Note 208 — LETTERS TO MADAME DE GRIGNAN[11] FROM 1671 TO 1690. (continued 5)

We are agreeably surprised to see at this era, in the heart of Brittany, a gentleman who so ably refuted the system of innate ideas, and already exhibiting the theory of Locke. For though the English philosopher was in Paris in 1675, I do not think his opinions were ever promulgated there, or that they were even at that time published. But Hobbes, and particularly Gassendi, had raised objections to the meditations of Descartes, of which the principles had sprung up in able heads.