ESSAYS. I. LOCKE AND THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS.* Ir is remarkable, that we have yet no well-written biography of Locke. The volumes by Lord King add little to our knowledge of his private life and character. They are made up chiefly of the sweepings of his writing-desk,— fragments of a correspondence, which he maintained with distinguished literary contemporaries, and imperfect drafts and abstracts of works, which were either subsequently published in a completed form, or were left by a change of purpose, or a want of time, among a heap of unexecuted projects. Yet they are not devoid of interest. We like to be admitted to the workshop of genius, and by inspection of the fragments scattered around, to gain some idea of the successive steps by which great works are evolved. Such disjecta membra not only throw light on the history of the individual mind, but afford valuable hints to the general inquirer into the phenomena of thought and opinion. Taken in connexion with the incidents in the life of a philosopher, they show the reciprocal workings of thought and action, and afford the most satisfactory proof of the sincerity of published opinions. They are rendered interesting *From the Christian Examiner for November, 1837. from the previously acquired reputation of the writer, and instructive from the insight they afford into the means by which that reputation was acquired. But the character of Locke hardly needed the illustration to be obtained from such sources as these. It is apparent on the very face of his larger works, and we rise from the perusal of them with much the same feelings, as those excited by conversation with an old and valued friend. He never puts on the airs of an author professedly dictating sentences for the public; but his thoughts flow from him with the same ease, simplicity, and not unfrequently the same vivacity, which we expect in the most unstudied tabletalk. Part of the effect produced on the reader is undoubtedly to be ascribed to the character of the style, which is always clear, homely, and repetitional; but more is to be attributed to the writer's peculiar turn of mind, and his entire freedom from any desire for effect. Though some. what positive in the statement of opinions, and pertinacious in their support, he never puts on the robes and declares his sentiments in the tone of a dogmatist. Hence, some peculiarities, which detract from the merit of his writings, enhance our admiration of his character as a man. Trite and puerile remarks are mingled with the most profound and sagacious observations, and the expression is as homely in the latter case, as in the former. His style is never ornamented but by accident, nor terse but from the nature of the argument. He uses perfect good faith with the reader, never attempting to hide the frivolity of an idea by a pompous enunciation, or to cover his retreat from a difficulty in the argument, by raising a mist of words. Though an acute reasoner, he avoids the common error of logicians, who regard as incontrovertible truths those assertions, which, in the set forms of their art, they are unable to disprove. His strong good sense breaks away from the tram |