
  • 1.1 Locke’s Life up to His Meeting with Lord Ashley in 1666
  • 1.2 Locke and Lord Shaftesbury 1666 to 1688
  • 1.3 The End of Locke’s Life 1689–1704
• 2. The Limits of Human Understanding
  • 2.1 Book I
  • 2.2 Book II
  • 2.3 Book III
  • 2.4 Book IV
  • 2.5 Knowledge and Probability
  • 2.6 Reason, Faith and Enthusiasm
• 3. Locke’s Major Works on Education
• 4. TheTwo Treatises Of Government
  • 4.1The Second Treatise of Government
  • 4.2 Human Nature and God’s Purposes
  • 4.3 Of War and Slavery
  • 4.4 Of Property
  • 4.5 The Social Contract Theory
  • 4.6 The Function Of Civil Government
  • 4.7 Rebellion and Regicide
• 5. Locke and Religious Toleration
• Bibliography
  • Primary Sources
  • Secondary Sources
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Historical Background and Locke’s Life

John Locke (1632–1704) was one of the greatest philosophers inEurope at the end of the seventeenth century. Locke grew up and livedthrough one of the most extraordinary centuries of English politicaland intellectual history. It was a century in which conflicts betweenCrown and Parliament and the overlapping conflicts betweenProtestants, Anglicans and Catholics swirled into civil war in the1640s. With the defeat and death of Charles I, there began a greatexperiment in governmental institutions including the abolishment ofthe monarchy, the House of Lords and the Anglican church, and theestablishment of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate in the 1650s.The collapse of the Protectorate after the death of Cromwell wasfollowed by the Restoration of Charles II—the return of themonarchy, the House of Lords and the Anglican Church. This periodlasted from 1660 to 1688. It was marked by continued conflicts betweenKing and Parliament and debates over religious toleration forProtestant dissenters and Catholics. This period ends with theGlorious Revolution of 1688 in which James II was driven from Englandand replaced by William of Orange and his wife Mary. The final periodduring which Locke lived involved the consolidation of power byWilliam and Mary, and the beginning of William’s efforts tooppose the domination of Europe by the France of Louis XIV, whichlater culminated in the military victories of John Churchill—theDuke 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. Hisfather was a country lawyer who served in a cavalry company on thePuritan side in the early stages of the English Civil War. Hisfather’s commander, Alexander Popham, became the local MP, andit was his patronage which allowed the young John Locke to gain anexcellent education. In 1647 Locke went to Westminster School inLondon.

From Westminster school he went to Christ Church, Oxford, in theautumn of 1652 at the age of twenty. As Westminster school was themost important English school, so Christ Church was the most importantOxford college. Education at Oxford was medieval. Locke, like Hobbesbefore him, found the Aristotelian philosophy he was taught at Oxfordof little use. There was, however, more at Oxford than Aristotle. Thenew 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 theEnglish Royal Society. The Society grew out of informal meetings anddiscussion groups and moved to London after the Restoration and becamea formal institution in the 1660s with charters from Charles II. TheSociety saw its aims in contrast with the Scholastic/Aristoteliantraditions that dominated the universities. The program was to studynature rather than books.^[1] Many of Wilkins associates were people interested in pursuingmedicine by observation rather than the reading of classic texts.Bacon’s interest in careful experimentation and the systematiccollection of facts from which generalizations could be made wascharacteristic of this group. One of Locke’s friends fromWestminster school, Richard Lower, introduced Locke to medicine andthe experimental philosophy being pursued by the virtuosi atWadham.

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 Studentof Christ Church College. The rank was equivalent to a Fellow at anyof the other colleges, but was not permanent. Locke had yet todetermine what his career was to be. Locke was elected Lecturer inGreek at Christ Church in December of 1660 and he was elected Lecturerin Rhetoric in 1663. At this point, Locke needed to make a decision.The statutes of Christ Church laid it down that fifty five of thesenior studentships should be reserved for men in orders or readingfor orders. Only five could be held by others, two in medicine, two inlaw and one in moral philosophy. Thus, there was good reason for Locketo become a clergyman. Since his graduation Locke had been studyingmedicine. Locke decided to become a doctor.

John Wilkins had left Oxford with the Restoration of Charles II. Thenew leader of the Oxford scientific group was Robert Boyle. He wasalso Locke’s scientific mentor. Boyle (with the help of hisastonishing assistant Robert Hooke) built an air pump which led to theformulation of Boyle’s law and devised a barometer as a weatherindicator. The work on the air pump led to a controversy with ThomasHobbes because Boyle’s explanations of the working of the airpump were incompatible with Hobbes’ micro-corpuscular theory.This controversy continued for ten years. Boyle was, however, mostinfluential as a theorist. He was a mechanical philosopher who treatedthe world as reducible to matter in motion. But he had nomicro-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 alternativeto the sterile Aristotelianism he had been taught at Oxford. InwritingAn Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke adoptedDescartes’ ‘way of ideas’; though it is transformedso as to become an organic part of Locke’s philosophy. Still,while admiring Descartes, Locke’s involvement with the Oxfordscientists gave him a perspective that made him critical of therationalist elements in Descartes’ philosophy.

In the Epistle to the Reader at the beginning of theEssayLocke remarks:

The commonwealth of learning is not at this time withoutmaster-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, willleave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but everyonemust not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that producessuch masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton,with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough to be employedas an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removingsome of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge …. (N:9–10; all quotations are from the Nidditch edition ofAnEssay Concerning Human Understanding [N])

Locke knew all of these men and their work. Locke, Boyle and Newtonwere all founding or early members of the English Royal Society. It isfrom Boyle that Locke learned about atomism (or the corpuscularhypothesis) and it is from Boyle’s bookThe Origin of Formsand Qualities that Locke took the language of primary andsecondary qualities. Sydenham was an English physician and Locke didmedical research with him. Sydenham championed careful observation ofdisease and rejected appeal to underlying causes. Both Boyle andNewton did work on colors that did not involve micro-corpuscularexplanations. Locke read Newton’sPrincipia MathematicaPhilosophiae Naturalis while in exile in Holland, and consultedHuygens as to the soundness of its mathematics. Locke and Newtonbecame friends after Locke’s return from Holland in 1688. It maybe that in referring to himself as an ‘under-labourer’,Locke is not only displaying a certain literary modesty, he iscontrasting the positive discoveries of these men, with his ownattempt to show the inadequacies of the Aristotelian and Scholasticand to some degree the Cartesian philosophies. There are, however,many aspects of Locke’s project to which this image of anunder-labourer does not do justice (see Jolley 1999: 15–17).While the corpuscular philosophy and Newton’s discoveriesclearly influenced Locke, it is the Baconian program of producingnatural histories that Locke makes reference to when he talks abouttheEssay in the Introduction. He writes:

It shall suffice to my present Purpose, to consider the discerningFaculties 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 whollymisimploy’d my self in the Thoughts I shall have on thisOccasion, if in this Historical, Plain Method, I can give any Accountof the Ways, whereby our Understanding comes to attain those Notionsof Things, and can set down any Measure of the Certainty of ourKnowledge…. (I.1.2, N: 43–4—the three numbers, arebook, chapter and section numbers respectively, followed by the pagenumber in the Nidditch edition)

The ‘Historical, Plain Method’ is apparently to give agenetic account of how we come by our ideas. Presumably this willreveal the degree of certainty of the knowledge based on such ideas.Locke’s own active involvement with the scientific movement waslargely through his informal studies of medicine. Dr. David Thomas washis friend and collaborator. Locke and Thomas had a laboratory inOxford which was very likely, in effect, a pharmacy. In 1666 LordAshley, one of the richest men in England, came to Oxford in order todrink some medicinal waters there. He had asked Dr. Thomas to providethem. Thomas had to be out of town and asked Locke to see that thewater was delivered. As a result of this encounter, Ashley invitedLocke to come to London as his personal physician. In 1667 Locke didmove to London becoming not only Lord Ashley’s personalphysician, but secretary, researcher, political operative and friend.Living with him Locke found himself at the very heart of Englishpolitics in the 1670s and 1680s.

1.2 Locke and Lord Shaftesbury 1666 to 1688

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

Locke had a number of other jobs. He worked as secretary of the Boardof Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietors of theCarolinas. Lord Ashley was one of the advocates of the view thatEngland would prosper through trade and that colonies could play animportant role in promoting trade. Ashley persuaded Charles II tocreate a Board of Trade and Plantations to collect information abouttrade and colonies, and Locke became its secretary. In his capacity asthe secretary of the Board of Trade Locke was the collection point forinformation from around the globe about trade and colonies for theEnglish government. Among Ashley’s commercial projects was aneffort to found colonies in the Carolinas. In his capacity as thesecretary to the Lords Proprietors, Locke was involved in the writingof the fundamental constitution of the Carolinas. There is somecontroversy about the extent of Locke’s role in writing the constitution.^[2] In addition to issues about trade and colonies, Locke was involvedthrough Shaftesbury in other controversies about public policy. Therewas a monetary crisis in England involving the value of money, and theclipping of coins. Locke wrote papers for Lord Ashley on economicmatters, including the coinage crisis.

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

Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I shouldtell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, anddiscoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselvesquickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. Afterwe had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer aresolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into mythoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselvesupon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our ownabilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not,fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readilyassented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our firstinquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject I had neverbefore considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave thefirst entrance into this Discourse; which having been thus begun bychance, was continued by intreaty; written by incoherent parcels; andafter long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour oroccasions permitted; and at last, in a retirement where an attendanceon my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou nowseest it. (Epistle to the Reader, N: 7)

James Tyrrell, one of Locke’s friends was at that meeting. Herecalls the discussion being about the principles of morality andrevealed religion (Cranston 1957: 140–1). Thus the Oxfordscholar and medical researcher came to begin the work which was tooccupy him off and on over the next twenty years.

In 1674 after Shaftesbury had left the government, Locke went back toOxford, where he acquired the degree Bachelor of medicine, and alicense to practice medicine, and then went to France (Cranston 1957:160). In France Locke went from Calais to Paris, Lyons and on toMontpellier, where he spent the next fifteen months. Much ofLocke’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 XIVwas to revoke the edict in 1685 and French Protestants were thenkilled while some 400,000 went into exile.

While Locke was in France, Shaftesbury’s fortunes fluctuated. In1676 Shaftesbury was imprisoned in the tower. His imprisonment lastedfor a year. In 1678, after the mysterious murder of a London judge,informers (most notably Titus Oates) started coming forward to reveala supposed Catholic conspiracy to assassinate the King and put hisbrother on the throne. This whipped up public anti-Catholic frenzy.Though Shaftesbury had not fabricated the conspiracy story, nor did heprompt Oates to come forward, he did exploit the situation to theadvantage of his party. In the public chaos surrounding thesensational revelations, Shaftesbury organized an extensive partynetwork, exercised great control over elections, and built up a largeparliamentary majority. His strategy was to secure the passage of anExclusion bill that would prevent Charles II’s openly Catholicbrother from becoming King. Although the Exclusion bill passed in theCommons it was rejected in the House of Lords because of theKing’s strong opposition to it. As the panic over the Popishplot receded, Shaftesbury was left without a following or a cause.Shaftesbury was seized on July 21, 1681 and again put in the tower. Hewas tried on trumped-up charges of treason but acquitted by a Londongrand jury (filled with his supporters) in November.

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

While in exile, Locke finishedAn Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding and published a fifty-page advanced notice of it inFrench. (This was to provide the intellectual world on the continentwith most of their information about theEssay until PierreCoste’s French translation appeared in 1704.) He also wrote andpublished hisEpistola de Tolerentia in Latin. RichardAshcraft, in hisRevolutionary Politics and Locke’s TwoTreatises of Government (1986) suggests that while in Holland,Locke was not only finishingAn Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding and nursing his health, he was closely associatedwith the English revolutionaries in exile. The English government wasmuch concerned with this group. They tried to get a number of them,including Locke, extradited to England. Locke’s studentship atOxford was taken away from him. In the meanwhile, the Englishintelligence service infiltrated the rebel group in Holland andeffectively thwarted their efforts—at least for a while. WhileLocke 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. Soonafter this, the rebels in Holland sent a force of soldiers under theDuke of Monmouth to England to try to overthrow James II. The revoltwas crushed, and Monmouth was captured and executed (Ashcraft 1986).For a meticulous, if cautious review, of the evidence concerningLocke’s involvement with the English rebels in exile see RogerWoolhouse’sLocke: A Biography (2007).

