He was amusing himself with such enquiries, when one of the slight but important accidents of life brought him an acquaintance, whose influence determined his future course. A friend, being obliged to take a journey, desired Locke to make his excuses to Lord Ashley (afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury) for not having procured for him some mineral waters against his arrival in Oxford. When Lord Ashley did arrive, Locke carried this message to him. They were mutually pleased with each other, and this acquaintance speedily grew up into a strict friendship. Locke’s advice determined Lord Ashley to submit to a surgical operation, by which, it is said, the life of the patient was saved; and he was received into the house, and practised his profession in the family and amongst a few private friends of his noble patron. While living in this way, his thoughts were turned into the channel of politics by the advice of his new associates; and, taking up that study earnestly, he was soon able to advise and assist Ashley in all his plans of state, becoming at the same time the referee of his private affairs. This warm friendship is singular, considering the purity of Locke’s life, and the notoriously bad character, public and private, of his noble patron. But the latter was an eloquent orator, and an admirable talker; and it was probably this latter quality which attached Locke so much. He had so great an esteem for good conversation, as to give it a first place in the formation of a man’s mind, calling books the raw material, and social talk, with meditation, the true architects of our mental constructions. In 1668 Locke attended the Earl and Countess of Northumberland to France. But some accident caused him soon to return to his old residence with Shaftesbury, for whom he drew up the fundamental laws of Carolina, which had just been granted to him and other lords. Two of the articles of this settlement gave great offence to the clergy, and were expunged. They are remarkable, and should be mentioned. One was, “That no man that doth not acknowledge a God, and that God publicly worshipped, should be a freeman or inhabitant of Carolina.” The other was a proposition, that any seven persons agreeing in a form of worship should be esteemed a church, and be supported by the state. The Church of England, however, was alone established in that colony. In 1671 Locke began to form his great Essay on the Human Understanding; but his engagements with Shaftesbury prevented its immediate completion. The year following, his patron becoming Chancellor, Locke was made secretary of presentations, which office he speedily lost on the partial disgrace of the Earl, who, still remaining President of the Board of Trade, appointed him secretary to a commission of inquiry into the state of trade, and the colonial plantations. This office he also lost in the same manner, upon Lord Shaftesbury’s total disgrace in 1674.