of his life were passed at Oates, in Essex, the seat of Sir Francis Masham, who had invited him to make that mansion his home. Lady Masham, a daughter of the celebrated Dr. Cudworth, and to whom Locke was attached by strong ties of friendship, palliated, by her kind attention, the infirmities of his declining years. He expired on the twenty-eighth of October, 1704, in the seventy-third year of his age.

The following passages exhibit, as nearly as any that we could select from his works, the character of this great writer's thoughts and opinions, as well as the style in which they are expressed:

CAUSES OF WEAKNESS IN MEN'S UNDERSTANDINGS.

There is, it is visible, great variety in men's understandings, and their natural constitutions put so wide a difference between some men in this respect, that art and industry would never be able to master; and their very natures seem to want a foundation to raise on it that which other men easily attain unto. Amongst men of equal education there is a great inequality of parts. And the woods of America, as well as the schools of Athens, produce men of several abilities in the same kind. Though this be so, yet I imagine most men come very short of what they might attain unto in their several degrees, by a neglect of their understandings. A few rules of logic are thought sufficient in this case for those who pretend to the highest improvement; whereas I think there are a great many natural defects in the understanding capable of amendment, which are overlooked and wholly neglected. And it is easy to perceive that men are guilty of a great many faults in the exercise and improvement of this faculty of the mind, which hinder them in their progress, and keep them in ignorance and error all their lives. Some of them I shall take notice of, and endeavour to point out proper remedies for, in the following discourse. Besides the want of determined ideas, and of sagacity and exercise in finding out and laying in order intermediate ideas, there are three miscarriages that men are guilty of in reference to their reason, whereby this faculty is hindered in them from that service it might do and was designed for. And he that reflects upon the actions and discourses of mankind, will find their defects in this kind very frequent and very observable.

1. The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbours, ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and trouble of thinking and examining for themselves.

2. The second is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own nor hearken to other people's reason, any farther than it suits their humour, interest, or party; and these, one may observe, commonly content themselves with words which have no distinct ideas to them, though, in other matters, that they come with an unbiassed indifferency to, they want not abilities to talk and hear reason, where they have no secret inclination that hinders them from being untractable to it.

3. The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call large, sound, round-about sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question, and may be of moment to decide it. We are all short-sighted, and very often see but one side of a matter; our views are not extended to all that has a connection with it. From this defect, I think, no man is free. We see but in part, and we know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder we conclude not right from our partial views. This might instruct the proudest esteemer of his own parts how useful it is to talk and consult with others, even such as come short with him in capacity, quickness, and penetration; for, since no one sees all, and we generally have different prospects of the same thing, according to our differ

ent, as I may say, positions to it, it is not incongruous to think, nor beneath any man to try, whether another may not have notions of things which have escaped him, and which his reason would make use of if they came into his mind. The faculty of reasoning seldom or never deceives those who trust to it; its consequences from what it builds on are evident and certain; but that which it oftenest, if not only, misleads us in, is that the principles from which we conclude, the grounds upon which we bottom our reasoning, are but apart; something is left out which should go into the reckoning to make it just and exact. *

*

In this we may see the reason why some men of study and thought, that reason right, and are lovers of truth, do make no great advances in their discoveries of it. Error and truth are uncertainly blended in their minds, their decisions are lame and defective, and they are very often mistaken in their judgments. The reason whereof is, they converse but with one sort of men, they read but one sort of books, they will not come in the hearing of but one sort of notions; the truth is, they canton out to themselves a little Goshen in the intellectual world, where light shines, and, as they conclude, day blesses them; but the rest of that vast expansum they give up to night and darkness, and so avoid coming near it. They have a petty traffic with known correspondents in some little creek; within that they confine themselves, and are dexterous managers enough of the wares and products of that corner with which they content themselves, but will not venture out into the great ocean of knowledge, to survey the riches that nature hath stored other parts with, no less genuine, no less solid, no less useful, than what has fallen to their lot in the admired plenty and sufficiency of their own little spot, which to them contains whatsoever is good in the universe. Those who live thus mewed up within their own contracted territories, and will not look abroad beyond the boundaries that chance, conceit, or laziness, has set to their inquiries, but live separate from the notions, discourses, and attainments of the rest of mankind, may not amiss be represented by the inhabitants of the Marian islands, which, being separated by a large tract of sea from all communion with the habitable parts of the earth, thought themselves the only people of the world. And though the straitness and conveniences of life amongst them had never reached so far as to the use of fire, till the Spaniards, not many years since, in their voyages from Acapulco to Manilla, brought it amongst them, yet, in the want and ignorance of almost all things, they looked upon themselves, even after that the Spaniards had brought amongst them the notice of variety of nations abounding in sciences, arts, and conveniences of life, of which they knew nothing, they looked upon themselves, I say, as the happiest and wisest people in the universe.

