Locke, Bacon and natural history

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 65-92

  Anstey, Peter R ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY   (Australia)

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EID: 33744922572     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338202X00036     Document Type: Review

References (124)

1. The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, eds. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall, 13 vols. (Madison, Milwaukee and London, 1965-1986), 111: 537.
2. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. Nidditch (Oxford, 1975), 645. All references to the Essay are to this edition. See also Essay IV. xii. 12, 647.
3. J. P. Gibson, Locke's Theory of Knowledge (Cambridge, 1917), 2.33.
4. J. R. Milton, "Locke's Life and Times" in The Cambridge Companion to Locke, ed. V. Chappell (Cambridge, 1994), 5-25, at 23. It should be pointed out that Milton also claims that the quantity of Bacon's books owned by Locke is "strong prima facie evidence that Locke was interested in the thought" of Bacon and that parallels in the intellectual content and stylistic expression of Bacon and Locke suggest Bacon as a source of influence on Locke.
5. See "Locke and Gassendi: A Reappraisal" in English Philosophy in the Age of Locke, ed. M. A. Stewart (Oxford, 2000), 87-109, at 88-90.
6. R. M. Yost, "Locke's Rejection of Hypotheses about sub-Microscopic Events," Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951), 111-30, at 127.
7. J. Yolton, Locke and the. Compass of Human Understanding (Cambridge, 1970), 6.
8. Another scam to Locke scholarship from the 1960s to the mid-1980s has been the study of Locke's medical writings and interests. Two prominent researchers in this tradition have highlighted the Locke/Bacon connection, but their work has not, on the whole, been taken up by philosophical commentators on Locke. See for example, K. Dewhurst, John Locke (1632-1704): Physician and Philosopher (London, 1963)
9. and P. Romanell, John Locke and Medicine: A New Key to Locke (New York, 1984).
10. F. Duchesneau, L'empiricisme de Locke (The Hague, 1973).
11. For example, this work is not mentioned by M. Ayers in his Locke: Epistemology and Ontology, 2 vols. (London, 1991).
12. Nor is it mentioned in Locke, ed. V. Chappcll (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) (Oxford, 1998).
13. See M. Mandelbaum, "Locke's Realism" in Philosophy, Science and Sense Perception (Baltimore, 1964), 1-60, at 10-15
14. and L. Laudan, "The Nature and Sources of Locke's Views on Hypotheses," Journal of the History of Ideas 28 (1967), 211-23,
15. reprinted with a postscript in Locke on Human Understanding: Selected Essays, ed. I. C. Tipton (Oxford, 1977), 149-62
16. and as ch. 5 of Science and Hypothesis (Dordrecht, 1981), 59-71.
17. R. S. Woolhouse, Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge (Oxford, 1971), 113-14.
18. Ibid., x. Another author who fails to mention Bacon or natural histories is G. Buchdahl in his extended discussion of Locke in Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science (Oxford, 1969), 181-274.
19. Ayers, Locke: Epistemology and Ontology, I: 115-16.
20. N. Jolley, Locke: His Philosophical Thought (Oxford, 1999);
21. E.J. Lowe, Locke on Human Understanding (London, 1995), 12 and 17-18.
22. See P. Anstey, "Locke on Method in Natural Philosophy" (forthcoming).
23. N. Wood, "The Baconian character of Locke's 'Essay'," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 6 (1975), 43-84, at 49ff.
24. The Works of Robert Boyle, 14 vols., eds. M. Hunter and E. B. Davis (London, 1999-2000), XII: 6.
25. The Works of John Locke, 10 vols., (London, 1823), IV: 402-3. The other reference is found on p. 427.
26. The under-labourer passage is found in "The Epistle to the Reader," Locke, Essay, 9-10.
27. Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, in Works of John Locke, III: 205-89, 206-7.
28. See Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, eds. J. W. Yolton and J. S. Yolton (Oxford, 1989), 325.
29. Locke writes, "Telesius-who hath renewd the philosophy of Parmenides & of' the best of the Novelists Bacon Nat. hist, ep 69." The quote can be found in Sylva Sylvarum in The Works of Francis Bacon, eds. J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis and D. D. Heath, 7 vols. (London, 1859), II: 370.
