John Locke
English philosopher (1632 to 1704); Oxford academic and medical researcher; author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and the Second Treatise of Government.
John Locke did not write this page.
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Our reading
New opinions are usually opposed just for being uncommon, but a truth is no less true for being new
Their wordsTruth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine.
↗An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)gutenberg.org 1st of 6 in this piece
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Our reading
Human understanding is bright enough for all our purposes, and its limits are no excuse for idleness
Their wordsIt will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant, who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us shines bright enough for all our purposes.
↗An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)gutenberg.org 2nd of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsOur business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.
↗An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)gutenberg.org 3rd of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsBut, which is worse, this argument of universal consent, which is made use of to prove innate principles, seems to me a demonstration that there are none such: because there are none to which all mankind give an universal assent.
↗An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)gutenberg.org 4th of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsFor I think we may as rationally hope to see with other men’s eyes, as to know by other men’s understandings. So much as we ourselves consider and comprehend of truth and reason, so much we possess of real and true knowledge.
↗An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)gutenberg.org 5th of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsWhence has it all the MATERIALS of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself.
↗An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)gutenberg.org 6th of 6 in this piece
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