POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND

FROM
LOCKE TO BENTHAM

BY

HAROLD J. LASKI

SOMETIME EXHIBITIONER OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY,
AUTHOR OF STUDIES IN THE PROBLEM OF
SOVEREIGNTY AND AUTHORITY IN
THE MODERN STATE

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

1920

NOTE

It is impossible for me to publish this book without some expression of the debt it owes to Leslie Stephen's History of the English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. It is almost insolent to praise such work; but I may be permitted to say that no one can fully appreciate either its wisdom or its knowledge who has not had to dig among the original texts.

Were so small a volume worthy to bear a dedication, I should associate it with the name of my friend Walter Lippmann. He and I have so often discussed the substance of its problems that I am certain a good deal of what I feel to be my own is, where it has merit, really his. This volume is thus in great part a tribute to him; though there is little that can repay such friendship as he gives.

H.J.L.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Sept. 15, 1919

CONTENTS