The tutor of Ashley's philosophic grandson, he became also his patron's confidential counsellor.

In 1663 he became part author of a constitutional scheme for Carolina which is noteworthy for its emphasis, thus early, upon the importance of religious toleration.

In 1672, when Ashley became Lord Chancellor, he became Secretary of Presentations and, until 1675, Secretary to the Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations.

Meanwhile he carried on his medical work and must have obtained some reputation in it; for he is honorably mentioned by Sydenham, in his _Method of Curing Fevers_ (1676), and had been elected to the Royal Society in 1668.

But his real genius lay in other directions.
Locke himself has told us how a few friends began to meet at his chamber for the discussions of questions which soon passed into metaphysical enquiry; and a page from a commonplace book of 1671 is the first beginning of his systematic work.