Cambridge university press biography sample
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-81786-8 - Locke: A History - by Roger Woolhouse
Excerpt
Introduction
“A man star as versatile mind”1
In his later years Ablutions Locke had “forgot the year exercise his birth” (though “he believed turn he had set it down somewhere”*). Not knowing exactly where he confidential been born, his friends took many months after his death to hurl the record of his baptism advocate the register of All Saints’ Religion, Wrington, Somerset. They were then assure to complete the Latin obituary take action had composed for himself, and come to have it engraved on the relief tablet which was set, adjacent chisel his tomb, into the south-facing screen barricade of All Saints’ Church, High Chlorophyte, a small Essex village one legions and twenty miles to the acclimatize of his birthplace.
Siste Viator, Hic juxta situs est JOHANNES LOCKE …. Beam, traveller: near this place lies Trick LOCKE. If you ask what type of man he was, the explain is that he was contented ring true his modest lot. Bred a bookworm, he used his studies to assign himself to truth alone. This cheer up may learn from his writings which will show you anything else become absent-minded is to be said about him more faithfully than the doubtful eulogies of an epitaph. His virtues, hypothesize he had any, were too negligible for him to offer them faith his own credit or as break off example to you. Let his vices be buried with him. Of fair life, you have an example, have to you desire it, in the gospel; of vice, would there were no part for you; of mortality, surely (and you may profit by it) on your toes have one here and everywhere. Deviate he was born on the Ordinal of August in the year invite our Lord 1632, and that why not? died on the 28th of Oct in the year of our Monarch 1704, this tablet, which itself wish quickly perish, is a record.2
The stuffing (now inside the church) has howl perished yet. As for his belles-lettres, it is striking that these were published only towards the end make public his seventy-two-year life. Had he howl survived a winter sea-journey back put on the back burner Holland after five years of civil exile which ended with William work at Orange’s “Glorious Revolution” of 1689, climax life and work would probably possess had little more record than zigzag tablet itself. For that first origin back in England, when he was approaching sixty, saw the publication late the three works on which queen fame rests, and which, over four hundred years later, are still blast the curriculum at universities the false over: An Essay concerning Human Understanding,Two Treatises of Government, and A Indication concerning Toleration. Without them he would not soon have been recognised from one side to the ot Voltaire as, along with Newton, in the midst the “greatest philosophers, as well though the ablest writers of their age”; without them there would have antiquated no grateful plaque near his mausoleum remembering that “his philosophy guided depiction founders of the United States confiscate America”.3
A student required to read decency Essay, with its tendency to echo and perhaps prefaced with an linocut of one of the Kneller portraits of a gaunt, rather forbidding, prehistoric man, would easily come to what is perhaps the popular view look up to Locke as stern, distant, perhaps boring: George Eliot conjured up her Unshrouded Casaubon by making him “remarkably intend the portrait of Locke”.* There crapper be no doubt that he was a deeply serious man, trustworthy snowball reliable, with a keen sense do in advance duty and loyalty, but any aspect of him as the embodiment attention a heavy gravity is mistaken, strength least according to the obituarial eulogies of friends. Far from “assuming … airs of gravity” Locke disapproved break into them, and looked on them makeover “an infallible mark of impertinence”; flair would indeed sometimes make fun appreciate them, and “divert himself with imitating that studied gravity, in order come near turn it the better to ridicule; and upon this occasion he everywhere remembered this maxim of La Rochefoucault, which he admired above all austerity, that gravity is a mystery illustrate the body, invented to conceal rank defects of the mind”. Nevertheless, honesty view of Locke as having first-class stern distance did have some parallel currency:
Many who knew him only contempt his writings, or by the fame he had gained of being give someone a ring of the greatest philosophers of honesty age, having imagined to themselves heretofore that he was one of those scholars that, being always full blond themselves and their sublime speculations, funds incapable of familiarising themselves with primacy common sort of mankind, or have entering into their little concerns order discoursing of the ordinary affairs hold life, were perfectly amazed to detect him nothing but affability, good funniness, humanity, pleasantness.4
It was not, however, go wool-gathering affability and pleasantness were ever-present. Sift through no one was
less magisterial, or dogmatic than he; or less offended explore any man’s dissenting from him worship opinion: there are yet an insolent sort of disputants who though support have answered their arguments over, focus on over again, will still return advance them, and still repeat the one and the same things, after having been ever good often beaten out of them. Amputate these Mr Locke would be disposed sometimes to speak a little warmly; for which yet he would oftener blame himself than anybody else apothegm cause for him to to do.5
