The spiritual philosophy of Berkeley and the philosophical nescience of Hume-opposite issues of the Essay of Locke-are types of the two antithetical modes of treating the eternal problem of the universe and our knowledge of it, that have appeared, in various phases, in all ages of philosophical activity. They are distinguished by what is after all a difference of degree in the depth to which thinkers go in their interpretations; this determined by the degree in which reason and will, the supernatural elements in man, along with reverential faith, are awakened in the interpreter. Is man justified in interpreting the universe spiritually at last, as well as sensually at first; or is a positive conception, under associations of mechanical causality, all that is legitimate: and if this last, is even this, or indeed any, interpretation at all, philosophically competent ? To describe the answers since given, in the line of Berkeley, on the one hand, and in the line of Hume on the other, would be to present a history of modern religious and philosophical thought; and it might illustrate the sentiment of Bacon, 'that a little philosophy inclineth Man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.' CONCERNING HUMANE UNDERSTANDING IN FOUR BOOKS [WRITTEN BY JOHN LOCKE, GENT.] [As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all things.-ECCLES. XI. 5.] Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire quod nescias, quam ista effutientem nauseare, atque ipsum sibi displicere.-CIC. DE NATUR. DEOR. 1. i. LONDON Printed by Eliz. Holt, for Thomas Basset, at the George in Fleet Street, near St. Dunstan's Church. MDCXC 1 Added in second edition. VOL. I. B 2 Added in fourth edition. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY, BARON HERBERT OF CARDIFF LORD ROSS, OF KENDAL, PAR, FITZHUGH, MARMION, ST. QUINTIN, AND SHURLAND; AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF WILTS, AND OF SOUTH WALES'. MY LORD, THIS Treatise, which is grown up under your lordship's eye, and has ventured into the world by your order, does now, by a natural kind of right, come to your lordship for that protection which you several years since promised it. It is not that I think any name, how great soever, set at the beginning of a book, will be able to cover the faults that are to be found in it. Things in print must stand and fall by their own worth, or the reader's fancy. But there being nothing more to be desired for truth than a fair unprejudiced hearing, nobody is more likely to procure me that than your lordship, who are allowed to have got so intimate an acquaintance with her, in 1 Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke (1656–1733), the patron and friend of Locke, and also of Berkeley, who, twenty years afterwards, dedicated his Principles of Human Knowledge to that ornament and support of learning.' In his day Pembroke filled high offices of state, the representative of an illustrious family, of whom Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the metaphysician, and his brother George Herbert the poet, were members. He was president of the Royal Society in 1690, when Locke's Essay was dedicated to him in token of kind offices done in evil times.' 2 About 1676 Locke and Pembroke (then Mr. Herbert) were intimate at Montpellier, Locke's retreat for study at that time, and where he completed the first draft of the Essay. Afterwards till the end of his life, Mr. Herbert' and 'Lord Pembroke' often appear in Locke's letters. her more retired recesses. Your lordship is known to have so far advanced your speculations in the most abstract and general knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary reach or common methods, that your allowance and approbation of the design of this Treatise will at least preserve it from being condemned without reading, and will prevail to have those parts a little weighed, which might otherwise perhaps be thought to deserve no consideration, for being somewhat out of the common road. The imputation of Novelty is a terrible charge amongst those who judge of men's heads, as they do of their perukes, by the fashion, and can allow none to be right but the received doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common'. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine. It is trial and examination must give it price, and not any antique fashion; and though it be not yet current by the public stamp, yet it may, for all that, be as old as nature, and is certainly not the less genuine. Your lordship can give great and convincing instances of this, whenever you please to oblige the public with some of those large and comprehensive discoveries you have made of truths hitherto unknown, unless to some few, from whom your lordship has been pleased not wholly to conceal them. This alone were a sufficient reason, were there no other, why I should dedicate this Essay to your lordship; and its having some little correspondence with some parts of that nobler 1 Locke is conscious that he is making a new departure in the Essay. Its novelty is here assumed, and was at once recognised by Molyneux and other enthusiastic readers when it appeared, though now less apparent. Its own influence has since converted much in its spirit and doctrine into commonplace. Its novel assault on innate ideas and a priori theorising was Locke's way of leading the great modern revolt against blind authority and empty verbalism. Stillingfleet charges him with inventing a 'new way of certainty by means of ideas, instead of the old way of certainty by means of reason.' Lee, in Anti-Scepticism, complains that the Essay is 'writ throughout in a kind of new language.' The inductive, yet introspective psychology of Locke was also a 'novelty,' in contrast both to the verbal reasonings of the schools, and to the empirical materialism of Hobbes and Gassendi. But the originality of the Essay is mainly due to its being a genuine revelation of the powerful individuality of its author. |