Locke, JohnInternational Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences | 1968 | Copyrigh

John Locke made important contributions in the areas of epistemology, political theory, education, toleration theory, and theology; he also wrote on natural law and on various economic topics.

Born in 1632 in a Somerset village, he was the eldest and ultimately the only surviving child of a family of tradesmen and small landholders. His grandfather had been a tanner and clothier; his father was a notary with landholdings later inherited by his son. He kept his connections with his ramified west-country family and friends, most of whom were Whigs throughout the turbulent years of the later Stuart rule. After living for many years at Oxford and on the Continent, Locke made his headquarters in Essex in 1691 with his friend Lady Masham; in 1704 he was buried among the Mashams in the village church at High Laver.

Intellectual development . Locke studied at the Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, where in 1658 he was elected senior student (the equivalent of a fellow in other colleges) and taught moral philosophy. His academic duties were always light, and he consistently sought to lighten them still more, especially after 1666, when he met Lord Ashley (later Lord Shaftesbury), the great Whig leader; thenceforth Locke spent more time in London than at Oxford.The political parliamentarianism of Locke’s father may have influenced Locke’s own ultimate Whiggery, which was strengthened by his association with Shaftesbury. Many west-country families, like Locke himself, became part of the “Shaftes-bury connection” of Whigs, later supporting William of Orange in his successful coup. By all odds the most influential connection of Locke’s life was with Shaftesbury, who quickened his early, though latent, interest in questions of political philosophy and practice. During his Shaftesbury years Locke sat on the Council of Trade and Plantations, an overseeing body for crown colonies, Ireland, and proprietary holdings in the New World. His interest in economic problems can be dated from that experience. Although he had been only on the fringes of the complicated politics of the late reign of Charles n, in 1683 Locke had to leave Oxford for good, a political refugee in Shaftesbury’s wake.

Locke’s intellectual development was marked by autonomy and autodidacticism. Evidently bored by his studies, he independently followed the medical curriculum at Oxford; though he never took his doctor’s degree, he was qualified to practice medicine and did so, largely for the Shaftesbury family. He also studied chemistry in Robert Boyle’s laboratory; in this way he came to know Boyle and eventually became an executor of his will. Other scientific friends were Richard Lower, Thomas Willis, and David Thomas; in 1688 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Locke’s “corpuscularianism,” or atomic theory of matter, had much in common with Boyle’s; his general curiosity and interest in “things” rather than in their names, as well as his experimental approach to social and scientific matters, can all be connected with his serious interest in the biological sciences. His medical empiricism was much like that of his associate Thomas Sydenham, one of the major experimental physicians of his day, who was especially interested in public health; both Sydenham and Locke voiced their awareness of the “unknowing,” the “probabilism” involved in medical practice, notions which later influenced Locke’s epistemology.

Locke’s fear of Catholicism and absolutism had its roots in the English political scene and was deepened by several journeys to France, where persecution of the Huguenots was then intense. His Dutch sojourn, from 1683 to 1689, was voluntarily undertaken as a prudential flight from a government increasingly hostile to men of his political association and views: he was deprived of his studentship at Christ Church and even put on a proscription list of James II’s real and supposed enemies hidden in Holland. During that time, Locke met many congenial thinkers who in different ways reflected his own biases and concerns: among others, Arminian broad-church theologians, all theorists of toleration; medical men interested in experiment and learned in a tradition other than his own, that of Cartesian medicine; publicists dedicated to the diffusion of both learning and information.

When Locke returned to England in 1689, it was to a government of which he could approve; by that time he himself had become an honored man and was recognized as a major thinker. Thenceforward, he devoted himself to studying and writing, while holding minor government offices and occasionally conferring with political leaders

Writings . From the early 1660s Locke had written many short essays, evidently for his own clarification, on natural law, on the civil magistrate, on toleration. In 1669 these preoccupations fed into Lord Shaftesbury’sFundamental Constitutions of Carolina, written with the aid of Locke. (Although this item appears in Locke’s collected works—see The Works..., vol. 10, pp. 175-199—it has been established that Shaftesbury was the principal author.) Locke’s Two Treatises (1690a) were written, as we now know, at the time of the Exclusion crisis of 1679–1681, when Shaftesbury unsuccessfully attempted to exclude the duke of York from succession to the throne because he was a Catholic.While Locke was in Holland, one of his publicist friends, Jean Le Clerc, persuaded him to write for his periodical: thus, in the Bibliothéque universelle et historique, a fortnightly review of issues and books of international interest, Locke published some book reviews—among others, one of Newton’s Principia —as well as original works of his own, the chief of which was his abridgment of the then unpublished Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690b).In 1689–1690 Locke began his serious publishing career: A Letter Concerning Toleration, Being the Translation of the “Epistola de tolerantia” appeared in 1689 (The Works..., vol. 6, pp. 1-58); the Two Treatises of Government in 1689, bearing the date 1690; the Essay Concerning Human Understanding in the same year. From then on, Locke never ceased publishing: he continually revised and republished his Essay,also supervising its translation into French; between 1690 and 1704 he wrote three more letters on toleration(The Works..., vol. 6, pp. 59-574); in 1690, Some Thoughts on Education (ibid., vol. 9, pp. 1-210); in 1695,The Reasonableness of Christianity (ibid., vol. 7, pp. 1-158); various defenses of the Essay; economic tracts; and paraphrases of Paul’s Epistles. Much of the immediate stimulus to this work was topical: his study of education grew out of private letters to his friend Edward Clarke; the economic tracts all sprang from fiscal and commercial problems of the government; the later writings on toleration were called forth by attacks on his ideas and on William’s efforts to solve the problem of dissent in England. Characteristically, however, even his topical writings contain elements of “philosophy,” generalizations not required by the work’s immediate polemical purpose.Major contributionsLocke has often seemed a singularly disconnected thinker, an asystematic philosopher with occasional brilliant insights. Since the acquisition by the Bodleian Library of many Locke manuscripts from the Lovelace Collection, the development of Locke’s interests and of his thinking can be more accurately traced than before; further, the ways in which his ideas, apparently so disparate, hang together has become clearer from study of the manuscripts. His earliest work was on natural law, which led him ultimately into his serious work on two branches of that large subject, political theory and human understanding. Though these two interests branched widely apart from one another and seemed far removed from his initial concern with the “covering” aspect of natural law, his friends expected, in vain, that he would eventually write a treatise about natural law, after he had completed his Essay. His early natural-law essays were written between 1660 and 1664 and deal with both the epistemological problem of knowing in natural law and with the natural law as a binding moral and social force; the essays show clear signs of Locke’s later full-scale attack upon innateness andconsensus gentium, as well as his incipient psychological sensationalism. As for moral natural law, Locke assumed it as a donnée from God. binding upon man’s reason; this view remains rudimentary both in theSecond Treatise ([1690a] 1960, pp. 283-446) and in Locke’s other writings. In his manuscript treatises on the civil magistrate and on toleration, dating from the early years of the Restoration, Locke moved from a restrictive position to a more tolerant one, at first insisting on public order as a primary value and then stressing the irenic power of

