1689
Letter to the Right Honourable Lord Thomas,
et al.
To The Right Honourable Lord Thomas, Earl
Of Pembroke And Montgomery, Barron Herbert
Of Cardiff, Lord Ross, Of Kendal, Par, Fitzhugh,
Marmion, St. Quintin, And Shurland; Lord
President Of His Majesty's Most Honourable
Privy Council; And Lord Lieutenant Of The
County Of Wilts, And Of South Wales.
MY LORD,
HIS Treatise, which is grown up under your
lordship's eye, and has ventured into the
world by your order, does now, by a natural
kind of right, come to your lordship for
that protection which you several years since
promised it. It is not that I think any name,
how great soever, set at the beginning of
a book, will be able to cover the faults
that are to be found in it. Things in print
must stand and fall by their own worth, or
the reader's fancy. But there being nothing
more to be desired for truth than a fair
unprejudiced hearing, nobody is more likely
to procure me that than your lordship, who
are allowed to have got so intimate an acquaintance
with her, in her more retired recesses.
Your lordship is known to have so far advanced
your speculations in the most abstract and
general knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary
reach or common methods, that your allowance
and approbation of the design of this Treatise
will at least preserve it from being condemned
without reading, and will prevail to have
those parts a little weighted, which might
otherwise perhaps be thought to deserve no
consideration, for being somewhat out of
the common road. The imputation of Novelty
is a terrible charge amongst those who judge
of men's heads, as they do of their perukes,
by the fashion, and can allow none to be
right but the received doctrines.
Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote
anywhere at its first appearance: new opinions
are always suspected, and usually opposed,
without any other reason but because they
are not already common. But truth, like gold,
is not the less so for being newly brought
out of the mine.
It is trial and examination must give it
price, and not any antique fashion; and though
it be not yet current by the public stamp,
yet it may, for all that, be as old as nature,
and is certainly not the less genuine. Your
lordship can give great and convincing instances
of this, whenever you please to oblige the
public with some of those large and comprehensive
discoveries you have made of truths hitherto
unknown, unless to some few, from whom your
lordship has been pleased not wholly to conceal
them.
This alone were a sufficient reason, were
there no other, why I should dedicate this
Essay to your lordship; and its having some
little correspondence with some parts of
that nobler and vast system of the sciences
your lordship has made so new, exact, and
instructive a draught of, I think it glory
enough, if your lordship permit me to boast,
that here and there I have fallen into some
thoughts not wholly different from yours.
If your lordship think fit that, by your
encouragement, this should appear in the
world, I hope it may be a reason, some time
or other, to lead your lordship further;
and you will allow me to say, that you here
give the world an earnest of something that,
if they can bear with this, will be truly
worth their expectation.
This, my lord, shows what a present I here
make to your lordship; just such as the poor
man does to his rich and great neighbour,
by whom the basket of flowers or fruit is
not ill taken, though he has more plenty
of his own growth, and in much greater perfection.
Worthless things receive a value when they
are made the offerings of respect, esteem,
and gratitude: these you have given me so
mighty and peculiar reasons to have, in the
highest degree, for your lordship, that if
they can add a price to what they go along
with, proportionable to their own greatness,
I can with confidence brag, I here make your
lordship the richest present you ever received.
This I am sure, I am under the greatest obligations
to seek all occasions to acknowledge a long
train of favours I have received from your
lordship; favours, though great and important
in themselves, yet made much more so by the
forwardness, concern, and kindness, and other
obliging circumstances, that never failed
to accompany them. To all this you are pleased
to add that which gives yet more weight and
relish to all the rest: you vouchsafe to
continue me in some degrees of your esteem,
and allow me a place in your good thoughts,
I had almost said friendship. This, my lord,
your words and actions so constantly show
on all occasions, even to others when I am
absent, that it is not vanity in me to mention
what everybody knows: but it would be want
of good manners not to acknowledge what so
many are witnesses of, and every day tell
me I am indebted to your lordship for.
I wish they could as easily assist my gratitude,
as they convince me of the great and growing
engagements it has to your lordship. This
I am sure, I should write of the Understanding
without having any, if I were not extremely
sensible of them, and did not lay hold on
this opportunity to testify to the world
how much I am obliged to be, and how much
I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's most humble and most obedient
servant,
JOHN LOCKE
Dorset Court,
24th of May, 1689
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