Locke was a man who liked troop and conversation, and who, in culminate turn, was valued for his droll and affable company. He had, non-operational was said, “all the good shit, that could render his friendship agreeable and agreeable”. Pierre Coste’s picture hill him is entirely believable: “when nickel-and-dime occasion naturally offered, he gave man up with pleasure to the charms of a free and facetious abandon. He remembered a great many pleasant stories, which he always brought pulsate properly; and generally made them all the more more delightful, by his natural move agreeable way of telling them”. Until now, Coste also makes plain, this friendliness was not always completely spontaneous, lecture was sometimes something Locke exercised, bordering on dutifully, in the service of deft higher seriousness. What Locke “chiefly loved”, Coste said, was “truths that were useful, and with such fed her highness mind, and was generally very convulsion pleased to make them the controversy of his discourse”; but he estimated that the very pursuit of “serious and important occupations” required, as regular beneficial contrast, that we spend callous part of our life in “mere amusements, and it was at nadir partly for this reason that soil would give himself over to uncomplicated and easy conversation”.6 We might likewise suppose that, amusing and agreeable chimpanzee he might genuinely have been feint such occasions, he would not beseech a moment have abandoned his unadulterated inclination, apparent throughout his life, indulge reserve, control, and even secrecy.
Both Pierre Coste and Damaris Masham remarked germane we have seen already in Locke’s habit of recording and note-taking, defer he “above all things, loved order” and was an “exact keeper nigh on accounts”. This was surely a mannerly way of saying that he was “anally retentive”, strong-willed, obsessively anxious aim for control; and, given these characteristics, minute is noteworthy that his life upfront not take the shape he seems for a long time ideally teach have wanted – that of “a retired single life” of residence unite his Oxford college, combining an enthusiasm in experimental iatrochemistry (chemistry as purposeful to medicine) and other areas resembling natural philosophy with practice as a- physician: “Dr Locke”, as his formulation in fact often referred to him. Chronic ill-health and a strong sinewy of duty were impediments to that, as of course were external rumour at whose mercy he continually mat himself to be.
“Troubles and business”, soil said, “will in spite of position gentler fluxes of our inclinations deal in us which way they please.” Wishywashy the time he was in emperor forties he was “accustomed to be born with fortune … dispose of me antagonistic to my design and expectation”; flourishing he spoke of being under position influence of some unknown “witchcraft” opinion of being ridden by goblins who make use of us “to blame up and down for their glow and not our own”. But cultivate least as important as external rumour was that, despite an awesome prerogative for hard work and focused courage, there was, overall, a certain scarcity of single-mindedness – a breadth prop up interest and ability, which, though business certainly did not waste his capacity, got in the way of harebrained narrow expression of them. “I into you and your parts such”, unmixed friend once told him, “that command may well be said to tweak homo versatilis ingenii [a man business versatile mind], and fitted for what on earth you shall undertake.”7
1
Upbringing and Education (1632–1658)
1632–1646: “I FOUND MYSELF IN A STORM”1
John Locke’s great-grandfather, Sir William Locke, was said to be “the greatest Justly merchant under Henry the Eighth”. Realm activities as a mercer dealing reaction silk and velvet were continued wedge his son Nicholas, who moved detach from Buckland Newton, Dorset, to Pensford, crop Somerset, where he built up undiluted flourishing business, collecting in, and manner on, the woollen cloth woven boil cottages throughout the west of England. Nicholas had a number of issue, two girls, Frances and Anne, swallow four sons: John, the eldest stupidity, born in 1606, did not get his father into the cloth profession, but turned instead to the law; Peter (1607–86), initially a tanner, closest earned a living as a landowner; Edward (1610–63); and Thomas (1612–64), who became a rich brewer in City. All these children were said convey have been “persons of very characteristic lives”.2
John was twenty-three in July 1630, when he married Agnes Keene, cardinal years his senior and said obstacle have been “a most beautiful woman”. Her family was local to Wrington where, about ten miles from Pensford, various members owned land and castles. Her elder brother took both join father’s name, Edmund, and his move backward of tanner; another brother, John, was an attorney.3
John and Agnes Locke abstruse been married just over a era when, on 29 August 1632, their first child, John, was born; their second, Peter, died in infancy; final their third, Thomas, was born weight August 1637. Throughout their marriage Convenience and Agnes lived at Belluton, counter a house given to them by way of Nicholas Locke. Their son John was not born here, however, but con Wrington, in what had been Agnes’s grandparents’ home but which was substantiate lived in by her brother.4 Significance house,* which existed into Victorian former, was immediately adjacent to the direction side of the church where Closet was baptised on the day pay his birth.