the civil magistrate, particularly in the regulation of religious practices. From these early works Locke’s philosophical investigations emerged. They will be treated under several headings, with stress laid upon those elements of his thought most significant for the development of the social sciences: political theory, religious ideas, economic ideas, epistemology, psychology, educational theory.

Political thoughtLocke’s major contributions to political thought are in his Second Treatise, a document notoriously lacking in system, partly because of its remnant character, partly because of its connection with contemporary events, partly because of Locke’s failure to rewrite it substantially for publication in 1689, ten years after its completion. Within its own time the work contained “dangerous” doctrines, some anathematized by decree in 1683, when Locke fled his country. By the time of its publication, however, it expressed the parliamentarian ideals of mixed government and separation of powers established in England by the political settlement reached after William’s invasion. The origins of the tract seem to have been in the Exclusion crisis; it was designed to justify constitutional change, for which Locke undertook to investigate the origins and structure of civil (political) society. His polemical aim was to diminish popular acceptance of the patriarchalism which gave authority to much of the contemporary argument for absolutism; to do so, he postulated an original, direct relation of every man to God rather than to or through any political intermediary. Each man was in some sense God’s “property”: bypassing the notion of Adam as a model ruler of the social group, Locke postulated a state of nature regulated by laws derived from God, a state of nature in which men were equal and free before the Lord and each other. Paradoxically, the rule of law (in this case, the rule of the law of nature) was requi-site for freedom; without such natural law man’s “freedom” would have been anarchy. In this sense Locke’s conception approached the anarchic state of nature postulated by Hobbes, although his insistence upon fundamental natural law saved him from Hobbes’s pessimism about the lawlessness of basic human nature. From this natural condition, Locke inferred both a “law of reason,” bye which individuals reach and assent to social consensus, and the practical laws requisite to permit, even to insure, personal freedom [see NATURAL LAW]. Originally, in the state of nature, executive power of the natural law was vested in every individual; subsequently—whether suddenly or gradually is not made clear—men consented to live in a common society regulated by the communal executive power of the law of nature. Locke divided this communal power into three—the legislative, executive, and federative powers—with judicial decision a general power of the political commonwealth.To effect the passage from the state of nature to “civil society,” Locke developed his important variation on the idea of property, which in turn graded into his theory of labor. From the natural-law postulate that a man has property in his own life, Locke derived the view that a man has property in the things necessary to the preservation of that life, so long as those things are rightfully his (that is, taken from the commonwealth at a point when the specific acquisition harmed or deprived no one else). A man has a right in himself and thus in his own labor; in turn, he has a right to what “he hath mixed his labor with,” or a right to his property. A corollary of this is Locke’s formulation of the labor theory of value, almost incidental to his argument: the value and the price of commodities in any society reflect the labor that has gone into them.

There are two sorts of relations between men, the first a natural social contract, entered into by the exercise of rational considerations of self-preservation, the second defined by rights in property. The function and end of government are the preservation of life, liberty, and property. One corollary of this formulation is that political rights derive from property and that the propertyless are either without political rights or are slaves. Such a conception of the commonwealth permits emphasis both on the common interest and on private holdings, which in Locke’s essay (in line with seventeenth-century usage and notions of value) generally means land.

Without in any sense denying the importance and validity of a familial organization of society, Locke demonstrated that the power over children and dependents vested in the father (who shares it with the mother, interestingly enough) is simply a form of trusteeship: the guardian—father has certain obligationse toward his children, especially to educate them; when the children reach full exercise of their reason, they are free “from subjection to the will and command of the father.” The family was, for Locke, important in his theory of the origins of civil society, the conjunction of male and female being both a symbol of a wider assent and obligation and a primary stage in the voluntary community of mankind. Thus, even in families, arbitrary government is “impossible”; in common-wealths the necessary consent of each individual to enter into the bond of civil society (the social contract) eventuates in election, the choice of representatives charged to exercise legislative power. Legislative power is supreme in Locke’s mixed government of separate legislative, executive, and federative powers. His assumption is that a man with political rights (by reason of his property in himself) enters into political life, inheriting with his property his obligations to the government that represents him. In turn, the government may not touch his property (i.e., levy taxes) without his consent through his representative. One implication of this formulation is a doctrine of resistance, or revolution, as expressed in the last chapter of the Second Treatise, the chapter which, above all others, made Locke objectionable to the government before 1688 and valuable to the government thereafter. Unlike the Protestant resistance-theorists of the sixteenth century, Locke did not base his revolutionary theory upon sanctions of conscience or religion; unlike the English parliamentarians of the 1640s, he did not base it on precedents in English law; unlike Algernon Sidney, he did not base it on a metaphysical and metapsychological natural right to liberty; rather, he advocated a restrained and considered revolution for the restoration of proper balance in the body politic. [seesocial contract.]Locke’s theory of government emphasizes process, both the hypothetical process of human development from a state of nature to civil society and the processes of self-government. He therefore limited the number of specifiable elements in the proper commonwealth and was careful to leave ample room for adjustments to changing social needs. He was, in short, indicating a successful process of representative majority rule rather than setting up an exclusive structure for one. Hence, there are large areas of his thought which seem blank, either because he was unconcerned with total consistency or because he was concerned with leaving social alternatives open, especially in “matters of indifference.”

