John Locke
1 book in the library
John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher and physician, born in Wrington, Somerset, and educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He became physician, secretary and adviser to Lord Ashley, later Earl of Shaftesbury, a leading opponent of the king, and when Shaftesbury fell from power Locke went into exile in the Netherlands in 1683. He returned to England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and within a short time published his major works: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which argued that the mind begins as a blank slate and gains its ideas from experience, the Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. His later writings include Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693). Locke spent his last years at Oates in Essex, where he died in 1704. His ideas on knowledge, natural rights and government by consent made him one of the founders of modern liberal thought.
