John Locke

John Locke (1632 to 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the Enlightenment and often called the father of liberalism. He wrote in English prose, and his best known books are A Letter Concerning Toleration, Two Treatises of Government and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the first two published anonymously around 1689. His writing on toleration argues that religion is a matter for the individual and that churches are voluntary associations, while the Two Treatises defend government based on the consent of the governed and a right to revolt against tyranny. Locke lived through the English Civil War, the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution, studied and taught at Christ Church, Oxford, served Lord Shaftesbury, and spent five years of political exile in the Netherlands, where he wrote some of his most important works. His influence reached Voltaire, Rousseau, the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Revolutionaries.