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POSTHUMOUS

WORKS

OF

JOHN LOCK E, Esq.

VIZ.

I. Of the Conduct of the Understanding.

II. An Examination of P. Malebranche's Opinion of seeing all Things in God.

III. A Discourse of Miracles.

IV. *Part of a fourth Letter for Toleration.

V. Memoirs relating to the Life of Anthony, first Earl of Shaftesbury.

*This Letter, to preserve a Connection of the Subject, is in this Edition carried to the former three Letters on Toleration, in the sixth Volume; as is the Treatise of the Conduct of the Understanding to the End of the Essay of Human Understanding in the second.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

READER.

THE ensuing treatises are true and genuine remains of the deceased author, whose name they bear; but, for the greatest part, received not his last hand, being in a great measure little more than sudden views, intended to be afterwards revised and farther looked into; but by sickness, intervention of business, or preferable inquiries, happened to be thrust aside, and so lay neglected.

The" conduct of the understanding" he always thought to be a subject very well worth consideration. As any miscarriages, in that point, accidentally came into his mind, he used sometimes to set them down in writing, with those remedies, that he could then think of. This method, though it makes not that haste to the end, which one could wish, yet perhaps is the only one, that can be followed in the case; it being here, as in physic, impossible for a physician to describe a disease, or seek remedies for it, till he comes to meet with it. Such particulars of this kind, as occurred to the author, at a time of leisure, he, as is before said, set down in writing; intending, if he had lived, to have reduced them into order and method, and to have made a complete treatise; whereas now it is only a collection of casual observations, sufficient to make men see some faults in the conduct of their understanding, and suspect there may be more, and may, perhaps, serve to excite others to inquire farther into it, than the author hath done.

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"The examination of P. Malebranche's opinion, of seeing all things in God," shows it to be a very groundless notion, and was not published by the author, because he looked upon it to be an opinion that would not spread, but was like to die of itself, or at least to do no great harm.

"The discourse of miracles" was writ for his own satisfaction, and never went beyond the first draught, and was occasioned by his reading "Mr. Fleetwood's essay on miracles," and the letter writ to him on that subject.

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"The fourth letter for toleration" is imperfect, was begun by the author a little before his death, but never finished. It was designed for an answer to a book intitled, "A second letter to the author of the three "letters for toleration," &c. which was writ against the author's third letter for toleration, about twelve years after the said third letter had been published.

"The memoirs of the late earl of Shaftesbury" are only certain, particular facts, set down in writing by the author, as they occurred to his memory; if time and health would have permitted him, he had gone on farther, and from such materials have collected and compiled an history of that noble peer.

AN

EXAMINATION

OF

P. MALE BRANCHE'S

OPINION

OF

SEEING ALL THINGS IN GOD.

1. THE acute and ingenious author of the Recherche de la Verité, among a great many very fine thoughts, judicious reasonings, and uncommon reflections, has in that treatise started the notion of " seeing all things in "God," as the best way to explain the nature and manner of the ideas in our understanding. The desire I had to have my unaffected ignorance removed, has made it necessary for me to see whether this hypothesis, when examined, and the parts of it put together, can be thought to cure our ignorance, or is intelligible and satisfactory to one who would not deceive himself, take words for things, and think he knows what he knows

not.

2. This I observe at the entrance, that P. Malebranche* having enumerated, and in the following chapters showed the difficulties of the other ways, whereby he thinks human understanding may be at

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