Letter 2708

Locke describes his proposal to reform the English year. Namely, to omit the intercalate day and do the same for the next ten leap years, so that in 44 years the English calendar would be in line with the rest of the Christian world, ‘without prejudice or disturbance to any ones civill rights.’ He agrees with Sloane that to carry on is inexcusable in so learned an age, and in a country where astronomy is ‘carried to an higher pitch than ever it was in the world.’ Locke wishes to begin the year from 1 January. He suggests an account is published in the Philosophical Transactions on the performance of a strong man in London. The episode is to be believed because of the number of witnesses. Locke reminds Sloane that he sent him a copy of his book and requests he reads the additional chapters and inform Locke of his thoughts as payment. Locke’s proposal for calendar reform has appeared in the ‘Nouvelles de la Republique des Letters’. He believes someone overheard him talking about it and sent it to Holland to be published. Locke was a philosopher, physician, and highly influential proponent of liberalism in England (J. R. Milton, Locke, John (16321704), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16885, accessed 24 June 2013]).