put coloured spectacles before their eyes and look on things through false glasses, and then think themselves excused for following the false appearances which themselves put upon them. I never saw any reason yet why truth might not be trusted to its own evidence. I am sure, if it be not able to support it, there is no fence against error, and then truth and falsehood are but names that stand for the same things. Evidence, therefore, is that by which alone every man is and should be taught to regulate his assent; who is then, and then only, in the right way, when he follows it." "Throwing wholly by the opinions of others, he ought, as much as he can, to examine the question in its source. This, I own, is no easy thing to do; but I am not inquiring the easy way to opinion, but the right way to truth, which they must follow who will deal fairly with their own understandings and their own souls."1 Those solemn words were not the last in this excellent fragment on The Conduct of the Understanding,' nor the last in which Locke summed up all his teaching to the world as to the way in which men should learn to become reasonable creatures. But they contained the kernel of that teaching, and the key to all his life and all his work in philosophy." 1 Of the Conduct of the Understanding,' § § 84, 35. At some time after he had taken up his residence at Oates, Locke wrote, probably for the use of Frank Masham, a very clever little handbook, entitled 'Elements of Natural Philosophy,' which was first published in 'A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. John Locke' (1720). In the spring of 1702-3 he wrote a short Essay on Miracles,' which appeared in The Posthumous Works of Mr. John Locke' (1706). Brief mention will be made in the next chapter of his commentaries on Paul's Epistles. 29 VOL. II. 450 CHAPTER XV. LAST YEARS. [1696-1704.] EFORE we follow Locke through the closing years BEEO his his having any of his life, when ill-health forbade further share in public business, and even hindered him from doing much more literary work, we must take some account of his miscellaneous occupations and concerns during the years in which, as we have just seen, he was busily employed both as a commissioner of trade and plantations and as an author. We must also go farther back to make acquaintance with a young man who, though his name has not yet occurred in our narrative, was not at this time a new companion to Locke. Very little is recorded about Locke's Somersetshire kinsfolk, but there can be no doubt that all through the time subsequent to his departure from Pensford, nearly fifty years ago, to become a Westminster boy, he had maintained very intimate relations with them, and now one of the number begins to take a prominent place in his biography. His uncle, Peter Locke, had two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth. Elizabeth married twice and had two sons, John Bonville and Peter Stratton, with whose names we meet occasionally, and to whom he did many kindnesses. Bonville was in due time established in London, and Stratton resided at his father's place, Whitsun Court, near Bristol. Locke's other cousin, Anne, became the wife of Jeremy King, a grocer of Exeter, and her son Peter was born in 1669. This child, after such schooling as would usually be given to a tradesman's son, was set to work in his father's shop. Locke, during one of his visits to Somersetshire-probably the visit that he paid just before going to Holland -met with the boy, was pleased with him, and resolved to place him in a different way of life.' From this time Peter King was almost his adopted child. Whether Locke first put him to school in England is not stated; but at some period during his stay in Holland he sent for him to complete his education in Leyden University. Thence young King returned to England, apparently in 1690, with 'An Inquiry into the Constitution and Discipline of the Primitive Church' among his luggage a work of which the theme and style fairly indicated the bent of his mind, and which was published. in 1691. He desired to become a clergyman, but had conscientious scruples about entering the established church, and therefore, at Locke's instigation, enrolled himself as a student of the Middle Temple, and devoted himself to legal pursuits; not, however, to the neglect of theology, as appears from a very learned History of the Apostles' Creed, with Critical Observations on its Several Articles,' which he published in 1702. Thus, though as yet we have very few traces of their intercourse, it is clear that, during nearly all the years. 1 Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors' (1849), vol. iv., p. 551. Lord Campbell, in his memoir of Lord King, disclosed some interesting facts and committed some curious blunders. For the former I am grateful to him. 1 when, living chiefly at Oates, Locke came to London from time to time, he had this young cousin in the Temple to look after, and to make a companion of when he had leisure for any society that was not forced upon him by business. It is clear also that Peter King was often at Oates. 66 'Your company here," Locke wrote to him thence, three weeks after the 8th of June, 1698, when he was called to the bar, "had been ten times better than any the best excuses you could send. But you may now pretend to be a man of business, and there can be nothing said to you. I wish you good success in it, and doubt not but you have the advice of those who are better skilled than I in the matter. But yet I cannot forbear saying this much to you, that when you first open your mouth at the bar, it should be in some easy plain matter that you are perfectly master of." "I am glad you are so well entered at the bar," he added a few days later, on hearing that King had started on the western circuit, and that he had taken his first brief. "It is my advice to you to go on so, gently by degrees, and to speak only in things you are perfectly master of, till you have got a confidence and habit of talking at the bar. I have many reasons for it, which I shall discover to you when I see you. We have not much information about Locke's occupations during these years, apart from the official and literary work forced upon him. The record of one significant little incident, however, has come down to us. In November, 1696, shortly before he had to go down to Oates for the winter, after his first five months' attendance 1 Lord Campbell, vol. iv., p. 551. 2 Ibid., vol. iv., p. 552; Locke to King, 27 June, 1698. . 64 at the council of trade, he accompanied King William the Third to a meeting of the society of friends, the latter being anxious to have some personal knowledge of the much maligned sect, and going incognito. Both were pleased with the service, and especially with the ministrations of Rebecca Collier, a preacher of some fame in her day, with whom Locke, if not the king, appears to have had a subsequent interview. To her Locke soon afterwards sent the following letter, accompanied by two parcels of sweetmeats, one for herself, and one for Rachel Bracken, another female preacher : "MY SWEET FRIENDS,-A paper of sweetmeats by the bearer, to attend your journey, comes to testify the sweetness I found in your society. I admire no converse like that of Christian freedom, and fear no bondage like that of pride and prejudice. I now see acquaintance by sight cannot reach. the height of enjoyment which acquaintance by knowledge arrives unto. Outward hearing may misguide, but internal knowledge cannot err. We have something here of what we shall have hereafter, to know as we are known.' This we, with other friends, were at the first view partakers of; and the more there is of this in this life, the less we need inquire of what nation, country, party or persuasion our friends are, for our own knowledge is more sure to us than another's. Thus we know when we have believed. Now the God of all grace grant that you may hold fast that rare grace of charity and choose that unbiassed and unbounded love which, if it decay not, will spring up mightily, as the waters of the sanctuary, higher and higher, until you with the universal church swim together in the ocean of divine love. Women, indeed, had the honour first to publish the resurrection of the Lord of Love; why not again the resurrection of the Spirit of Love? And let all the disciples of Christ rejoice therein, as doth your partner, "JOHN LOCKE." 2 A few months before writing thus Locke had sent a letter 1 Mrs. Thistlethwayte, Memoirs and Correspondence of Dr. Henry Bathurst, Lord Bishop of Norwich' (1853), p. 537. 2 Ibid.; Locke to Rebecca Collier, 21 Nov., 1696. Mrs. Thistlethwayte adds "Transcribed from a copy lent me by Joseph John Gurney, Norwich, 4 Sept., 1831." |