Ultimately, however, the rebels were successful. James II alienatedmost of his supporters, and William of Orange was invited to bring aDutch force to England. After William’s army landed, James II,realizing that he could not mount an effective resistance, fled thecountry to exile in France. This became known as the GloriousRevolution of 1688. It is a watershed in English history. For it marksthe point at which the balance of power in the English governmentpassed from the King to the Parliament. Locke returned to England inFebruary 1689.

1.3 The End of Locke’s Life 1689–1704

After his return from exile, Locke publishedAn Essay ConcerningHuman Understanding andThe Two Treatises of Government.In addition, Popple’s translation of Locke’sA LetterConcerning Toleration was also published. It is worth noting thattheTwo Treatises and theLetter ConcerningToleration were published anonymously. Locke took up residence inthe country at Oates in Essex, the home of Sir Francis and Lady Masham(Damaris Cudworth). Locke had met Damaris Cudworth in 1682 and becameinvolved intellectually and romantically with her. She was thedaughter of Ralph Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonist, and a philosopherin her own right. After Locke went into exile in Holland in 1683, shemarried Sir Francis Masham. Locke and Lady Masham remained goodfriends and intellectual companions to the end of Locke’s life.During the remaining years of his life, Locke oversaw four moreeditions of theEssay and engaged in controversies over theEssay most notably in a series of published letters withEdward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester. In a similar way, Lockedefended theLetter Concerning Toleration against a series ofattacks. He wroteThe Reasonableness of Christianity andSome Thoughts on Education during this period as well.

Nor was Locke finished with public affairs. In 1696 the Board of Tradewas revived. Locke played an important part in its revival and servedas the most influential member on it until 1700. The new Board ofTrade had administrative powers and was, in fact, concerned with awide range of issues, from the Irish wool trade and the suppression ofpiracy, to the treatment of the poor in England and the governance ofthe colonies. It was, in Peter Laslett’s phrase “the bodywhich administered the United States before the AmericanRevolution” (Laslett 1954 [1990: 127]). During these last eightyears of his life, Locke was asthmatic, and he suffered so much fromit that he could only bear the smoke of London during the four warmermonths of the year. Locke plainly engaged in the activities of theBoard out of a strong sense of patriotic duty. After his retirementfrom the Board of Trade in 1700, Locke remained in retirement at Oatesuntil his death on Sunday 28 October 1704.

2. The Limits of Human Understanding

Locke is often classified as the first of the great Englishempiricists (ignoring the claims of Bacon and Hobbes). This reputationrests on Locke’s greatest work, the monumentalAn EssayConcerning Human Understanding. Locke explains his project inseveral places. Perhaps the most important of his goals is todetermine the limits of human understanding. Locke writes:

For I thought that the first Step towards satisfying the severalEnquiries, the Mind of Man was apt to run into, was, to take a Surveyof our own Understandings, examine our own Powers, and see to whatThings they were adapted. Till that was done, I suspected that webegan at the wrong end, and in vain sought for Satisfaction in a quietand secure Possession of Truths, that most concern’d us whilstwe let loose our Thoughts into the vast Ocean ofBeing, as ifall the boundless Extent, were the natural and undoubted Possessionsof our Understandings, wherein there was nothing that escaped itsDecisions, or that escaped its Comprehension. Thus Men, extendingtheir Enquiries beyond their Capacities, and letting their Thoughtswander 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 onlycontinue and increase their Doubts, and to confirm them at last in aperfect Skepticism. Wheras were the Capacities of our Understandingwell considered, the Extent of our Knowledge once discovered, and theHorizon found, which sets the boundary between the enlightened and thedark Parts of Things; between what is and what is not comprehensibleby us, Men would perhaps with less scruple acquiesce in theavow’d Ignorance of the one; and employ their Thoughts andDiscourse, with more Advantage and Satisfaction in the other. (I.1.7,N: 47)

Some philosophers before Locke had suggested that it would be good tofind the limits of the Understanding, but what Locke does is to carryout this project in detail. In the four books of theEssayLocke considers the sources and nature of human knowledge. Book Iargues that we have no innate knowledge. (In this he resemblesBerkeley and Hume, and differs from Descartes and Leibniz.) So, atbirth, the human mind is a sort of blank slate on which experiencewrites. In Book II Locke claims that ideas are the materials ofknowledge and all ideas come from experience. The term‘idea’, Locke tells us “…stands forwhatsoever is the Object of the Understanding, when a manthinks” (I.1.8, N: 47). Experience is of two kinds, sensationand reflection. One of these—sensation—tells us aboutthings and processes in the external world. Theother—reflection—tells us about the operations of our ownminds. Reflection is a sort of internal sense that makes us consciousof the mental processes we are engaged in. Some ideas we get only fromsensation, 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 orcorpuscles combine into complexes to form physical objects and the wayideas combine. Ideas are either simple or complex. We cannot createsimple ideas, we can only get them from experience. In this respectthe mind is passive. Once the mind has a store of simple ideas, it cancombine them into complex ideas of a variety of kinds. In this respectthe mind is active. Thus, Locke subscribes to a version of theempiricist axiom that there is nothing in the intellect that was notpreviously in the senses—where the senses are broadened toinclude reflection. Book III deals with the nature of language, itsconnections with ideas and its role in knowledge. Book IV, theculmination of the previous reflections, explains the nature andlimits of knowledge, probability, and the relation of reason andfaith. Let us now consider theEssay in some detail.

2.1 Book I

At the beginning ofAn Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingLocke says that since his purpose is “to enquire into theOriginal, Certainty and Extent of human knowledge, together with thegrounds and degrees of Belief, Opinion and Assent” he is goingto begin with ideas—the materials out of which knowledge isconstructed. His first task is to “enquire into the Original ofthese Ideas…and the ways whereby the Understanding comes to befurnished with them” (I.1.3, N: 44). The role of Book I of theEssay is to make the case that being innate is not a way inwhich the understanding is furnished with principles and ideas. Locketreats innateness as an empirical hypothesis and argues that there isno good evidence to support it.

Locke describes innate ideas as “some primarynotions…Characters as it were stamped upon the Mind of Man,which the Soul receives in its very first Being; and brings into theworld with it” (I.2.1, N: 48). In pursuing this enquiry, Lockerejects the claim that there are speculative innate principles (I.2),practical innate moral principles (I.3) or that we have innate ideasof God, identity or impossibility (I.4). Locke rejects arguments fromuniversal assent and attacks dispositional accounts of innateprinciples. Thus, in considering what would count as evidence fromuniversal 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 ifthey were innate but that they “have not the least apprehensionor thought of them”. Why should children and idiots be aware ofand able to articulate such propositions? Locke says:

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

So, Locke’s first point is that if propositions were innate theyshould be immediately perceived—by infants and idiots (andindeed 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 undercertain circumstances. Until these circumstances come about thepropositions remain unperceived in the mind. With the advent of theseconditions, the propositions are then perceived. Locke gives thefollowing argument against innate propositions beingdispositional:

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 Mindis ever capable of assenting to, may be said to be in the Mind, and tobe imprinted: since if any one can be said to be in the Mind, which itnever 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 argumentsagainst dispositional accounts of innate propositions is that suchdispositional accounts do not provide an adequate criterion fordistinguishing innate propositions from other propositions that themind 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 ofwhether there are innate practical moral principles, many of thearguments against innate speculative principles continue to apply, butthere are some additional considerations. Practical principles, suchas the Golden Rule, are not self-evident in the way such speculativeprinciples as “What is, is” are. Thus, one can clearly andsensibly ask reasons for why one should hold the Golden Rule true orobey it (I.3.4, N: 68). There are substantial differences betweenpeople over the content of practical principles. Thus, they are evenless likely candidates to be innate propositions or to meet thecriterion of universal assent. In the fourth chapter of Book I, Lockeraises similar points about the ideas which compose both speculativeand practical principles. The point is that if the ideas that areconstitutive of the principles are not innate, this gives us even morereason to hold that the principles are not innate. He examines theideas of identity, impossibility and God to make these points.

In Book I Locke says little about who holds the doctrine of innateprinciples that he is attacking. For this reason he has sometimes beenaccused of attacking straw men. John Yolton has persuasively argued(Yolton 1956) that the view that innate ideas and principles werenecessary for the stability of religion, morality and natural law waswidespread in England in the seventeenth century, and that inattacking both the naive and the dispositional account of innate ideasand innate principles, Locke is attacking positions which were widelyheld and continued to be held after the publication of theEssay. Thus, the charge that Locke’s account of innateprinciples is made of straw, is not a just criticism. But there arealso some important connections with particular philosophers andschools that are worth noting and some points about innate ideas andinquiry.

At I. 4. 24. Locke tells us that the doctrine of innate principlesonce 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 illegitimatelygain control of the minds of their students. Locke rather clearly hasin mind the Aristotelians and scholastics at the universities. ThusLocke’s attack on innate principles is connected with hisanti-authoritarianism. It is an expression of his view of theimportance of free and autonomous inquiry in the search for truth.Ultimately, Locke holds, this is the best road to knowledge andhappiness. Locke, like Descartes, is tearing down the foundations ofthe old Aristotelian scholastic house of knowledge. But whileDescartes focused on the empiricism at the foundation of thestructure, Locke is focusing on the claims that innate ideas provideits first principles. The attack on innate ideas is thus the firststep in the demolition of the scholastic model of science andknowledge. Ironically, it is also clear from II.1.9. that Locke seesDescartes’ claim that his essence is to be a thinking thing asentailing a doctrine of innate ideas and principles.

2.2 Book II

In Book II of theEssay, Locke gives his positive account ofhow we acquire the materials of knowledge. Locke distinguishes avariety of different kinds of ideas in Book II. Locke holds that themind is atabula rasa or blank sheet until experience in theform of sensation and reflection provide the basicmaterials—simple ideas—out of which most of our morecomplex knowledge is constructed. While the mind may be a blank slatein regard to content, it is plain that Locke thinks we are born with avariety of faculties to receive and abilities to manipulate or processthe content once we acquire it. Thus, for example, the mind can engagein three different types of action in putting simple ideas together.The first of these kinds of action is to combine them into complexideas. Complex ideas are of two kinds, ideas of substances and ideasof modes. Substances are independent existences. Beings that count assubstances include God, angels, humans, animals, plants and a varietyof constructed things. Modes are dependent existences. These includemathematical and moral ideas, and all the conventional language ofreligion, politics and culture. The second action which the mindperforms is the bringing of two ideas, whether simple or complex, byone another so as to take a view of them at once, without unitingthem. This gives us our ideas of relations (II.12.1, N: 163). Thethird act of the mind is the production of our general ideas byabstraction from particulars, leaving out the particular circumstancesof time and place, which would limit the application of an idea to aparticular individual. In addition to these abilities, there are suchfaculties as memory which allow for the storing of ideas.

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

In what follows, we focus on some central issues in Locke’saccount of physical objects. (See also the entryLocke’s philosophy of science, which pursues a number of topics related to Locke’s account ofphysical objects that are of considerable importance but largelybeyond the scope of this general account of Locke’s philosophy.)These include Locke on knowledge in natural philosophy, thelimitations of the corpuscular philosophy and Locke’s relationto Newton.

Locke offers an account of physical objects based on the mechanicalphilosophy and the corpuscular hypothesis. The adherents of themechanical philosophy held that all material phenomena can beexplained by matter in motion and the impact of one body on another.They viewed matter as passive. They rejected the “occultqualities” and “causation at a distance” of theAristotelian and Scholastic philosophy. Robert Boyle’scorpuscularian hypothesis treated the material world as made up ofparticles. Some corpuscularians held that corpuscles could be furtherdivided and that the universe was full of matter with no void space.Atomists, on the other hand, held that the particles were indivisibleand that the material world is composed of atoms and the void or emptyspace in which the atoms move. Locke was an atomist.

Atoms have properties. They are extended, they are solid, they have aparticular shape and they are in motion or rest. They combine togetherto produce the familiar stuff and physical objects, the gold and thewood, 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 tothese properties that they share with the atoms that compose them,they have other properties such as colors, smells, tastes that theyget by standing in relation to perceivers. The distinction betweenthese two kinds of properties goes back to the Greek atomists. It isarticulated by Galileo and Descartes as well as Locke’s mentorRobert Boyle.

Locke makes this distinction in Book II Chapter 8 of theEssay and using Boyle’s terminology calls the twodifferent classes of properties the primary and secondary qualities ofan object. This distinction is made by both of the main branches ofthe mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth and early eighteenthcentury. Both the Cartesian plenum theorists, who held that the worldwas full of infinitely divisible matter and that there was no voidspace, and the atomists such as Gassendi, who held that there wereindivisible atoms and void space in which the atoms move, made thedistinction between these two classes of properties. Still, thedifferences between these two branches of the mechanical philosophyaffect their account of primary qualities. In the chapter on Solidity(II.4) Locke rejects the Cartesian definition of body as simplyextended and argues that bodies are both extended and impenetrable orsolid. The inclusion of solidity in Locke’s account of bodiesand of primary qualities distinguishes them from the void space inwhich they move.

