Born to Puritan parents on August 29, 1632 , I have rectified his birth to about about 11:30 in the morning. Because of their religious beliefs, Locke was baptised later that day at the local Wrington church.
Educated at Oxford University, principally in medicine, Locke became the physician to the future 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper. The Earl, also a major philosopher, had Locke supervise the education of his young son in languages, particularly Greek and Latin and philosophy Both men were severe critics of Thomas Hobbes’s psychological egoism. Instead, they saw self-love was integral not only to self-interest but to the public good.
Locke’s fall from Grace
This theory was tested after the Earl retired from public life as English politics changed. Locke, his services no longer needed, fled to the Netherlands. There he supported the Glorious Revolution — the overthrow the historic English monarchy (James II) and the installation of William of Orange (the colour of the Dutch) and his wife Mary.
There he wrote his magnum opus, the “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1688) postulating the philosophy of “sensationalism” the philosophical theory where the mind perceives physical qualities (size and shape and weight) and other indefinite attributes that vary depending upon the observer (taste, smell and colour). These properties could be combine things into further compound properties and ideas. Locke’s sensationalism was in direct contrast to Rene Descartes philosophy that nothing could be known with certainty.
In the Essay, Locke also wrote of his disagreement with the idea of the Divine Right of Kings. Instead, to Locke, the King was responsible to Parliament but his obligation was foremost to his subjects, ensuring their right to freedom, thought, speech and worship. All these rights though, were underpinned by the most important right of all — that of property.
The rise of the Social Contract
He called this a “social contract,” that became the nucleus of the politics of Liberalism and the philosophical foundation of the both French and American Revolutions. While similar sounding to Natural Law, as first posited by Aristotle, Locke’s Natural Rights are ex-deo — not God given. Instead, people are free to choose their mode of governance. Thus theoretically they can choose a government, like a Communist one, without a moral code binding them with and God. Here, Locke like Pascal & Hobbes felt the social contract that included a biblical model the best choice.
Dr. Locke died, age seventy-two on October 28, 1704 in High Laver, Essex, England. He never married.
The Locke Chart
Dr. Locke has a preponderance in his 10th house of Virgo, so it unsurprisingly that he began his career as a medical man. This would also encourage him to align himself with stronger or politically more adept men, like the Earl of Shaftesbury who share his beliefs as they would provide natural protection. (Shaftesbury was a Deist.)
He has few planets retrograde, so Locke was not a staunch traditionist 1 Marc Jones Essentials of Astrology . Since he has Mars in the eleventh house in Libra, close to the twelfth house cusp, Locke instinctively believed revolution was a purgative for the public soul.
He is a bucket with a Moon handle in the fourth house which it rules — good for caring and medical work.
Jones Lines
His line of motivation (Jupiter opposite Square) supports his Locomotive Temperament Type with his life broken into two separate periods — the latter being an attempt to expunge his earlier moral weakness and state plainly his beliefs (Saturn in the 12th at 23 Scorpio 07). This is probably his 2nd tome, where he displays an almost fanatical adherence to principle.
Saturn here also suggests that he may have been too practical in the quest for an ideal partner and thus unmarried (we could find nothing to support that he married) or that his own lack of funds inhibited his search.
Locke’s Dynamic Aptitude or his life’s approach
Neptune was not discovered in Locke’s lifetime, but that Venusian ideal of belief in a higher public cause dominates his chart. Surprisingly though, it is the Line of Motivation, Saturn in aspect to Jupiter, that was known then becomes the Dynamic Aptitude or how Locke saw challenges. This makes sense as Saturn would the traditional king, James II, while Jupiter the new king resulting from a social purge. From this perspective, Locke truly believed that England was being misled by the Stuart monarchy who was not open to the people’s desires; remember his family were Puritans like revolutionary Cromwell.
Personally this aspect, in opposition in his chart, caused him some hardship as it suggests he did not come from a well-to-do family and so had to work rather hard to make up for his lack of financial support.
Others who had this aspect were Immanuel Kant and Emmanuel Swedenborg suggesting that because of their impoverished birth, their belief in the importance creating a philosophy for people or society to follow; Locke surely posited that in his writings.
Socinian Unitarianism
Though raised a Puritan (Saturn on the 1st house cusp), he later embraced Socinian Christology (developed originally in Italy which rejects orthodox Christian theology on God’s knowledge, on the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. It got wide adoption in Poland as a form of Unitarianism that argues for the separation of church and state, while stressing the importance of the moral life.
Marc Jones published a work on George Sylvester Morris as he was John Dewey’s mentor via the Sabian Publishing Society. Morris, Dewey and later Jones all followed Locke that Unitarianism best supported the Liberal philosophy. See this article about Marc Jones speaking at a Delaware Chapter about this. 2 Jones’s admiration for John Dewey began with his attendance at the ill-fated Chicago Laboratory School. ‘
In Locke’s chart, this change is shown via his Uranus- Saturn sextile.
Footnotes:
Footnotes:
- 1Marc Jones Essentials of Astrology
- 2Jones’s admiration for John Dewey began with his attendance at the ill-fated Chicago Laboratory School.
Addendum:
Locke believed that people have these rights were prior to the existence of government—often called “natural rights” because they do not government to create them, and that people form a government to protect, not grant them. According to Locke, when a government exceeds that role by creating superfluous rights to extend its power or abridge the natural rights, it justifies people in revolting.
A representative government is the best way to ensure that it sticks to its proper purpose for “Government is not free to do as it pleases… The law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators and others.”
2* For further discussion of Natural Law vs. Natural Rights, see this Quora.com but simply stated: natural law is bestowed, while natural rights are demanded. They may not always be the same.
This was originally posted on SabianEarth.buzz on October 29, 2019.
Footnotes:
- 1Marc Jones Essentials of Astrology
- 2Jones’s admiration for John Dewey began with his attendance at the ill-fated Chicago Laboratory School.
