John Locke lived to become the most influential people in England, and perhaps one of the most influential people in the seventeenth century. He was born in Wrington, a village in Somerset County, on August 29, 1632. He was named after his father, and was a country lawyer and a small landowner who served on the Puritan side in the early stages of the English civil war. Locke's father later died in 1661. His mother was thirty-five years old when he was born and died when he was twenty-two.
             In 1647, Locke went to Westminster School in London, were he was a part of a small group of special boys who had the privilege of living in the school and who received a stipend for two or three years before standing for election for either Christ Church, Oxford or Trinity College Cambridge. Locke stayed there until 1650. At the age of twenty, Locke attended the Christ Church, Oxford University, in 1652. Although Locke would rather have learned philosophy from Descartes instead of Aristotle, he still satisfied authorities. One of Locke's friends from Westminster school, Richard Lower, introduced Locke to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued by the virtuosi at Wadham. Locke received his B.A. in February 1656. Locke was elected to a Senior Student of Christ Church College in 1659. The rank was equivalent to a Fellow at any of the other colleges, but was not permanent. He declined an offer of preferment for a clerical position in 1666, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1668.
             Locke's own involvement with the scientific movement, led to him meeting Lord Ashley, one of the richest men in England. The two of them liked one another and as a result of this meeting, Ashley invited Locke to come to London to be his personal physician. And in 1667 Locke moved to London, to become Lord Ashley's physician. Locke soon became his secretary, political operative and friend. While working for Lord Ashle...