Volume 1

Horae subsecivae / by John Brown.

  • Brown, John, 1810-1882.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Horae subsecivae / by John Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    After the Earl's death, Locke returned to England, and seems to have lived partly at Exeter House with Lord Shaftesbury, and partly at Oxford. It was in 1670, at the latter place, that he sketched the first outline of his immortal Essay, the origin of which he has so modestly recorded in his Epistle to the Reader. Dr. Thomas, and most probably Dr. Sydenham, were among the ' five or six friends meeting at my cham- ber,' who started the idea of that work, ' which has done more than any other single work to rectify pre- judice, to undermine established errors, to diffuse a just mode of thinking, to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry, and yet to contain it w^ithin the boundaries nature has set to the human faculties. If Bacon first discovered the rules by which knowledge is to be advanced, Locke has most contributed by precept and example to make mankind at large observe them, and has thus led to that general diffusion of a health- ful and vigorous understanding, which is at once the greatest of all improvements, and the instrument by which all other improvements must be accomplished.' About this time, Locke seems to have been made a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1674, he took the degree of Bachelor of Medicine; he never was Doctor of Medicine, though he generally passed among his friends as Dr. Locke. In 1675, he went abroad for his health, and appar- ently, also, to pursue his medical studies. He re-