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

There has been considerable scholarly debate concerning the details ofLocke’s account of the distinction. Among the issues are whichqualities Locke assigns to each of the two categories. Locke givesseveral lists. Another issue is what the criterion is for putting aquality in one list rather than another. Does Locke hold that all theideas of secondary qualities come to us by one sense while the ideasof primary qualities come to us through two or is Locke not making thedistinction in this way? Another issue is whether there are onlyprimary qualities of atoms or whether compounds of atoms also haveprimary qualities. And while Locke claims our ideas of primaryqualities resemble the primary qualities in objects, and the ideas ofsecondary qualities do not resemble their causes in the object, whatdoes ‘resemble’ mean in this context? Related to thisissue is how we are supposed to know about particles that we cannotsense. It seems clear that Locke holds that there are certainanalogies between the middle sized macroscopic objects we encounter inthe world, e.g. porphyry and manna for example, and the particles thatcompose these things. Maurice Mandelbaum called this process‘transdiction’. These analogies allow us to say certainthings about the nature of particles and primary and secondaryqualities. For example we can infer that atoms are solid and that heatis 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 necessaryconnections between qualities in nature. Yet another issue is whetherLocke sees the distinction as reductionistic. If what we mean byreductionistic here is that only the primary qualities are real andthese explain the secondary qualities then there does not seem to be aclear answer. Secondary qualities surely are nothing more than certainprimary qualities that affect us in certain ways. This seems to bereductionistic. But on Locke’s account of “realideas” in II.30 both the ideas of primary and secondaryqualities count as real. And while Locke holds that our ideas ofsecondary qualities are caused by primary qualities, in certainimportant respects the primary qualities do not explain them. Lockeholds that we cannot even conceive how the size, figure and motion ofparticles could cause any sensation in us. So, knowing the size,figure and motion of the particles would be of no use to us in thisregard (see IV.3.11–40, N: 544–546).

Locke probably holds some version of the representational theory ofperception, though some scholars dispute this. On such a theory whatthe mind immediately perceives are ideas, and the ideas are caused byand represent the objects which cause them. Thus perception is atriadic relation, rather than simply being a dyadic relation betweenan object and a perceiver. Such a dyadic relational theory is oftencalled naive realism because it suggests that the perceiver isdirectly perceiving the object, and naive because this view is open toa variety of serious objections. Some versions of the representationaltheory are open to serious objections as well. If, for example, onetreats ideas as things, then one can imagine that because one seesideas, the ideas actually block one from seeing things in the externalworld. The idea would be like a picture or painting. The picture wouldcopy the original object in the external world, but because ourimmediate object of perception is the picture we would be preventedfrom seeing the original just as standing in front of a painting on aneasel 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 ofperception” to emphasize that ‘seeing’ the ideasprevents us from seeing the external world. One philosopher whoarguably held such a view was Nicholas Malebranche, a follower ofDescartes. Antoine Arnauld, by contrast, while believing in therepresentative character of ideas, is a direct realist aboutperception. Arnauld engaged in a lengthy controversy with Malebranche,and criticized Malebranche’s account of ideas. Locke followsArnauld in his criticism of Malebranche on this point (Locke, 1823,Vol. IX: 250). Yet Berkeley attributed the veil of perceptioninterpretation of the representational theory of perception to Lockeas have many later commentators including Bennett. A.D. Woozley putsthe difficulty of doing this succinctly:

…it is scarcely credible both that Locke should be able to seeand state so clearly the fundamental objection to the picture-originaltheory of sense perception, and that he should have held the sametheory himself. (Woozley 1964: 27)

Just what Locke’s account of perception involves, is still amatter of scholarly debate. A review of this issue at a symposiumincluding John Rogers, Gideon Yaffe, Lex Newman, Tom Lennon, and VereChappell at a meeting of the Pacific Division of the AmericanPhilosophical Association in 2003 and later expanded and published inthePacific Philosophical Quarterly (2004, volume 85, issue3) found most of the symposiasts holding the view that Locke holds arepresentative theory of perception but that he is not a skeptic aboutthe external world in the way that the veil of perception doctrinemight suggest.

Another issue that has been a matter of controversy since the firstpublication of theEssay is what Locke means by the term‘substance’. The primary/secondary quality distinctiongets us a certain ways in understanding physical objects, but Locke ispuzzled about what underlies or supports the primary qualitiesthemselves. He is also puzzled about what material and immaterialsubstances might have in common that would lead us to apply the sameword to both. These kinds of reflections led him to the relative andobscure idea of substance in general. This is an “I know notwhat” which is the support of qualities which cannot subsist bythemselves. We experience properties appearing in regular clumps, butwe must infer that there is something that supports or perhaps‘holds together’ those qualities. For we have noexperience of that supporting substance. It is clear that Locke seesno alternative to the claim that there are substances supportingqualities. He does not, for example, have a theory of tropes (tropesare properties that can exist independently of substances) which hemight use to dispense with the notion of substance. (In fact, he maybe rejecting something like a theory of tropes when he rejects theAristotelian doctrine of real qualities and insists on the need forsubstances.) He is thus not at all a skeptic about‘substance’ in the way that Hume is. But, it is also quiteclear that he is regularly insistent about the limitations of ourideas of substances. Bishop Stillingfleet accused Locke of puttingsubstance out of the reasonable part of the world. But Locke is notdoing that.

Since Berkeley, Locke’s doctrine of the substratum or substancein general has been attacked as incoherent. It seems to imply that wehave a particular without any properties, and this seems like a notionthat is inconsistent with empiricism. We have no experience of such anentity and so no way to derive such an idea from experience. Lockehimself acknowledges this point (I.4.18, N: 95). In order to avoidthis problem, Michael Ayers has proposed that we must understand thenotions of ‘substratum’ and ‘substance ingeneral’ in terms of Locke’s distinction between real andnominal essences and particularly his doctrine of real essencesdeveloped in Book III of theEssay rather than as a separateproblem from that of knowing real essences. The real essence of amaterial thing is its atomic constitution. This atomic constitution isthe causal basis of all the observable properties of the thing, fromwhich we create nominal essences. Were the real essence known, all theobservable properties could be deduced from it. Locke claims that thereal 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 realessence means ‘this particular atomic constitution that explainsthis set of observable qualities’. Thus, Ayers wants to treatthe unknown substratum as picking out the same thing as the realessence—thus eliminating the need for particulars withoutproperties. This proposed way of interpreting Locke has beencriticized by scholars both because of a lack of textural support, andon the stronger grounds that it conflicts with some things that Lockedoes say (see Jolley 1999: 71–3). As we have reached one of theimportant concepts in Book III, let us turn to that Book andLocke’s discussion of language.

2.3 Book III

Locke devotes Book III ofAn Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding to language. This is a strong indication that Lockethinks issues about language were of considerable importance inattaining knowledge. At the beginning of the Book he notes theimportance of abstract general ideas to knowledge. These serve assorts under which we rank all the vast multitude of particularexistences. Thus, abstract ideas and classification are of centralimportance in Locke’s discussion of language and its importancefor knowledge. Without general terms and classes we would be facedwith the impossible task of trying to know a vast world ofparticulars.

There is a clear connection between Books II and III in that Lockeclaims that words stand for ideas. In his discussion of language Lockedistinguishes words according to the categories of ideas establishedin Book II of theEssay. So there are ideas of substances,simple modes, mixed modes, relations and so on. It is in this contextthat Locke makes the distinction between real and nominal essencesnoted above. Perhaps because of his focus on the role that kind termsplay in classification, Locke pays vastly more attention to nouns thanto verbs. Locke recognizes that not all words relate to ideas. Thereare also the many particles, words that “…signify theconnexion that the Mind gives to Ideas, or Propositions, one withanother” (II.7.1, N: 471). Still, it is the relation of wordsand ideas that gets most of Locke’s attention in Book III.

Norman Kretzmann calls the claim that “words in their primary orimmediate signification signify nothing butthe ideas in the mindof him that uses them” (III.2.2) “Locke’s mainsemantic thesis” (see Kretzmann 1968:179). This thesis has oftenbeen criticized as a classic blunder in semantic theory. Thus Mill,for example, wrote, “When I say, ‘the sun is the cause ofthe day’, I do not mean that my idea of the sun causes orexcites in me the idea of day” (Mill 1843: bk 1, ch. 2, §1). This criticism of Locke’s account of language parallels the“veil of perception” critique of his account of perceptionand suggests that Locke is not distinguishing the meaning of a wordfrom its reference. Kretzmann, however, argues persuasively that Lockedistinguishes between meaning and reference and that ideas provide themeaning but not the reference of words. Thus, the line of criticismrepresented by the quotation from Mill is ill founded.

In addition to the kinds of ideas noted above, there are alsoparticular and abstract ideas. Particular ideas have in them the ideasof particular places and times which limit the application of the ideato a single individual, while abstract general ideas leave out theideas of particular times and places in order to allow the idea toapply to other similar qualities or things. There has beenconsiderable philosophical and scholarly debate about the nature ofthe process of abstraction and Locke’s account of it. Berkeleyargued that the process as Locke conceives it is incoherent. In partthis is because Berkeley is an imagist—that is he believes thatall ideas are images. If one is an imagist it becomes impossible toimagine what idea could include both the ideas of a right andequilateral triangle. Michael Ayers has recently argued that Locke toowas an imagist. This would make Berkeley’s criticism of Lockevery much to the point. Ayers’ claim, however, has been disputed(see, for example, Soles 1999). The process of abstraction is ofconsiderable importance to human knowledge. Locke thinks most words weuse are general (III.1.1, N: 409). Clearly, it is only general orsortal ideas that can serve in a classificatory scheme.

In his discussion of names of substances and in the contrast betweennames of substances and names of modes, a number of interestingfeatures of Locke’s views about language and knowledge emerge.Physical substances are atoms and things made up of atoms. But we haveno experience of the atomic structure of horses and tables. We knowhorses and tables mainly by secondary qualities such as color, tasteand smell and so on and primary qualities such as shape, motion andextension. So, since the real essence (the atomic constitution) of ahorse is unknown to us, our word ‘horse’ cannot get itsmeaning from that real essence. What the general word signifies is thecomplex of ideas we have decided are parts of the idea of that sort ofthing. These ideas we get from experience. Locke calls such a generalidea 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 kindsinto a system of species and genera? In the Aristotelian andScholastic tradition that Locke rejects, necessary properties arethose that an individual must have in order to exist and continue toexist. These contrast with accidental properties. Accidentalproperties are those that an individual can gain and lose and yetcontinue in existence. If a set of necessary properties is shared by anumber of individuals, that set of properties constitutes the essenceof a natural kind. The borders between kinds are supposed to be sharpand determinate. The aim of Aristotelian science is to discover theessences of natural kinds. Kinds can then be organized hierarchicallyinto a classificatory system of species and genera. Thisclassification of the world by natural kinds will be unique andprivileged because it alone corresponds to the structure of the world.This doctrine of essences and kinds is often called Aristotelianessentialism. Locke rejects a variety of aspects of this doctrine. Herejects the notion that an individual has an essence apart from beingtreated as belonging to a kind. He also rejects the claim that thereis a single classification of things in nature that the naturalphilosopher should seek to discover. He holds that there are manypossible ways to classify the world each of which might beparticularly useful depending on one’s purposes.

Locke’s pragmatic account of language and the distinctionbetween nominal and real essences constitute an anti-essentialistalternative to this Aristotelian essentialism and its correlativeaccount of the classification of natural kinds. He claims that thereare no fixed boundaries in nature to be discovered—that is thereare no clear demarcation points between species. There are alwaysborderline cases. There is debate over whether Locke’s view isthat this lack of fixed boundaries is true on both the level ofappearances and nominal essences, and atomic constitutions and realessences, or on the level of nominal essences alone. The first view isthat Locke holds that there are no Aristotelian natural kinds oneither the level of appearance or atomic reality. The second viewholds that Locke thinks there are Aristotelian natural kinds on theatomic level, it is simply that we cannot get at them or know whatthey are. On either of these interpretations, the real essence cannotprovide the meaning to names of substances. A.O. Lovejoy in theGreat Chain of Being, and David Wiggins are proponents of thesecond interpretation while Michael Ayers and William Uzgalis arguefor the first (Uzgalis 1988; Ayers 1991: II. 70).

