ABSTRACT
The key to understanding Locke's general theory of substance is to realize that it is nothing other than a restatement and elaboration of the sceptical position adopted by Gassendi in his Objections to Descartes' Meditations, the position outlined at the end of the previous chapter. The elaboration is sometimes considerable, and to follow its twists and turns we need to refer to other antecedents than Gassendi and Descartes, but there is no shift in principle. Perhaps the best way to start on this thesis is with an examination of the opening sections of the chapter on our ideas of substances, a passage which has muddled critics and commentators from Bishop Stillingfleet and Leibniz to the present day. Here Locke described how we come to form ideas of substances, and arrive at a 'Notion of pure Substance in general', on the basis of experience.
