With Le Clerc (Joannes Clericus) himself Locke first became personally acquainted after his return to Amsterdam in the winter of 1685-86. Le Clerc was still young, having been born at Geneva in 1657, but he had already acquired considerable reputation both as a philosopher and as a theologian. As a philosopher, he had at first embraced the doctrines of Descartes, but, in after-life, he leaned rather to those views which, a few years after the time of which I am writing, became famous by the publication of Locke's _Essay_. As a divine, his theology was liberal and critical beyond even that of the Remonstrant School. He questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, regarded some of the books of the old Testament as of purely human origin, and, in his treatment of the miracles and of Christian doctrine, rationalized so far as to expose himself to the charge of Socinianism, though he himself warmly repudiated the imputation. In literary activity and enterprise he yielded to no other author of the age. Such a man, full of energy and of novel views, ready to entertain and discuss any question of interest in theology, criticism, or philosophy, must have been peculiarly acceptable to an exile like Locke, whose mind was now engaged with just the same problems that were occupying Le Clerc. The intimacy between the two students, though never so affectionate as that between Locke and Limborch, soon became a close one. Though widely separated in age, and though differing, probably, in many of their specific opinions, they were conscious that they were travelling the same road--a way then little frequented--the way which led from the received tenets of the churches and the schools to the arena of free inquiry and impartial investigation.