[927] § 189.

[928] § 195.

60. The peculiar methods recommended by Locke in learning languages, especially the Latin, appear to be of very doubtful utility, though some of them do not want strenuous supporters in the present day. Such are the method of interlinear translation, the learning of mere words without grammar, and, above all, the practice of talking Latin with a tutor who speaks it well—a phœnix whom he has not shown us where to find.[929] In general, he seems to underrate the difficulty of acquiring what even he would call a competent learning, and what is of more importance, and no rare mistake in those who write on this subject, to confound the acquisition of a language with the knowledge of its literature. The best ancient writers both in Greek and Latin furnish so much of wise reflection, of noble sentiment, of all that is beautiful and salutary, that no one who has had the happiness to know and feel what they are, will desire to see their study excluded or stinted in its just extent, wherever the education of those who are to be the first and best of the country is carried forward. And though by far the greater portion of mankind must, by the very force of terms, remain in the ranks of intellectual mediocrity, it is an ominous sign of any times when no thought is taken for those who may rise beyond it.

[929] § 165.

61. In every other part of instruction, Locke has still an eye to what is useful for a gentleman. French he justly thinks should be taught before Latin; no geometry is required by him beyond Euclid, but he recommends geography, history and chronology, drawing, and what may be thought now as little necessary for a gentleman as Homer, the jurisprudence of Grotius and Puffendorf. He strongly urges the writing English well, though a thing commonly neglected, and after speaking with contempt of the artificial systems of logic and rhetoric, sends the pupil to Chillingworth for the best example of reasoning, and to Tully for the best idea of eloquence. “And let him read those things that are well writ in English to perfect his style in the purity of our language.”[930]

[930] § 188.

62. It would be to transcribe half this treatise, were we to mention all the judicious and minute observations on the management of children it contains. Whatever may have been Locke’s opportunities, he certainly availed himself of them to the utmost. It is as far as possible from a theoretical book; and in many respects the best of modern times, such as those of the Edgeworth name, might pass for developments of his principles. The patient attention to every circumstance, a peculiar characteristic of the genius of Locke, is in none of his works better displayed. His rules for the health of children, though sometimes trivial, since the subject has been more regarded, his excellent advice as to checking effeminacy and timorousness, his observations on their curiosity, presumption, idleness, on their plays and recreations, bespeak an intense, though calm, love of truth and goodness; a quality which few have possessed more fully, or known so well how to exert, as this admirable philosopher.

Fenelon on female education. 63. No one had condescended to spare any thoughts for female education, till Fenelon, in 1688, published his earliest work, Sur l’Education des Filles. This was the occasion of his appointment as preceptor to the grandchildren of Louis XIV.; for much of this treatise, and perhaps the most valuable part, is equally applicable to both sexes. It may be compared with that of Locke, written nearly at the same time, and bearing a great resemblance in its spirit. Both have the education of a polished and high-bred youth, rather than of scholars, before them; and Fenelon rarely loses sight of his peculiar object, or gives any rule which is not capable of being practised in female education. In many respects he coincides with our English philosopher, and observes with him that a child learns much before he speaks, so that the cultivation of his moral qualities can hardly begin too soon. Both complain of the severity of parents, and deprecate the mode of bringing up by punishment. Both advise the exhibition of virtue and religion in pleasing lights, and censure the austere dogmatism with which they were inculcated, before the mind was sufficiently developed to apprehend them. But the characteristic sweetness of Fenelon’s disposition is often shown in contrast with the somewhat stern inflexibility of Locke. His theory is uniformly indulgent; his method of education is a labour of love; a desire to render children happy for the time, as well as afterwards, runs through his book, and he may perhaps be considered the founder of that school which has endeavoured to dissipate the terrors and dry the tears of childhood. “I have seen,” he says, “many children who have learned to read in play; we have only to read entertaining stories to them out of a book, and insensibly teach them the letters, they will soon desire to go for themselves to the source of their amusement.” “Books should be given them well bound and gilt, with good engravings, clear types; for all that captivates the imagination facilitates study; the choice should be such as contain short and marvellous stories.” These details are now trivial, but in the days of Fenelon they may have been otherwise.

