Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular WarAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 4 (of 8): From the Fall of Marlborough to the Peninsular War
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
The great philosopher of this period was John Locke (_b._ 1632;
_d._ 1704). Locke had much to do with the governments of his time,
and especially with that extraordinary agitator and speculator,
Ashley, Lord Shaftesbury, whom he attended in his banishment, and
did not return till the Revolution. Yet, though so much connected
with government, office, and the political schemers, Locke remained
wonderfully unworldly in his nature. His philosophical bias, no doubt,
preserved him from the corrupt influences around him. He was a staunch
advocate of toleration, and wrote three letters on Toleration, and left
another unfinished at his death. In these he defended both religious
and civil liberty against Jonas Proast and Sir Robert Filmer, advocates
of the divine right of kings. His "Thoughts on Education" and his
"Treatises on Government" served as the foundations of Rousseau's
"Emile" and his "Contrat Social." Besides these he wrote numerous works
of a theological kind, as "The Vindication of the Reasonableness of
Christianity;" and in his last years, "A Discourse upon Miracles,"
"Paraphrases of St. Paul," and "An Essay for the Understanding of
St. Paul's Epistles;" a work "On the Conduct of the Understanding,"
and "An Examination of Father Malebranche's Opinion of Seeing all
Things in God." But his great work is his "Essay concerning the Human
Understanding." This may be considered the first pure and systematic
treatise on metaphysics in the English language; and though the pursuit
of the science since his time has led to the rejection of many of his
opinions, the work will always remain as an able and clearly-reasoned
attempt to follow the method of Bacon in tracing the nature and
operations of the understanding.
In the department of philosophy flourished also Bishop Berkeley (_b._
1684; _d._ 1753), author of "The Principles of Human Knowledge,"
whostartled the world with the theory that matter has no existence in
the universe, but is merely a fixed idea of the mind; Dr. Mandeville,
a Dutchman by birth, who settled in London, and published various
medical and metaphysical works of a freethinking character; Hutchinson,
an opponent of Dr. Woodward in natural history, and Newton in natural
philosophy; and David Hartley, author of "Observations on Man." Bishop
Butler, Warburton, Hoadley, Middleton, author of "A Free Inquiry
into the Miraculous Powers of the Church," and Secker, Archbishop of
Canterbury, were the leading theologians in the Church; but Dissent
could also boast of its men of light and leading in Dr. Isaac Watts,
author of a system of Logic and of the popular Hymns; Calamy, the
opponent of Hoadley; Doddridge, and others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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