greeting and embracing you; that, I am sure, you will believe."1

I

A westerly wind detained the princess at the Hague for nearly a fortnight. "I still thought I should be able to see you in Amsterdam," Locke wrote again on Wednesday, the 6th of February; "but fate seems determined to thwart my wishes. First the frost, and then my hurried packing-up, and now the rain, have prevented me. went last Saturday to the Hague, thinking I could induce the lady of whom I have told you to accompany me to Amsterdam, as we had before intended. But a violent storm burst on us at Delft, and lasted all the way to the Hague, so that when I got there I was drenched to the skin, and my friend not only refused to go on with me the same evening, but positively forbade my making the journey myself, urging that I should be certain to fall ill if I did so. At the court I found everything ready for immediate departure, and every one so impatient of delay that it seemed doubtful whether the princess's religious scruples would hinder her from embarking even on the Lord's day, if the wind were favourable. I should have presumed on those scruples, however, if I could have succeeded in spending a Sunday with you. But now we wait for nothing but the east wind. Last evening I returned hither"-to Rotterdam, hardly more than a two hours' ride from the Hague-" and know not how long I shall be delayed. I only know that it is dreadfully irksome to wait here doing nothing and not to be able to do what I so much desire.

"How I long," he continued, "to spend just an hour or two, if no longer time were possible, with you! To

1 MSS. in the Remonstrants' Library; Locke to Limborch, [26 Jan.-] 5 Feb., 1688-9.

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see, to hear, to embrace one's friends, is a priceless joy to me. Our affection for one another needs no proof, and it could not be increased by the ceremony of a farewell; yet I do wish I could once more shake you by the hand, once more assure you by word of mouth that I am altogether yours. Many things tempt me home again; the urgency of my friends in England, the necessity of looking after my own neglected affairs, and other matters. But in going away I almost feel as though I were leaving my own country and my own kinsfolk; for everything that belongs to kinship, good-will, love, kindness-everything that binds men together with ties stronger than the ties of blood-I have found among you in abundance. I leave behind me friends whom I can never forget, and I shall never cease to wish for an opportunity of coming back to enjoy once more the genuine fellowship of men who have been such friends that, while far away from all my own connections, while suffering in every other way, I have never felt sick at heart. As for you, you best of men, most dearly and most worthily beloved, when I think of your learning, your wisdom, your kindness and candour and gentleness, I seem to have found in your friendship alone enough to make me always rejoice that I was forced to pass so many years among you. I know not how such a large portion of my life could elsewhere have been spent more pleasantly, certainly it could not have been spent more profitably. God give you heaped-up happiness, protect your country and your household, and enable you to go on in your good work for your church and all good men! To your excellent wife and to your children, to the Veens and the Guenellons, and all the rest, give my kindest good wishes and my heartiest thanks for all the services they have rendered me. Embrace them for me,

and tell them I can never forget them, or their many, many proofs of unselfish affection. Farewell, most cherished of friends, and again farewell."1

In company with the Princess of Orange and Lady Mordaunt, Locke left the Hague on the following Monday, and next day, the 12th of February, he landed at Greenwich. He had spent nearly five and a half years in Holland.

1 Familiar Letters,' p. 325; Locke to Limborch, [6-] 16 Feb., 1688-9.

4

87

THE

CHAPTER X.

"CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING."

[1671-1690.]

HE most precious article that Locke brought with him from Holland in February, 1688-9, was the manuscript of his 'Essay concerning Human Understanding.' Frequent mention of this work has been made in former pages, and it is now time that we should take some account of it and of the circumstances of its composition and publication.

Its history extends over a long period of Locke's life. We have seen that in or near the year 1671, he undertook to direct the few chosen friends, like Tyrrell and Thomas, and perhaps Sydenham and Mapletoft, who formed with him a little club that met at his chamber in Exeter House, as to the way of getting out of "the difficulties that rose on every side" in their discussion of "a subject very remote from this ;" and that he dated from this accident the origin of what, though he himself never so thought of it, we must regard as the most important philosophical treatise that has been written by any Englishman-the most important because to it is more or less due the writing of nearly every other important treatise that has since appeared - the most important, too, because, however much its doctrines have

been or may be superseded, nothing can lessen the influence of its perfect honesty and truthfulness.

His own too brief account of this memorable accident and its issue has been already quoted in part, but must here be quoted in full. "After we had puzzled ourselves without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us," he said, "it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that, before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our abilities, and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next meeting, gave the first entrance into this discourse, which, having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty, written by incoherent parcels, and after long intervals of neglect resumed again as my humour or occasions permitted; and at last, in a retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it. When I put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to say on this matter would have been contained in one sheet of paper, but the farther I went the larger prospect I had; new discoveries led me still on, and so it grew to the bulk it now appears in."1

We have not Locke's "hasty and undigested thoughts" on the subject with which he started, and which had to do with "the principles of morality and revealed religion; "2 but we have what is vastly more important to us,

1 Concerning Human Understanding,' Epistle to the Reader.

Tyrrell's note in his copy of the Essay,' now in the British Museum.