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,
THIS 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
|
Evans Experientialism 
