MR. LOCKE.
This indeed I must not absolutely affirm: your Lordship’s example, I confess, stands in my way. But if your own education, which was conducted in this form, and creates a prejudice for it, be pleaded against me, I may still say, that the argument extends no further than to qualify the assertion; and that, as in other cases, the rule is general, though with some exceptions.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
It was not my meaning to put your politeness to this proof. I would even take no advantage of the exception which you might consent to make in the case of many other travellers, who have, doubtless, a better claim, than myself, to this indulgence. What I would gladly know of you, is, Whether, in general, Travel be not an excellent school for our ingenuous and noble youth; and whether it may not, on the whole, deserve the countenance of a philosopher, who understands the world, and has himself been formed by it?
MR. LOCKE.
Your Lordship, I think, will do well to put philosophy out of the question. There is so much to be said against Travel in that view, that the matter would clearly be determined against you. It is by other rules, and what are called the maxims of the world (which your Lordship understands too well, to join them with philosophy), that the advocate for travelling must demand to have his cause tried, if he would hope to come off, in the dispute, with any advantage.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
Yet philosophy was not always of this mind. You know, when the best proficients in that science gave a countenance to this practice, by their own example: a good part of their life was spent in foreign countries; and they did not presume to set up for masters of wisdom, till experience and much insight into the manners of men had qualified them for that great office. Hence they became the ablest and wisest men of the whole world; and their wisdom was not in those days of the less account for the politeness, that was mixed with it.
MR. LOCKE.
Those wise men might have their reasons for this different practice. They most of them, I think, set up for Politicians and Legislators, as well as Philosophers; and in that infancy of arts and commerce, when distant nations had small intercourse with each other, it might be of real advantage to them, at least it might serve their reputation with the people, to spend some years in voyages to such countries as were in the highest fame for their wisdom or good government.