contriving how to make the way to real knowledge more open and easy to those beginners who have set their faces that way. I should be very glad if anything in my book could be made useful to that purpose. I agree with you, that most of the larger explications may be looked on as incidental to what you design, and so may by one, who would out of my book make a system of the third part in my division of science, be wholly passed by or but lightly touched on; to which let me add that several of those repetitions, which for reasons then I let it go with, may be omitted, and all the parts contracted into that form and bigness you propose.

"But with my little health, and less leisure, considering that I have been so long a stranger to systems, and am utterly ignorant what would suit those you design it for, it is not for me to go about it, though what you have said would incline me to believe it might not be wholly lost labour. It is not for nothing I hope that this thought is fallen into the mind of one who is much abler to execute it; you, I see, are as much master of my notions as I myself, and better able to put them together to the purpose you intend. I say not this to decline giving my assistance, if you, in civility, think I can afford you any.

"The Abstract, which was published, in French, in the Bibliothèque Universelle of 1688, will neither in its size or design answer the end you propose; but if the rough draught of it, which I think I have in English somewhere amongst my papers, may be of any use to you, you may command it, or whatever service I can do you in any kind; for I am, with a very particular esteem and respect,

Sir, your most humble Servant."

After the first objection had been overcome, the success of the Essay must be considered to have been very great, as its several successive editions during the life of the author, as well as an excellent translation by M. Coste into the French language, sufficiently attest. If, however, the Essay received the approbation of enlightened men, not only in England, but on the Continent, yet after an interval of several years from its first publication, when time had been allowed to sift its merits, and decide its character, it excited the disapprobation of the Heads of Houses at Oxford, who at one time

took counsel to banish it from that seat of learning. Their proceedings are described in the following letter:

"DEAR SIR,

MR TYRRELL TO LOCKE.

"April, 1704.

"In answer to yours received by our good friend Mr Church, the best information I can give you concerning the forbidding the reading of your Essay is as follows: That in the beginning of November last, there was a meeting of the Heads of Houses then in town; it was there proposed by Dr Mill, and seconded by Dr Maunder, that there was a great decay of long-cut exercises in the University, which could not be attributed to anything so much as the new philosophy which was so much read, and in particular, your Book and Le Clerc's Philosophy: against which it was offered, that a Programma should be published, forbidding all tutors to read them to their pupils. This was like, at first, to have passed, till it was opposed by some others there present, and particularly by Dr Dunstan; who not only vindicated your Book, but said that he thought the making the Programma would do more harm than good; first, by making so much more noise abroad, as if the University went about to forbid the reading of all philosophy but that of Aristotle; next, that he thought that, instead of the end proposed, it would make young men more desirous to buy and read those books, when they were once forbid, than they were before. Then, at another meeting, their resolution upon the whole was, that upon Dr Edwards' proposal they agreed, instead of a Programma, that all Heads of Houses should give the tutors private instructions not to read those books to their pupils, and to prevent their doing it by themselves as much as lay in their power; and yet I do not find, after all, that any such thing has been put in execution in those Colleges where I have any acquaintance, as particularly in University, Magdalen, New College, and Jesus, all which have Heads that are sufficiently of the High Church party; so that I believe they, finding it like to have little effect, have thought it best to let it drop. Mr Percy, the son of your old acquaintance at Christ-church, not only read your book himself, but encouraged others to do it. I hope you will not impute the indis

creet zeal of a few to the whole University, any more than we should lay the failing of the Bishops to the Church. Your most faithful servant,

T. TYRRELL."

It is here necessary to give some account of the attack which Dr Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, made upon the Essay, as also upon the principles of the author. If it be true, as it was reported at the time, that the Reverend Prelate died from vexation at the issue of the contest he had engaged in, his memory as a metaphysician has at least been preserved from oblivion by the celebrity of his antagonist, and by his own signal defeat.

The circumstances which led to the controversy were these : -Toland had published a book, called "Christianity not Mysterious," in which he endeavoured to prove that there is nothing in the Christian religion contrary to reason, or even above it; and in explaining his doctrines, had used several arguments from the Essay on Human Understanding. It happened also that some Unitarian Treatises, published nearly at the same time, maintained that there was nothing in the Christian religion but what was rational and intelligible; and Locke having asserted in his writings, that Revelation delivers nothing contrary to reason ; the Bishop of Worcester,* defending the mysteries of the Trinity against

*It seems probable that Locke and Dr Stillingfleet, though now engaged in adverse controversy, had formerly belonged to the same party; the Bishop of Lincoln having conferred upon him his first dignity in the church at Shaftesbury's request.

TO THE RIGHT HON, THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, AT WINBORNE ST GILES, DORSETSHIRE.