By contrast, the ideas that we use to make up our nominal essencescome to us from experience. Locke claims that the mind is active inmaking our ideas of sorts and that there are so many properties tochoose among that it is possible for different people to make quitedifferent ideas of the essence of a certain substance. This has givensome commentators the impression that the making of sorts is utterlyarbitrary and conventional for Locke and that there is no basis forcriticizing a particular nominal essence. Sometimes Locke says thingsthat might suggest this. But this impression should be resisted. PeterAnstey has characterized Locke’s conventionalism aboutclassificatory terms as both constrained and convergent (Anstey 2011:209, 212). Locke claims that while the making of nominal essences isthe work of the understanding, that work is constrained both by usage(where words stand for ideas that are already in use) and by the factthat substance words are supposed to copy the properties of thesubstances they refer to. Locke says that our ideas of kinds ofsubstances have as their archetype the complex of properties thatproduce the appearances we use to make our nominal essences and whichcause the unity of the complex of ideas that appear to us regularlyconjoined. The very notion of an archetype implies constraints on whatproperties (and hence what ideas) can go together. If there were nosuch constraints there could be no archetype. (For further discussionof the nominal-real essence distinction see the entryLocke on Real Essences).

Let us begin with the usage of words. It is important in a communityof language users that words be used with the same meaning. If thiscondition is met it facilitates the chief end of language which iscommunication. If one fails to use words with the meaning that mostpeople attach to them, one will fail to communicate effectively withothers. Thus one would defeat the main purpose of language. It shouldalso be noted that traditions of usage for Locke can be modified.Otherwise we would not be able to improve our knowledge andunderstanding by getting more clear and determinate ideas.

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

Vulgar Notions suit vulgar Discourses; and both though confusedenough, yet serve pretty well for the Market and the Wake. Merchantsand Lovers, Cooks and Taylors, have Words wherewith to dispatch theirordinary affairs; and so, I think, might Philosophers and Disputantstoo, 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 ofsecondary qualities to make ideas and words that will serve theirpurposes.

Natural philosophers (i.e. scientists) come along later to try todetermine if the connections between properties which the ordinaryfolk have put together in a particular idea in fact holds in nature.Scientists are seeking to find the necessary connections betweenproperties. Still, even scientists, in Locke’s view, arerestricted to using observable (and mainly secondary) qualities tocategorize things in nature. Sometimes, the scientists may find thatthe ordinary folk had erred, as when they called whales‘fish’. A whale is not a fish, as it turns out, but amammal. There is a characteristic group of qualities that fish havethat whales do not have. There is a characteristic group of qualitiesthat mammals have that whales also have. To classify a whale as afish, therefore, is a mistake. Similarly, we might make an idea ofgold that only included being a soft metal and gold color. If so, wewould 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 toput together any combination of ideas one wishes and call it what onewill. But the product of such work is open to criticism, either on thegrounds that it does not conform to already current usage or that itinadequately represents the archetypes that it is supposed to copy inthe world. We engage in such criticism in order to improve humanunderstanding of the material world and thus the human condition. Thisis the convergent character of Locke’s conventionalism. Inbecoming more accurate, the nominal essence converges on the realessence.

However, we should not forget the master-builders that Locke mentionsat the beginning of theEssay. Stephen Gaukroger (2010)claims that Locke’s great achievement was to provide aphilosophical justification for the kind of experimental philosophythat Boyle’s work on the air pump, and his and Newton’swork on colors, as well as Sydenham’s observational medicine.All of these had been attacked for not providing explanations in termsof matter theory. Thus, Locke is justifying the autonomy ofexperimental philosophy. Such experimental explanations depend solelyon the relation between phenomena, even when there is somemicro-corpuscular basis for the phenomena being explained. Accordingto Gaukroger, this is Locke’s contribution to the collapse ofmechanism. For the details of the problem and its solution, seeChapters 4 and 5 of Gaukroger (2010).

The distinction between modes and substances is surely one of the mostimportant in Locke’s philosophy. In contrast with substances,modes are dependent existences—they can be thought of as theordering of substances. These are technical terms for Locke, so weshould see how they are defined. Locke writes:

First,Modes I call such complexIdeas, whichhowever compounded, contain not in themselves the supposition ofsubsisting by themselves; such are the ideas signified by the WordsTriangle, Gratitude, Murther, etc. (II.12.4, N: 165)

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

Of theseModes, there are two sorts, which deserve distinctconsideration. First, there are some that are only variations, ordifferent combinations of the same simpleIdea, without themixture of any other, as a dozen or score; which are nothing but theideas of so many distinct unities being added together, andthese I callsimple Modes, as being contained within thebounds of one simpleIdea. Secondly, There are others,compounded ofIdeas of several kinds, put together to makeone complex one; v.g.Beauty, consisting of a certaincombination of Colour and Figure, causing Delight to the Beholder;Theft, which being the concealed change of the Possession ofany thing, without the consent of the Proprietor, contains, as isvisible, a combination of severalIdeas of several kinds; andthese I callMixed Modes. (II.12.5, N: 165)

When we make ideas of modes, the mind is again active, but thearchetype is in our mind. The question becomes whether things in theworld fit our ideas, and not whether our ideas correspond to thenature of things in the world. Our ideas are adequate. Thus we define‘bachelor’ as an unmarried, adult, male human being. If wefind that someone does not fit this definition, this does not reflectbadly on our definition, it simply means that that individual does notbelong to the class of bachelors. Modes give us the ideas ofmathematics, of morality, of religion and politics and indeed of humanconventions in general. Since these modal ideas are not only made byus but serve as standards that things in the world either fit or donot fit and thus belong or do not belong to that sort, ideas of modesare clear and distinct, adequate and complete. Thus in modes, we getthe real and nominal essences combined. One can give precisedefinitions of mathematical terms (that is, give necessary andsufficient conditions), and one can give deductive demonstrations ofmathematical truths. Locke sometimes says that morality too is capableof deductive demonstration. Though pressed by his friend WilliamMolyneux to produce such a demonstrative morality, Locke never did so.The entryLocke’s moral philosophy provides an excellent discussion of Locke’s views on moralityand issues related to them for which there is no room in this generalaccount. The terms of political discourse also have some of the samemodal features for Locke. When Locke defines the states of nature,slavery, and war in theSecond Treatise of Government, forexample, we are presumably getting precise modal definitions fromwhich one can deduce consequences. It is possible, however, that withpolitics we are getting a study that requires both experience as wellas the deductive modal aspect.

2.4 Book IV

In the fourth book ofAn Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingLocke tells us what knowledge is and what humans can know and whatthey cannot (not simply what they do and do not happen to know). Lockedefines knowledge as “the perception of the connexion andagreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas”(IV.1.1, N: 525). This definition of knowledge contrasts with theCartesian definition of knowledge as any ideas that are clear anddistinct. Locke’s account of knowledge allows him to say that wecan know substances in spite of the fact that our ideas of them alwaysinclude the obscure and relative idea of substance in general. Still,Locke’s definition of knowledge raises in this domain a problemanalogous to those we have seen with perception and language. Ifknowledge is the “perception of … the agreement ordisagreement … of any of our Ideas”—are we nottrapped in the circle of our own ideas? What about knowing the realexistence of things? Locke is plainly aware of this problem, and verylikely holds that the implausibility of skeptical hypotheses, such asDescartes’ Dream hypothesis (he doesn’t even bother tomention Descartes’malin genie or Evil Demonhypothesis), along with the causal connections between qualities andideas in his own system is enough to solve the problem. It is alsoworth noting that there are significant differences betweenLocke’s brand of empiricism and that of Berkeley that would makeit easier for Locke to solve the veil of perception problem thanBerkeley. Locke, for example, makes transdictive inferences aboutatoms where Berkeley is unwilling to allow that such inferences arelegitimate. This implies that Locke has a semantics that allows him totalk about the unexperienced causes of experience (such as atoms)where Berkeley cannot. (See Mackie’s perceptive discussion ofthe veil of perception problem, inProblems from Locke, 1976:51 through 67.)

What then can we know and with what degree of certainty? We can knowthat God exists with the second highest degree of assurance, that ofdemonstration. We also know that we exist with the highest degree ofcertainty. The truths of morality and mathematics we can know withcertainty as well, because these are modal ideas whose adequacy isguaranteed by the fact that we make such ideas as ideal models whichother things must fit, rather than trying to copy some externalarchetype which we can only grasp inadequately. On the other hand, ourefforts to grasp the nature of external objects are limited largely tothe connection between their apparent qualities. The real essence ofelephants and gold is hidden from us: though in general we supposethem to be some distinct combination of atoms which cause the groupingof apparent qualities which leads us to see elephants and violets,gold and lead as distinct kinds. Our knowledge of material things isprobabilistic and thus opinion rather than knowledge. Thus our“knowledge” of external objects is inferior to ourknowledge of mathematics and morality, of ourselves, and of God. We dohave sensitive knowledge of external objects, which is limited tothings we are presently experiencing. While Locke holds that we onlyhave knowledge of a limited number of things, he thinks we can judgethe truth or falsity of many propositions in addition to those we canlegitimately claim to know. This brings us to a discussion ofprobability.

2.5 Knowledge and Probability

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

The Understanding Faculties being given to Man, not barely forSpeculation, but also for the Conduct of his Life, Man would be at agreat loss, if he had nothing to direct him, but what has theCertainty of trueKnowledge… Therefore, as God has setsome Things in broad day-light; as he has given us some certainKnowledge…So in the greater part of our Concernment, he hasafforded 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 ourover-confidence and presumption, we might by every day’sExperience be made sensible of our short sightedness and liableness toError… (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 andmorality broadly construed, for the most part we must lead our liveswithout knowledge. What then is probability? Locke writes:

As Demonstration is the shewing of the agreement or disagreement oftwo Ideas, by the intervention of one or more Proofs, which have aconstant, immutable, and visible connexion one with another: soProbability is nothing but the appearance of such an Agreement orDisagreement, by the intervention of Proofs, whose connection is notconstant and immutable, or at least is not perceived to be so, but isor appears, for the most part to be so, and is enough to induce theMind to judge the Proposition to be true, or false, rather than thecontrary. (IV.15.1, N: 654)

Probable reasoning, on this account, is an argument, similar incertain ways to the demonstrative reasoning that produces knowledgebut different also in certain crucial respects. It is an argument thatprovides evidence that leads the mind to judge a proposition true orfalse but without a guarantee that the judgment is correct. This kindof probable judgment comes in degrees, ranging from neardemonstrations and certainty to unlikeliness and improbability in thevicinity of impossibility. It is correlated with degrees of assentranging from full assurance down to conjecture, doubt anddistrust.

The new science of mathematical probability had come into being on thecontinent just around the time that Locke was writing theEssay. His account of probability, however, shows little orno awareness of mathematical probability. Rather it reflects an oldertradition that treated testimony as probable reasoning. Given thatLocke’s aim, above all, is to discuss what degree of assent weshould give to various religious propositions, the older conception ofprobability very likely serves his purposes best. Thus, when Lockecomes to describe the grounds for probability he cites the conformityof the proposition to our knowledge, observation and experience, andthe testimony of others who are reporting their observation andexperience. Concerning the latter we must consider the number ofwitnesses, their integrity, their skill in observation, countertestimony and so on. In judging rationally how much to assent to aprobable proposition, these are the relevant considerations that themind should review. We should, Locke also suggests, be tolerant ofdiffering opinions as we have more reason to retain the opinions wehave than to give them up to strangers or adversaries who may wellhave some interest in our doing so.

Locke distinguishes two sorts of probable propositions. The first ofthese have to do with particular existences or matters of fact, andthe second that are beyond the testimony of the senses. Matters offact are open to observation and experience, and so all of the testsnoted above for determining rational assent to propositions about themare available to us. Things are quite otherwise with matters that arebeyond the testimony of the senses. These include the knowledge offinite immaterial spirits such as angels or things such as atoms thatare too small to be sensed, or the plants, animals or inhabitants ofother planets that are beyond our range of sensation because of theirdistance from us. Concerning this latter category, Locke says we mustdepend on analogy as the only help for our reasoning. He writes:

Thus the observing that the bare rubbing of two bodies violently oneupon the other, produce heat, and very often fire it self, we havereason to think, that what we call Heat and Fire consist of theviolent agitation of the imperceptible minute parts of the burningmatter…. (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 ofspecies above us is likely as numerous as that below of which we dohave experience. This reasoning is, however, only probable.