Views on religionHis toleration theory, taken in conjunction with his religious views, demonstrates his appreciation of practical approaches. Thus, his Letter Concerning Toleration of 1689, Locke dealt with Christian toleration, “the chief characteristical mark of the true church.” Since every man appears orthodox to himself, no one in his right or his wrong mind will accept as just the persecution of himself; furthermore, since in any case persecution cannot touch a man’s inmost conviction, regardless of what he may say under stress, there is no practical merit in persecution. Locke politicized the problem of religious pluralism, assigning to the civil magistrate the protection of various rights (here defined as “life, liberty, and indolency of body”) of members of a commonwealth. The care of souls was no more committed by God to the civil magistrate than the care of one man’s conscience was committed to any other member of society. The magistrate’s power consists only in civil force, which is irrelevant to any church (defined as “a voluntary society of men”).From the privileges of toleration, Locke excluded some—he excluded atheists from the benefits of the law, because they refuse to acknowledge its source—but he included idolators, men simply given to erroneous worship. Toleration is to be withheld from religious groups who deny it to others, a view supported by Locke’s experiences in France, where persecution of Huguenots reached extremes between 1679 and 1685. Whenever religious assemblies endanger the public peace, then the civil magistrate, on civil grounds, may intervene against them; even then, however, he is not to interfere with their belief, which remains in the category of “things indifferent” and is therefore irrelevant to questions of public order. Although in this work Locke did not justify resistance, rebellion, or revolution for religion’s sake, he made it plain that oppression of any kind naturally impels men toward sedition.

In The Reasonableness of Christianity Locke defended the Christian revelation against atheism and against natural religion without revelation, demonstrating by scriptural and historical authority the fact of Christ’s messiahship. The tract defends the necessity of revelation against the idea of a sufficient natural religion, but at the same time it treats Christ’s teachings as the fulfillment and explanation of the moral law of nature. Man’s

reason cannot by itself discover the full moral law of nature, but it can confirm it. Nowhere in the tract did Locke sanction a particular form of worship, but instead he endorsed a general scriptural Christianity to which, as it were, all Christians could subscribe. (For this, he was roundly attacked as being a deist.) In ways connected with his toleration theory and his epistemology, he adduced the uncertainties of man’s perceptions and knowledge to support his minimal articles of faith, drawn from scriptural revelation and corroborated by the action of reason.[seechristianity.]

Economic ideasLocke’s economic interests, stimulated during his early association with Shaf tes-bury, emerged long after in 1691 in Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money (The Works...., vol. 5, pp. 1-130) and in 1695 in Further Considerations ...(ibid., vol. 5, pp. 131-206). In these works, he advocated maintaining the interest rate and not devaluing the currency, on grounds of natural law. His economic laws were (1) that the intrinsic value of any piece of goods is not necessarily reflected in its price; (2) that its market value depends upon the proportion of supply and demand (which he called “quantity” and “vent”); (3) that price is determined by the amount of money relative to the supply and demand for a piece of goods. These laws permit prices to be set with some flexibility, according to varying conditions, and they rely upon a controlling notion in Locke’s thought, that of self-regulation toward equilibrium. When it came to practice, as in the cases of the poor and of Irish manufactures, Locke advocated government intervention in economic affairs.