PLEASURE AND PAIN.

The infinitely wise Author of our being, having given us the power over several parts of our bodies, to move or keep them at rest, as we think fit; and also, by the motion of them, to move ourselves and contiguous bodies, in which consists all the actions of our body; having also given a power to our mind, in several instances, to choose amongst its ideas which it will think on, and to pursue the inquiry of this or that subject with consideration and attention; to excite us to these actions of thinking and motion that we are capable of, has been pleased to join to several thoughts and several sensations, a perception of delight. If this were wholly sepa rated from all our outward sensations and inward thoughts, we should have no reason to prefer one thought or action to another, negligence to attention, or mo tion to rest. And so we should neither stir our bodies, nor employ our minds; but let our thoughts (if I may so call it) run adrift without any direction or design, and suffer the ideas of our minds, like unregarded shadows, to make their appearance there, as it happened, without attending to them. In which state, man, however furnished with the faculties of understanding and will, would be a very idle

inactive creature, and pass his time only in a lazy lethargic dream. It has, therefore, pleased our wise Creator to annex to several objects, and the ideas which we receive from them, as also to several of our thoughts, a concomitant pleasure, and that in several objects to several degrees, that those faculties which he had endowed us with, might not remain wholly idle and unemployed by us.

Pain has the same efficacy and use to set us on work that pleasure has, we being as ready to employ our faculties to avoid that, as to pursue this; only this is worth our consideration, 'that pain is often produced by the same objects and ideas that produce pleasure in us.' This, their near conjunction, which makes us often feel pain in the sensations where we expected pleasure, gives us new occasion of admiring the wisdom and goodness of our Maker, who, designing the preservation of our being, has annexed pain to the application of many things to our bodies, to warn us of the harm they will do, and as advices to withdraw from them. But He, not designing our preservation barely, but the preservation of every part and organ in its perfection, hath, in many cases, annexed pain to those very ideas which delight us Thus heat, that is very agreeable to us in one degree, by a little greater increase of it, proves no ordinary torment; and the most pleasant of all sensible objects, light itself, if there be too much of it, if increased beyond a due proportion to our eyes, causes a very painful sensation; which is wisely and favourably so ordered by nature, that when any object does, by the vehemency of its operation, disorder the instruments of sensation, whose structures can not but be very nice and delicate, we might by the pain be warned to withdraw, before the organ be quite put out of order, and so be unfitted for its proper function for the future. The consideration of those objects that produce it may well persuade us that this is the end or use of pain. For, though great light be insufferable to our eyes, yet the highest degree of darkness does not at all disease them; because that causing no disorderly motion in it, leaves that curious organ unharmed in its natural state. But yet excess of cold, as well as heat, pains us, because it is equally destructive to that temper which is necessary to the preservation of life, and the exercise of the several functions of the body, and which consist in a moderate degree of warmth, or, if you please, a motion of the insensible parts of our bodies, confined within certain bounds.

Beyond all this, we may find another reason why God hath scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain in all the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together in almost all that our thoughts and senses have to do with ; that we, finding imperfection, dissatisfaction, and want of complete happiness in all the enjoyments which the creatures can afford us, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of Him, 'with whom there is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore.'

ORTHODOXY AND HERESY.

The great division among Christians is about opinions. Every sect has its set of them, and that is called Orthodoxy; and he that professes his assent to them, though with an implicit faith, and without examining, is orthodox, and in the way to salvation. But if he examines, and thereupon questions any one of them he is presently suspected of heresy; and if he oppose them, or hold the contrary, he is presently condemned as in a damnable error, and in the sure way to perdition. Of this one may say, that there is nor can be nothing more wrong. For he that examines, and upon a fair examination embraces an error for a truth, has done his duty more than he who embraces the profession (for the truths themselves he does not embrace) of the truth without having examined whether it be true or no. And he that has done his duty according to the best of his ability, is certainly more in the way to heaven than he who has done nothing of it. For if it be our duty to search after truth, he certainly that has searched after it, though he has not found it, in

some points has paid a more acceptable obedience to the will of his Maker than he that has not searched at all, but professes to have found truth, when he has neither searched nor found it. For he that takes up the opinions of any church in the lump, without examining them, has truly neither searched after nor found truth, but has only found those that he thinks have found truth, and so receives what they say with an implicit faith, and so pays them the homage that is due only to God, who can not be deceived, nor deceive. In this way the several churches (in which, as one may observe, opinions are preferred to life, and orthodoxy is that which they are concerned for, and not morals) put the terms of salvation on that which the Author of our salvation does not put them in. The believing of a collection of certain propositions, which are called and esteemed fundamental articles, because it has pleased the compilers to put them into their confession of faith, is made the condition of salvation.

