of the term, for these are not simple ideas at all. But there is no need to worry
about skepticism as applied to the external world; simple ideas are neither true
nor false, since truth and falsity can apply only to propositions, not to ideas
(Essay 1.52; see Locke, [1690] 1959).
Locke rejects not only innate ideas but innate principles as well. These
include the axioms which were proliferated by the Cartesians of the 1670s,
and also the moral axioms laid down by the Cambridge Platonists. Cudworth,
in arguing against the mechanistic philosophy, had pushed the position that
the human mind depends upon God’s mind, which includes the eternal rationes
of all things. In 1668 Henry More, against Hobbes’s moral conventionalism,
argued for the existence of moral principles whose truth is immediate and
evident (Copleston, 1950–1977: 5:62–63). Locke’s creativity was patterned by
opposition not only to his Platonist acquaintances but also in the larger
restructuring of the intellectual field. At the same time that Locke was finishing
his Essay, Leibniz was formulating his doctrine of self-causative and non-com-
municating substances, which implies that all our ideas are innate. The strong-
est modern derivation of innate ideas and their strongest critique appeared at
the same time, and unknown to each other.^16 Leibniz’s and Locke’s opposing
positions found their slots in the intellectual field and their external bases of
support. Leibniz’s position was supported in the Protestant universities of
Germany, where it represented religious liberalism in scholastic terminology.
In England, Locke became the hero of the victorious Whigs; his rejection of
the philosophy of essences with its theological overtones went along with his
championship of secularization as the route to social peace.
Deism and the Independence of Value Theory
The framework of religious-political compromise after 1700 does not mean
that partisan conflict ceased. On the contrary, vicious struggles continued, both
in the factional and dynastic intrigues of parliamentary politics and on the
religious and intellectual front. English Catholics labored under legal disabili-
ties and public suspicion, although like other Dissenters they were allowed
private worship. Anglican dogma was enforced in the universities, but these
faded from the focus of intellectual life. The new balance of power proved
stable, and toleration and moderation were imposed by the circumstance that
no one was strong enough to overturn them. Religious toleration now shifted
the central issues of intellectual conflict. The generation following Locke was
the heyday of Deism; on the other side emerged the first explicitly reactionary
defense of religion.
Deist tendencies had existed earlier, but they became the center of contro-
versy in the wake of Locke. Many of the popular Deists are found close to600 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Western Paths