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Introduction : "a man of versatile mind"
1. Upbringing and education (1632-1658)
1632-1646 : "I found myself in a storm" (Somerset childhood)
1646-1652 : "a very severe school" (Westminster School)
1652-1656 : "no very hard student" (Oxford B.A. studies)
1656-1658 : "a most learned and ingenious young man" (Oxford M.A. studies)
2. College offices and medical studies (1659-1667)
January-December 1659 : "melancholy and discontented" (away from friends)
January-December 1659 : "study in earnest" (medicine ; toleration)
January-October 1660 : "I shall not willingly be drawn from hence" (medicine ; anxieties about political situation)
October-December 1660 : "whether the civil magistrate may lawfully impose" (law of nature ; "first tract on government")
December 1660-December 1662 : "quiet and settlement" (father's death ; college tutor, and lecturer in Greek ; "infallibility" ; lecturer in rhetoric ; "second tract on government")
January 1663-November 1665 : "no law without a law-maker" (chemistry ; ecclesiastical offers ; "essays on the law of nature" ; respiration and blood)
November 1665-February 1666 : "took coach for Germany" (diplomacy in Cleves)
February-July 1666 : natural philosophy : practical and theoretical (iatrochemical preparations ; barometrical observations ; Respirationis Usus)
3. Exeter House, London (1666-1675) : "one accident in my life"
July 1666-May 1667 : "falling into a great man's family" (Ashley Cooper ; dispensation from holy orders ; offer of preferment ; Elinor Parry ; "Morbus" ; iatrochemistry)
June-December 1667 : "with my Lord Ashley as a man at home" (Exeter House ; Sydenham : "essay concerning toleration")
January-December 1668 : "turning his thoughts another way" (Ashley's operation ; "Anatomie" ; interest rates)
January 1669-December 1670 : "a love of all sorts of useful knowledge" (Elinor Parry ; "Constitutions of Carolina" ; match-making ; De arte medica ; ill-health)
January-September 1671 : "what I think about the human understanding" (Anthony Ashley Cooper the third ; De Intellectu humano)
September-December 1671 : "profitable to the life of man" (De intellectu, a second draft ; Royal Society)
January 1672-November 1675 ; "that tether which certainly ties us" (peerage for Ashley ; colonial investments ; short visit to France ; Secretary of Presentations ; Secretary and Treasurer of Council of Trade ; interest rates ; an annuity ; Bachelor of Medicine ; license to practise ; medical studentship)
4. France (November 1675-May 1679)
November 1675-January 1676 : Paris to Montpellier
January 1676-March 1677 : Montpellier
March 1677-July 1678 : Paris
July-October 1678 : an extended "little tour" of France
November 1678-May 1679 : Paris
5. Thanet House and London (May 1679-September 1683)
May-December 1679 : "things in such confusion" (Shaftesbury as Lord President ; popish plot ; standardisation of length ; correspondence with Toinard)
December 1679-April 1680 : "a condition as might make your friends apprehensive" ("observations upon the growth and culture of vines")
April-November 1680 : "fortune continues to cross all my plans" (Exclusion Bill ; correspondence with Toinard)
November 1680-March 1681 : "1641 is come again" (The unreasonableness of separation ; Oxford Parliament)
April 1681-April 1683 : "not a word ever drops from his mouth" (the King clamps down ; Shaftesbury arrested ; College's trial ; Damaris Cudworth ; Edward Clarke ; Shaftesbury dies)
Two treatises of government
April-September 1683 : "the times growing now troublesome" (Rye House plot : secretive movements ; hastily to Holland)
6. Holland and the United Provinces (1683-1688)
September 1683-October 1684 : "much in my chamber alone" (medical friends ; Limborch ; indexing notes ; tour of the provinces ; Labadists ; educational "directions")
November-December 1684 : "suspected to be ill-affected" (expulsion from studentship)
December 1684-September 1685 : "to be seized and banished" (under suspicion ; Monmouth's rebellion ; in hiding)
September 1685 : "what God has though fit" ("de Intellectu" (draft C), book one (innate ideas) ; book two (origin of ideas) ; promise of pardon ; still suspected)