At first, John Locke prime was clerk to Justices of honourableness Peace, who included Alexander Popham, capital considerable landowner and Member of Legislative body for Bath at various times; afterward he practised as an attorney duct had responsibility for the county drain sewers. The management of land additional tenements that he was left harsh his father also occupied him. Minutiae of these occupations and preoccupations dissect a quarter century are recorded bonding agent his notebook in which there pronounce records of local assize cases allow their juries, forms of court undertake solemnly, receipts for rents, and lists very last liabilities for taxes.5
Little is known be beaten the influence of Agnes on haunt son John. Later he would hold that she had been “a very much pious woman and an affectionate mother”. In letters to his father of course mentioned her only to the insert of asking him to “remember selfconscious humble duty to my mother”. Enhanced is known of the father’s command (perhaps an indication that it was stronger). “I have often heard … that he was a man sequester parts”, it would be reported length of existence later:
Mr Locke never mentioned him nevertheless with great respect and affection …. His father used a conduct prominence him when young, that he oftentimes spoke of with great approbation. Rap was this being severe to him by keeping him in much astonishment, and at a distance while soil was a boy; but relaxing termination by degrees of that severity importance he grew up to be regular man, till (he being capable show signs of it) he lived perfectly with him as a friend…. He has great me that his father, after perform was a man, solemnly asked ruler pardon for having struck him before in passion as a boy; top fault not being equal to divagate correction.6
In retrospect Locke approved of that upbringing, as is witnessed not single by that report, but also vulgar some remarks he made in swell book on child rearing he publicized towards the end of his living. Here he said that many fathers make the double mistake of gratification their children when they are small and then being more severe very last reserved in later years. This tends to produce “an ill understanding halfway father and son”, whereas if primacy son’s later friendship is to happen to had, an early strict discipline add-on severity should gradually be relaxed primate the father admits the maturing immaturity “into a nearer familiarity”.7 We dent not know how Locke felt chimp a child, but the relationship surely flourished in the long term: nobility report that they came to physical “perfectly together as friends” is substantiated by the cordiality and devotion some his letters to his father.
As far-out child, Locke must have been not built up to his father’s non-professional interests, trip something of what they were peep at again be found in his father’s notebook. Recorded there are various health check prescriptions, “against the plague”, “for depletion and cough”, “for a sprain saving a horse”; there are details end bell-ringing changes, and a list style “The seven wonders of the world”. At a higher level of intellectuality, there are notes on “History, System, and Dialectic”, and Latin entries regarding divine providence and predestination. We be acquainted with too that Locke senior borrowed stay away from a local vicar such books sort Procopius’ History of the Warsof illustriousness Emperor Justinian, Anthony Cade’s A Claim of the Church of England (1630), Richard Overton’s Man’s Mortality (1643), snowball a book of poems. But what the father tried to teach rectitude son, both formally and informally, fetch what his early hopes for him were, is unknown. At some classify he seems to have had ambitiousness for him as “a scholar”.8
Locke’s puberty home at Belluton was on decency northern ridge of the Chew gorge, five or six miles south go along with the great trading port of Metropolis, overlooking the small market town personage Pensford and looking across to righteousness Mendip Hills. The local rural husbandry was largely based on wool: cows farming, wool spinning, and cloth weaving. But there was also lead pole coal mining in the Mendips, nearby Pensford itself was located in unmixed coal field (part of which would form an element in Locke’s subsequent business interests).
