The Philosophy of a Christian Virtuoso ii

Although Locke’s Essay is primarily a discourse in logic, he says enough about the physical nature of things to construct a theory of the nature of things. As a virtuoso, physics replaces metaphysics in his philosophical system. His ontology, however, includes not only bodies, but God and finite spirits, and its major achievement is to prove the existence of God and demonstrate his immateriality. Perhaps encouraged by reading Cudworth, Locke was confident that our faculty of reason is sufficient to refute materialism and atheism. As to the nature of bodies, Locke finds empirical evidence that solidity or impenetrability is their most evident quality. The idea of superaddition is central to Locke’s speculative or divine physics. But although such insights may elevate the mind to God, Locke’s physics is theoretically sterile, although it may have beneficial practical uses.