Concerning The Human Understanding

JOHN LOCKE Concerning the Human Understanding John Locke was born at Wrington, Somersetshire, England, Aug. 29, 1632. He was educated at Westminster and at Christ Church, Oxford; but his temperament rebelled against the system of education still in vogue and the public disputations of the schools, which he thought "invented for wrangling and ostentation rather than to discover truth." It was his study of Descartes that first "gave him a relish of philosophical things." From 1683 to 1689 he found it prudent to sojourn in Holland. In the latter year he returned to England, bringing with him the manuscript of the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding," which appeared in the spring of 1690. Few works of philosophy have made their way more rapidly than the "Essay." Twenty editions appeared before 1700. The design of the book, Locke explains in the introduction, is to inquire "into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent."