ABSTRACT
The Northampton tutor substituted a system, based on that taught him by his own tutor John Jennings, which took its rise primarily from the thought of John Locke, in particular the latter's Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. Doddridge's view of how humans obtain knowledge and ideas was drawn directly from John Locke. The study of philosophy formed an important part of the syllabus for ministerial students at Philip Doddridge's academy in Northampton. The latter was taught in England generally through the work of Franco Burgersdijk, professor of philosophy at the University of Leiden from 1620, whose book on logic followed a traditional Aristotelian method. Thomas Rowe in the academy at Newington Green seems to have used Heereboord and Burgersdijk, Alexander Gordon credits as one of the first Dissenting tutors used the works of Locke. At both academy and university, then, John Locke was, by the early eighteenth century, beginning to displace more traditional texts for the study of philosophical subjects.
