Locke: A Biography (review)

Even given the recent unfashionable nature of scholarly biography, it seems astonishing that this is the first major biography of John Locke since Maurice Cranston's work fifty years ago. Woolhouse utilizes a standard chronological framework to draw together Locke's life and interests as well as his philosophical writings, guiding the reader meticulously from his early life until his death in 1704. As he notes, "Locke was a man who liked company and conversation, and who, in turn, was valued for his amusing and affable company" (3). Fortuituously for the biographer and us as readers, Locke was also a man of letters who liked to write his thoughts down on paper. His extant correspondence is voluminous and Woolhouse puts it to good use. Particularly fascinating are his letters and friendship with Lady Damaris Cudworth Masham, a philosopher who later offered lodgings to Locke at her country estate when he returned from exile in Holland. From their first meeting in 1681 they corresponded frequently. Cudworth, who signed herself Philoclea, a name taken from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia and also a pun on Locke, suggested books for him to read, and he in turn asked for her advice although she teased him mercilessly about asking for a woman's interpretation, "were you not afraid that in revenge I should have asked your advice about making me a new petticoat?" (176).

Unsurprisingly the real strength of the book is in the philosophical analysis. Locke's three major works, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Two Treatises of Government, and A Letter concerning Toleration are given ample analytical space within the narrative, but it is also refreshing to find that Woolhouse looks at all of Locke's published and unpublished works including more minor pieces on economics and musings on medical issues, especially "Anatomie" and "Arte Medica." For the nonspecialist reader, Woolhouse does a fine job of summarizing Locke's philosophy and development as a thinker in a clear and jargon-free manner.

The work, however, is not without problems, some merely irritating and others more significant. Woolhouse, admirably, chose to write a biography which incorporates Locke into the history of his age. But much of the political material Woolhouse relies upon was written decades ago. The important oeuvre of historians on the post-Restoration period, such as Tim Harris, Mark Goldie and John Miller is conspicuously absent. To a large extent this means that one of the central issues in Locke's life, his relationship with his patron, the Earl of Shaftesbury, is underdone. Woolhouse is, of course, a philosopher rather than an historian, but there is little excuse for relying on works over fifty years old as the historical background. The book is also overly reliant on narrative. Rarely does Woolhouse take the time to interpret Locke's interests, for example his fascination with the human body and medicine. Did this in fact relate to Locke's parlous physical health(?) — he suffered from asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema. Perhaps this is a fault with the style, which is excessive in quotation (just as one ran-dom example, nine quotations appear on 253), and which leaves little room for Woolhouse to offer his own analysis of Locke. We shift relentlessly from one quote to another, leaving the reader to do all the interpretive heavy-lifting. In part, Woolhouse falls prey to one of the major problems of interdisciplinary work. Woolhouse is a very distinguished philosopher with a breath-taking knowledge of seventeenth and eighteenth century thought, but Locke: A Biography, leaves much to be desired as a work which seeks to explain and contextualize Locke in the age in which he wrote.

Cambridge University Press deserves little credit for the packaging of such a major work. In such a heavily-referenced scholarly book, the endnotes are painful to use, requiring the reader to bookmark the text and the notes in order to find anything. The quality (and usefulness) of the illustrations also...