PsychologyThe aim of Locke’s Essay (1690b) was to determine the limits of human knowledge, so that men might address themselves to problems within their power to solve. He set out to describe the process of human understanding, to inquire into probable knowledge, and to determine the nature of ideas. He concluded, very simply, that ideas have two sources, sensation and reflection upon ideas produced by sensation. It turns out, however, in the course of the book, that knowledge can also be intuitional and demonstrative, though in the discussion intuition tends to be assimilated to sensation and demonstration to reflection. Ideas may be either simple or complex: simple ideas are the result of sensation and reflection and are compounded of simple parts which can be found byanalysis. Locke attributed reality to the external world and relied upon intuition to explain the relation between an idea and its referent in the external world. Knowledge derived by intuition (such as that of revelation) is “certain”; certain knowledge can also be derived from demonstration but less reliably than from intuition, since errors in reason and in memory may distort the result of demonstration. Locke’s ontological proof of God‖s existence, much like Descartes’s, is an example of the fusion of demonstration with intuition: that is, one’s own existence is intuited, and from one’s own existence God’s can be demonstrated. He relied upon the skeptical provisionalism inherent in empirical investigations, both in his recognition of the role probability plays in human understanding and assessment of life and in his recognition of the idiosyncratic formation of each man’s personal set of ideas. As in so much of his work, Locke took a middle position in the Essay, incorporating elements of skepticism and elements of idealism, combining what we now call behaviorism with gestalt principles. His empiricism embraced both the particular and the consensual: in the ongoing search for true knowledge individual men are required to check their ideas against those of the group, and the group does so against those of any given individual. [seegestalt theory; thinking.]Locke’s psychological principles are a by-product of his effort to describe human understanding. His major hypothesis, that the mind is not equipped with innate ideas or principles but is at its formation a “white paper” (his translation of tabula rasa), was reached in part through his own empirical observation of children. He concluded that there are only two ways of human understanding, by sensation and by reflection on ideas derived from sensation. His whole notion of “understanding” is developmental; throughout the Essay he cited examples from his observation of the successive stages of men’s lives. From his observation of children, he demonstrated that their understanding derives from their experience of the external and social world. Approximating modern notions of “control,” Locke cited a great deal of evidence from his observation of human beings who were exceptional in that they lacked some “normal” element of apprehension or reflection—children, not yet developed to full powers; idiots; men born blind (including the famous philosophical example of a man who by an operation got his sight); men suffering from amnesia because their heads had been kicked by horses. In spite of their deficiencies, all such people entertained ideas that seemed to them as authentic as those “clear and distinct” ideas that are the hallmark of proper understanding. Madness, drunkenness, and dreaming interested Locke: the Cartesian criterion for human existence, consciousness, seemed to him too narrow to account for the existence of faultily conscious minds. His solution to the problem of identity turned on assumptions now associated with gestalt psychology: on the continuous existence of an organized body whose parts (including its intellectual store) shift over time in relation to one another. So “the night man” and “the day man,” the drunken man and the sober man, the madman and the sane man may coexist in the same person, even though their control over consciousness may be intermittent or interrupted. To this notion may be connected Locke’s idea of what are nowadays called “roles,” the multiple relations, psychological and social (father, brother, son, son-in-law, servant, master, older, younger, etc.), possible and even inevitable in every man’s experience. Memory (retention), the operation of which was never altogether accounted for in the Lockean philosophy or psychology, plays a major part in maintaining continuous personal identity. One of Locke’s major psychological insights, that arbitrary mental connections are “stamped” on men’s minds by the chance conjunctions of their experience, appears in the famous chapter on the association of ideas, an afterthought in his organization. There he demonstrated, by a kind of negative example, the supremacy of experience over rational powers: a man taught to dance in a room containing a trunk could never dance in the absence of a similar trunk; a man nearly axed in a doorway by a berserk village idiot could never go through a door without glancing behind him. So by experience, governing intellectual and emotional constellations are induced in individual minds. This doctrine and that of the tabula rasa underlie Locke’s precepts for education. [seedevelopmental psychology;learning;role;senses.]In the sense that he postulated ideas as originating in sensation, Locke’s psychology is certainly mechanistic. His general concern, however, to establish the same organic interrelationship for the contents of the mind as for the members of the body or the state, tempers his mechanism with organic and developmental notions. Although he conceived of the body as made up of elements in a mechanistic organization, he saw that mechanism as having considerable feedback into its own individual, even idiosyncratic, development. Feedback is in turn not automatic, in his view, since the mind’s judgment, the faculty which selects and arranges ideas in relation to one another, is also constantly at work during consciousness.

Locke’s social conception of language may serve as a partial model for his ideas of how men understand as well as of how society functions: Although the designation of words is established by consensus, each man may alter it privately for himself alone, according to his individual associations of words and experience. Furthermore, though encountered as datum in each man’s life, language is not rigid but is subject to modification over time by the social needs of the group using it.

PedagogyLocke’s ideas of education follow from his psychology. The child inevitably grows into the man and should grow into as healthy a man as possible. Since each child is strongly individuated, no fixed regime works for all children, but Locke laid down general rules of education, chiefly applicable (as he wrote) to gentry sons whose duty was to undertake public service. Boys were to be educated at home, carefully fed, clothed, and taught to build and preserve good health. The father was to “imprint” obedience on his son but with such care and tact as to turn the child-subject naturally into his friend. Rewards and punishments were to be systematic but moderate (Locke outlawed beating, as making a child slavish). The father, tutor, and governor, charged with educating the child, were to be his moral exemplars; therefore, it was necessary for parents both to regulate them- selves and to choose their surrogates with care. Though children must learn self-denial, some cravings may be gratified, especially since “craving” is so closely allied to “curiosity,” nature’s instrument to correct ignorance. So the child must be allowed to learn whenever ready and can often be cozened into learning by means of games and toys. Children’s questions must always be answered truthfully, and conversation with

them must be free of condescension. Instruction in the nature of reality —including the idea of God, excluding the idea of goblins—was to be undertaken early.

As for learning itself, Locke’s program was practical: reading, writing, French, then Latin (for use, chiefly); geography, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, chronology, history, ethics, civil law, rhetoric and logic, natural philosophy; then Greek and Latin as cultural subjects and, last of all, method. For learning by rote Locke had no use; he also advocated learning such practical subjects as trade and accountancy as well as recreations such as music, dancing, gardening, joinery—all useful to young men of property. Finally, the young man should travel, first at home and later abroad, before settling down to matrimony and his social and political obligations at the age of one and twenty.

Locke’s originality and influenceIn its day Locke’s thought seemed strikingly “new,” cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian friends; there are affinities between his view of church-state relations and the thought of Chillingworth, Falkland, and John Owen. His citations of natural law are to Hooker and Grotius, whose books he certainly knew, though he seems to have referred to them more out of piety and the need for authorities than from any desire to analyze their thought in relation to his own. Although he was a notable revisionist of the Cartesian epistemology and psychology, Locke’ cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian;s doctrine of ideas owes something to Descartes, his psychological theory of sensationalism shares elements of Carte-sian mechanism, and his ontological proof of God’ cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian;s existence is brief and efficient partly because Descartes” cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian;s similar proof was so thoroughly argued. Locke” cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian;s nominalism had many sources: Greek empiricism, the Scotist tradition in scholasticism, and chiefly Francis Bacon and his followers in contemporary England.

