Major Works
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
- Recommended edition: Some Thoughts Concerning Education, ed. Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996).Excerpt: I myself have been consulted of late by so many, who profess themselves at a loss how to breed their children; and the early corruption of youth is now become so general a complaint; that he cannot be thought wholly impertinent, who brings the… More
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
- Recommended edition: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).Excerpt: Since it is the understanding, that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion, which he has over them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labour to inquire into. The… More
A Letter Concerning Toleration
- Recommended edition: A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. James Tully (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983).Excerpt: I think indeed there is no nation under heaven, in which so much has already been said upon that subject, as ours. But yet certainly there is no people that stand in more need of having something further both said and done amongst them, in this… More
Two Treatises of Government
- Recommended edition: Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).Excerpt: Thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee. These, which… More