John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704)Grave tablet from 1705: ... That he was born on the 29th of August in the year of our Lord 1632, and that he died on the 28th of October in the year of our Lord 1704, this tablet, which itself will quickly perish, is a record. See also: R. Woolhouse, Locke. A Biography, New York 2007, p. 1. was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". His important works include A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), Two Treatises of Government (1689/90), both published anonymously, and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689/90). His writing on toleration contends that religion is a matter for the individual and that the churches are voluntary associations, ruling out religious coercion and uniformity. The ideas on the separation of church and state originated with Sir Harry Vane in Vane’s two pamphlets “Zeal Examined” in 1651 and “A Healing Question” published in 1656. His Two Treatises on Government argues for government based on the consent of the governed and the right to revolt against tyrannous government which has lost consent. The Two Treatises are believed to have influenced the language that Thomas Jefferson chose in his drafting the July 1776 Declaration of Independence during the American War of Independence.
Locke lived through the tumultuous political era of the English Civil War and Commonwealth of England after the execution of Charles I, Restoration of the Stuart monarchy, and the 1688 Glorious Revolution. These experiences affected his political thinking and life choices. During the Interregnum, Locke won a place at Christ Church, Oxford after attending the prestigious Westminster School. He spent 15 years at Oxford, first as a student, then as a tutor, pursuing medical and other scientific interests in a circle of friends. He is also listed as a shareholder with the “Royal Company of Adventures Trading to Africa” founded by the Duke of York and King Charles II who traded in slaves beginning in 1663 per the charter of the company. In 1666, Locke became an associate of Lord Shaftesbury, a key figure in English political life after the Restoration (1660), and Locke was appointed to governmental posts at Shaftesbury's recommendation. Locke was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (1668). When Shaftesbury fell from royal favour and died shortly thereafter, Locke went into political exile for five years in the Netherlands (1683–85). There he wrote some of his most important works. During this period, he gained the patronage of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke. Locke returned to England from exile, accompanying Queen Mary II in 1689. He published three of his most notable works soon after his return. He served as a Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, then retired from public life due to ill health. For the last fourteen years of his life, he lived in the household of Sir Francis Masham and his wife, philosopher Lady Masham, whom Locke had known since she was a young woman.Bourne, H.R. Fox. The Life of John Locke. London: Henry S. King & Co. 2 volumes.Woolhouse, Roger. John Locke, A Biography. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press 2007, .
Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Internationally, Locke's political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law."Foreword and study guide to" John Locke's Two Treatises on Government: A Translation into Modern English, ISR Publications, 2013, p. ii. .
Locke's philosophy of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of personal identity and the psychology of self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers, such as Rousseau, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. He postulated that, at birth, the mind is a blank slate, or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on preexisting concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception, a concept now known as empiricism. Locke is often credited for describing private property as a natural right, arguing that when a person—metaphorically—mixes their labour with nature, resources can be removed from the common state of nature.
Ancestry, early life, and education
Locke was born on 29 August 1632 to Puritan parents in the village of Wrington, Somerset. His father, John Locke, Sr. (born 1606), was 23 when he married Agnes Keene, age 33. They had their first child, John, about a year later, when the couple was living in a house that had belonged to Agnes's grandparents. The boy was baptised the same day as his birth in nearby All Saints' Church. During the reign of Henry VIII, young Locke's great-grandfather, Sir William Locke, was a prosperous merchant dealing in luxury cloth. His son Nicholas Locke (d. 1648) continued in the cloth trade, as a businessman involved in the putting-out system, providing raw wool to weavers working in their homes, then collecting the finished cloth and sending it on. John Locke, Sr. was Nicholas's oldest son, who became an attorney. Soon after Locke's birth in 1632, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, about seven miles south of Bristol, into a house Nicholas gave his lawyer son. Young Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton, where his brothers were born: Peter, who died in infancy, and Thomas (b. 1637). Locke, Sr. served as clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna. One of the justices was Alexander Popham, a Member of Parliament for Bath and a wealthy landowner.Woolhouse, Roger. John Locke, A Biography. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press 2007, pp. 5-7
Young Locke was 10 at the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, pitting royalists supporting Charles I against Parliamentarian forces. As a Puritan, Locke's father fought for the Parliamentarian forces, who eventually won the English Civil War. He served as a captain in a cavalry under Alexander Popham. Locke, Sr.'s political choice and personal connection came to benefit his son and namesake. In 1647, young Locke's provincial life changed when he became a student at the prestigious Westminster School in London, under the sponsorship of Popham. Locke wrote of those early years, "I found myself in a storm."Locke writing in 1660, quoted in Woolhouse 2007, p.5
At Westminster School, Locke gained the education leading to further accomplishment. Also importantly, young Locke gained entry into a network of friendship and patronage that later aided his scholarly and political career. While he was a student there, he was just a half mile away from the site of Charles I's execution following his trial by a special court created by Parliament; Westminster students were not allowed to attend it.
