1632: John Locke was born.

John Locke was an English physician who was the most important philosopher during the Age of Reason. He spent over 20 years developing the ideas he published in most significant work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) which analyzed the nature of human reason, and promoted experimentation as the basis of knowledge.

He established primary qualities, (ex. solidity, extension, number) as distinct from secondary qualities identified by the sense organs (ex. color, sound). Thus the world is otherwise silent and without color. Locke recognized that science is made possible when the primary world mechanically affects the sense organs, thereby creating ideas that faithfully represent reality.

Resources:

• History and discussion questions

• Comprehensive history and index of writings

Quotes for Writing or Discussion:

• All wealth is the product of labor.

• An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.

• As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.

• Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.

• Fashion for the most part is nothing but the ostentation of riches.

• Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

• Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.

• I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.

• I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

• It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.

• It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.

• It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.

• New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

• No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.

• Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

• The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

• The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.

• There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.

• To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.

• To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.

• We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

• We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

• What worries you, masters you.

Suggested Readings:

• The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law

• Philosophy for Kids: 40 Fun Questions that Help You Wonder About Everything

• Philosophy for Teens: Questioning Life's Big Ideas

• Big Ideas for Little Kids: Teaching Philosophy Through Children's Literature

• A Young Person's Guide to Philosophy