2.6 Reason, Faith and Enthusiasm

The relative merits of the senses, reason and faith for attainingtruth and the guidance of life were a significant issue during thisperiod. As noted above James Tyrrell recalled that the originalimpetus for the writing ofAn Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding was a discussion about the principles of moralityand revealed religion. In Book IV Chapters 17, 18, and 19 Locke dealswith the nature of reason, the relation of reason to faith and thenature of enthusiasm. Locke remarks that all sects make use of reasonas far as they can. It is only when this fails them that they haverecourse to faith and claim that what is revealed is above reason. Buthe adds:

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

Locke then defines reason as

the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions ortruths, 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 ofsensation 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, insome extraordinary way of communication”. That is we have faithin what is disclosed by revelation and which cannot be discovered byreason. Locke also distinguishes between theoriginalrevelation by God to some person, andtraditionalrevelation which is the original revelation“…delivered over to others in Words, and the ordinaryways of our conveying our Conceptions one to another” (IV.18.3,N: 690).

Locke makes the point that some things could be discovered both byreason and by revelation—God could reveal the propositions ofEuclid’s geometry, or they could be discovered by reason. Insuch cases there would be little use for faith. Traditional revelationcan never produce as much certainty as the contemplation of theagreement or disagreement of our own ideas. Similarly revelationsabout matters of fact do not produce as much certainty as having theexperience oneself. Revelation, then, cannot contradict what we knowto be true. If it could, it would undermine the trustworthiness of allof our faculties. This would be a disastrous result. Where revelationcomes into its own is where reason cannot reach. Where we have few orno ideas for reason to contradict or confirm, these are the propermatters for faith.

…that Part of the Angels rebelled against GOD, and thereby losttheir first happy state: and that the dead shall rise, and live again:These and the like, being Beyond the Discovery of Reason, are purelymatters 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 torevelation. Locke writes:

Because the Mind, not being certain of the Truth of that it evidentlydoes not know, but only yielding to the Probability that appears toit, is bound to give up its assent to such Testimony, which, it issatisfied, comes from one who cannot err, and will not deceive. Butyet, it still belongs to Reason, to judge of the truth of its being aRevelation, and of the significance of the Words, wherein it isdelivered. (IV.18.8, N: 694)

So, in respect to the crucial question of how we are to know whether arevelation is genuine, we are supposed to use reason and the canons ofprobability to judge. Locke claims that if the boundaries betweenfaith and reason are not clearly marked, then there will be no placefor reason in religion and one then gets all the “extravagantOpinions and Ceremonies, that are to be found in the religions of theworld…” (IV.18.11, N: 696).

Should one accept revelation without using reason to judge whether itis genuine revelation or not, one gets what Locke calls a thirdprinciple of assent besides reason and revelation, namely enthusiasm.Enthusiasm is a vain or unfounded confidence in divine favor orcommunication. It implies that there is no need to use reason to judgewhether such favor or communication is genuine or not. Clearly whensuch communications are not genuine they are “the ungroundedFancies of a Man’s own Brain” (IV.19.2, N: 698). This kindof enthusiasm was characteristic of Protestant extremists going backto the era of the civil war. Locke was not alone in rejectingenthusiasm, but he rejects it in the strongest terms. Enthusiasmviolates the fundamental principle by which the understandingoperates—that assent be proportioned to the evidence. To abandonthat fundamental principle would be catastrophic. This is a point thatLocke also makes inThe Conduct of the Understanding andThe Reasonableness of Christianity. Locke wants each of us touse our understanding to search after truth. Of enthusiasts, those whowould 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 outthe Light of both, and does much what the same, as if he wouldperswade a Man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the remoteLight of an invisible Star by a Telescope. (IV.19.4, N: 698)

Rather than engage in the tedious labor required to reason correctlyto judge of the genuineness of their revelation, enthusiasts persuadethemselves that they are possessed of immediate revelation. This leadsto “odd Opinions and extravagant actions” that arecharacteristic of enthusiasm and which should warn that this is awrong principle. Thus, Locke strongly rejects any attempt to makeinward 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’sSome Thoughts Concerning Education and hisConduct of the Understanding form a nice bridge betweenAn Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his politicalworks. Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov write in the introduction to theiredition of these works:

The idea of liberty, so crucial to all of Locke’s writings onpolitics and education, is traced in the Essay to reflection on thepower of the mind over one’s own actions, especially the powerto suspend actions in the pursuit of the satisfaction of one’sown desires until after a full consideration of their objects(II.21.47, N: 51–52). The Essay thus shows how the independenceof mind pursued in theConduct is possible. (G&T 1996:xvi)

Some Thoughts Concerning Education was first published in1693. This book collected together advice that Locke had been givinghis friend Edward Clarke about the education of Clarke’s son(and also his daughters) since 1684. In preparing the revision for thefourth edition ofAn Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingLocke began writing a chapter called “The Conduct of theUnderstanding”. This became quite long and was never added totheEssay or even finished. It was left to Locke’sliterary executors to decide what to do with it. TheConductwas published by Peter King in his posthumous edition of some ofLocke’s works in 1706. As Locke was composing these works, someof the material from theConduct eventually made its way intotheThoughts. Grant and Tarcov write that theThoughts and theConduct “complement eachother well: theThoughts focuses on the education of childrenby their parents, whereas theConduct addresses theself-education of adults” (G&T 1996: vii). Though they alsonote tensions between the two that illustrate paradoxes in liberalsociety. TheThoughts is addressed to the education of thesons and daughters of the English gentry in the late seventeenthcentury. It is in some ways thus significantly more limited to itstime and place than theConduct. Yet, its insistence on theinculcating such virtues as

justice as respect for the rights of others, civility, liberality,humanity, self-denial, industry, thrift, courage, truthfulness, and awillingness to question prejudice, authority and the biases ofone’s own self-interest

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

Locke’sThoughts represents the culmination of acentury of what has been called “the discovery of thechild”. In the Middle Ages the child was regarded as

only a simple plaything, as a simple animal, or a miniature adult whodressed, played and was supposed to act like his elders…Theirages were unimportant and therefore seldom known. Their education wasundifferentiated, either by age, ability or intended occupation.(Axtell 1968: 63–4)

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

In advocating a kind of education that made people who think forthemselves, Locke was preparing people to effectively make decisionsin their own lives—to engage in individualself-government—and to participate in the government of theircountry. TheConduct reveals the connections Locke seesbetween reason, freedom and morality. Reason is required for goodself-government because reason insofar as it is free from partiality,intolerance and passion and able to question authority leads to fairjudgment and action. We thus have a responsibility to cultivate reasonin order to avoid the moral failings of passion, partiality and soforth (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 onLocke’s political philosophy, which focuses on five topics (the state of nature, natural law,property, consent and toleration) and goes into these topics in moredepth than is possible in a general account and provides much usefulinformation on the debates about them.)

4. TheTwo Treatises Of Government

Lord Shaftsbury had been dismissed from his post as Lord Chancellor in1673 and had become one of the leaders of the opposition party, theCountry Party. In 1679 the chief issue was the attempt by the CountryParty leaders to exclude James, Duke of York from succeeding hisbrother Charles II to the throne. They wanted to do this because Jameswas a Catholic, and England by this time was a firmly Protestantcountry. They had acquired a majority in the House of Commons throughserious grass roots election campaigns, and passed an exclusion bill,but given the King’s unwillingness to see his brother excludedfrom the throne, the bill failed in the House of Lords. They tried acouple of more times without success. Having failed by parliamentarymeans, some of the Country Party leaders started plotting armedrebellion.

TheTwo Treatises of Government were published in 1689, longafter the rebellion plotted by the Country party leaders had failed tomaterialize and after Shaftsbury had fled the country for Holland anddied. The introduction of theTwo Treatises was written afterthe Glorious Revolution of 1688, and gave the impression that the bookwas written to justify the Glorious Revolution. We now know that theTwo Treatises of Government were written during the Exclusioncrisis in 1681 and may have been intended in part to justify thegeneral armed rising which the Country Party leaders wereplanning.

There were serious obstacles to a rebellion to force James’exclusion from the throne. The English Anglican gentry needed tosupport such an action. But the Anglican church from childhood ontaught that: “…men’s political duties wereexhaustively determined by their terrestrial superiors, that undergrave conscientious scruples they might rightly decline to carry outthose decrees of authority which were in direct breach of divine law,they could under no circumstances have a right to resist suchauthority”. (Dunn, 1968, 48) Since by 1679 it was abundantlyclear that the King opposed excluding his brother from the throne, tofavor exclusion implied “explicit and self-conscious resistanceto the sovereign”. Passive resistance would simply not do. Onthe other hand, the royal policy “outraged their deepestreligious prejudices and stimulated their most obscure emotionalanxieties.” So, the gentry were deeply conflicted and neither ofthe choices available to them looked very palatable. John Dunn goes onto remark: “To exert influence upon their choice it was aboveall necessary to present a more coherent ordering of their values, toshow that the political tradition within which the dissenters sawtheir conduct was not necessarily empirically absurd or sociallysubversive. The gentry had to be persuaded that there could be reasonfor rebellion which could make it neither blasphemous orsuicidal.” (Dunn, 1968, 49) To achieve this goal Locke pickedthe most relevant and extreme of the supporters of the divine right ofKings to attack. Sir Robert Filmer (c 1588–1653), a man of thegeneration of Charles I and the English Civil War, who had defendedthe crown in various works. His most famous work, however,Patriarcha, was published posthumously in 1680 andrepresented the most complete and coherent exposition of the viewLocke wished to deny. Filmer held that men were born into helplessservitude to an authoritarian family, a social hierarchy and asovereign whose only constraint was his relationship with God. Underthese circumstances, anything other than passive obedience would be“vicious, blasphemous and intellectually absurd.” So,Locke needed to refute Filmer and in Dunn’s words: “rescuethe contractarian account of political obligation from the criticismof impiety and absurdity. Only in this way could he restore to theAnglican gentry a coherent basis for moral autonomy or a practicalinitiative in the field of politics.” (Dunn, 1968, 50)

The First Treatise of Government is a polemical work aimed atrefuting the theological basis for the patriarchal version of theDivine Right of Kings doctrine put forth by Sir Robert Filmer. Lockesingles 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 argumentfor the claim that all “legitimate” government is“absolute monarchy”—kings being descended from thefirst man, Adam, and their subjects being naturally slaves. Early intheFirst Treatise Locke denies that either scripture orreason supports Filmer’s premise or arguments. In what followsin theFirst Treatise, Locke minutely examines key Biblicalpassages.

WhileThe Second Treatise of Government providesLocke’s positive theory of government, it also continues hisargument against Sir Robert Filmer’s claims that monarchslegitimately hold absolute power over their subjects. Locke holds thatFilmer’s view is sufficiently incoherent to lead to governmentsbeing established by force and violence. Thus, Locke claims he mustprovide an alternative account of the origin of government “lestmen fall into the dangerous belief that all government in the world ismerely the product of force and violence” (TreatisesII,1,4). Locke’s account involves several devices which werecommon in seventeenth and eighteenth century politicalphilosophy—natural rights theory and the social contract.Natural rights are those rights which we are supposed to have as humanbeings before ever government comes into being. We might suppose, thatlike other animals, we have a natural right to struggle for oursurvival. Locke will argue that we have a right to the means tosurvive. When Locke comes to explain how government comes into being,he uses the idea that people agree that their condition in the stateof nature is unsatisfactory, and so agree to transfer some of theirrights to a central government, while retaining others. This is thetheory of the social contract. There are many versions of naturalrights theory and the social contract in seventeenth and eighteenthcentury European political philosophy, some conservative and someradical. Locke’s version belongs on the radical side of thespectrum. These radical natural right theories influenced theideologies of the American and French revolutions.

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

4.1The Second Treatise of Government

An important part of Locke’s project in theSecondTreatise is to figure out what the role of legitimate governmentis, thus allowing him to distinguish the nature of illegitimategovernment. Once this is done, the basis for legitimate revolutionbecomes clear. Figuring out what the proper or legitimate role ofcivil government is would be a difficult task indeed if one were toexamine the vast complexity of existing governments. How should oneproceed? One strategy is to consider what life is like in the absenceof civil government. Presumably this is a simpler state, one which maybe easier to understand. Then one might see what role civil governmentought to play. This is the strategy which Locke pursues, followingHobbes and others. So, in the first chapter of theSecondTreatise Locke defines political power.

