Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 01.djvu/41

Rh he desired her to break off, and in a few minutes expired, on the twenty-eighth of October, 1701, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was interred in the church of Gates, where there is a decent monument erected to his memory, with a modest inscription in Latin, written by himself.

Thus died that great and most excellent philosopher John Locke, who was rendered illustrious not only by his wisdom, but by his piety and virtue, by his love of truth, and diligence in the pursuit of it, and by his generous ardour in defence of the civil and religious rights of mankind. His writings have immortalized his name; and, particularly, his Essay concerning the Human Understanding. In this work, "discarding all systematic theories, he has, from actual experience and observation, delineated the features, and described the operations of the human mind, with a degree of precision and minuteness not to be found in Plato, Aristotle, or Des Cartes. After clearing the way, by setting aside the whole doctrine of innate notions and principles, both speculative and practical, the author traces all ideas to two sources, sensation and reflection; treats at large on the nature of ideas, simple and complex; of the operations of the human understanding in forming, distinguishing, compounding, and associating them; of the manner in which words are applied as representations of ideas; of the difficulties and obstructions in the search after truth, which arise from the imperfections of these signs; and of the nature, reality, kinds, degrees, casual hinderances, and necessary limits, of human knowledge. Though several topics are treated of in this work, which may be considered as episodical with respect to the main design; though many opinions which the author advances may admit of controversy; and though on some topics he may not have expressed himself with his usual perspicuity, and on others may be thought too verbose; the work is of inestimable value, as a history of the human understanding, not compiled from former books, but written from materials collected by a long and attentive observation of what passes in the human mind." His next great work, the Two Treatises of Government, is also a performance which will render his memory dear to the enlightened friends of civil and religious freedom. But even in this country, the constitution of which is defensible only on the principles therein laid down, it has been violently opposed by the advocates for those slavish doctrines which were discarded at the Revolution in 1688; and by that class of politicians who would submit to the abuses and corruptions to which the best systems of government are liable, rather than encourage attempts after those improvements in civil policy, which the