Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 01.djvu/29



, one of the greatest philosophers and most valuable writers who have adorned this country, was born at Wrington in Somersetshire, on the twenty-ninth of August, 1632. His father, who had been bred to the law, acted in the capacity of steward, or court-keeper, to colonel Alexander Popham; and, upon the breaking out of the civil war, became a captain in the service of the parliament. He was a gentleman of strict probity and economy, and possessed of a handsome fortune; but, as it came much impaired into the hands of his son, it was probably injured through the misfortunes of the times. However, he took great pains in his son's education; and though while he was a child, he behaved towards him with great distance and severity, yet as he grew up, he treated him with more familiarity, till at length they lived together rather as friends, than as two persons, one of whom might justly claim respect from the other. When he was of a proper age, young Locke was sent to Westminster school, where he continued till the year 1651; when he was entered a student of Christ-church-college, in the university of Oxford. Here he so greatly distinguished himself by his application and proficiency, that he was considered to be the most ingenious young man in the college. But, though he gained such reputation in the university, he was afterwards often heard to complain of the little satisfaction which he had found in the method of study which had been prescribed to him, and of the little service which it had afforded him, in enlightening and enlarging his mind, or in making him more exact in his reasonings. For the only philosophy then taught at Oxford was the Peripatetic, perplexed with obscure terms, and encumbered with useless questions. The first books which gave him a relish for the study of philosophy, were the writings of Des Cartes; for though he did not approve of all his notions, yet he found that he wrote with great perspicuity. Having taken