Locke

called Cannon Row, Westminster. But the fogs and smoke of London then, as now, were not favourable to per

pursuits, namely, the wide and philosophical view which they both took of theological controversies. Cudworth belonged to the small but learned and refined group of Cambridge Platonists or Latitudinarians, as they were called, which also numbered Henry More, John Smith, Culverwell, and Whichcote. Liberal and tolerant Churchmanship in those days, when it was so rare, was probably a much closer bond of union than it is now, and the associations which she had formed with her father's liberal, philosophical, and devout spirit must have helped to endear Locke to the daughter of Dr. Cudworth. During Locke's absence from England, Damaris Cudworth had married, as his second wife, Sir Francis Masham, an amiable and hospitable country gentleman, who seems to have occupied a prominent position in his county. With them lived Mrs. Cudworth, the widow of Dr. Cudworth, one little son, Francis, and a daughter by the former marriage, Esther, who was about fourteen when Locke commenced his visits to the family. From the first he seems to have had some idea of settling down at Oates, "making trial of the air of the place," than which, as Lady Masham tells us, "he thought none would be more suitable to him." After a very severe illness in the autumn of 1690,

Pembroke (to whom the Essay is dedicated in what we should now regard as a tone of overwrought compliment) opened his town house for weekly meetings in which, instead of political and personal gossip, things of the mind were discussed. These conversations, "undisturbed by such as could not bear a part in the best entertai

was commissioned to bring back a pound of tea and copies of the Acta Eruditorum. The tea must be had at any price. "I want the best tea," Locke writes to Limborch, "even if it costs forty florins a pound; only you must be quick, or we shall

in in London, living in his father's house at Chelsea. It is plain that the young philosopher saw a good deal of his "foster-father," as he called him, and they must often have discussed together the questions which were so interes

ke's return to England, he found Somers a member of the Convention Parliament. The younger man, both when he was a rising barrister and a successful minister, seems frequently to have consulted the elder one, and Locke's principles of government, finance, and toleration must often have exerted a considerable influence both on his speeches and his measures. Nor had Locke any reason to be ashamed of his teaching. "Lord Somers," says H

the Mint. In January, 1690-91, the philosopher and the mathematician met at Oates. Their conversation there probably turned chiefly on theological topics, as was the case with most of their correspondence afterwards. Newton was greatly interested not only in theological speculation, but in the interpretation of prophecy and Biblical criticism, on both of which subjects works by him are extant. In 1690 he wrote a manuscript letter to Locke, entitled "An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture in a Letter to a Friend," the texts criticised being 1 John v. 7, and 1 Timothy iii. 16. The corruption of the former of these texts is now almost universally, and that of the latter very generally, acknowledged; but so jealous of orthodoxy, in respect of anything which seemed to affect the doctrine of the Trinity, was public opinion at that time, that Newton did not dare to publish the pamphlet. Locke, who was meditating a visit to Holland, was, by Newton's wish, to have taken it over with him, and to have had it translated into French, and published anonymously. But the intended visit fell through, and Locke sent the manuscript over to Le Clerc. So timid, however, was Newton, that he now tried to recall it. "Let me entreat you," he writes to Locke, "to stop the translation and impression of the papers as soon as you can, for I desire to suppress them." Le Clerc thought more nobly and more justly that "one ought to risk a little in order to be of service to those honest folk who err only through ignorance, and who, if they get a chance, would gladly be disabused of their false notions." The letter was not published till after its author's death,

Locke made a special journey to London to visit him on his death-bed, and was, as we have seen, left one of his literary executors. The editin

im. Sir James Tyrrell, another old college friend, usually spoken of in Locke's correspondence as Musidore, was in communication with him as late as April, 1704, the y

between the two friends; at all events, during the remainder of Locke's life they are constantly associated. Locke advised Clarke as to the education of his children, one of whom, Betty, a little girl now about ten years old, seems to have been reg

eeble health, which prevented him from crossing the Channel. But the feeling of affection seems soon to have become as intense, notwithstanding Aristotle's dictum that personal intercourse is essential to the continuance of friendship, as if they had lived together all their lives. In his second letter to Molyneux, dated Sept. 20, 1692, Locke says:-"You must expect to have me live with you hereafter, with all the liberty and assurance of a settled friendship. For meeting with but few men in the world whose acquaintance I find much reason to covet, I make more than ordinary haste into the familiarity of a rational inquirer after and lover of truth, whenever I can light on any such. There are beauties of the mind as well as of the body, that take and prevail at first sight; and, wherever I have met with this, I have readily surrendered myself, and have never yet been deceived in my expectation." Molyneux had thought of coming over to England on a visit to Locke in the summer of 1694. Locke, in a letter written in the following spring, after deprecating the risks to which his journey might expose him adds:-"And yet, if I may confess my secret thoughts, there is not anything which I would not give that some other unavoidable occasion would draw you into England. A rational, free-minded man, tied to nothing but truth, is so rare a thing that I almost worship such a friend; but, when friendship is joined to it, and these are brought into a free conversation, where they meet and can be together, what is there can have equal charms? I cannot but exceedingly wish

