What is the main message of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding?
Natural law is also distinct from divine law in that the latter, inthe Christian tradition, normally referred to those laws that God haddirectly revealed through prophets and other inspired writers. Naturallaw can be discovered by reason alone and applies to all people, whiledivine law can be discovered only through God’s specialrevelation and applies only to those to whom it is revealed and whomGod specifically indicates are to be bound. Thus someseventeenth-century commentators, Locke included, held that not all ofthe 10 commandments, much less the rest of the Old Testament law, werebinding on all people. The 10 commandments begin “Hear OIsrael” and thus are only binding on the people to whom theywere addressed (Works 6:37). (Spelling and formatting aremodernized in quotations from Locke in this entry). As we will seebelow, even though Locke thought natural law could be known apart fromspecial revelation, he saw no contradiction in God playing a part inthe argument, so long as the relevant aspects of God’s charactercould be discovered by reason alone. In Locke’s theory, divinelaw and natural law are consistent and can overlap in content, butthey are not coextensive. Thus there is no problem for Locke if theBible commands a moral code that is stricter than the one that can bederived from natural law, but there is a real problem if the Bibleteaches what is contrary to natural law. In practice, Locke avoidedthis problem because consistency with natural law was one of thecriteria he used when deciding the proper interpretation of Biblicalpassages.
John Locke (1632–1704) is among the most influential politicalphilosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises ofGovernment, he defended the claim that men are by nature free andequal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject toa monarch. He argued that people have rights, such as the right tolife, liberty, and property, that have a foundation independent of thelaws of any particular society. Locke used the claim that men arenaturally free and equal as part of the justification forunderstanding legitimate political government as the result of asocial contract where people in the state of nature conditionallytransfer some of their rights to the government in order to betterensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, andproperty. Since governments exist by the consent of the people inorder to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good,governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with newgovernments. Locke is thus also important for his defense of the rightof revolution. Locke also defends the principle of majority rule andthe separation of legislative and executive powers. In the LetterConcerning Toleration, Locke denied that coercion should be usedto bring people to (what the ruler believes is) the true religion andalso denied that churches should have any coercive power over theirmembers. Locke elaborated on these themes in his later politicalwritings, such as the Second Letter on Toleration andThird Letter on Toleration. In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious in London under the sponsorship of , a member of Parliament and John Sr.'s former commander. At the age of 16 he was at school just half a mile away from the ; however, the boys were not allowed to go and watch. After completing studies at Westminster, he was admitted to , , in the autumn of 1652 at the age of 20. The dean of the college at the time was , 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 , more interesting than the material taught at the university. Through his friend , whom he knew from the Westminster School, Locke was introduced to medicine and the being pursued at other universities and in the , of which he eventually became a member.[] With respect to the grounds and content of natural law, Locke is notcompletely clear. On the one hand, there are many instances where hemakes statements that sound voluntarist to the effect that lawrequires a legislator with authority (Essay 1.3.6, 4.10.7).Locke also repeatedly insists in the Essays on the Law ofNature that created beings have an obligation to obey theircreator (Political Essays 116–120). On the other handthere are statements that seem to imply an external moral standard towhich God must conform (Two Treatises 2.195; Works7:6). Locke clearly wants to avoid the implication that the content ofnatural law is arbitrary. Several solutions have been proposed. Onesolution suggested by Herzog (1985) makes Locke an intellectualist bygrounding our obligation to obey God on a prior duty of gratitude thatexists independent of God. A second option, suggested by Simmons(1992), is simply to take Locke as a voluntarist since that is wherethe preponderance of his statements point. A third option, suggestedby Tuckness (1999) (and implied by Grant 1987 and affirmed byIsraelson 2013), is to treat the question of voluntarism as having twodifferent parts, grounds and content. On this view, Locke was indeed avoluntarist with respect to the question “why should we obey thelaw of nature?” Locke thought that reason, apart from the willof a superior, could only be advisory. With respect to content, divinereason and human reason must be sufficiently analogous that humanbeings can reason about what God likely wills. Locke takes it forgranted that since God created us with reason in order to followGod’s will, human reason and divine reason are sufficientlysimilar that natural law will not seem arbitrary to us. In the 50 years after Queen Anne's death in 1714, the were reprinted only once (except in the collected works of Locke). However, with the rise of American resistance to British taxation, the gained a new readership; it was frequently cited in the debates in both America and Britain. The first American printing occurred in 1773 in Boston. Nor will it be of much moment here to offer that very ready but not verymaterial answer, viz. that the innate principles of morality may, by education,and custom, and the general opinion of those amongst whom we converse, bedarkened, and