The Conduct Of The Understanding / Essays / With Sketches Of The Lives Of Locke And Bacon

New York: S. King. Fair. 1825. Hardcover. This is a small format book (approx. 3" x 5 3/4"). The book is in Fair condition and was issued without a dust jacket. The spine of the book is mostly perished. The stitching of the spine is still solid. The covers have rubbing, edge wear and nicking. The text pages are generally clean and bright, though there are spots of foxing throughout. The bottom and foredges of the text block are uncut. The text pages are crudely opened. There is a previous owner's penciled notes on the front endpaper and penciled name on the front pastedown. "John Locke's Of the Conduct of the Understanding describes how to think clearly and rationally. It is a handbook for autodidacts. It complements Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education which explains how to educate children. The text was first published in 1706, two years after Locke's death, as part of Peter King's Posthumous Works of John Locke. " "Locke exercised a profound influence on political philosophy, in particular on modern liberalism. Michael Zuckert has argued that Locke launched liberalism by tempering Hobbesian absolutism and clearly separating the realms of Church and State. He had a strong influence on Voltaire who called him "le sage Locke". His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract later influenced the written works of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. In fact, one passage from the Second Treatise is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a "long train of abuses" (from Wikipedia) .