02/04/2026
/ John Locke /
"There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men."
"John Locke, (born Aug. 29, 1632, Wrington, Somerset, Eng.—died Oct. 28, 1704, Oates, Essex), English philosopher. Educated at Oxford, principally in medicine and science, he later became physician and adviser to the future 3rd earl of Shaftesbury (1667–72). He moved to France, but after Shaftesbury’s fall in 1683 he fled to the Netherlands, where he supported the future William III. Locke returned to England after the Glorious Revolution (1688) to become commissioner of appeals, a post he held until his death. In his major philosophical work, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), he argued that knowledge begins in sensation or introspection rather than in innate ideas, as the philosophers of rationalism held. From sensation and reflection the mind receives “ideas,” which are the material of knowledge. Some ideas represent actual qualities of objects (such as size, shape, or weight) and others perceived qualities, which do not exist in objects except as they affect observers (such as colour, taste, or smell); Locke called the former qualities “primary” and the latter “secondary.” Ideas that are given directly in sensation or reflection are simple, and simple ideas may be ..."
