books of the Jesuits, but to the New Testament. So the refutation of the doctrine of innate ideas should have commenced with the examination of Plato, its original promulgator. But it was Locke’s destiny to fight against Plato as Bacon fought against Aristotle, without knowing his adversary. The consequence was in both cases the same; a real battle against a real adversary, and a real victory on the one side against a real defeat on the other; but not the victory and not the adversary supposed. The world, however, always willing to be deceived by names, gave the combatants credit for having done a much greater thing than they had really achieved; it was not the mock image of Æneas, but the real Æneas that Diomede had routed in the fight. And so it came to be an accepted fact in this country with large classes of persons that Locke had driven Plato out of the field, just as Bacon had quashed Aristotle. And the deception in the case of Locke has lasted longer; and that for a very obvious reason. The physical science movement {274} inaugurated by Bacon led much more naturally to a recognition of the true Aristotle than to a recovery of the genuine Plato. It suited the practical genius of John Bull to regard the severe Idealist as a transcendental dreamer; and Mr. Locke taught him to put this shallow prejudice into dignified and grave language. A thinker who does such a service to any nation is pretty sure to be overrated; and so it fared with Mr. Locke, who besides being a thinker was a sensible man, and on public affairs held liberal opinions in harmony with the progressive element of the age. Accordingly a recent juridical writer of the Utilitarian school has not scrupled to call him in the most unqualified terms, “the greatest and best of philosophers.”[274.1] With this partial verdict, however, we do not find that foreign writers agree; and the following estimate of the merits of our typical English Philosopher by a recent German writer, is unquestionably nearer the truth. “Precision and clearness, perspicacity and distinctness, are the characteristic of Locke’s writings. Acute rather than deep in thinking, he is true to the character of his nationality.”[274.2] So much for the position of our great English “empiric.” Let us now look more nicely at his doctrine, and the reasons of it.