*

ich had so long," nearly twenty years, "lain by, forgotten." The time to which Locke refers must be the year 1672, when the Exchequer was closed, that is to say, all payments to the public creditors suspended for a year, and the interest on the Bankers' advances reduced to six per cent. This nefarious act of spoliation, which caused wide-spread ruin and distress, was devised while Shaftesbury was Chancellor of the Exchequer,

nd when I ask myself what has so hampered and occupied me during the last three months, it seems as if a sort of spell had been thrown on me, so that I have got entangled first in one business and then in another, without being able to avoid it, or, in fact, to foresee what was coming." Locke was pre-eminently a good-natured man, and, like many other men before and since, he had to pay t

had so long been preparing, the Historia Inquisitionis, to Tillotson, then Archbishop of Canterbury. Limborch evidently set great store on this privilege. Of Tillotson, Locke seems to have entertained a very high opinion; which, indeed, was thoroughly well deserved. "In proportion to his renow

ve form, was never carried out. Though he does not seem to have doubted that "morality might be demonstrably made out," yet whether he was able so to make it out was another question. "Every one could not have demonstrated what Mr. Newton's book hath shown to be demonstrable." He was, however, ready to employ the first leisure he could find that way. But the treatise never proceeded beyond a few rough notes. Another reason assigned, at a later period, for not more seriously setting about this task was that "the Gospel contains so perfect a body of ethics, that reason may be excused for that inquiry, since she may find man's duty clearer and easier in revelation than in herself." This argument shows at once the sincerity of Locke's religious convictions, and the inadequate conception he had formed to himself of the grounds and nature of Moral Philosophy. Another suggestion made by Molyneux was that, besides a second edition of the Essay, Locke should bring out, in accordance with the main lines of his philosophy, another work forming a complete compendium of logic and metaphysics for the use of University Students. No one can regret that the author of the Essay did not adopt this advice. Apropos of this suggestion, Molyneux tells Locke that Dr. Ashe, then Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, "was so wonderfully pleased and satisfied with the work, that he has ordered it to be read by the bachelors in

s copy of the first edition, with these slips pasted in, is in the British Museum; and that of William Molyneux in the Bodleian. In sending to Molyneux the second edition, Locke had also forwarded the slips to be pa

heories of the French philosopher. The result was two tractates-one entitled Remarks upon some of Mr. Norris's Books; the other, An Examination of Père Malebranche's Opinion of seeing all things in God. The latter is much the more considerable production of the two, and is mainly remarkable as showing that Locke saw clearly

is attack, and insinuated that Locke was its author by affecting to disbelieve it. The book was described as "all over Socinianized," and a Socinian, if not an atheist, is, according to Edwards, "one that favours the cause of atheism." That there was much similarity between the apparent opinions of Locke and the doctrines of Faustus Socinus himself, though not of Socinus's more extreme followers, who were also popularly called Socinians, admits of no doubt. But the charge of favouring atheism can only have been brought against a man who regarded the existence of God as "the most obvious truth that reason discovers," and who appears never to have questioned the reality of supernatural intervention, from time to time, in the world's history, because it happened to be the roughest stone that could be found in the controversial wallet. Locke replied to Edwards with pardonable asperity, in a tract entitled A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity. Edwards, of course, soon replied to the reply, and attacked Locke more violently than ever in his Socinianism Unmasked. No rejoinder followed, but the adversary was not to be let off on such easy terms. Another shot was fired, and The Socinian Creed, as venomous and more successful than the Socinianism Unmasked, provoked A Second Vindication. This lengthy pamphlet, far more elaborate than the first, must have occupied much of Locke's time. It did not appear till the spring of 1697. Edwards returned to the charge; but, fortunately, Locke had the wisdom and courage to re

eem always to have been ready to accord him a hearty welcome, whenever he cared to pay them a visit. His little "wife," Betty Clarke, and her brother used occasionally to come on visits to him at the Mashams, and he seems to have taken great delight in the society of Esther Masham, who was now rapidly growing up

d by Act of Parliament in April of that year, and invested with certain trading privileges, on condition that it should lend its capital to the Government at eight per cent. interest. The plan had encounte