Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/574

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568 LOCKED JAW LOCKHAET tion of these faculties takes its rise from ex- perience, and that the mind may therefore be compared to a sheet of white paper' void of all characters till the events of time inscribe them. Having thus stated the principle that all the materials of our knowledge come from experi- ence, he explains it more particularly by'ma- king a distinction between sensation and re- flection as sources of ideas. The former is ob- servation of the external world, the latter of our own mental operations. Though he uses the term reflection in a wavering and indefi- nite sense, it does not plainly appear that he ascribed to it any other power than that of a mere formal and logical mechanism, to act upon, to combine and compare, and to exten- sively modify the materials primarily afforded by the senses. In long and acute processes of reasoning he aims to bring the ideas of space, time, infinity, causality, personal identity, sub- stance, and good and evil within the limits of experience. The third book is a treatise on the nature, use, and abuse of language. In the fourth book he passes from ideas to knowledge, from psychology to ontology, treating the ques- tion as to the adequacy of our ideas #nd the reality of our knowledge. He held a repre- sentative theory of perception, maintaining that the mind does not know things immedi- ately, but by the intervention of ideas; that knowledge is real only in so far as there is conformity between our ideas and the reality of things ; and that ideas may be entirely in- adequate, however distinct they are, thus re- jecting the criterion of Descartes. This theory contains the germ of utter skepticism, and was the ground on which Berkeley denied the ex- istence of the material world, and Hume in- volved all human knowledge in doubt. The distinction established by Kant between the cause and the occasion of our conceptions, ma- king the former to exist in the original consti- tution of the mind, and the latter in the cir- cumstances of experience, would have removed the fundamental error involved, perhaps with- out design, in the system of Locke. There are indications in many passages of his work that he was not satisfied with that tendency to sensationalism, which when rigidly developed bore fruits of utilitarianism in morals, mate- rialism in metaphysics, and skepticism in reli- gion. A biography of Locke was published in 1829 by Lord King, a lineal descendant of his sister, and added to Bonn's " Standard Library" in 1858. The best complete edition of his works is in 10 vols. (London, 1823). His philosophical works have been published by J. A. St. John (2d ed., 2 vols., London, 1854). A new biography by H. R. Fox Bourne was announced in 1874. LOCKED JAW. See TETAXUS. LOCKER, Frederick, an English poet, born at Greenwich hospital in 1824. His father, Ed- ward Ha we Locker, was a civil commissioner of Greenwich hospital, and author of several biographies of naval officers. Frederick be- gan writing comparatively late in life, and for a long time was unappreciated by the conduc- tors of newspapers and periodicals. Several of his poems, especially " A Nice Correspondent," "My Neighbor Rose," "Lines on a Human Skull," and "My Grandmother," have been very widely copied. These and other similar verses were gathered in a small volume entitled " London Lyrics " (1857), of which five edi- tions have been published in London and one in America. Locker has also edited "Lyra Elegantiarum " (London, 1867), a collection of English tiers de societe, with an introductory essay on that kind of poetry. LOCKHART, John Gibson, a Scottish author, born at Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire, in 1794, died at Abbotsford, Nov. 25, 1854. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, and having obtained an exhibition in Balliol col- lege, Oxford, graduated there as a bachelor of civil law. After a tour On the continent he settled in Edinburgh, and in 1816 was called to the bar of that city. Although favorably known in the circles of the Scottish metropolis by his accomplishments, he .failed to make an impression as an advocate, and upon the estab- lishment of "Blackwood's Magazine" in 1817 became a contributor to its columns. In 1819 appeared " Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," the joint production of Prof. Wilson and himself, containing lively though exaggerated descrip- tions of Scottish society and manners. A con- siderable portion of " Christopher in the Tent," published in " Blackwood " in the same year, and several of the earlier " Noctes Ambrosia- nse," were also written by him. In the previ- ous year he had met Sir Walter Scott in Edin- burgh, and the intimacy which sprung up be- tween them resulted in Lockhart's marriage, in April, 1820, to Sophia Charlotte, the eldest daughter of Sir Walter. He soon after removed with his wife to Chiefswood, a cottage within two miles of Abbotsford, whither his father-in- law was in the habit of going daily for relaxa- tion from his literary labors, or to escape his numerous visitors. He remained, however, a regular contributor to "Blackwood," and at the same time became an industrious writer of fiction. In 1821 appeared his "Valerius, a Roman Story," said to have been written in three weeks; in 1822, "Adam Blair," a Scot- tish tale of a deep and almost tragic interest ; and in 1823, "Reginald Dalton," a tale of English university life. In 1822 he edited an edition of "Don Quixote," with copious notes, and in the succeeding year collected and pub- lished his translations of " Ancient Spanish Ballads," which had previously appeared in "Blackwood" and elsewhere. This work, which has been repeatedly reprinted in Great Britain and America, is one of his most popu-. lar publications. In 1824 appeared his last novel, " The History of Matthew Wald." In the latter part of 1825 Sir John T. Coleridge, who had conducted the "Quarterly Review" since the retirement of Gifford, resigned the