ISAAC NEWTON, the most eminent natural philosopher of ancient or modern times, was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on Christmas-day, 1642. At twelve years of age he was placed at Grantham grammar-school, with the view of becoming prepared to superintend, as a country gentleman, the small estate which his father had left him; but manifesting an ardent desire for learning, he was entered, in 1660, into Trinity College, Cambridge, where he soon distinguished himself in mechanics and mathematics. In 1664, before he had taken his bachelor's degree, he discovered a new method of infinite series and fluxions; and his thoughts being next turned to the phenomena of colors, he ascertained by experiment that light was not homogeneous, but a heterogeneous mixture of refrangible rays. While reflecting on this important discovery, and before he had reduced his observations to any systematic theory, he was compelled, by the plague of 1665, to leave Cambridge, and retire into the country. Though thus separated from his laboratory and his books, his wonderful mind was not unemployed; and accordingly, while he was sitting alone in his garden, the falling of an apple from a tree near him, led his thoughts to the subject of gravity; and reflecting that this power is not sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth, even at the top of the highest mountains, he concluded that it must extend much farther. Perhaps, thought he, it may extend to the moon, and even embrace the whole planetary system. The magnitude of the bare conception overwhelmed his mighty mind; and he therefore deferred the farther investigation of the subject till after his return to Cambridge.

Having been chosen, in 1667, fellow of his college, and taken his master's degree, Newton, in 1669, succeeded Dr. Barrow as Lucasian professor of mathematics in the university. He now devoted all his energies to those vast subjects to which we have already alluded, and to his unrivalled genius and sagacity the world is indebted for a variety of stupendous discoveries in natural philosophy and mathematics; among which his exposition of the laws which regulate the movement of the solar system, may be regarded as the most brilliant. The law of gravitation, which he discovered, he clearly demonstrated affected the vast orbs that revolve around the sun,

not less than the smallest objects on our own globe. The work in which he explained this system was written in Latin, and appeared in 1687, under the title of Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Newton's discoveries in optics also were such as to change so entirely the aspect of that science, that he may justly be considered its founder. His optical investigations occupied his attention for many years, in the course of which he demonstrated the divisibility of light into rays of seven different colors, all possessing different degrees of refrangibility. The admirable work in which he has given a detailed account of these discoveries is entitled Optics: or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colors of Light. Besides these, he published various profound mathematical works, which it is not necessray here to enumerate.

Like his illustrious contemporaries, Boyle and Locke, Newton devoted much attention to theology, as well as to natural sciences. The mystical doctrines of religion were those which he chiefly investigated; and to his great interest in them we are indebted for his Observations upon the Pro- . phecies of Holy Writ, particularly the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, published after his death. Among his manuscripts are found many other theological pieces, mostly on such subjects as the Prophetic Style, the Host of Heaven, the Revelations, the Temple of Solomon, the Sanctuary, the Working of the Mystery of Iniquity, and the Contest between the Host of Heaven and the transgressors of the Covenant. The manuscripts left by Newton were perused by Dr. Pellet, at the request of his executors, with the view to publish such as were thought fit for the press; the report returned, however, was that of the whole mass, nothing but a work on the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, was fit for publication. That treatise accordingly appeared; and many years afterward, An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, from Newton's pen, was published by Dr. Horsley.

Notwithstanding the extent of Sir Isaac Newton's scientific and literary labors, his whole life was not passed in his laboratory, or as a recluse student. He served repeatedly in parliament as member for the university; was appointed, in 1695, warden of the mint; and in 1703, became president of the Royal Society, over which he continued to preside during the remainder of his life. In 1705, Queen Anne bestowed upon him the honor of knighthood. The death of this truly wonderful man occurred on the twentieth of March, 1727; and after having lain in state in the Jerusalem chamber eight days, his body was deposited in Westminster Abbey, and a stately monument erected to his memory, with a Latin inscription, of which the following is a literal translation :

'Here lies interred Isaac Newton, knight, who, with an energy of mind almost divine, guided by the light of mathematics purely his own, first demonstrated the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the causes of the tides; who discovered, what before his time no one had even suspected, that rays of light are differently refrangible, and that this VOL. II.-P