ABSTRACT
UNDERSTANDING Originally delivered as the John Locke Tercentenary Address, in the Hall at Christ Church,
October 1932, and reprinted by permission of the Oxford University Press
My purpose in this address is not to discuss or even to mention a great number of the views which Locke puts forward in the Essay, but solely to try to state what in my view is the important contribution to philosophy which he made and for which he deserves to be ranked among the great philosophers. I shall, in consequence, squander no time in appraising him as an historical influence or as the founder or offspring of this or that philosophical school. For I shall, I think, be doing him a greater honour if I can point out how he threw new light where darkness was before.