30. John Milton has pointed out to me that there are notes from the Novum Organum in Locke's copy of Blount's Censura Celebriorum Authorum (LL 358) dating from the 1690s. Further, it is worth noting that there is a reference in pencil to the Novum Organum on a facing page of the manuscript De Arte Medica which is not in Locke's hand. (I would like to thank the anonymous referee who pointed this out to me.) See "Dc arte medica" in K. Dewhurst, Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689): His Life and Original Writings (London, 1966), 84.
31. The authorship of this work is disputed. See G. G. Meynell, "Locke as Author of Analomia and De Arte Medica," The Locke Newsletter 25 (1994), 65-73
32. and J. R. Milton, "Locke, Medicine and the Mechanical Philosophy," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 9 (2001), 221-43, 229.
33. See G. G. Meynell, ed. Thomas Sydenham's "Observationes Medicae" and his "Medical Observations" (Folkestone, 1991), 97.
34. There are also occasional references to Bacon in Locke's correspondence. See for example Letter to Samuel Bold, 16 May 1699, in The Correspondence of John Locke, 8 vols., ed. E. S. de Beer (Oxford, 1976-89), VI: 627.
35. nd edn, eds. J. Harrison and P. Laslett (Oxford, 1971), 1-61, 24.
36. Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 252.
37. Bacon, Descriptio globi intellectualis, 98-9: "In Naturali Naturae res gestae & facinora memorantur" (In Natural [History] the achievements and deeds of nature are recounted).
38. Bacon, Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 251.
39. Bacon, Descriptio globi intellectualis, 105.
40. Bacon, Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 252.
41. For Boyle's similar dissatisfaction with current histories see his "De Imperfectione Historiae Naturalis," Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XIII: 358-61.
42. Bacon, Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 253
43. and Descriptio globi intellectualis, ch. II, 98-105.
44. Bacon, Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 254
45. and Descriptio globi intellectualis, ch. III, 104-7.
46. Bacon, Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 255.
47. Bacon, Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 255.
48. Parasceve ad historiam naturalem, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 265 and 267.
49. Oldenburg says, introducing Boyle's "General Heads for a Natural History of a Country," that "divers Philosophers aime, among other things, at the Composing of a good Natural History, to superstruct, in time, a Solid and Useful Philosophy upon," Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, V: 508. See also opening quote above and Boyle's The Christian Virtuoso, I, Appendix, in Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: 415-6.
50. For a discussion of the Baconianism of the early Royal Society see M. Hunter and P. Wood, "Towards Solomon's House: Rival Strategies for Reforming the Early Royal Society" in Establishing the New Science: The Experience of the Early Royal Society (Woodbridge, 1989), 185-244.
51. For Locke's reading of Boyle see J. R. Milton, "Locke at Oxford" in Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context, ed. G. A. J. Rogers (Oxford, 1994), 29-47, 37
52. and J. C. Walmsley and J. R. Milton, "Locke's Notebook 'Adversaria 4' and his Early Training in Chemistry," The Locke Newsletter 30 (1999), 85-101, at 98.
53. Certain Physiological Essays, Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, II: 16 and 17. See also Ralph Cudworth's comment on Boyle in his letter to Boyle of 16 October 1684: "The writers of hypotheses in natural philosophy will be confuting one another a long time, before the world will ever agree, if ever it do. But your pieces of natural history are unconfutable, and will afford the best grounds to build hypotheses upon. You have much outdone Sir Francis Bacon in your natural experiments⋯,"
54. The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. T. Birch, 6 vols. (London, 1772), I: cxxii.
55. Note the importance of Spring of the Air in Locke's posthumous Elements of Natural Philosophy written sometime after 1697. See The Works of John Locke, III: 311-13.
56. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, V: 509
57. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, V: 530.
58. Locke kept some notes on comments by a Mr Buckland with whom he lodged on the trip to the Mendip mine (British Library Add. MS 32554, 113). He subsequently incorporated these observations into his letter to Boyle. Locke's letter is published in General History of the Air, Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: 92-5.