September 1685-September 1686 : "that faith which works, not by force, but by love" (Epistola de Tolerantia ; "method of commonplacing" ; more thoughts on education ; no longer listed ; Yonges' visit ; Thomas visits)
September-December 1686 : "changing one's abode is inconvenient" ("de Intellectu" , books three (words), and four (knowledge))
December 1686-March 1688 : "busy as a hen with one chick" (continued concern for safety ; Furly ; van Helmont ; ill ; rumours of pardon ; the Essay abridged)
March 1688-January 1689 : "an expected invasion" (Thomas visits ; Stringer and a portrait ; Clarke visits ; William of Orange goes over ; return to England)
7. London (February 1689-December 1690)
February-December 1689 : annus mirabilis (offers of public position ; Epistola ; Commissioner of Appeals ; petition for studentship ; another quarrel with Stringer ; Letter concerning toleration ; Two treatises ; Essay concerning human understanding ; Newton)
January-September 1690 : disputes and disagreements (Tyrrell and the Essay ; anonymity and acrimony ; "a call to the nation for unity" ; Proast and "a second letter concerning toleration")
July-December 1690 : questions of economics (interest rates ; clipped coins ; plans to go to Holland)
8. Oates (January 1691-December 1695)
January-December 1691 : "the seraglio at Oates" (removal to Oates ; a return to natural philosophy? ; Bath and Somerset ; Some considerations of...money ; "multiplying gold" ; Aesop's fables)
January-December 1692 : "you won't be well if you stay in town" (overseeing Edward Clarke ; Newton and transmutation ; Third letter concerning toleration ; William Molyneux ; Boyle's History of the air ; petition for Council of Trade salary ; a "dry club" ; disagreement with Norris ; "answer to Mr. Norris" ; liberty of will)
January-December 1693 : "it were better if you were dead" (petition to Treasury : "short observations on...coining silver money" ; preparation for second edition of Essay ; Malebranche and "seeing all things in God" ; personal identity ; Some thoughts concerning education ; liberty of the will again)
January-December 1694 : "discourse on matters of importance" (van Helmont visits ; Essay, second edition ; Thomas dies ; Bank of England ; a financial consultant ; the "college")
January 1695 : "wherein the Christian faith consists" (The reasonableness of Christianity : natural law and revelation)
January-August 1695 : "not one word of socinianism" (Licensing Act ; the Essay abridged ; recoinage recommended ; a water drinker ; Greenwich Hospital ; Edwards and socinianism ; Reasonableness of Christianity vindicated)
August-December 1695 : "of great use to your country" (further currency considerations ; a Latin translator for the Essay)
9. "A gentleman's duty" (December 1695-March 1700)
December 1695-November 1696 : "your country calls for your help" (Commissioner for Trade ; recoinage ; Leibniz)
November 1696-February 1697 : "a clipped Christianity" (controversy with Stillingfleet : Second vindication of the reasonableness of Christianity ; Samuel Bold)
February 1697-January 1698 : "told I must prepare myself for a storm" (reply to Stillingfleet's answer to his Letter ; "conduct of the understanding" ; answer to Burnet ; Pierre Coste ; linen manufacture ; employment of the poor ; Edwards's Brief vindication)
January-July 1698 : "at the jaws of death" (reply to Stillingfleet's answer to his Second letter ; Hudde and the uniqueness of God)
July-December 1698 : "nothing ever escapes you" (meeting with Molyneux ; meeting with Bold ; Peter King ; "elements of natural philosophy")
January 1699-March 1700 : "a too long stay in town" ("Association of Ideas" ; "enthusiasm")
10. "Laying down his place" (March 1700-October 1704)
March 1700-March 1701 : "nothing but what I ought and do expect" (retirement from Board of Trade ; bad legs ; the question of liberty)
March 1701-December 1702 : "the ornament of this age" (deafness ; Catherine Trotter ; "directions for reading" ; "miracles")
January-December 1703 : "new life" (Anthony Collins ; Aesop's fables ; St. Paul's Epistles)
January-August 1704 : "at the end of my day when my sun is setting" (Oxford book ban ; a new carriage ; St. Paul's Epistles)
August-October 1704 : "a happy life, but nothing but vanity" (A Fourth letter for toleration ; King's marriage ; death).
