John Locke was born at Wrington in the north of Somerset, August 29 (N.S.), 1632, the same year that gave birth to Spinoza. His father, an attorney, was a man of independent character and strong principle, which he proved by accepting a commission in a Parliamentary regiment. Locke was elected to a foundation scholarship at Westminster in 1647, and to a studentship at Christ Church in 1652. He became M.A. in June, 1658, was appointed Greek Lecturer in 1660, and held other college offices. He wrote about this time two treatises as yet unpublished, one upon the Roman commonwealth, the other on the right of the civil magistrate to regulate indifferent matters touching the exercise of religion, which, under the influence of the hopes which moderate men entertained of the Restoration government, he was at the time inclined to allow. Having determined to study medicine, he obtained in 1666 a dispensation to enable him to hold his studentship, and in the same year the decisive bias was given to his life by his acquaintance with Shaftesbury, of whose family he became virtually a member in the following year. Shaftesbury was as yet neither the Shaftesbury of the Cabal nor the Shaftesbury of the Popish Plot, and there was no reason why Locke should hesitate in attaching himself to a statesman, who, whatever his astuteness and versatility, possessed by far the most enlightened and comprehensive mind of any public man of his day. The main bond which united the two was their agreement on the principle of toleration, for which Chillingworth had been denounced and Roger Williams persecuted, and which scarcely any one would then have subscribed as an abstract proposition, though Cromwell had gone a long way towards reducing it to practice. Influenced probably by Shaftesbury, Locke drew up in 1667 an _Essay on Toleration_, the first draft of his subsequent celebrated work, and which has itself been retrieved from oblivion by Mr. Fox Bourne. Considering the circumstances of the times, it can excite neither surprise nor censure that he should have argued in favour of denying the privileges of toleration to those who denied them to others, _i.e._, to Roman Catholics. Two years later he drew up, at Shaftesbury's instance, a constitution for the colony of Carolina, in which Shaftesbury was largely interested. His medical skill was exerted in relieving Shaftesbury from the effects of a serious complaint; and he acquitted himself successfully in a yet more delicate undertaking, the choosing a wife for his son. He also attended professionally at the birth of Shaftesbury's grandson, the future author of _Characteristics_. These services were fitly recompensed by secretaryships, both at the Great Seal and at the Board of Trade, but there is not the slightest proof of his having participated in any of his patron's plots; while it is not too much to say that the steady regard entertained for Shaftesbury by a man like Locke affords the strongest of all presumptions that this enigmatical personage was, after all, a patriot. During three and a half stormy years Locke was in France for the benefit of his health, making observations on the culture of the vine and olive, and noting, under the external splendour of Louis XIV.'s reign, symptoms of that distress among the industrial classes which was to issue in the Revolution. Returning, he found his patron just liberated from the Tower, and their intimate relations continued until Shaftesbury's flight to Holland in November, 1682, followed by his death in the succeeding January. Locke was thus a mark for the suspicions and animosities of the triumphant Court party. His usual place of residence was now Oxford, where he still enjoyed his Christ Church studentship, and curious letters are extant from Dean Prideaux, avowing practices akin to espionage, but admitting that John Locke is so close a man, and his servant such a phoenix of discretion, that nothing can be made out. Locke wisely withdrew to Holland about the autumn of 1683, and in November, 1684, was arbitrarily ejected from his studentship by a royal mandate. He employed his exile in forming friendships with Limborch, Le Clerc, and other distinguished men, in composing his famous _Letter on Toleration_, published anonymously in 1689, and in active communication with William and Mary when the Deliverer's expedition was finally determined upon. He came to England with Mary in 1689, and received the most flattering offers of important diplomatic posts, which he declined on account of the weakness of his health.