59. See also Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, Letter 197, I: 273-6. Mr Buckland is most likely the Somerset gentleman John Buckland who had dealings with the early Royal Society.
60. See Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, II: 24
61. and M. Hunter, Establishing the New Science: The Experience of the Early Royal Society, ch. 3. Michael Hunter alerted me to this connection.
62. See Boyle to Locke 2 June 1666, Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, Letter 199, 1: 279
63. and Spring of the Air, I" Continuation, in Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, VI: 96.
64. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, V: 506.
65. Locke says of them to Sloane, "I did not keep this register for my own sake alone," Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, Letter 2833, VII: 211.
66. Quoted from Sir W. Osier, "John Locke as a Physician," The Lancet (1900),
67. reprinted in A Locke Miscellany, ed. J. S. Yolton (Bristol, 1990), 86-126, at 123.
68. Sec for example Letters 1521 and 1604 from Guenellon to Locke, Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, IV: 492-3 and 642-3. Locke maintained a long-term interest in bills of mortality and their relation to epidemics. For his journal references to these bills see Dewhurst, John Locke, passim.
69. Letter 2055, Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, V: 589. For further discussion see Dewhurst John Locke, 301-3, though this account contains some minor errors.
70. See Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: xiii
71. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: xii
72. and K. Dewhurst, "Locke's Contribution to Boyle's Researches on the Air and on Human Blood," Notes and Records of the Royal Society 17 (1962), 198-206, at 202.
73. General History of the Air, Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: 70-89.
74. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: 10.
75. Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, Letter 1583, IV: 609-10, italics added.
76. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: 6.
77. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, X: 9
78. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, XII: 5.
79. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, X: 96.
80. For details see R. Frank Jr, Harvey and the Oxford Physiologists (Berkeley, 1980), 186-8.
81. See "Respirationis Usus,"
82. in K Dewhurst, "Locke's Essay on Respiration," Bulletin for the History of Medicine 34 (1960), 257-73, at 265.
83. On 21 April 1678 Locke asks of the air released from fermented fruits, "Whether this be aer new generated or whether the springy particles of aer have, in the fruits out of which these fermenting liquors are drawn, by the artifice of nature been pressed close togcather & there by other particles fastend & held soe, & whether fermentation does not loose these bonds & give them liberty to expand themselves again? JL," in J. Lough, Locke's Travels in France (Cambridge, 1953), 192.
84. J. C. Walmsley, "Morbus-Locke's Early Essay on Disease," Early Science and Medicine 5 (2000), 367-393, at 389.
85. See also Milton, "Locke, Medicine and the Mechanical Philosophy," 236-42.
86. P. Anstey, "Robert Boyle and Locke's 'Morbus' Entry" (forthcoming).
87. See The Library of John Loche, eds. Harrison and Laslett, 27-9
88. and R. Ashcraft, "John Locke's Library: Portrait of an Intellectual" in A Locke Miscellany, ed. Yolton, 226-45.
89. The Library of John Locke, eds. Harrison and Laslett, 27-8.
90. Daniel Carey, "Locke, Travel Literature and the Natural History of Man," The Seventeenth Century 11 (1996), 259-80
91. and "Compiling Nature's History: Travellers and Travel Narratives in the Early Royal Society," Annals of Science 54 (1997), 269-92.
92. Certain Physiological Essays, in Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, II: 28;
93. Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, V: 509.
94. Milton, "Locke at Oxford," 45-6.
95. See Carey, "Compiling Nature's History," 286.
96. Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, Letter 1521, IV: 492.
97. For an early example see, J. Brown's "Locke and Sydenham" in Horae Subsecivae (Edinburgh, 1858), 1-98.
98. See also Dewhurst, Dr. Thomas Sydenham;
99. Meynell, ed. Thomas Sydenham's "Observationes Mediate";
100. idem, "Locke's Collaboration with Sydenham: The Significance of Locke's Indexes," The Locke Newsletter 27 (1996), 65-74.
101. For details and the possibility of Boyle's influence on Sydenham see Keele, "The Sydenham-Boyle Theory of Morbific Particles," 240-8.
102. Romanell, Locke and Medicine, ch. 4, 69-91.
103. Quoting the transcription of G. G. Meynell which retains Locke's abbreviations, Thomas Sydenham's "Observationes Medicae," 74.
