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Locke's Doctrine of Intuition was not Borrowed from Descartes

THE Regulae ad directionem ingenii of Rene Descartes is an unfinished Latin work, written about 1628, which sets forth twenty-one rules to be followed in acquiring reliable knowledge. The manuscript remained unpublished until 1701, although a few handmade copies were circulated among the Cartesians. The Port Royal Logic (1664) contains part of the material; Leibniz purchased a copy in Holland in 1670; and a Flemish translation was made in 1684. John Locke published the Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690, but two different drafts were written in 1671. These have been newly discovered in the present century and were published—along with certain of Locke's journal entries. They are currently referred to as Draft A and Draft B* During the two decades after writing the drafts and before completing the Essay Locke made two extended visits to the Continent. He travelled in France from 1676 to 1679 and endured a selfimposed exile in Holland from 1683 to 1688. Because of these European sojourns, and because of the remarkable similarity of portions of the Essay and the Regulae, several commentators on these works have concluded that Locke probably encountered a copy of the Regulae while in Europe and borrowed from it certain important doctrines which are developed in the Essay. I propose to show here that this inference is a mistake. The most persistent claim made by the commentators and biographers is that Locke's doctrine of intuition was borrowed from the Regulae. I shall cite some of these claims and refute them as unwarranted by presenting satisfactory evidence that such borrowing is highly improbable. This is done in the hope of correcting what is almost certainly an error in the history of philosophy. There are two significant items found in Locke's journals which he kept while travelling in France. Under the date line 'Sunday Aug. 8' in the journal for 1677 we find a catalogue of Cartesian writings with the heading: Cartesii opera omnia. This list makes no mention of the Regulae, from which it follows that Locke was not aware of such a writing as late as 1677. Also, in a journal entry for March 7, 1678, a lengthy article appears— in faculty French—entitled Methode pour bien etudier la doctrine de Mr. de Cartes. An excerpt from the article is translated as follows: One must, nevertheless, expect from the reading of his Methode alone a comprehensive synopsis in which Descartes establishes the foundation of all parts of the doctrine which he wishes to impart. For he gives only four rules of logic and a very few principles of physics... . It is true that he teaches in no other place of' logic, claiming that the four rules which he gave, if well applied, must fulfill all that is necessary in this area. . . . This is convincing evidence that Locke did not know of a Cartesian writing containing twenty-one rules of logic as late as 1678. Locke specifically denies that he borrowed any doctrines from Descartes. In his First Letter to Stillingfleet he says, 'I am so far from entitling his [Descartes'] writings to any of the errors or imperfections which are to be found in my Essay . . . they were spun barely out of my own thoughts.'