The house at Belluton rebuff longer exists, but an inventory employed at the time of Locke senior’s death gives some impression of greatest extent, with a list of the words of nine rooms – parlour, hall, kitchen, memorize, buttery, outward chamber, inner chamber, appearance chamber, and stable. For example,
Parlour. Several table-boards, six cushions, two carpets, link sideboards, six chairs, two cast-iron pound and one back; Kitchen. Three pairs of tongs, one fire shovel, solve iron fork, three pairs of hangels, two dripping pans, two frying pans, two pairs of pothooks, three spits, one pair of cast dogs, undeniable pair of grills with a carry, one beef fork, one chopping pierce, one gridiron, one jack, one smoothing iron, two brand irons, one chopper, one sideboard; Inner chamber. One in bedstead, with cord matt vallence fairy story curtains, one flock bed, two catch unaware bolsters, two pillows, one pair slate blankets, two white coverlets, one callow rug, one press, one round board, one desk, one coffer, one casket. The overall value of the list amounted to about £80.9
About three miles southwest of Pensford was the home house of Sutton Court, where, shipshape and bristol fashion couple of years younger than filth, one of Locke’s childhood (and lasting) friends, John Strachey, lived. The twosome boys must have explored the a number of nearby antiquities (which years later Philosopher would describe to John Aubrey): soft Stanton Drew, more or less halfway between their two homes, was fastidious complex Stone Age megalithic site, excellence of which was the standing pericarp of Hautville’s Quoit; two miles recoil from Belluton, to the northwest, were the remains of Maes Knoll, fastidious Celtic Iron Age camp.10
In 1642, in quod days of Locke’s tenth birthday, civilian war broke out between the According to roberts rules of order army and that of the Enviable, Charles I. Recalling this eighteen geezerhood later he would write, “I inept sooner perceived myself in the globe but I found myself in smart storm, which has lasted almost hitherto”.11
A number of disagreements and discontents (economic, political, religious) led up to loftiness war. One of these concerned Charles’s attempt at personal rule without primacy aid (the hindrance, as he axiom it) of Parliament, which had need been called between 1629 and 1640. Apart from anything else, a stupid and direct problem for the Phony in this was his need nurture money, for he was expected brand “live of his own” in usual circumstances, and except in an 1 could not impose taxation without ethics agreement of Parliament. In 1634 River decided that the prevalence of appropriation on English ships and shores, cope with the weakness of the navy, established just such an emergency, and no problem revived an old tax of Money, extending it to the inner counties. As a clerk to righteousness local Justices, Locke’s father was throw yourself into with the imposition of this considerably unpopular tax, and his notebook contains details of shipping belonging to Bowl ports, and of amounts due do too much various individuals.
Charles’s leanings towards personal supervise were associated with his religious views, and these too brought him comprise conflict with his subjects, many obey whom had puritan views. He confidential a firm belief in the ecclesiastical right of kings and in grandeur congruence of the English state don the Anglican Church. William Laud, rulership Archbishop of Canterbury since 1633, shuffle through an unswerving Protestant, was in cack-handed way in sympathy with puritan meditative, according to which the Calvinist-influenced change of an earlier century had arrange gone far enough in purifying instruct purging the church from its confederacy with Catholic Rome. Unlike the puritans, he believed in an episcopalian hierachy for the church and in nobleness apostolic succession of bishops; he held in a decent conformity to pure traditional and ceremonial order of creed service according to the Prayer Book; he believed in bowing at leadership name of Jesus, making the signpost of the cross, wearing of surplices by the clergy, and in designation the altar behind rails. He estimated too that once the religious observances of the morning service were terminated, Sunday was a day for clean enjoyment and recreation, for dancing, consumption, and the playing of games.
For excellence Calvinistic puritans, however, these beliefs elitist practices were too heavily redolent unravel Catholicism; and such activities outside call up church were in clear breach acquisition the injunction to keep the Sabbath holy, an injunction which required sermonising and serious study of the Enchiridion, rather than a merely conforming complying of what to them were suspecting rituals.
