John Locke (1632 – 1704), a famous English philosopher, political thinker, and physician, lived and worked in the epoch of the Enlightenment Colonial Wars, the British Revolutions, and the Monarchy Restoration, and this fact impacted his works considerably. The period of Locke’s life can also be characterized by the great implications it had for the development of British society and its political and humanist aspects (Lowe, 2005, pp. 13 – 15). The major works by John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding and two treatises of government, are focused mainly on the issues of cognition, political regulations in a country, rights, and freedoms of human beings.
The two major events that shaped the author’s view on the above problems and contributed to the development of An essay concerning human understanding and Two treatises of government include Locke’s work with Thomas Sydenham and the author’s meeting with Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.
Locke’s Work with Thomas Sydenham
The fact that John Locke was a highly educated person with a variety of interests in numerous spheres of human life cannot be doubted. However, it is Locke’s interest in medicine and philosophy of human life that made him famous worldwide, especially this is true about the so-called Tabula Rasa theory, i. e. Locke’s idea about the human mind as a blank piece of paper, data on which can be written only as this person acquires certain life and work experience and cognates the world (Fuller, 2004, p. 118). The formation of this theory by Locke would have been impossible without the influence of Thomas Sydenham, the prominent English physician and thinker of the 17th century.
The very meeting of Locke and Sydenham happened in the house of Lord Shaftesbury and was the result of Locke’s already existing reputation as a professional physician and a person committed to the study of the human being in all aspects of its development (Lowe, 2005, p. 165). Although there are no documented proofs of the assumption, this meeting might have completed the process of shaping Locke’s philosophical ideas and brought him closer to the Tabula Rasa idea. Thus, influenced by Sydenham, Locke proceeded to the formulation of his philosophical view in which, however religious aspects intertwined with medicine and philosophy.
The support of these assumptions can be found in the scholarly works by Lowe (2005), Fuller (2000), and Waldron (2002), as well as in the work by John Locke himself under the title An essay concerning human understanding: “Ideas, especially those belonging to principles, not born with children” (Locke, 2007, Ch. IV, p. 2). Thus, Locke expresses the essence of his Tabula Rasa view in a succinct and laconic sentence. Locke argues that the mind of the human being is clean at the moment of birth and the ideas can fill this mind only in the course of life. The influence of Locke’s meeting with Sydenham is obvious in this respect because Sydenham was a supporter of empirical research and enjoyed the fame of the progressive physician (Waldron, 2002, p. 103). Therefore, Sydenham provided this empirical nature to the Tabula Rasa theory. Moreover, developing the empirical view on this theory, John Locke also addressed the logical and religious reasoning in his trying to support his argument:
The idea of God not innate (italics as in the original) – If any idea can be imagined innate, the idea of God may, of all others, for many reasons, be thought so; since it is hard to conceive how there should be innate moral principles without an innate idea of a Deity (Locke, 2007, Ch. IV, p. 8).
Drawing from this seemingly logical consideration, Locke further derives the idea that children just after birth have no innate idea of God; therefore they cannot have any other innate idea, especially regarding the principles of life, because they do not have any basis for them. In this aspect of Locke’s reasoning, the influence of Sydenham and his ideas on medicine and biology of the human beings can be observed as far as Sydenham was the acknowledged supporter of rational thinking in contrast to the half-religious and half-mythological belief of innate ideas.
Thus, from the above discussion, it can be seen that the work of John Locke with the famous English physician and thinker of the 17th century Thomas Sydenham was one of the milestone events that shaped the views of Locke on philosophy on the whole and the ideas this prominent English author expressed in one of his crucially important literary works under the title An essay concerning human understanding. Based on the Tabula Rasa theory that Locke expressed in this work, the assumption can be made about the considerable influence of Sydenham as a supporter of empirical research and rational thinking upon Locke’s philosophic development. Accordingly, such a seemingly minor event in the life of John Locke as meeting a person with similar interests turns out to be one of the determinants for the scholarly and philosophic legacy of this English author.
Locke Meets Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury
Another event that can be referred to as the milestone occurrence in John Locke’s life path was the meeting with Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury who invited Locke to the position of his private physician being fascinated by Locke’s talent in medicine and overall intellectual level. However, the major meaning of Locke’s meeting with Lord Shaftesbury lied not in the place of medicine but the philosophical and political views John Locke developed by that moment and kept developing while cooperating with Lord Shaftesbury (Lowe, 2005, p. 191).