104. For another example in Sydenham's writings see Epistolary Dissertation to Dr Cole in The Works of Thomas Sydenham, ed. R. G. Latham, 2 vols. (London, 1848), 1: 85.
105. Transcribed by G. G. Meynell, Thomas Sydenham's "Observationes Medicae," 97'. Meynell claims that the "quotation occurs twice in Bacon: De augmentis scientiarum, 2.iii, and Descriptio globi intelleclualis, c.iii," in ibid., 188. However, the former passage is an abbreviated version of the latter, and it is clear that it is the abbreviated version from the De augmentis scientiarum that is being quoted. The quote, ignoring Locke's contractions, deviates occasionally from Bacon's text. I supply Spedding's translation of the passage including Sydenham's insertion. "For I well know that [this natural history of diseases] is extant, large in its bulk, pleasing in its variety, curious often in its diligence; but yet weed it of fables, antiquities, quotations, idle controversies, philology and ornaments (which are more fitted for table talk and the noctes of learned men than for the instauration of philosophy), and it will shrink into a small compass. Certainly it is very different from that kind of history which I have in view,"
106. in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., IV: 299.
107. See also Descriptio globi intellectualis, 104-6.
108. See The Works of Thomas Sydenham, I: 12.
109. This was first pointed out by G. G. Meynell in his careful collation of the manuscripts relating to Sydenham's Observationes. See Thomas Sydenham's "Observationes Medicae, " 188.
110. The Works of Thomas Sydenham, I: 6. It is worth pointing out that Sydenham's Tratactus de podagra et hydrope (1683) also contains on its title page another quote from Bacon stressing a methodological maxim. The quotation reads, "Non fingendum, aut excogitandum, sed inveniendum, quid Natura faciat, aut ferat, Bacon." It is from Novum Organum, II: 10 and not surprisingly, it concerns natural history. With its prefatory remark it translates thus: "[we must prepare a natural and experimental history, sufficient and good; and this is the foundation of all] for we are not to imagine or suppose, but to discover, what nature does or may be made to do." Interestingly, Boyle uses the same quote on the title page to Colours and Cold.
111. See Works of Boyle, eds. Hunter & Davis, IV: 3 and 203. One cannot help but speculate that Newton's notorious "Hypotheses non fingo" might contain a distant echo of Bacon.
112. Correspondence of Locke, ed. de Beer, Letter 1593, IV: 628-9, italics added. See also Locke to William Molyneux, 15 June 1697, ibid., Letter 2277, VI: 144.
113. Milton, "Locke at Oxford," 46.
114. This can be observed by comparing the outline for the division of the sciences on the first few pages of the commonplace book commonly called "Adversaria 1661" with both the list of headings and sub-headings for the writing of adversaria which is found in Locke's journal entry of 4 September 1677 and the division of the sciences outlined in Essay TV. xxi. See Two Tracts on Government, ed. P. Abrams (Cambridge, 1967), 245-6
115. and An Early Draft of Locke's Essay, together with Excerpts from his Journals, eds. R. I. Aaron and J. Gibb (Oxford, 1936), 92-4 and Essay, 720-1.
116. Compare Locke, Two Tracts on Government, 246
117. with in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., I: 405-9.
118. For the date of this table see J. R. Milton, "The Dating of 'Adversaria 1661'," The Locke Newsletter 29 (1998), 105-117, at 110.
119. An Early Draft of Locke's Essay, together with Excerpts from his Journals, 94.
120. See Locke, Essay IV. xxi. 2, 720-1
121. and Bacon, Advancement of Learning, in Works of Bacon, eds. Spedding et al., III: 347.
122. There may be a vague allusion to it in section 13 of Conduct of the. Understanding, The Works of John Locke, III: 234.
123. See J. Farr, "The Way of Hypotheses: Locke on Method," Journal of the History of Ideas 48 (1987), 51-72, at 53
124. and Laudan's "Postscript: 1976" to "Locke's Views on Hypothesis" in I. C. Tipton ed., Locke on Human Understanding: Selected Essays (Oxford, 1977), 161-2.