"MY VERY GOOD LORD,

"Hatton Garden, Jan. 27, 1674.

"That your Lordship may perceive I have not been unmindful of the promise I made, I have conferred on Dr Stillingfleet the Prebend of North Kelsey, which is the more acceptable to him because it lies very conveniently, and is that which he desired.

"I wish your Lordship all happiness, from my heart. The times are bad, but I comfort myself with the close of Bishop Duppa's Epistle before Archbishop Spottswood's History of Scotland

66

'Non, si mala nunc, et olim sic erit.'

Beseeching God to guide and protect you, I rest,

Your Lordship's most humble and affectionate servant,

G. LINCOLN."

Toland and the Unitarians, denounced some of Locke's principles as heretical, and classed his works with those of the above-mentioned writers.

Locke answered the Bishop, who replied the same year. This reply was confuted by a second letter of Locke's, which produced a second answer from the Bishop in 1698. Locke again replied in a third letter, wherein he treated more largely of the certainty of reason by ideas, of "the certainty of faith, of the resurrection of the same body, and the immateriality of the soul." He showed the perfect agreement of his principles with the Christian religion, and that he had advanced nothing which had the least tendency to scepticism, with which the Bishop had very ignorantly charged him.

The death of Stillingfleet put an end to the controversy; in which we cannot but admire Locke's strength of reasoning, the great clearness and precision with which he explains his own notions and principles, and exposes and confutes those of his adversary. The Bishop was by no means able to maintain his opinions against Locke, whose reasons he did not understand any more than the subject itself about which they disputed. The Reverend Prelate had employed his time chiefly in the study of Ecclesiastical Antiquities, and in multifarious reading; but was no great philosopher, and had never accustomed himself to that close way of thinking and reasoning, in which Locke so highly excelled.

Notwithstanding the reason which Locke had to complain of the unfounded charges brought against him by the Bishop writing upon a subject upon which he was wholly ignorant, yet he always treated him with the respect due to his rank, whilst he triumphantly confuted his mistakes, and from his own words convicted him of inaccuracy and ignorance.

“Never was a controversy," Le Clerc observes, "managed with so much skill on one side, and on the other part with so much misrepresentation, confusion, and ignorance, alike discreditable to the cause and the advocate."

In other times, and under other circumstances, had a contest arisen between a Philosopher and a Churchman, the cause, if unfavourable to the latter, would have been removed into the Inquisition, or into the Court of High Ecclesiastical Commission. Perhaps this Prelate of our reformed church

might, in the extremity of his distress (as "the method and management of that holy office were not wholly unknown to his Lordship, nor had escaped his great reading "*), breathe a regret, that he could not employ the arms of the Roman Church, or of the Stuart Princes, and silence his adversary by the same ultima ratio of ecclesiastics, which he had seen so successfully used against Galileo, scarce fifty years before.

In a letter written to his relation, Mr King,† during the controversy with the Bishop of Worcester, Locke, in noticing the observations and remarks of some of his adversaries, thus expresses his contempt :

*

"November 5, 1698.

*

"If those gentlemen think that the Bishop hath the advantage by not making good one of those many propositions in debate between us, but by asking a question, a personal question, nothing to the purpose, I shall not envy him such a victory. In the mean time, if this be all they have to say, the world that sees not with their eyes, will see what disputants for truth those are who make to themselves occasions of calumny, and think that a triumph. The Bishop is to prove that my book has something in it that is inconsistent with the doctrine of the Trinity, and all that upon examination he does, is to ask me, whether I believe the doctrine of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church ?-a worthy proof!‡

* Second Reply to the Bishop of Worcester.

Afterwards Lord Chancellor.

EXTRACT OF LETTER, FROM LEIBNITZ TO DR BURNET, 1697. "Je liray avec attention les Amobæa de Monsieur l'Evêque de Worcester et de Monsieur Locke. Je ne doute point que celui-ci ne se tire fort bien d'affaire. Il a trop de jugement pour donner prise à Messieurs les ecclésiastiques, qui sont les directeurs naturels des peuples, et dont il faut suivre les formulaires autant qu'il est possible. Et j'ay dejà remarqué dans les endroits que j'ai vûs d'abord que Monsieur Locke se justifie d'une manière très solide. Il m'est arrivé quelque chose d'approchant avec le célèbre Monsieur Arnaud. Il avait vû quelque chose de moy, et il avait crû y trouver des mauvaises conséquences, mais quand il eut vu mes explications il me déchargea hautement lui-même, et quoique nous ne fussions pas d'accord en tout, il ne laissa pas de reconnoître que mes sentimens n'avoient rien de mauvais.

“J'imagine qu'il pourra arriver les même chose à l'égard de Monsieur