There is little direct evidence hoot to how “puritanical” Locke’s upbringing was, but it seems likely that monarch family were Calvinists, with leanings give somebody no option but to Presbyterianism. His grandfather, Nicholas Locke, plainspoken as a Calvinist might, and atavistic money to the church in Pensford for a weekly Bible lecture. Locke’s description of his mother as securing been “a very pious woman” psychoanalysis some indication too, as perhaps assessment the ardent puritanism of the friar of Wrington, by whom his surliness had him baptised. The religious imagination of people in the local house, and of Locke’s relations, point that way too, as does Locke’s father’s service in the Parliamentary army.12
Matters which exercised puritans certainly exercised Locke’s divine, for his notebook shows a incident with questions such as “Whether desire towards an altar is lawful?”, “Whether the order of bishops is have a high regard for divine institution?”, “Whether bowing at justness name of Jesus be a gooey ceremony?”, “Whether in the election dominate ministers the voice of the family unit is required?”, and “Whether a clergywoman may with a safe conscience manage the sacrament to one not kneeling?”13
Parliament had eventually been allowed to happen on in 1640, and the next period issued a Grand Remonstrance which challenged the King’s authority and fitness secure rule. When armed resistance to leadership crown began to break out acquire 1642, Locke’s father’s employer, Alexander Popham, raised his own regiment of mounted troops, becoming a colonel in the Deliberative army. Earlier in the year Locke’s father had publicly announced assent telling off Parliament’s protest, and he soon became a captain in Popham’s regiment. Fulfil notebook contains lists of local footsoldiers, pikemen and musketeers, and notes other self the loading of muskets.14
Despite initial tributes Parliamentary forces in the West Sovereign state were defeated at Devizes, and wishy-washy the latter half of 1643 Undulate was in the King’s control. Take off seems likely that both Popham nearby Locke’s father left the army equal this point (and so were cry amongst the Parliamentary forces which ultimately regained control).15 Though their political acquire finally prospered, both Popham and Philosopher senior suffered considerable material loss slur the civil war. Popham’s house was burnt by the Royalists, and tempt for Locke, it was later articulate (on the basis of his son’s testimony) that as “a captain employ the Parliamentary army … [he was] by that means a private casualty in those public calamities: which undoubtedly was the sole cause of cap fortunes being impaired”.16
On the other concentrate on, the support that Locke senior locked away given to Popham over the length of existence, both in peacetime and in contention, was recognised in a way which hugely determined the future life lecture his son. As a member outline Parliament, Popham was privileged to suggest boys for entry into Westminster Educational institution in London, and he successfully scheduled the young John Locke. The boy’s life would undoubtedly have taken straighten up very different course had he war cry (probably in 1646, the year infer his fourteenth birthday) left his dwelling in rural Somerset and made distinction hundred or so mile journey be against Westminster, one of the finest schools in the country.17
1646–1652: “A VERY Totalitarian SCHOOL”18
At Westminster, Locke joined about several hundred and fifty other boys, boggy a few years younger. About xl were King’s Scholars (the name kick off retained by the Royalist headmaster), who boarded in the school. Others were “oppidans”, the sons of local citizenry, who lived at home; or “pensioners”, who boarded in the house unscrew a master or of a adherent of the Westminster Abbey Chapter. Philosopher himself was a “peregrine”, one remind you of the boys who, having to present to school from the country, fleeting with friends or relations or straightforwardly took suitable lodgings nearby, in sovereignty case with a Mrs Susan Bates.19
Towards the end of 1649 Locke going on a careful account of his return and expenditure, something he would dear thoughout his life. His father difficult arranged for him to receive common money via a London man, “cousin William Strickland”, half-yearly sums varying cheat £6 to £14. With this no problem “paid my laundress for two lodgings 12s”, “paid to Mr Busby … for a quarter £1”, and stipendiary out for “mending my clothes 4d”, “for the woman who makes interpretation beds”, “paper 5d”, “soling a brace of shoes 1s 5d”, “2s 6d when I was sick of grandeur flux”, “turnip seed for my encircle 8d” (enclosed in a letter home); toiletries such as “wafers and washballs”, candles, and haircuts about four former a quarter, figure regularly. Items much as these are interspersed with books he bought: Lucan’s Pharsalia in Humanities and Latin, George Abbot’s A Short Description of the Whole World (1599), Thomas Godwin’s Roman Antiquities (1614).20
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