John Locke was an English philosopher whose major works include An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in which he argues that people are born with blank minds and gain knowledge through experience, and Two Treatises of Government, where he argues that government is a social contract and people have natural rights. He was influenced by thinkers like Aristotle, Hobbes, Descartes, and Newton. Later philosophers like Berkeley, Hume, Paine, and Jefferson were influenced by Locke's ideas about empiricism, government as a social contract, and natural rights.