However connected to other strands in the history of thought, Locke was characteristically original in pattern and device. His empirically argued rejection of innate ideas and principles, for example, in the first book of theEssay ran counter to traditional epistemologies ancient and modern. Among his contemporaries, both Cartesians and Cambridge Platonists, as well as most divines, postulated innateness as the basis of human knowing, relying on both Platonic and Stoical authorities. In psychology and epistemology a major contribution was his concept of the association of ideas, an involuntary experiential formation in the thought of individual men caused by the linkage of their simultaneous experiences. In economic thought his is the first full argument for the labor theory of value; his notions of property, revolution, and the social contract, though deriving from natural-law theory and resistance theory, are combined in a new interrelation and based upon assumptions of the rule of law that are neither narrowly legalistic nor generally metaphysical.Across the range of Locke’ cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian;s topics of investigation his preoccupations are clear: his constant interest in the relation of thought to behavior, his concern for the balance of individual right and social obligation, his provisional attitudes to solutions, his distrust of dogmatism, his emphasis on equilibrium and self-stabilization. The last emphasis governs his notion of ’ cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian;power,” cast in a new language for any literate man to read; it had, naturally, many sources and analogues in ancient and contemporary thought. His skepticism and empiricism came from deep within the medical tradition; his attitude, and even the words he used, recall Sextus Empiricus and, more often, Montaigne, another essayist concerned with knowing, education, understanding, nescience, and probability. Locke had, too, a recognizably British stoicism, a preference for directness and plainness in morality and rhetoric; he often cited Seneca and the stoical writings of Cicero. His toleration theory derived from a long line of Protestant writers going back to Servetus and Erastus and exemplified by his Arminian; according to which, even though a man is limited in his finite existence by certain conditional restraints, he is nonetheless free to exercise his mind and even his will. Notions of stabilization and equilibrium operate in his epistemology too, where individual understanding is, among other things, conceived as a constant altering of the balance and relationship between different experiences and ideas. Connected with this, one of Locke’s personal behavior patterns makes some sense: from the 1650s until the 1690s Locke, wherever he was, joined or organized discussion groups in which ideas could be cooperatively investigated and idiosyncrasies modulated into a permissive consensus.

Locke’s influence can hardly be overestimated; nor can it be accurately measured. His idealism, his concentration upon the autonomy of inward life found an extreme, though corrective, disciple in Berkeley; his skepticism, in Hume. At first his Essay was fiercely attacked. Later, except for

such idealists as Leibniz and his own pupil, the third earl of Shaftesbury, for most educated people the book seemed to provide as comprehensive a description and explanation of the mind’s workings as Newton’s of the workings of the cosmos. Locke’s influence on deist thought, perceptible in his lifetime and deplored by him, was considerable both in England and in France; his notions of private education were often cited by eighteenth-century English gentlemen at home and in the colonies; his psychological principles were gradually absorbed into accepted belief and can be traced particularly in the work of eighteenth-century novelists (e.g., Richardson, Sterne, and Diderot). Voltaire’s enthusiasm for Locke’s ideas had considerable effect in popularizing them in prerevolutionary France. As for political thought, the American and French revolutions have been laid at his door: un-questionably his work was widely read in both countries by men concerned for their political rights, but how deeply they read it remains an open question. His epistemology inaugurated a “new way of ideas,” his psychology certainly bore fruit in nineteenth- and twentieth-century psychological theory. Locke’s works turn up in many auction lists of eighteenth-century private libraries and are found in the libraries of ancient educational institutions in England and America: Trinity College, Dublin, incorporated the doctrines of the Essay into its basic curriculum at an early stage, and Locke’s influence at colonial Harvard has also been attested.Rosalie L. Colie

[see alsocivil disobedience;consensus;conservatism;constitutions and constitutionalism;legitimacy;natural law;politicaltheory;social contract;and the biographies ofbacon;burke;hartley;hobbes;hume.]WORKS BY LOCKE(1690a) 1960 Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge Univ. Press.(1690ib) 1959 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 2 vols. Edited by Alexander C. Eraser. New York: Dover.Essays on the Law of Nature. Edited by Wolfgang von Leyden. Oxford: Clarendon, 1954.→ Contains the Latin text with a translation.The Works of John Locke. 10 vols. Aalen (Germany): Scientia Verlag, 1963. → A reprint of the 1823 edition.

SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATIONPersonal Background

John Locke was never the type of philosopher content to think from the comfort of his armchair. He was constantly forcing himself into

the fray of battle in politics, religion, and science. The late 17th century was an important time for battles on all these fronts. In politics

and religion, it was the period of the Restoration, of bloody skirmishes between crown and parliament. In science, it was a time of

upheaval as well, as a few forward-looking people enthusiastically replaced a vague and slightly spooky Aristotelian picture of the world

with a purely mechanical one, in which all of nature could be explained through the motion of matter. Locke's writings proved influential

in all of these conflicts, furthering the cause of religious toleration, of contractual rule, and of the new mechanistic science.

John Locke was born in 1638 to a family of minor Somerset gentry. His father supplemented the income from

his land by working as an attorney and a minor government official. Based on his family's good connections,

Locke was able to secure entry to the Westminster School and, from there, to Oxford University. At Oxford he

was subjected to Scholasticism, the Aristotelian-influenced course of study that had dominated scholarship

since the Middle Ages. He disliked Scholasticism's dialectical method and its preoccupation with logical and

metaphysical subtleties. Completing only the coursework he needed to get by, he turned his intellectual

energies to extracurricular endeavors, specifically to politics and medicine.

While still at college Locke published three political essays, two on the topic of religious toleration (at that time

he was against it, but he would soon drastically change his position) and the other on natural law theory (again,

adopting a position he would soon repudiate). These interests would stay with him throughout his life, and

ultimately be the source of two of his most important works: ##The Two Treatises of Government## and

the Essay Concerning Toleration.

Locke's medical studies eventually led him to an interest in chemistry, a fascination that was soon reinforced

by an acquaintance with the scientist Robert Boyle. Boyle was one of the new mechanistic scientists,

developing a view called the Corpuscularian Hypothesis. According to his theory, all of nature was composed

of tiny indivisible bits of matter called "corpuscles", and it was the arrangement and motion of these

corpuscles that gave rise to the observable world. In Boyle's home, Locke met many of the leading figures of

the new science, and himself became a strong proponent of their views. Because the Scholastic picture of the

world Locke was studying was obscure and difficult, the simple, intelligible model of nature that Boyle and his

friends were propounding was extremely appealing to the young university student.