at last quite worn out of the minds of men. Which assertion oftheirs, if true, quite takes away the argument of universal consent, by whichthis opinion of innate principles is endeavoured to be proved; unless those menwill think it reasonable that their private persuasions, or that of theirparty, should pass for universal consent;—a thing not unfrequently done,when men, presuming themselves to be the only masters of right reason, cast bythe votes and opinions of the rest of mankind as not worthy the reckoning. Andthen their argument stands thus:—“The principles which all mankind allowfor true, are innate; those that men of right reason admit, are the principlesallowed by all mankind; we, and those of our mind, are men of reason;therefore, we agreeing, our principles are innate”;—which is a verypretty way of arguing, and a short cut to infallibility. For otherwise it willbe very hard to understand how there be some principles which all men doacknowledge and agree in; and yet there are none of those principles which arenot, by depraved custom and ill education, blotted out of the minds of manymen: which is to say, that all men admit, but yet many men do deny and dissentfrom them. And indeed the supposition of SUCH first principles will serve us tovery little purpose; and we shall be as much at a loss with as without them, ifthey may, by any human power—such as the will of our teachers, oropinions of our companions—be altered or lost in us: and notwithstandingall this boast of first principles and innate light, we shall be as much in thedark and uncertainty as if there were no such thing at all: it being all one tohave no rule, and one that will warp any way; or amongst various and contraryrules, not to know which is the right. But concerning innate principles, Idesire these men to say, whether they can or cannot, by education and custom,be blurred and blotted out; if they cannot, we must find them in all mankindalike, and they must be clear in everybody; and if they may suffer variationfrom adventitious notions, we must then find them clearest and most perspicuousnearest the fountain, in children and illiterate people, who have receivedleast impression from foreign opinions. Let them take which side they please,they will certainly find it inconsistent with visible matter of fact and dailyobservation. Locke exercised a profound influence on , in particular on modern liberalism. has argued that Locke launched liberalism by tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly . He had a strong influence on , who called him " Locke". His arguments concerning and the later influenced the written works of . One passage from the is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a "long train of abuses". Concerning Locke, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
John Locke is the author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding
John Locke (1632-1704)
London: Printed by Elizabeth Holt for Thomas Basset, 1690
First edition, first issue
B1290 1690
How many chapters are in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding?
Locke also supported , which was an intrinsic part of all pre-industrial societies. In his "Essay on the Poor Law", he discusses the education of the poor; he laments that "the children of labouring people are an ordinary burden to the parish, and are usually maintained in idleness, so that their labour also is generally lost to the public till they are 12 or 14 years old". Therefore, he suggests the setting up of "working schools" for poor children in each parish in England so that they will be "from infancy [three years old] inured to work". He goes on to outline the economics of these schools, arguing not only that they will be profitable for the parish, but also that they will instil a good work ethic in the children.
How many pages are in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding?
But had all mankind everywhere a notion of a God, (whereof yet history tells usthe contrary,) it would not from thence follow, that the idea of him wasinnate. For, though no nation were to be found without a name, and some fewdark notions of him, yet that would not prove them to be natural impressions onthe mind; no more than the names of fire, or the sun, heat, or number, do provethe ideas they stand for to be innate; because the names of those things, andthe ideas of them, are so universally received and known amongst mankind. Nor,on the contrary, is the want of such a name, or the absence of such a notionout of men’s minds, any argument against the being of a God; any more than itwould be a proof that there was no loadstone in the world, because a great partof mankind had neither a notion of any such thing nor a name for it; or be anyshow of argument to prove that there are no distinct and various species ofangels, or intelligent beings above us, because we have no ideas of suchdistinct species, or names for them. For, men being furnished with words, bythe common language of their own countries, can scarce avoid having some kindof ideas of those things whose names those they converse with have occasionfrequently to mention to them. And if they carry with it the notion ofexcellency, greatness, or something extraordinary; if apprehension andconcernment accompany it; if the fear of absolute and irresistible power set iton upon the mind,—the idea is likely to sink the deeper, and spread thefurther; especially if it be such an idea as is agreeable to the common lightof reason, and naturally deducible from every part of our knowledge, as that ofa God is. For the visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear soplainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who willbut seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a Deity. And theinfluence that the discovery of such a Being must necessarily have on the mindsof all that have but once heard of it is so great, and carries such a weight ofthought and communication with it, that it seems stranger to me that a wholenation of men should be anywhere found so brutish as to want the notion of aGod, than that they should be without any notion of numbers, or fire.