These works contributed to the great fame of John Locke during his own lifetime as the greatest English philosopher. In 1693, at the age of sixty-one, Locke published the series of letters which he had written to his friend, Edward Clarke, advising Clarke on the proper education of his son. Locke retired at the age of sixty-eight to the estate of his friends, Lord and Lady Masham. His thoughts were to inflame the philosophers of the Enlightenment and lead directly to the establishment of the democratic republic. The mind at birth possesses no innate ideas.
All knowledge proceeds through sense experience.
As the mind stores up a variety of sense impressions, associations occur which provide new knowledge. The mind is consequently passive. The senses provide the mind with the materials which represent reality. These materials are not identical with the extramental object. The material is the idea within the mind which represents the object outside the mind being received by the senses.