1. Upbringing and education (1632-1658)
1632-1646 : "I found myself in a storm" (Somerset childhood)
1646-1652 : "a very severe school" (Westminster School)
1652-1656 : "no very hard student" (Oxford B.A. studies)
1656-1658 : "a most learned and ingenious young man" (Oxford M.A. studies)
2. College offices and medical studies (1659-1667)
January-December 1659 : "melancholy and discontented" (away from friends)
January-December 1659 : "study in earnest" (medicine ; toleration)
January-October 1660 : "I shall not willingly be drawn from hence" (medicine ; anxieties about political situation)
October-December 1660 : "whether the civil magistrate may lawfully impose" (law of nature ; "first tract on government")
December 1660-December 1662 : "quiet and settlement" (father's death ; college tutor, and lecturer in Greek ; "infallibility" ; lecturer in rhetoric ; "second tract on government")
January 1663-November 1665 : "no law without a law-maker" (chemistry ; ecclesiastical offers ; "essays on the law of nature" ; respiration and blood)
November 1665-February 1666 : "took coach for Germany" (diplomacy in Cleves)
February-July 1666 : natural philosophy : practical and theoretical (iatrochemical preparations ; barometrical observations ; Respirationis Usus)
3. Exeter House, London (1666-1675) : "one accident in my life"
July 1666-May 1667 : "falling into a great man's family" (Ashley Cooper ; dispensation from holy orders ; offer of preferment ; Elinor Parry ; "Morbus" ; iatrochemistry)
June-December 1667 : "with my Lord Ashley as a man at home" (Exeter House ; Sydenham : "essay concerning toleration")
January-December 1668 : "turning his thoughts another way" (Ashley's operation ; "Anatomie" ; interest rates)
January 1669-December 1670 : "a love of all sorts of useful knowledge" (Elinor Parry ; "Constitutions of Carolina" ; match-making ; De arte medica ; ill-health)
January-September 1671 : "what I think about the human understanding" (Anthony Ashley Cooper the third ; De Intellectu humano)
September-December 1671 : "profitable to the life of man" (De intellectu, a second draft ; Royal Society)
January 1672-November 1675 ; "that tether which certainly ties us" (peerage for Ashley ; colonial investments ; short visit to France ; Secretary of Presentations ; Secretary and Treasurer of Council of Trade ; interest rates ; an annuity ; Bachelor of Medicine ; license to practise ; medical studentship)
4. France (November 1675-May 1679)
November 1675-January 1676 : Paris to Montpellier
January 1676-March 1677 : Montpellier
March 1677-July 1678 : Paris
July-October 1678 : an extended "little tour" of France
November 1678-May 1679 : Paris
5. Thanet House and London (May 1679-September 1683)
May-December 1679 : "things in such confusion" (Shaftesbury as Lord President ; popish plot ; standardisation of length ; correspondence with Toinard)
December 1679-April 1680 : "a condition as might make your friends apprehensive" ("observations upon the growth and culture of vines")
April-November 1680 : "fortune continues to cross all my plans" (Exclusion Bill ; correspondence with Toinard)
November 1680-March 1681 : "1641 is come again" (The unreasonableness of separation ; Oxford Parliament)
April 1681-April 1683 : "not a word ever drops from his mouth" (the King clamps down ; Shaftesbury arrested ; College's trial ; Damaris Cudworth ; Edward Clarke ; Shaftesbury dies)
Two treatises of government
April-September 1683 : "the times growing now troublesome" (Rye House plot : secretive movements ; hastily to Holland)
6. Holland and the United Provinces (1683-1688)
September 1683-October 1684 : "much in my chamber alone" (medical friends ; Limborch ; indexing notes ; tour of the provinces ; Labadists ; educational "directions")
November-December 1684 : "suspected to be ill-affected" (expulsion from studentship)
December 1684-September 1685 : "to be seized and banished" (under suspicion ; Monmouth's rebellion ; in hiding)
September 1685 : "what God has though fit" ("de Intellectu" (draft C), book one (innate ideas) ; book two (origin of ideas) ; promise of pardon ; still suspected)
September 1685-September 1686 : "that faith which works, not by force, but by love" (Epistola de Tolerantia ; "method of commonplacing" ; more thoughts on education ; no longer listed ; Yonges' visit ; Thomas visits)
