History of Modern Philosophy

we be sure of anything? a foremost place in speculation. But the singular assurance with which the Cartesian metaphysicians presented their adventurous hypotheses as demonstrated certainties showed that with them the test of truth meant whatever told for that which, on other grounds, they believed to be true. In reality, the thing they called reason was hardly more than a covert appeal to authority, a suggestion that the duty of philosophy was to reconcile old beliefs with new. And the last great dogmatist, Leibniz, was the one who practised this method of uncritical assumption to the utmost extent. Locke It is the peculiar glory of John Locke (1632- 1704) to have resumed that method of doubt which Descartes had attempted, but which his dogmatic prepossessions had falsified almost at the first start. This illustrious thinker is memorable not only for his services to speculation, but for the example of a genuinely philosophic life entirely devoted to truth and good?a character in which personal sweetness, simplicity, and charm were combined with strenuous, disinterested, and fearless devotion to the service of the State. Locke was a Whig when Whiggism meant advanced Liberalism in religion and politics, and when that often meant a choice between exile and death. Thus, after the fall of his patron, Lord Shaftesbury, the philosopher had to take refuge in Holland, remaining there for some years, lying hid even there for some time to escape an extradition order...