Political power, then, I take to be aright ofmaking laws with penalties of death, and consequently all lesspenalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and ofemploying the force of the community, in the execution of such laws,and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and allthis only for the public good. (Treatises, II, 1,3)

In the second chapter ofThe Second Treatise Locke describesthe state in which there is no government with real political power.This is the state of nature. It is sometimes assumed that the state ofnature is a state in which there is no government at all. This is onlypartially true. It is possible to have in the state of nature eitherno government, illegitimate government, or legitimate government withless than full political power. (See the section on thestate of nature in the entry on Locke’s political philosophy.)

If we consider the state of nature before there was government, it isa state of political equality in which there is no natural superior orinferior. From this equality flows the obligation to mutual love andthe duties that people owe one another, and the great maxims ofjustice and charity. Was there ever such a state? There has beenconsiderable debate about this. Still, it is plain that both Hobbesand Locke would answer this question affirmatively. Whenever peoplehave not agreed to establish a common political authority, they remainin the state of nature. It’s like saying that people are in thestate of being naturally single until they are married. Locke clearlythinks one can find the state of nature in his time at least in the“inland, vacant places of America” (SecondTreatise V. 36) and in the relations between different peoples.Perhaps the historical development of states also went though thestages of a state of nature. An alternative possibility is that thestate of nature is not a real historical state, but rather atheoretical construct, intended to help determine the proper functionof government. If one rejects the historicity of states of nature, onemay still find them a useful analytical device. For Locke, it is verylikely both.

4.2 Human Nature and God’s Purposes

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

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

It follows immediately that “he has no liberty to destroyhimself, or so much as any creature in his possession, yet when somenobler use than its bare possession calls for it”(Treatises II.2.6). So, murder and suicide violate the divinepurpose.

If one takes survival as the end, then we may ask what are the meansnecessary to that end. On Locke’s account, these turn out to belife, liberty, health and property. Since the end is set by God, onLocke’s view we have a right to the means to that end. So wehave rights to life, liberty, health and property. These are naturalrights, that is they are rights that we have in a state of naturebefore the introduction of civil government, and all people have theserights equally.

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

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obligeseveryone: and reason which is that law, teaches all mankind who willbut consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought toharm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions….(Treatises II.2.6)

Locke tells us that the law of nature is revealed by reason. Lockemakes the point about the law that it commands what is best for us. Ifit 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. Ifyou reflect on what is best for yourself and others, given the goal ofsurvival and our natural equality, you will come to this conclusion.(See the section onthe 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 ofutopia. Rather it serves as an analytical device that explains why itbecomes necessary to introduce civil government and what thelegitimate function of civil government is. Thus, as Locke conceivesit, there are problems with life in the state of nature. The law ofnature, like civil laws can be violated. There are no police,prosecutors or judges in the state of nature as these are allrepresentatives of a government with full political power. Thevictims, 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 therights 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 ourown interests are not directly under threat to help enforce the law ofnature. This right eventually serves as the justification forlegitimate rebellion. Still, in the state of nature, the person who ismost likely to enforce the law under these circumstances is the personwho has been wronged. The basic principle of justice is that thepunishment should be proportionate to the crime. But when the victimsare judging the seriousness of the crime, they are more likely tojudge it of greater severity than might an impartial judge. As aresult, there will be regular miscarriages of justice. This is perhapsthe 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. Thestate of war is a state in which someone has a sedate and settledintention of violating someone’s right to life (and thus alltheir other rights). Such a person puts themselves into a state of warwith the person whose life they intend to take. In such a war theperson who intends to violate someone’s right to life is anunjust aggressor. This is not the normal relationship between peopleenjoined by the law of nature in the state of nature. Locke isdistancing himself from Hobbes who had made the state of nature andthe state of war equivalent terms. For Locke, the state of nature isordinarily one in which we follow the Golden Rule interpreted in termsof natural rights, and thus love our fellow human creatures. The stateof war only comes about when someone proposes to violate someoneelse’s rights. Thus, on Locke’s theory of war, there willalways be an innocent victim on one side and an unjust aggressor onthe other.

Slavery is the state of being in the absolute or arbitrary power ofanother. On Locke’s definition of slavery, there is only onerather remarkable way to become a legitimate slave. In order to do so,one must be an unjust aggressor defeated in war. The just victor thenhas the option to either kill the aggressor or enslave them. Locketells us that the state of slavery is the continuation of the state ofwar between a lawful conqueror and a captive, in which the conquerordelays taking the life of the captive, and instead makes use of him.This is a continued war because if conqueror and captive make somecompact for obedience on the one side and limited power on the other,the state of slavery ceases and becomes a relation between a masterand a servant in which the master only has limited power over hisservant. The reason that slavery ceases with the compact is that“no man, can, by agreement pass over to another that which hehath not in himself, a power over his own life”(Treatises II.4.24). Legitimate slavery is an importantconcept in Locke’s political philosophy largely because it tellsus what the legitimate extent of despotic power is and defines andilluminates by contrast the nature of illegitimate slavery.Illegitimate slavery is that state in which someone possesses absoluteor despotic power over someone else without just cause. Locke holdsthat it is this illegitimate state of slavery which absolute monarchswish to impose upon their subjects. It is very likely for this reasonthat legitimate slavery is so narrowly defined. This shows that thechapter on slavery plays a crucial role in Locke’s argumentagainst Sir Robert Filmer and thus could not have been easilydispensed with. Still, it is possible that Locke had an additionalpurpose or perhaps a quite different reason for writing aboutslavery.

There has been a steady stream of articles and books over the lastsixty years arguing that given Locke’s involvement with tradeand colonial government, the theory of slavery in theSecondTreatise was intended to justify the institutions and practicesof Afro-American slavery. If this were the case, Locke’sphilosophy would not contradict his actions as an investor andcolonial administrator. However, there are strong objections to thisview. Had he intended to justify Afro-American slavery, Locke wouldhave done much better with a vastly more inclusive definition oflegitimate slavery than the one he gives. It is sometimes suggestedthat Locke’s account of “just war” is so vague thatit could easily be twisted to justify the institutions and practicesof Afro-American slavery. This, however, is also not the case. In thechapter “Of Conquest” Locke explicitly lists the limits ofthe legitimate power of conquerors. These limits on who can become alegitimate slave and what the powers of a just conqueror are ensurethat this theory of conquest and slavery would condemn theinstitutions and practices of Afro-American slavery in theseventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Nonetheless, thedebate continues. One element of the debate has to do withLocke’s role in the writing of theFundamental Constitutionsof the Carolinas. David Armitage in his 2004 article “JohnLocke, Carolina and the Two Treatises of Government” argues thatLocke was involved in a revision of theFundamental Constitutionof the Carolinas at the very time he was writingThe TwoTreatises of Government. The provision that “Every Freedmanof the Carolinas has absolute power and authority over his negroslaves” remained in the document unchanged. In his 2016 bookThe Ashley Cooper Plan, Thomas Wilson gives a detailedaccount of Ashley Cooper’s intentions for the Carolina colonyand how Cooper’s intent was thwarted by Barbadian slave ownerswho changed Carolina society from a society with slaves to a slavesociety. L. H. Roper, in his 2004 bookConceiving Carolina:Property, Planters and Plots 1662–1729, offers a differentaccount of what went wrong, focusing on conflicts over the trade inIndian slaves. James Farr’s article “Locke, Natural Lawand New World Slavery” (2008) is one of the best statements ofthe position that Locke intended his theory of slavery to apply toEnglish absolutism and not Afro-American slavery while noting thatLocke’s involvement with slavery has ruined his reputation asthe great champion of liberty Roger Woolhouse in his recent biographyof Locke (Woolhouse 2007: 187) remarks that “Though there is noconsensus on the whole question, there certainly seems to be ‘aglaring contradiction between his theories and Afro-Americanslavery’”.

Recently, there has been a debate over whose theory of slavery andabsolutism Locke was attacking. Johan Olsthoorn and Laurens vanApeldoorn (2020) argue that Locke’s account of slavery and inparticular, that no person can consensually establish absolute ruleover themselves with all its consequences has little force againstother classical contract theories, in particular those of Grotius andPuffendorf. Both Grotius and Puffendorf defended both absolutism andcolonial slavery.

Felis Waldmann in “Slavery and Absolutism in Locke’s TwoTreatises: A Response to Olsthoorn and van Apeldoorn” objects toa number of their claims finding others not relevant. Mostnotably, he objects to these claims: First, “Locke is workingwith an idiosyncratic conception of slavery and absolute rulerepudiated by prominent early modern thinkers defending politicalabsolutism.” Second: “Like Filmer, Locke maintains thatabsolute rulers may arbitrarily kill and maim their subjects at will,by dint of having adominium in the latter’slives.” Finally, he objects to the claim that: “Earlymodern natural lawyers, from Grotius onward, conceptualized slaveryrather differently, insisting that enslaved people were notowned in the way we own things (which may be destroyed atwill)” (Waldmann 7).

In brief, Waldmann’s response to the first claim is that Filmeraccurately represented the Royalist position in the late 1670s andearly 1680s and so Locke’s account is not a straw man. Thus,Locke is attacking Filmer’s account of slavery and not some weakand extreme version of the argument for absolutism that no oneheld. Waldmann suggests that the second claim magnifies this tendencyof the two authors’ portrayal of Locke’s argument as notresponding to the standard arguments for absolutism. Thus, Olsthoornand van Apeldoorn attribute Filmer’s position to Locke. Waldmannconcludes that the claims of Olsthoorn and van Apeldoorn that sinceLocke’s position on slavery was significantly different fromthose of Grotius and Puffendorf, it had little force against them is,in fact, the case. But he thinks this is of little importance sinceLocke was not arguing against them. One suggestion he considersplausible is that Locke is aiming his argument against the possibilityof self-enslavement at Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes was recognized by hiscontemporaries as asserting both that one could by contract enslaveoneself and that the king haddominium, over hissubjects.

William Uzgalis, in his 2017 chapter “John Locke, Slavery andIndian Lands,” holds that Locke has two theories of slavery, oneof them of legitimate slavery and the other of illegitimateslavery. Note that the authors discussed above simplydon’t make this distinction. If they had, it would beplain that while Locke shares with Filmer thedominiumconception of slavery that allows a master to kill or maim a slave,neither theory belongs to Filmer, and if Locke is correct about royalabsolutism and given the character of the practices of the slavetrade and colonial slavery, both absolutism at home and the slavetrade and colonial slavery fall under the theory of illegitimateslavery. Neither Grotius, Puffendorf or Hobbes has an explicittheory of illegitimate slavery. Uzgalis also notes that Grotius andPuffendorf provided claims that Locke could have adopted had he wishedto justify the slave trade and slavery in the colonies. Still, hedenies them all, and with good reason. He would havesubstantially weakened his argument against the kind of absolutism heattributed to Filmer and the Stuarts had he done so. Thissuggests that he was crafting an alternative theory and not arguingagainst its competitors, with the exception, perhaps, of Hobbes.

Holly Brewer in her 2017 article “Slavery, Sovereignty, and‘Inheritable Blood’, Reconsidering John Locke and theOrigins of American Slavery” argues for a different approachto these questions. She presents evidence that the Stuartkings, and Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York, inparticular, were not just interested in absolute government at home;they actively promoted the Royal Africa Company, the slave trade andslavery in the colonies as it provided considerable amounts of moneyto the royal coffers. James was the Governor (the President) of theRoyal Africa Company and Admiral of the English fleet. LordShaftesbury, Locke’s patron, was the sub-governor, and Lockeassisted him. Using the fleet, James attacked and captured Dutch fortson the coast of Africa to make bases for the Royal Africa Company anddeprive the Dutch of them. The Stuarts mintedguinea coins tocelebrate these efforts. After becoming King, James continued asGovernor of the Royal Africa Company. Thus Brewer underlines thesimilarities and connections between the absolutism Locke objected toat home and the slave trade and slavery in the colonies. She arguesthat the spread of slavery needs to be understood as an Englishimperial policy and not something that occurred in different times andplaces unconnected with one another. She also claims that while Lockewas a member of King William III’s Board of Trade in the waningyears of the seventeenth century, he sought to undo Stuart policiesconcerning slavery in the colonies.

4.4 Of Property

Chapter 5 “Of Property” is one of the most famous,influential and important chapters in theSecond Treatise ofGovernment. Indeed, some of the most controversial issues abouttheSecond Treatise come from varying interpretations of it.In this chapter Locke, in effect, describes the evolution of the stateof nature to the point where it becomes expedient for those in it tofound a civil government. So, it is not only an account of the natureand origin of private property but leads up to the explanation of whycivil government replaces the state of nature (see the section onproperty in the entry on Locke’s political philosophy).

In discussing the origin of private property Locke begins by notingthat God gave the earth to all men in common. Thus there is a questionabout how private property comes to be. Locke finds it a seriousdifficulty. He points out, however, that we are supposed to make useof the earth “for the best advantage of life andconvenience” (Treatises II.5.25). What then is themeans to appropriate property from the common store? Locke argues thatprivate property does not come about by universal consent. If one hadto go about and ask everyone if one could eat these berries, one wouldstarve to death before getting everyone’s agreement. Locke holdsthat we have property in our own person. And the labor of our body andthe work of our hands properly belong to us. So, when one picks upacorns or berries, they thereby belong to the person who picked themup. There has been some controversy about what Locke means by“labor”. Daniel Russell claims that for Locke, labor is agoal-directed activity that converts materials that might meet ourneeds into resources that actually do (Russell 2004). Thisinterpretation of what Locke means by “labor” connectsnicely with his claim that we have a natural law obligation first topreserve ourselves and then to help in the preservation andflourishing of others.

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

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

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

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

Nor was thisappropriation of any parcel ofland, byimproving it, any prejudice to any other man, since there was stillenough, and as good left; and more than the as yet unprovided coulduse. So that, in effect, there was never the less for others becauseof his inclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as anothercan make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body couldconsider himself injured by the drinking of another man, though hetook a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left toquench his thirst: and the case of land and water, where there isenough, is perfectly the same. (Treatises II.5.33)

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

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

So, before the introduction of money, there was a degree of economicequality imposed on mankind both by reason and the barter system. Andmen were largely confined to the satisfaction of their needs andconveniences. Most of the necessities of life are relatively shortlived—berries, plums, venison and so forth. One could reasonablybarter one’s berries for nuts which would last not weeks butperhaps a whole year. And says Locke:

…if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased withits color, or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparklingpebble or diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded notthe right of others, he might heap up as much of these durable thingsas he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his property not lyingin the largeness of his possessions, but the perishing of anythinguselessly in it. (Treatises II.5.146)

The introduction of money is necessary for the differential increasein property, with resulting economic inequality. Without money therewould be no point in going beyond the economic equality of the earlierstage. In a money economy, different degrees of industry could givemen vastly different proportions.

This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, menhave made practicable out of the bounds of society, and withoutcompact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitlyagreeing to the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulatethe rights of property, and the possession of land is determined bypositive constitutions. (Treatises II.5.50)

The implication is that it is the introduction of money, which causesinequality, which in turn multiplies the causes of quarrels andcontentions and increased numbers of violations of the law of nature.This leads to the decision to create a civil government. Beforeturning to the institution of civil government, however, we should askwhat happens to the qualifications on the acquisition of propertyafter the advent of money? One answer proposed by C. B. Macpherson inThe Political Theory of Possessive Individualism is that thequalifications are completely set aside, and we now have a system forthe unlimited acquisition of private property. This does not seem tobe correct. It seems plain, rather, that at least the non-spoilagequalification is satisfied, because money does not spoil. The otherqualifications may be rendered somewhat irrelevant by the advent ofthe conventions about property adopted in civil society. This leavesopen the question of whether Locke approved of these changes.Macpherson, who takes Locke to be a spokesman for a proto-capitalistsystem, sees Locke as advocating the unlimited acquisition of wealth.James Tully, on the other side, inA Discourse of Propertyholds that Locke sees the new conditions, the change in values and theeconomic inequality which arise as a result of the advent of money, asthe fall of man. Tully sees Locke as a persistent and powerful criticof self-interest. This remarkable difference in interpretation hasbeen a significant topic for debates among scholars over the lastforty years. Though theSecond Treatise of Government mayleave this question difficult to determine, one might considerLocke’s remark inSome Thoughts Concerning Educationthat

Covetousness and the desire to having in our possession and ourdominion more than we have need of, being the root of all evil, shouldbe early and carefully weeded out and the contrary quality of beingready 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 inthe seventeenth and eighteenth century, so did the social contracttheory. Why is Locke a social contract theorist? Is it merely thatthis was one prevailing way of thinking about government at the timewhich Locke blindly adopted? The answer is that there is somethingabout Locke’s project which pushes him strongly in the directionof the social contract. One might hold that governments wereoriginally instituted by force, and that no agreement was involved.Were Locke to adopt this view, he would be forced to go back on manyof the things which are at the heart of his project in theSecondTreatise, though cases like the Norman conquest force him toadmit that citizens may come to accept a government that wasoriginally forced on them. Remember that theSecond Treatiseprovides Locke’s positive theory of government, and that heexplicitly says that he must provide an alternative to the view

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

So, while Locke might admit that some governments come about throughforce or violence, he would be destroying the most central and vitaldistinction, that between legitimate and illegitimate civilgovernment, if he admitted that legitimate government can come aboutin this way. So, for Locke, legitimate government is instituted by theexplicit consent of those governed. (See the section onconsent, political obligation, and the ends of government in the entry on Locke’s political philosophy.) Those who makethis agreement transfer to the government their right of executing thelaw of nature and judging their own case. These are the powers whichthey give to the central government, and this is what makes thejustice system of governments a legitimate function of suchgovernments.

Ruth Grant has persuasively argued that the establishment ofgovernment is in effect a two step process. Universal consent isnecessary to form a political community. Consent to join a communityonce given is binding and cannot be withdrawn. This makes politicalcommunities stable. Grant writes: “Having established that themembership in a community entails the obligation to abide by the willof the community, the question remains: Who rules?” (1987:114–115). The answer to this question is determined by majorityrule. The point is that universal consent is necessary to establish apolitical community, majority consent to answer the question who is torule such a community. Universal consent and majority consent are thusdifferent in kind, not just in degree. Grant writes:

Locke’s argument for the right of the majority is thetheoretical ground for the distinction between duty to society andduty to government, the distinction that permits an argument forresistance 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 thecommunity on a king and his heirs, or a group of oligarchs or on ademocratic assembly. Thus, the social contract is not inextricablylinked to democracy. Still, a government of any kind must perform thelegitimate function of a civil government.

4.6 The Function Of Civil Government

Locke is now in a position to explain the function of a legitimategovernment and distinguish it from illegitimate government. The aim ofsuch a legitimate government is to preserve, so far as possible, therights to life, liberty, health and property of its citizens, and toprosecute and punish those of its citizens who violate the rights ofothers and to pursue the public good even where this may conflict withthe rights of individuals. In doing this it provides somethingunavailable in the state of nature, an impartial judge to determinethe severity of the crime, and to set a punishment proportionate tothe crime. This is one of the main reasons why civil society is animprovement on the state of nature. An illegitimate government willfail to protect the rights to life, liberty, health and property ofits subjects, and in the worst cases, such an illegitimate governmentwill claim to be able to violate the rights of its subjects, that isit will claim to have despotic power over its subjects. Since Locke isarguing against the position of Sir Robert Filmer who held thatpatriarchal power and political power are the same, and that in effectthese amount to despotic power, Locke is at pains to distinguish thesethree forms of power, and to show that they are not equivalent. Thusat the beginning of chapter 15 “Of Paternal, Political andDespotic Power Considered Together” he writes:

THOUGH I have had occasion to speak of these before, yet the greatmistakes of late about government, having as I suppose arisen fromconfounding these distinct powers one with another, it may not beamiss, to consider them together.

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

4.7 Rebellion and Regicide

At the end of theSecond Treatise we learn about the natureof illegitimate civil governments and the conditions under whichrebellion and regicide are legitimate and appropriate. As noted above,scholars now hold that the book was written during the ExclusionCrisis, and may have been written to justify a general insurrectionand the assassination of the king of England and his brother. Theargument for legitimate revolution follows from making the distinctionbetween legitimate and illegitimate civil government. A legitimatecivil government seeks to preserve its subjects’ life, health,liberty, and property insofar as this is compatible with the publicgood. Because it does this, it deserves obedience. An illegitimatecivil government seeks to systematically violate the natural rights ofits subjects. It seeks to make them illegitimate slaves. Because anillegitimate civil government does this, it puts itself in a state ofnature and a state of war with its subjects. The magistrate or king ofsuch a state violates the law of nature and so makes himself into adangerous beast of prey who operates on the principle that might makesright, or that the strongest carries it. In such circumstances,rebellion is legitimate, as is the killing of such a dangerous beastof prey. Thus Locke justifies rebellion and regicide under certaincircumstances. Presumably, this justification was going to be offeredfor the killing of the King of England and his brother had the RyeHouse Plot succeeded. Even if this was not Locke’s intention, itstill would have served that purpose admirably.

5. Locke and Religious Toleration

The issue of religious toleration was of widespread interest in Europein the seventeenth century, largely because religious intolerance withaccompanying violence was so pervasive. The Reformation had splitEurope into competing religious camps, and this provoked civil warsand massive religious persecutions. John Marshall, in his massive studyJohn Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture notesthat the 1680s were the climactic decade for this kind ofpersecution. The Dutch Republic, where Locke spent years in exile, hadbeen founded as a secular state which would allow religiousdifferences. This was a reaction to the Catholic persecution ofProtestants. However, once the Calvinist Church gained power, theybegan persecuting other sects, such as the Remonstrants, who disagreedwith them. Nonetheless, The Dutch Republic remained the most tolerantcountry in Europe. In France, religious conflict had been temporarilyquieted by the edict of Nantes. But in 1685, the year in which Lockewrote the First Letter concerning religious toleration, Louis XIV hadrevoked the Edict of Nantes, and the Huguenots were being persecuted.Though prohibited from doing so, some 200,000 emigrated, whileprobably 700,000 were forced to convert to Catholicism. People inEngland were keenly aware of the events taking place in France.

In England itself, religious conflict dominated the seventeenthcentury, contributing in important respects to the coming of theEnglish Civil War, and the abolishing of the Anglican Church duringthe Protectorate. After the Restoration of Charles II, Anglicans inparliament passed laws that repressed both Catholics and Protestantsects such as Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers and Unitarians who didnot agree with the doctrines or practices of the state Church. Ofthese various dissenting sects, some were closer to the Anglicans,others more remote. One reason, among others, why King Charles mayhave found Shaftesbury useful was that they were both concerned aboutreligious toleration. They parted when it became clear that the Kingwas mainly interested in toleration for Catholics, and Shaftesbury forProtestant dissenters.

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

When Locke fled to Holland after the discovery of the Rye house plot,he became involved with a group of scholars advocating religioustoleration. This group included Benjamin Furly, a quaker with whomLocke lived for a while, the noted philosopher Pierre Bayle, severalDutch theologians, and many others. This group read all the argumentsfor religious intolerance and discussed them in book and conversationclubs. Members of the group considered toleration not only forProtestants and Protestant dissenters but Jews, Moslems, and Catholics. Arecent discovery of a page of Locke’s reflections on tolerationof Catholics shows that Locke considered even the pros and cons oftoleration for Catholics (Walmsley and Waldmann 2019). Some membersof the group also wrote tolerationist articles and books. They helpedeach other get jobs. Some of their members founded journals thatreviewed books and articles on religious, scientific, and othertopics. The group took the notion of free speech, civility, andpoliteness in discourse seriously. They called themselves‘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 thedebates about religious toleration? This is a quite difficult questionto answer. Religion and Christianity in particular, is perhaps themost important influence on the shape of Locke’s philosophy. Butwhat kind of Christian was Locke? Locke’s family were Puritans.At Oxford, Locke avoided becoming an Anglican priest. Still, Lockehimself claimed to be an Anglican until he died and Locke’snineteenth-century biographer Fox Bourne thought that Locke was anAnglican. Others have identified him with the Latitudinarians—amovement among Anglicans to argue for a reasonable Christianity thatdissenters ought to accept. Still, there are some reasons to thinkthat Locke was neither an orthodox Anglican or a Latitudinarian. Lockegot Isaac Newton to write Newton’s most powerfulanti-Trinitarian tract. Locke arranged to have the work publishedanonymously in Holland though in the end, Newton decided not topublish (McLachlan 1941). This strongly suggests that Locke too was bythis time an Arian or unitarian. (Arius, c. 250–336, assertedthe primacy of the Father over the Son and thus rejected the doctrineof the Trinity and was condemned as a heretic at the Council of Nicaeain 325. Newton held that the Church had gone in the wrong direction incondemning Arius.) Given that one main theme of Locke’sLetter on Toleration is that there should be a separationbetween Church and State, this does not seem like the view of a mandevoted to a state religion. It might appear that Locke’swritingThe Reasonableness of Christianity in which he arguesthat the basic doctrines of Christianity are few and compatible withreason make him a Latitudinarian. Yet Richard Ashcraft has argued thatcomprehension for the Anglicans meant conforming to the existingpractices of the Anglican Church; that is, the abandonment ofreligious dissent. Ashcraft also suggests that Latitudinarians werethus not a moderate middle ground between contending extremes but partof one of the extremes—“the acceptable face of thepersecution of religious dissent” (Ashcraft 1992: 155). Ashcraftholds that while the Latitudinarians may have represented the“rational theology” of the Anglican church, there was acompeting dissenting “rational theology”. Thus, while itis true that Locke had Latitudinarian friends, given Ashcraft’sdistinction between Anglican and dissenting “rationaltheologies”, it is entirely possible thatThe Reasonablenessof Christianity is a work of dissenting “rationaltheology”.