September-December 1686 : "changing one's abode is inconvenient" ("de Intellectu" , books three (words), and four (knowledge))
December 1686-March 1688 : "busy as a hen with one chick" (continued concern for safety ; Furly ; van Helmont ; ill ; rumours of pardon ; the Essay abridged)
March 1688-January 1689 : "an expected invasion" (Thomas visits ; Stringer and a portrait ; Clarke visits ; William of Orange goes over ; return to England)
7. London (February 1689-December 1690)
February-December 1689 : annus mirabilis (offers of public position ; Epistola ; Commissioner of Appeals ; petition for studentship ; another quarrel with Stringer ; Letter concerning toleration ; Two treatises ; Essay concerning human understanding ; Newton)
January-September 1690 : disputes and disagreements (Tyrrell and the Essay ; anonymity and acrimony ; "a call to the nation for unity" ; Proast and "a second letter concerning toleration")
July-December 1690 : questions of economics (interest rates ; clipped coins ; plans to go to Holland)
8. Oates (January 1691-December 1695)
January-December 1691 : "the seraglio at Oates" (removal to Oates ; a return to natural philosophy? ; Bath and Somerset ; Some considerations of...money ; "multiplying gold" ; Aesop's fables)
January-December 1692 : "you won't be well if you stay in town" (overseeing Edward Clarke ; Newton and transmutation ; Third letter concerning toleration ; William Molyneux ; Boyle's History of the air ; petition for Council of Trade salary ; a "dry club" ; disagreement with Norris ; "answer to Mr. Norris" ; liberty of will)
January-December 1693 : "it were better if you were dead" (petition to Treasury : "short observations on...coining silver money" ; preparation for second edition of Essay ; Malebranche and "seeing all things in God" ; personal identity ; Some thoughts concerning education ; liberty of the will again)
January-December 1694 : "discourse on matters of importance" (van Helmont visits ; Essay, second edition ; Thomas dies ; Bank of England ; a financial consultant ; the "college")
January 1695 : "wherein the Christian faith consists" (The reasonableness of Christianity : natural law and revelation)
January-August 1695 : "not one word of socinianism" (Licensing Act ; the Essay abridged ; recoinage recommended ; a water drinker ; Greenwich Hospital ; Edwards and socinianism ; Reasonableness of Christianity vindicated)
August-December 1695 : "of great use to your country" (further currency considerations ; a Latin translator for the Essay)
9. "A gentleman's duty" (December 1695-March 1700)
December 1695-November 1696 : "your country calls for your help" (Commissioner for Trade ; recoinage ; Leibniz)
November 1696-February 1697 : "a clipped Christianity" (controversy with Stillingfleet : Second vindication of the reasonableness of Christianity ; Samuel Bold)
February 1697-January 1698 : "told I must prepare myself for a storm" (reply to Stillingfleet's answer to his Letter ; "conduct of the understanding" ; answer to Burnet ; Pierre Coste ; linen manufacture ; employment of the poor ; Edwards's Brief vindication)
January-July 1698 : "at the jaws of death" (reply to Stillingfleet's answer to his Second letter ; Hudde and the uniqueness of God)
July-December 1698 : "nothing ever escapes you" (meeting with Molyneux ; meeting with Bold ; Peter King ; "elements of natural philosophy")
January 1699-March 1700 : "a too long stay in town" ("Association of Ideas" ; "enthusiasm")
10. "Laying down his place" (March 1700-October 1704)
March 1700-March 1701 : "nothing but what I ought and do expect" (retirement from Board of Trade ; bad legs ; the question of liberty)
March 1701-December 1702 : "the ornament of this age" (deafness ; Catherine Trotter ; "directions for reading" ; "miracles")
January-December 1703 : "new life" (Anthony Collins ; Aesop's fables ; St. Paul's Epistles)
January-August 1704 : "at the end of my day when my sun is setting" (Oxford book ban ; a new carriage ; St. Paul's Epistles)
August-October 1704 : "a happy life, but nothing but vanity" (A Fourth letter for toleration ; King's marriage ; death).