The very meeting between the two people, Locke and Lord Shaftesbury took place in 1666 when the latter came to Oxford where Locke studied at that time. Lord Shaftesbury suffered from the complicated form of liver infection and Locke was the only physician that managed to correctly diagnose the disease and later convince the Lord of the necessity of surgery (Bell, 2000, p. 93). Having succeeded in it, Locke became the favorite of Lord Shaftesbury and was further involved even in the political projects the Lord, by that time holding the position of Lord Chancellor, developed in England.
However, the events of the English Revolution and the subsequent Monarchy restoration allowed John Locke to better understand the nature of political relations between human beings. Although often criticized for hypocrisy in respect of literary condemnation of slavery and actual funding of slave trading activities, Locke managed to realize that only the regimes of the constitutional and democratic monarchy could save England from further revolutions and civil armed conflicts (Coleman, 2000, p. 717). Naturally, an assumption can be made that it was meeting with Lord Shaftesbury that introduced the world of politics to John Locke and made him think about the possible better ways of running the country’s domestic and international affairs.
To support the ideas expressed above, one can address the scholarly articles by Bell (2004), Coleman (2000), and Richard (2002), as well as the famous essay titled Two treatises of government by John Locke (2003) himself. For example, the influence of the political activities Locke carried out and witnessed as a result of his relations with Lord Shaftesbury can be observed in the position John Locke took regarding the development of the constitution for the proper existence of any civilized country:
The constitution of the legislation is the first and fundamental act of society, whereby a provision is made for the continuation of their union, under the direction of persons, and bonds of laws, made by persons authorized thereunto, by the consent and appointment of the people; without which no one man, or several men, amongst them, can have the authority of making laws that shall be binding to the rest (Locke, 2003, Ch. XIX, p. 212).
From the above lines, one can see the suffering of the person whose country was torn apart by the civil wars having the demand for constitutional monarchy as their root. As well, Locke’s position on democracy and constitution as its main tool regulating the relations between citizens and defending their rights is conditioned by the fact that he witnessed directly how the English political life developed in the late 17th century (Richard, 2002, p. 153). Thus, the influence of the meeting between John Locke and Lord Shaftesbury can be observed again, as without this meeting Locke might have had different political views and shape his Two treatises of government in a way, different from the one it is famous nowadays.
Thus, summing this discussion up it should be stated that the meeting of John Locke with Lord Shaftesbury in 1666 played a vital role in both the formation of the political views of John Locke and in shaping one of his prominent literary works, i. e. the essay titled Two treatises of government. Being involved in the political life of 17th century England, John Locke had the opportunity to witness the development of the events and, while in exile in the Netherlands, to think over the idea of constitutional monarchy and democracy as potentially the most acceptable forms of rule for England.
From all the above data the conclusion can be made that the contribution of John Locke to literature is immense. The main point to support this statement is the fact that Locke’s most famous works, i. e. An essay concerning human understanding and Two treatises of government concerned the topics vital for the development of humanity and were influenced by the people who had a direct relation to shaping those topics, i. e. philosophic and political views on human society.
At the same time, John Locke’s literary legacy has considerable future implications that are not limited to literature only. Apart from being a skillful author writing on the prominently important topics, Locke also put the foundations for the democracy and constitutional monarchy that started their fast development shortly after Locke’s death in the early 18th century. Drawing from this, the major role of John Locke and his literary legacy in the future is the formation of the society known today and to be known tomorrow.
Works Cited
Bell, Stephanie. “Chartalist Critique of John Locke’s Theory of Property, Accumulation, and Money: Or, Is It Moral to Trade Your Nuts for Gold?” Review of Social Economy 62.1 (2004): 93.
Coleman, William. “The Significance of John Locke’s Medical Studies for his Economic Thought.” History of Political Economy 32.4 (2000): 711-731. Print.
Fuller, Garry. John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding in focus. Routledge, 2000. Print.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: Easyread Edition. Booksurge Llc, 2007. Print.
Locke, John and Ian Shapiro. Two treatises of government and a letter concerning toleration. Yale University Press, 2003. Print.
Lowe, Jonathan. Locke. Routledge, 2005. Print.
Richard, Peter. “The Law Written in Their Hearts?: Rutherford and Locke on Nature, Government, and Resistance.” Journal of Law and Religion 18.1 (2002): 151 – 189.
Waldron, Jeremy. God, Locke, and equality: Christian foundations of John Locke’s political thought. Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.