John Locke - something about his life and his theory of property.

    John Locke, of course, influenced the ideas behind the The Declaration of Independence as well as those contained in the Constitution.  His ideas about property are often referred to in legal discussions, for example, concerning land use planning, condemnation law, taxation, and the like.  The following link is to a ten-page summary of Locke's life, his roles in English politics, and his views on property.  The sources for these ideas are listed in the document.Download locke_and_property.doc
    If you want a more humorous view of Locke and his ideas concerning human knowledge then go to Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel, The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, first published in installments between 1759-67 and now available in a Penguin Books paperback (1997).
    First, we need to go to Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, vol. 1, Book II, Chapter XIV where Locke explains to us his idea of time from an internal point of view: 
    "Hence I leave it to others to judge whether it be not probable that our ideas do, whilst we are awake, succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, not much unlike the images in the inside of a lantern, turned round by the heat of a candle.  This appearance of theirs in train, though perhaps it may be sometimes faster and sometimes slower, yet, I guess, varies not very much in a waking man:  there seem to be certain bounds to the quickness and slowness of the succession of those ideas one to another in our minds beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten."
    Now, we go to Chapter XVIII of Volume III of Sterne's novel where Tristram Shandy's father is having a conversation with Tristram's uncle Toby.  Uncle Toby is a retired artillery man and not much given to philosophical thinking.  Tristram's father, however, is prone to it, but is usually stopped dead in his abstruse abstractions by Toby's much more earthbound responses.  Tristam has not yet been born but is giving us his account of it.  Dr. Slop has been called because of Tristam's mother's labor pains and has been with her now for 2 hours and 10 minutes, and Tristam's father has remarked to Toby that "to my imagination it seems almost an age." Now, he is determined to give Uncle Toby an account of how such a short period of time could seem like "an age."  So, he asks uncle Toby if he has any idea as to how 2 hours and 10 minutes could seem like "an age."  "No more than my horse, replied my uncle Toby."  "Gracious heaven! cried my father, looking upwards, and clasping his two hands together, --- there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby, --'twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge ----But I'll tell thee."  Tristram's father then gives Toby a lecture that follows Locke's ideas about our sense of time having to do with ideas circling within our head, one in succession to another.
    Tristam's father concludes by saying to Toby:
"Now, whether we observe it or no...in every sound man's head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like -- A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby -- a train of a fiddle stick!---quoth my father,---[his father continues] which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn [lantern] turned round by the heat of a candle ---I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are more like a smoak-jack [the smoak-jack was used to turn a roasting-spit by means of the hot air rising from the fire]---Then brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon the subject." 

    Toby's ideas are more like something powered from the hot air below, [perhaps akin to Tristam's father's philosophical perambulations] and Locke, as explained by Tristram's father, seems to think that ideas are more like images on the inside of a turning lantern, so the discussion stops dead because of their differing mental images of the process, tied to different physical objects.

    If you are still with me, the whole motive behind all of this Tristram Shandy/Locke stuff is that there is a now a film playing, Tristram Shandy, which I understand is excellent, although I have not yet had time to see it.  I wonder if the script-writer picks up on any of the very clever pot-shots that Laurence Sterne takes at Locke's theories in the course of his novel?  And, of course, even if Locke didn't get it quite right about the relationships between ideas in our head and the passage of time, others have diffiuclty in explaining time, too.  And, I think Locke's political philosophy can stand reasonably well and independently of his early understanding of psychology and his theory of knowledge.

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