In 1666 Locke met Lord Ashley, who later became Earl of Shaftesbury. Locke worked as Ashley's secretary, his

son's tutor, and his physician. Locke moved from Oxford to Ashley's home in London, where he remained for

many years. It was while living with Ashley that Locke's many intellectual interests went from being purely

academic fascinations to practical endeavors. Ashley himself was the right-hand man of ##King Charles II##,

and so Locke was afforded an insider view of the political situation, a view that left him with much to say.

During this time he published the Essay Concerning Toleration, as well as several treatises on economics. His

medical interest was rounded out with clinical experience when he befriended a physician named Thomas

Sydeham. Finally, his interest in science went from the purely theoretical to the experimental, since Ashley

happened to have a chemistry lab in the house. (Chemistry, believe it or not, was a fashionable hobby at the

time.)

Around the year 1671 Locke began to write the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was his first and

last attempt at epistemology. Locke spent eighteen years writing the first edition of the book, and he revised it

until his death. A fifth edition was published posthumously. Locke's three-year visit to France was crucial to

the development of the Essay. While there he read much of the work of ##Rene Descartes##, and was

impressed with his anti-Scholastic, pro-new science philosophy. (Descartes himself had developed a particular

version of the mechanistic science.)

When Locke finally returned to England, he found the country in a state of crisis, and his own position in it

especially uncertain. Ashley had led a revolt against Charles II and, faced with charged of treason, had fled to

Holland. For four years Locke concerned himself primarily with politics. Then, he was also forced to flee, when

his associates were discovered to be plotting the assassination of King Charles and his brother James. It is not

clear how involved Locke himself was in this plot, but he must have known enough to consider himself in acute

personal danger. In 1683 he too left for Holland. Soon afterward the King asked for his extradition back to

England and Locke was forced to go underground.

While in exile in Holland, Locke focused his energies primarily on the Essay, but he also found the time to write

a series of letters to his newly fathered friend Edward Clarke. Clarke was unsure how best to raise his son and

turned to Locke (a childless bachelor) for help. It was these letters (with some minor additions and changes)

that Locke published as Some Thoughts Concerning Education in 1693.

In 1688 William of Orange led the Glorious Revolution, and Locke was able to return to England. In 1689 he

published the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and the Two Treatises of Government. Locke lived out

the rest of his days quietly. When he died, in October of 1704, he had just completed the notes for the fifth

edition of the Essay, and was still at work on three books concerning religion and politics.

Historical Context

Locke was very much a man of his times, partly because he did so much to shape them. He was born into an

England that was teetering on the brink of enlightenment, and he helped to push the country over the edge. By

the late 17th century, the beliefs in reasonable religion and secular values were overtaking a blind confidence

in authority. Individual freedoms were taking central stage in political debates. Excitement over modern

technologies and abilities were beginning to replace a worshipful focus on the ancient world. Locke embraced

all of these trends and became their most influential spokesman.

The political scene during Locke's time was unstable. In the wake of civil war, ##Oliver Cromwell## had brought

temporary peace. With Cromwell gone by the mid-17th century, however, Parliament and Crown reentered an

ardent struggle for power. Because Lord Ashley, Locke's employer, was first the right hand man of King

Charles II and then the leader of his opposition in Parliament, Locke found himself at the center of political

maneuverings and intrigue. He helped to frame the constitution for the colony of Carolina, and wrote the

treatises that justified the Glorious Revolution in which William of Orange seized the throne from King James,

brother of Charles. Locke's two Treatises of Government, published anonymously, argued that the only

justified government was one that ruled contractually rather than by the ruler's whimsy, thus laying the

foundation for a limited kingship, heavily tethered by Parliament and the will of the people. Years later, the

colonists in America would use Locke's arguments as the basis for their own ##revolution##, claiming that

King George had failed to abide by his contract, thereby forfeiting his right to rule over them.

Locke was also extremely active in religious affairs. A heated Protestant/Catholic divide helped to make the

stormy political scene of late 17th England that much more turbulent. Issues of religious intolerance and forced

conversion were of paramount practical importance. Locke began his career on the side of authoritarian

religious impositions, but quickly changed his mind. A 1675 visit to Cleves, which exposed him to a community

where members of different churches lived together peacefully, might have helped sway his opinion toward

religious toleration. Locke ended up writing several well-read and enormously controversial essays in favor of

religious toleration. Locke's religious writings, as well his publication of the Essay landed him in a lengthy

controversy with the Bishop of Worcester. Some material generated from their published debates, found its

way into later editions of the Essay.

Locke's participation in modern scientific advances was largely the result of his close ties with Robert Boyle.

Throughout Europe, education's focus on the ancient world was being challenged by thinkers who preferred to

focus on new technology and modern ideas. Locke's Essay gave one of the decisive blows to the already ailing

Scholastic movement.

Philosophical Context

It might seem strange that as great a thinker as John Locke took time out his valuable days to write a "how to"

manual for parents, but, actually, Locke took out time to write on all sorts of random topics. Though he is best

known for his thoughts on politics and on issues related to psychology and natural science, he also had a lot

to say about economics, the bible, and even literature. Though these subjects might seem far-flung, they are

bound by certain common themes, and can all be seen as part of a loose system of thought.

Locke did not set out to write a book on education. In 1684, he was approached by his friend Edward Clarke,

who asked for Locke's advice on how to best raise his newborn son. Locke responded with a series of letters,

which he continued to send all the way up until 1691. During the course of these letter-writing years other

friends, such as William Molyneux, asked to see the letters, and soon Locke's ideas on education were

circulating among a small group of parents. According to the preface of Some Thoughts, it was the members of

this group of readers that ultimately persuaded Locke to publish his letters as a book.

Because it started as a series of letters, Some Thoughts does not present a systematic theory of education. As

the title indicates, it merely presents some thoughts on the topic. Nonetheless it shows a great deal of insight

into child psychology. When Locke speaks about "education", what he means is primarily moral education. The

aim of education, in his view, is to give a man rational control over his passions and desires.