Locke had been thinking, talking and writing about religioustoleration since 1659. His views evolved. In the early 1660s he verylikely was an orthodox Anglican. He and Shaftesbury had institutedreligious toleration in theFundamental Constitutions of theCarolinas (1669). He wrote theEpistola de Tolerantia inLatin in 1685 while in exile in Holland. He very likely was seeingProtestant refugees pouring over the borders from France where LouisXIV had just revoked the Edict of Nantes. Holland itself was aCalvinist theocracy with significant problems with religioustoleration. But Locke’s Letter does not confine itself to theissues of the time. Locke gives a principled account of religioustoleration, though this is mixed in with arguments which apply only toChristians, and perhaps in some cases only to Protestants. He excludedboth Catholics and atheists from religious toleration. In the case ofCatholics it was because he regarded them as agents of a foreignpower. Because they do not believe in God, atheists, on Locke’saccount: “Promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds ofhuman society, can have no hold upon an atheist” (Mendus 1991:47). He gives his general defense of religious toleration whilecontinuing the anti-Papist rhetoric of the Country party which soughtto exclude James II from the throne.

Locke’s arguments for religious toleration connect nicely to hisaccount of civil government. Locke defines life, liberty, health andproperty as our civil interests. These are the proper concern of amagistrate or civil government. The magistrate can use force andviolence where this is necessary to preserve civil interests againstattack. This is the central function of the state. One’sreligious concerns with salvation, however, are not within the domainof civil interests, and so lie outside of the legitimate concern ofthe magistrate or the civil government. In effect, Locke adds anadditional right to the natural rights of life, liberty, health andproperty—the right of freedom to choose one’s own road tosalvation. (See the section onToleration in the entry on Locke’s Political Philosophy.)

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

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

So, religious persecution by the state is inappropriate. Locke holdsthat “Whatever is lawful in the commonwealth cannot beprohibited by the magistrate in the church”. This means that theuse of bread and wine, or even the sacrificing of a calf could not beprohibited by the magistrate.

If there are competing churches, one might ask which one should havethe power? The answer is clearly that power should go to the truechurch and not to the heretical church. But Locke claims this amountsto saying nothing. For every church believes itself to be the truechurch, and there is no judge but God who can determine which of theseclaims is correct. Thus, skepticism about the possibility of religiousknowledge is central to Locke’s argument for religioustoleration.

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

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Locke’s Works

Oxford University Press is in the process of producing a new editionof all of Locke’s works. This will supersedeThe Works ofJohn Locke of which the 1823 edition is probably the moststandard. The new Clarendon editions began with Peter Nidditch’sedition ofAn Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1975.The Oxford Clarendon editions contain much of the material of theLovelace collection, purchased and donated to Oxford by Paul Mellon.This treasure trove of Locke’s works and letters, which includesearly drafts of theEssay and much other material, comes downfrom Peter King, Locke’s nephew, who inherited Locke’spapers. Access to these papers has given scholars in the twentiethcentury a much better view of Locke’s philosophical developmentand provided a window into the details of his activities which istruly remarkable. Hence the new edition of Locke’s works willvery likely be definitive.

• [N]An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter H.Nidditch (ed.), 1975. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198243861.book.1
• Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John W. Yolton andJean S. Yolton (eds.), 1989.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245827.book.1
• Drafts for the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and OtherPhilosophical Writings: In Three Volumes, Vol. 1: Drafts A and B,Peter H. Nidditch and G. A. J. Rogers (eds.), 1990.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245452.book.1
• The Reasonableness of Christianity: As Delivered in theScriptures, John C. Higgins-Biddle (ed.), 2000.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245254.book.1
• An Essay Concerning Toleration: And Other Writings on Law andPolitics, 1667–1683, J. R. Milton and Philip Milton (eds.),2006.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780199575732.book.1
• Vindications of the Reasonableness of Christianity,Victor Nuovo (ed.), 2012.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780199286553.book.1
• A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul to theGalatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, 2 volumes,Arthur W. Wainwright (ed.)
  • volume 1, 1987.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198248019.book.1
  • volume 2, 1987.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198248064.book.1
• Locke on Money, 2 volumes, Patrick Hyde Kelly (ed.)
  • Volume 1, 1991.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245469.book.1
  • Volume 2, 1991,.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198248378.book.1
• The Correspondence of John Locke, eight volumes, E.S. deBeer (ed.)
  • Vol. 1: Introduction; Letters Nos. 1–461, 2010.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780199573615.book.1
  • Vol. 2: Letters Nos. 462–848, 1976.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245599.book.1
  • Vol. 3: Letters Nos. 849–1241, 1978.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245605.book.1
  • Vol. 4: Letters Nos. 1242–1701, 1978.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245612.book.1
  • Vol. 5: Letters Nos. 1702–2198, 1979.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245629.book.1
  • Vol. 6: Letters Nos. 2199–2664, 1980.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245636.book.1
  • Vol. 7: Letters Nos. 2665–3286, 1981.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245643.book.1
  • Vol. 8: Letters Nos. 3287–3648, 1989.doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198245650.book.1

In addition to the Oxford Press edition, there are a few editions ofsome of Locke’s works which are worth noting.

• An Early Draft of Locke’s Essay, Together with Excerptsfrom his Journal, Richard I. Aaron and Jocelyn Gibb (eds.),Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936.
• John Locke, Two Tracts of Government, Phillip Abrams(ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
• Locke’s The Two Treatises of Civil Government,Richard Ashcraft (ed.), London: Routledge, 1987.
• [Axtell 1968],The Educational Writings of John Locke: ACritical Edition, James L. Axtell (ed.), Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
• [Gay 1964],John Locke on Education, Peter Gay (ed.), NewYork: Bureau of Publications, Columbia Teachers College, 1964.
• Epistola de Tolerantia: A Letter on Toleration, Latintext edited with a preface by Raymond Klibansky; English translationwith an introduction and notes by J. W. Gough, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1968.
• [G&T 1996]“Some Thoughts ConcerningEducation” and“The Conduct of theUnderstanding”, Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov (eds),Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1996.
• [Laslett 1960]Locke’s Two Treatises of Government,Peter Laslett (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.
• [Woozley 1964],An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,abridged, A.D. Woozley (ed.), London: Fontana Library, 1964.

Other Primary Sources

• Boyle, Robert, 1675 [1979], “Some Physico-TheologicalConsiderations About the Possibility of the Resurrection”, inSelected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle, M.A. Stewart(ed.), New York: Manchester University Press.
• Mill, John Stuart, 1843,A System of Logic Ratiocinative andInductive, London: John W. Parker.

Secondary Sources

Biographies

• King, Lord Peter, 1991,The Life of John Locke: with extractsfrom his correspondence, journals, and common-place books,Bristol: Thoemmes.
• Fox Bourne, H.R., 1876,Life of John Locke, 2 volumes,New York: Harper & Brothers. Reprinted Scientia Aalen, 1969.
• Cranston, Maurice, 1957,John Locke, A Biography,reprinted Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
• Woolhouse, Roger, 2007,Locke: A Biography, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Books and Articles

• Aaron, Richard, 1937,John Locke, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
• Aarsleff, Hans, 1982,From Locke to Saussure: Essays on theStudy of Language and Intellectual History, Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press.
• –––, 1994 “Locke’s Influence”,in Vere Chappell (ed.),The Cambridge Companion to Locke,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 252–289.doi:10.1017/CCOL0521383714.011
• Alexander, Peter, 1985,Ideas Qualities and Corpuscles: Lockeand Boyle on the External World, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
• Alston, William and Jonathan Bennett, 1988, “Locke on Peopleand Substances”,The Philosophical Review, 97(1):25–46. doi:10.2307/2185098
• Anstey, Peter R., 2011,John Locke and NaturalPhilosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589777.001.0001
• Armitage, David, 2004, “John Locke, Carolina and theTwoTreatises of Government”,Political Theory, 32(5):602–27. doi:10.1177/0090591704267122
• Arneil, Barbara, 1996,John Locke and America, Oxford:Clarendon Press.
• Ashcraft, Richard, 1986,Revolutionary Politics andLocke’s Two Treatises of Civil Government, Princeton:Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1992, “Latitudinarianism andToleration: Historical Myth versus Political History”, in Kroll,Ashcraft, and Zagorin 1992: 151–177.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511896231.008
• Ayers, Michael, 1991,Locke: Epistemology and Ontology, 2volumes, London: Routledge.
• Barresi, John, and Raymond Martin, 2000,Naturalization of theSoul: Self and Personal Identity in the 18th Century, London:Routledge.
• Bennett, Jonathan, 1971,Locke, Berkeley, Hume: CentralThemes, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Bolton, Martha Brandt, 2004, “Locke on the Semantic andEpistemic Role of Simple Ideas of Sensation”,PacificPhilosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 301–321.doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00200.x
• Brandt, Reinhard (ed.), 1981,John Locke: SymposiumWolfenbuttel 1979, Berlin: de Gruyter.
• Brewer, Holly, 2017, “Slavery, Sovereignty, and‘Inheritable Blood’: Reconsidering John Locke and theOrigins of American Slavery”,The American HistoricalReview, 122(4): 1038–1078.doi:10.1093/ahr/122.4.1038
• Chappell, Vere, 1992,Essays on Early Modern Philosophy, JohnLocke—Theory of Knowledge, London: Garland Publishing,Inc.
• –––, 1994,The Cambridge Companion toLocke, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• –––, 2004a, “Symposium: Locke and the Veilof Perception: Preface”,Pacific PhilosophicalQuarterly, 85(3): 243–244.doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00196.x
• –––, 2004b, “Comments”,PacificPhilosophical Quarterly, 85(3): 338–355.doi:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00202.x
• Chomsky, Noam, 1966,Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in theHistory of Rationalist Thought, New York: Harper & Row.
• Dunn, John, 1969,The Political Thought of John Locke,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Farr, James, 2008, “Locke, Natural Law and New WorldSlavery”,Political Theory, 36(4): 495–522.doi:10.1177/0090591708317899
• Fox, Christopher, 1988,Locke and the Scriblerians,Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Garrett, Don, 2003, “Locke on Personal Identity,Consciousness and ‘Fatal Errors’”,PhilosophicalTopics, 31: 95–125. doi:10.5840/philtopics2003311/214
• Geach, Peter, 1967, “Identity”,The Review ofMetaphysics, 21(1): 3–12.
• Gibson, James, 1968,Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and itsHistorical Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Gordon-Roth, Jessica, 2015, “Locke’s Place-Time-KindPrinciple”,Philosophy Compass, 10(4): 264–274.doi:10.1111/phc3.12217
• Grant, Ruth, 1987,John Locke’s Liberalism,Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Gaukroger, Stephen, 2010,The Collapse of Mechanism and theRise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity1680–1760, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
• Kretzmann, Norman, 1968, “The Main Thesis of Locke’sSemantic Theory”,The Philosophical Review, 77(2):175–196. Reprinted in Tipton 1977: 123–140.doi:10.2307/2183319
• Kroll, Peter, Richard Ashcraft, and Peter Zagorin (eds), 1992,Philosophy, Science and Religion in England 1640–1700,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511896231
• Jolley, Nicholas, 1984,Leibniz and Locke, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
• –––, 1999,Locke, His PhilosophicalThought, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2015,Locke’s Touchy Subjects:Materialism and Immortality, Oxford: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737094.001.0001
• Laslett, Peter, 1954 [1990], “John Locke as Founder of theBoard of Trade”,The Listener, 52(1342): 856–857.Reprinted in J.S. Yolton 1990: 127–136.
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Bibliographies

• Hall, Roland, and Roger Woolhouse, 1983,80 Years of LockeScholarship: A Bibliographical Guide, Edinburgh: University ofEdinburgh Press.

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Related Entries

Berkeley, George |Hume, David |Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm |liberalism |Locke, John: moral philosophy |Locke, John: on freedom |Locke, John: on personal identity |Locke, John: philosophy of science |Locke, John: political philosophy |Masham, Lady Damaris |personal identity |substance |tropes

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank Sally Ferguson for carefullyproofreading the text.