In his first Treatise Locke attacks the divine right of kings, the idea that God gave Adam the right to rule; quoted in the bible… “Let them rule over the fish of the sea and birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Locke opposed to James II and Hobbes he wrote “men are so foolish that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by polecats or foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions.” Basically meaning because of the divine right of kings the power which comes from the people is given all to the ruler, seen as a ‘mortal god’. Locke held a strong belief that religion should be a private thing as it tears countries apart; it should be separate from politics and shouldn’t influence it and the divine right of kings will be the downfall of all governments. Hobbes, Locke and Russo all focus of the idea of the state of nature before politics was prevalent.
In his second treatise he expresses that he sees the mind as a blank slate in which we learn everything we know in life from experience alone and we discover natural laws. Locke didn’t believe in any innate ideas, he says the natural laws we discover we learn instinctively; the knowledge between ‘right and wrong’ was “interwoven in the constitution of the human mind which was given to us by God”. This led to conflict with the Catholic Church as they believe that everyone is born with original sin which was completely dismissed in Locke’s beliefs .However Locke did believe in god but wholly believed our brains had be placed in our head by God giving us the ability to think. Locke claims ‘Taking away false foundations is not to the prejudice but advantage of truth, which is never injured or endangered so much as when mixed with, or built on, falsehood.’
This week however we are just focusing on one part of the book; ‘The Epistle to the Reader’. The Essay originated in 1671, it was the genesis on the Books which followed. Locke expanded his comments repeatedly before publishing the book nearly twenty years later and continued to add to them with more material for the four further editions. It was originally written only for Locke himself and a few of the friends he had talked about these concepts with, however Locke merely wanted his ideas to be known ‘I desire it should be understood by whoever gives himself the pains to read it’.
Locke records in his epistle to the reader that a group of five or six friends met to discuss a point in philosophy and when they got stuck with their ideas, Locke came to realise that people struggle with the pursuit of knowledge mainly because they are completely unaware of their own limits of understanding. Locke wanted to figure out more; ‘it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with’. Locke goes on to explain how he studied the foundations of rational thought in his own mind, and so generated instructions for the possibility of a reasonable treatise. Locke understood everyone grasped things differently, purely because of our own meanings and personal understanding; ‘but everything does not hit alike upon every man’s imagination. We have our understandings no less different than our palates; and he that thinks the same truth shall be equally relished by every one in the same dress, may as well hope to feast every one with the same sort of cookery.’ This inspired Locke to consider the limits of understanding and the dangers of going past our limit, causing our thoughts to ‘wander into those depths where they can find no sure footing.’
Personally I think Locke makes an important point which should be considered by all journalists ‘for it is truth alone I seek, and that will always be welcome to me, when or from whencesover it comes’ Locke shows the importance of basing all our beliefs and understandings on the aspect of truth, although Locke does admit ‘I know there are not words enough in any language to answer all the variety of ideas that enter into men’s discourses and reasonings’.
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