As Locke sees the world, there exist certain laws of nature, stemming from God, and we must only use our

reason to discover these laws. The most basic law of nature states that we must defend all of God's creatures

(both ourselves and others) because we are all children of God and beloved by him. Other laws state that we

have a right to property and that we have a right to punish those who violate the laws of nature. By using our

reason to discover these laws, and then by following the dictates of these laws, we not only create the ideal

civil society (one governed by consensual contract) but we avoid almost all human evils. The ability for human

society to function in this ideal way, however, depends on the capacity people have for subverting their own

passing whimsies to the dictates of reason. If people do not have this capacity, then civil society cannot

maintain itself because the laws of nature will not be heeded. Some Thoughts, then, can be seen as a training

manual for the moral people Locke needs to populate his civil society.

Locke's work on education is clearly tied to his political work, and it also shares certain common themes with

the Essay Concerning Human Understanding. For instance, in Some Thoughts, Locke shows his continued

fascination with the origins and development of human knowledge, with the emergence of awareness, and of

the difference between a human (the human being as animal) and a person (the human being as conscious

creature, aware of an accountable for his actions).

John Locke

John Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a collection of musings on the topic of education. Locke does not present a systematic theory of education, and the work reads more like an instruction manual than a philosophical text.

Locke's is convinced that moral education is more important than other kinds of education. The goal of education, in his view, is not to create a scholar, but to create a virtuous man. More particularly, the aim of education is to instill what Locke calls the Principle of Virtue, namely the ability to subvert one's immediate appetites and desires to the dictates of reason. According to Locke, the goal of education is to create a person who obeys reason instead of passion. The importance Locke places on this quality cannot be overstated: nearly two thirds of the book is devoted to an account of how best to instill this principle.

While discussing how to best instill this quality, Locke addresses other related ideas. He says that learning should be enjoyable. There is no good reason, Locke thinks, that children should hate to learn and love to play. The only reason that children happen not to like books as much as they like toys is that they are forced to learn, and not forced to play. Locke sets out to show how learning can be a form of recreation. Among his proposals are that children should never be forced to learn when they are not in the mood; that they should never be beaten or spoken to harshly; that they should not be lectured to, but should be engaged in conversation; and that their ideas should be taken seriously. In addition, the boisterous, loud, and playfully unruly spirit of children should be cultivated rather than curbed. Any mischief that stems from the age rather than the character of the child should not be punished.

Not only should the general temperament of childhood be taken into account, but so should the individual temperament of the child. Every mind, Locke tells us, is different, and what is right for one child is not right for another. The goal of education is to guard against any vices to which a child is predisposed. By tailoring children's educations to their characters, teacher not only obtain more effective results, but they also make the experience enjoyable.

Locke also stresses the importance of habit and example in education, while downplaying the role of rules. Children generally do not understand rules, Locke claims, nor can they remember them. Teaching by rules, therefore, is counterproductive. The child will either end up being punished constantly and then giving up on the attempt to be good, or else the rules will not be enforced and the child will lose his respect for authority. Habit and example bypass the weaknesses of childhood by utilizing instinct in place of memory and reflection. Because of the importance of example, Locke views it as crucial that the child spends the majority of his time with his tutor or parents. School is ruled out entirely because it does not provide the necessary close attention. In addition, parents are warned not to allow the child too much time in the company of servants.

Locke discusses the importance of parents at length. Most parents, Locke thinks, play a perverse role in their children's lives. When the children are young and need rational guidance, the parents are indulgent. When the children are grown, and can use their own reason, the parents suddenly begin imposing their will. Locke says that this pattern is illogical and that parents should reverse their behavior: when the children are young they should be placed under stern authority. Young children should relate to their parents through fear and awe. In this way, they will come to have the proper amount of deference to reason. Once a child is a rational creature, a parent can only retain his authority by inspiring love and reverence in his son. A grown son should be courted as a friend, his advice sought out and his opinion respected.

In the last third of the book, Locke finally turns his attention to academic learning. Here, Locke takes a strong stand against the schools. Where the schools stress Greek and Latin grammar, Locke thinks that these languages should not be a strong focus of the child's education, and that when they are taught, it should be through conversation rather than through memorization of rules. In place of the usual scholastic course of study, Locke proposes his own course. Just as within a subject there is a certain ideal way to present ideas (i.e. by introducing first one simple idea, then another one logically connected to the first, and so on), he also thinks that there is a parallel method that is best for teaching. The course begins with reading and writing in English, then moves on to French and then Latin. Simultaneously with the French studies, the child is introduced to a host of other subjects that receive little attention in the schools. The child begins with simple geography (locating places on a map), then moves on to arithmetic as soon as his abstract reason begins to develop. Once he learns addition and subtraction he can return to geography and learn about poles, zones, latitude and longitude. When he masters the terrestrial globe, he can move on to the celestial globe, and learn about the constellations in our hemisphere. Next he learns about the Copernican system, and after that he moves on to geometry, and then to chronology. Once chronology is mastered he can learn history, then perhaps a little bit of ethics, some law, and, finally, some natural philosophy. The advantage of this system, Locke thinks, is that it not only teaches all of the most useful subjects, but it also teaches them in a way that follows the natural development of a child's mind.

Locke ends the book by discussing the other accomplishments he thinks a child should make. In particular, Locke says that every child should learn a manual skill. He thinks that a manual skill (anything from gardening to carpentry to grinding optical lenses) is useful because it helps to relax and refresh the mind after it is worn out from study. It is better to have such a skill, he thinks, then to be idle. The last topic he touches upon is travel. Every young man should travel, he thinks, but not at the time that young men usually go abroad. The typical age for travel is between sixteen and twenty-one, but this is too late to be of any use in language acquisition, and too early to be of any real use in learning the culture. It would be far better, Locke asserts, to either send a son at an earlier age (with a chaperone) or else when he is older and can really understand the cultural differences between his own country and others.

Affectation  - If a parent or tutor tries to force a certain behavior on a child whose temperament is not suited to that behavior the result is affectation. Affectation is awkward and forced behavior that seems not to be genuine. There are two sorts of affectation. In one sort of affectation, the outward manner of the person does not match his inward emotions. For instance, someone is acting affected if they are acting sad but you can tell that they do not really feel sad. In the other sort of affectation, the person really is feeling the emotion being expressed, but the way in which he chooses to express

the emotion is not suited to him. For instance, if someone is very sad, but not prone to crying, and he forces himself to cry, then he is being affected.

Breeding  - When Locke speaks of "good breeding" he is mainly referring to manners. Someone who is well-bred always knows how to behave correctly in every situation, so as to make everyone around them feel comfortable and happy. The rule of thumb when it comes to good breeding, according to Locke, is not to think meanly of yourself or of others. Good-breeding is one of the primary aims of education, and can only be taught by example. For this reason, one of the most important qualities to look for in a tutor is good breeding.

Dominion  - An inclination toward dominion is a desire for ownership or power. Locke believes that this inclination is responsible for much of the injustice and oppression in the world, and should therefore be suppressed in a child as early as possible.

Epistemology  - Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of knowledge and belief. Questions in epistemology include, "How do we come to have knowledge?", "Do we know anything?", "How do we form beliefs based on evidence?". Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understandingaddressed many of the most important questions in epistemology.

Empirical  - When something is an empirical question, that means that the question can only be settled by going out into the world and investigating. The question, "What percentage of the population of the United States likes ice cream" is an example of an empirical question, which can only be answered through empirical investigation. The question "What is the square root of two", on the other hand, is not an empirical question. In order to answer this question all you have to do it think about the mathematics involved; you do not have to go out and investigate what the world is like.

Empiricism  - "Empiricism" is a collective name given to a variety of philosophical doctrines concerned with human knowledge. Empiricists generally believe that knowledge comes exclusively through experience, and that there is no knowledge that human beings are born with. In addition to John Locke, some famous empiricists have been George Berkeley, Thomas Reid, David Hume, Rudolph Carnap, G.E. Moore, and W.V. Quine.

Enlightenment  - The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement, popular during the 18th century, which sought to examine all doctrines and traditions using the faculty of reason. Strong emphasis was placed on ideals of tolerance. As Enlightenment ideals spread into state policy (primarily in the 19th century) many humanitarian reforms resulted.

Gamesome Humor  - This is the term given by Locke to a child's natural high spirits and playfulness. Locke is adamant about the fact that a child not be punished for his gamesome humor, and, further, that this quality not be discouraged in any way.

Materialist  - A materialist is someone who believes that matter is the only substance that exists in the world. Materialists do not believe in any spiritual substances, such as soul, God, angels, or some non-material component of consciousness.

Natural Law  - "Natural law" is the term used to refer to the doctrine of moral law that states that such laws are "natural", or simply a permanent part of the world, rather than created by man.

Theorists throughout the centuries have differed on the particulars of this theory, disagreeing in particular on the question of the natural basis for these moral laws, and on how human beings come to know these natural laws. Locke ascribed to a view of natural law that placed its source in God, and our access to it in the faculty of reason.

Natural philosophy  - Natural philosophy is the branch of philosophy concerned with what the natural world is like. The two components of natural philosophy are physics, which is the study of matter, or the physical world, and metaphysics, which is the study of all other aspects of the natural world (such as God, souls, etc.)

Principle of Virtue  - According to Locke, the principle of virtue is the capacity to deny one's own desires. If someone has, and exercises, this capacity he will be virtuous, and if one lacks this capacity or fails to exercise it he cannot be virtuous.

Scholasticism  - The dominant school of thought in Western Europe from the Middle Ages through the age of enlightenment. During Locke's time, they had complete control of the schools. Scholastics were primarily concerned with working out problems in, and extending the theories of, Aristotle.

Temperament  - Locke recognizes the fact that every mind is different. He calls the different characters of mind temperaments. A temperament is really just a natural inclination in some direction. A cowardly temperament, for instance, is just an inclination to be easily frightened. A cruel temperament is an inclination to disregard the feelings of others, or an inclination to gain pleasure out of the pain of others. Locke believes that a child's particular temperament should be taken into account in his education. An educator should aim to guard against the particular weaknesses of a child's temperament and to encourage his the strengths.

Wants of Fancy  - According to the distinction made by Horace, wants of fancy are desires that have no basis in need. The desire for a slice of cake would be a want of fancy, as opposed to the desire for sustenance which would count as a want of nature. Locke believes that a child should not be indulged in any of his wants of fancy.

Wants of Nature  - According to the distinction made by Horace, wants of nature are desires that have a basis in physical need. When we feel hungry, for instance, this is a signal that our body needs food. We are not supposed to ignore our wants of nature, but must satisfy them without too much delay.

Wisdom  - According to Locke, wisdom is the ability to manage one's business ably and with foresight. Wisdom is the result of a good natural temperament, the application of mind, and experience. Children cannot be wise, because they have no experience, but parents can lay the foundation for wisdom in their children by promoting a love of truth, a respect for reason over passion, and a tendency toward reflection.

Summary and Analysis 1–30: Introduction and the Health of the Body

31–42: The Aim and Foundation of Education

43–63: How to Achieve the Necessary Authority

83–85: More Thoughts on Authority and Discipline

64–67: Education as Pleasant

66–71: Temper, Manners, and why School Should be Avoided

88–94: The Tutor

95–99: As Child Gets Older

100–115: Temperaments

115–122: Cowardice, Cruelty, Curiosity

123–133: Sluggishness, Dishonesty, and an Overfondness for Toys

134–147: The Four General Areas of Education

148–177: Reading, Writing, Languages

177–195: The Other Subjects

196–217: Other Accomplishments

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