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"Surely a more pernicious set of opinions than the Lockian could hardly be broached by man:" and speaking of what he calls the paradoxes,' which he supposes to attend the system of Locke and his followers, he asserts that "they render it one of the most mischievous as well as ridiculous schemes, that ever disgraced the reasoning faculties of human nature."

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Against this heavy charge Dr. Towers published, in 1782, A Vindication of the Political Principles of Mr. Locke;' in which he has proved, that the Dean grossly misrepresented his antagonist, and advanced positions totally indefensible. " Mr. Locke's Treatise on Government was calculated (he remarks) to increase the liberty of mankind, and to place them in a situation of greater dignity and felicity, than had been afforded them by the various systems of tyranny and oppression, which have taken place under the name of government' in the different ages and nations of the world. The great aim of Dean Tucker's book seems to be, to support ancient systems because they are so, to furnish arguments for perpetuating different kinds of oppression, though not absolute tyranny, and to discourage those noble attempts after a more perfect system of civil policy, which the extension of knowledge and of science might give men just reason to hope for and to expect. Mr. Locke is a clear, rational, consistent writer; but Dr. Tucker has taken abundant pains to involve him in darkness and obscurity, and to draw imaginary consequences from his propositions, which cannot by any just reasoning be deducible from them, and of which Mr. Locke appears not to

have had the most distant conception." He farther remarks, with reference to Locke's general character, that He was rendered truly illustrious by his wisdom and his virtue, by the disinterestedness* and uprightness of his conduct, by his love of truth, and by his ardent attachment to the great interests of mankind. He analysed the human mind, explained it's operations, and illuminated the intellectual world by the sagacity of his researches. He examined into the foundation of civil government, traced it to it's true source, and illustrated and enforced it's genuine principles. He maintained the justice, the reasonableness, and the necessity of religious toleration with a clearness, a precision, and a force of argument, that had not been equalled by any preceding writer. He laboured to elucidate the Sacred Scriptures, to advance the interests of revelation and of virtue, to loosen the bands of tyranny, and to promote the cause of liberty, of justice, and of humanity. Such was the man, whose character the Dean of Gloucester has laboured to degrade, whose sentiments he has misrepresented, and whose opinions he flatters himself that he has confuted. But these efforts are fruitless, and these imaginations are vain. The sentiments of Mr. Locke are founded

Yet one of his great admirers (Mr. Hollis, who reprinted his Treatises on Government,' and his Letter on Toler ation') resenting what he thought his unkind treatment of Toland, has pronounced him "time-serving and peevish:" not sufficiently considering that Mr. Locke, as a serious believer, might be disgusted with some of that gentleman's licentious descants upon religion; or that, while the latter was violent and úntractable, the former was rendering services to the public (as the biographer of Hollis suggests) rather of the cool philosophic kind, being of a temper of mind which indisposed him for engaging with the alert and the vivacious.

upon reason, truth, and justice; and his name will continue to be reverenced wherever learning, liberty, and virtue shall be held in estimation.'

EXTRACTS.

Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God.
(Essay, IV. x.)

1. Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself; though he has stamped no original characters on our minds, wherein we may read his being; yet having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without witness since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a clear proof of him, as long as we carry ourselves about us. Nor can we justly complain of our ignorance in this great point, since he has so plentifully provided us with the means to discover and know him, so far as is necessary to the end of our being and the great concernment of our happiness. But though this be the most obvious truth that reason discovers, and though it's evidence be (if I mistake not) equal to mathematical certainty; yet, it requires thought and attention, and the mind must apply itself to a regular deduction of it from some part of our intuitive knowledge, or else we shall be as uncertain and ignorant of this as of other propositions, which are in themselves capable of clear demonstration. To show, therefore, that we are capable of knowing, i. e. being certain that there is a God, and how we may come by this certainty, I think we need go no farther than ourselves, and that undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence.

2. I think it is beyond question, that man has a

clear perception of his own being: he knows certainly that he exists, and that he is something. Him that can doubt whether he be any thing or no, I speak not to; no more than I would argue with pure nothing, or endeavour to convince non-entity, that it were something. If any one pretends to be so sceptical, as to deny his own existence (for really to doubt of it, is manifestly impossible) let him for me enjoy his beloved happiness of being nothing, until hunger or some other pain convince him of the contrary. This then, I think, I may take for a truth, which every one's certain knowledge assures him of beyond the liberty of doubting, viz. that he is something that actually exists.

3. In the next place, man knows by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If a man knows not that non-entity, or the absence of all being, cannot be equal to two right angles, it is impossible he should know any demonstration in Euclid. If therefore we know there is some real being, and that non-entity cannot produce any real being, it is an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something; since what was not from eternity had a beginning, and what had a beginning, must be produced by something else.

4. Next, it is evident, that what had it's being and beginning from another, must also have all that which is in and belongs to it's being from another too. All the powers it has must be owing to, and received from, the same source. This eternal source then of all being must, also, be the source and original of all power, and so this eternal being must be, also, the most powerful.

5. Again, a man finds in himself perception and knowledge. We have, then, got one step farther; and we are certain now, that there is not only some being, but some knowing intelligent being in the world.

There was a time, then, when there was no knowing being, and when knowledge began to be; or else there has been, also, a knowing being from eternity. If it be said, there was a time when no being had any knowledge, when that eternal being was void of all understanding;' I reply, that then it was impossible there should ever have been any knowledge: it being as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly and without any perception, should produce a knowing being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. For it is as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two right ones.

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6. Thus from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth; that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing being, which whether any one will please to call God,' it matters not. The thing is evident, and from this idea duly considered, will easily be deduced all those other attributes, which we ought to ascribe to this eternal being. If, nevertheless, any one should be found so senselessly arrogant, as to suppose man alone knowing and wise, but yet the product of mere ignorance and chance, and that all the rest of the universe acted only by that

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