After completing studies at Westminster at age 20, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford, in the autumn of 1652. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen, vice-chancellor of the university. Although a capable student, Locke was irritated by the undergraduate curriculum of the time. He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university.
Through his friend Richard Lower, whom he knew from the Westminster School, Locke was introduced to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued at other universities and by members of the Royal Society, founded in 1660, of which he eventually became a member.
Locke was awarded a bachelor's degree in February 1656 and a master's degree in June 1658, all of which was during the Interregnum. Much later, he was awarded a bachelor of medicine in February 1675, having studied the subject extensively during his time at Oxford and served as a physician prior to formal certification.
At Oxford he worked with such noted experimental scientists and thinkers as Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, and Robert Hooke. At Oxford, among many other things, he was exposed to Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan translated by Edward Pococke, who influenced his perspectives on philosophy and tabula rasa.
In the modern era, there is an engraved floor memorial plaque to Locke at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, which also notes his connection to Westminster School.
Career after Oxford
In 1665, Locke travelled outside England for the first time, when he was appointed the secretary of Sir Walter Vane on a royal diplomatic mission to the Elector of Brandenburg. He was probably chosen through the network of contacts from his days at Westminster School who now had high influence. The diplomatic mission was a failure, but the time spent in Cleves, the capital, was still important. There he experienced a place where different religious groups, writing to his Oxford friend Robert Boyle that people "quietly permit one another to choose their way to heaven".Locke, quoted in Bourne, v.1, p. 103 He turned down a subsequent opportunity in a diplomatic mission to Spain and returned to Oxford.
In 1666, when Locke was 34, he met Anthony Ashley Cooper, later Lord Shaftesbury, a title by which he is now generally known. When he met Locke, he held the powerful position of Chancellor of the Exchequer; he became a key figure in Locke's life. Up until then, Locke lived a quiet scholarly life. The meeting with Shaftesbury was by chance; he was in Oxford, visiting his son. Shaftesbury wanted to drink waters from a nearby spa for a liver infection, which somehow Locke was tasked with bringing him. Shaftesbury was impressed with Locke and persuaded him to become part of his retinue. In 1667 Locke moved into Shaftesbury's London home at Exeter House on the Strand, to be his personal physician. In London, Locke resumed his medical studies under the tutelage of Thomas Sydenham. Sydenham had a major effect on Locke's natural philosophical thinking, emphasizing observation rather than a priori thinking. Locke's medical knowledge was put to the test when Shaftesbury's liver infection became life-threatening. Locke coordinated the advice of several physicians and was probably instrumental in persuading Ashley to undergo surgery (then life-threatening in itself) to remove the cyst. Shaftesbury survived and prospered, crediting Locke with saving his life.
In 1669 Ashley, one of the Lord Proprietors of Carolina, directed Locke in drafting the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. Sometimes it is attributed to Locke as author, but his role was more as secretary to Ashley. Locke's patron became Lord Chancellor in 1672 and then raised to the title 1st Earl of Shaftesbury in 1673. An indication of Locke's rise in status is that the first known portrait was painted by John Greenhill, around the same that Shaftesbury sat for the artist. Shaftesbury appointed Locke secretary to the Lords Proprietors and secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Locke was one of the early scholars in Britain to read and own Baruch Spinoza's radical text Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in 1672, which he sold to his patron Shaftesbury in 1675, but purchased another copy to replace it. Locke took great care subsequently "to avoid being tainted by 'Spinosa'".Israel, Jonathan I. Spinoza, Life & Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2023, pp. 830–31, .