Puffendorf’s theory of politics. 66. In the seventh book of Puffendorf’s great work, he comes to political philosophy, towards which he had been gradually tending for some time; primary societies, or those of families, leading the way to the consideration of civil government. Grotius derives the origin of this from the natural sociableness of mankind. But this, as Puffendorf remarks, may be satisfied by the primary societies. The real cause was experience of the injuries which one man can inflict on another.[931] And, after a prolix disquisition, he concludes that civil society must have been constituted, first, by a covenant of a number of men, each with each, to form a commonwealth, and to be bound by the majority, in which primary covenant they must be unanimous, that is, every dissentient would retain his natural liberty; next, by a resolution or decree of the majority, that certain rulers shall govern the rest; and, lastly, by a second covenant between these rulers and the rest, one promising to take care of the public weal, and the other to obey lawful commands.[932] This covenant, as he attempts to show, exists even in a democracy, though it is less evident than in other forms. Hobbes had admitted the first of these covenants, but denied the second; Barbeyrac, the able commentator on Puffendorf, has done exactly the reverse. A state once formed may be conceived to exist as one person, with a single will, represented by that of the sovereign, wherever the sovereignty may be placed. This sovereignty is founded on the covenants, and is not conferred, except indirectly like every other human power, by God. Puffendorf here combats the opposite opinion, which churchmen were as prone to hold, it seems, in Germany as in England.[933]

[931] L. vii., c. 1.

[932] C. 2.

[933] C. 3.

67. The legislative, punitive, and judiciary powers, those of making war and peace, of appointing magistrates, and levying taxes, are so closely connected that no one can be denied to the sovereign. As to his right in ecclesiastical matters, Puffendorf leaves it for others to determine.[934] He seems in this part of the work too favourable to unlimited monarchy, declaring himself against a mixed government. The sovereign power must be irresponsible, and cannot be bound by the law itself has given. He even denies that all government is intended for the good of the governed—a position strangely inconsistent with his theory of a covenant—but if it were, this end, the public good, may be more probably discerned by the prince than by the people.[935] Yet he admits that the exorbitancies of a prince should be restrained by certain fundamental laws, and holds, that having accepted such, and ratified them by oath, he is not at liberty to break them; arguing, with some apparent inconsistency, against those who maintain such limitations to be inconsistent with monarchy, and even recommending the institution of councils, without whose consent certain acts of the sovereign shall not be valid. This can only be reconciled with his former declaration against a mixed sovereignty, by the distinction familiar to our own constitutional lawyers, between the joint acts of A and B, and the acts of A with B’s consent. But this is a little too technical and unreal for philosophical politics.[936] Governments not reducible to one of the three simple forms he calls irregular; such as the Roman republic or German empire. But there may be systems of states, or aggregate communities, either subject to one king by different titles, or united by federation. He inclines to deny that the majority can bind the minority in the latter case, and seems to take it for granted that some of the confederates can quit the league at pleasure.[937]

[934] C. 4.

[935] C. 6.

[936] C. 6.

[937] C. 5.

68. Sovereignty over persons cannot be acquired, strictly speaking, by seizure or occupation, as in the case of lands, and requires, even after conquest, their consent to obey; which will be given, in order to secure themselves from the other rights of war. It is a problem whether, after an unjust conquest, the forced consent of the people can give a lawful title to sovereignty. Puffendorf distinguishes between a monarchy and a republic thus unjustly subdued. In the former case, so long as the lawful heirs exist or preserve their claim, the duty of restitution continues. But in the latter, as the people may live as happily under a monarchy as under a republic, he thinks that an usurper has only to treat them well, without scruple as to his title. If he oppresses them, no course of years will make his title lawful, or bind them in conscience to obey, length of possession being only length of injury. If a sovereign has been justly divested of his power, the community becomes immediately free; but if by unjust rebellion, his right continues till by silence he has appeared to abandon it.[938]

[938] C. 7.

69. Every one will agree that a lawful ruler must not be opposed within the limits of his authority. But let us put the case that he should command what is unlawful, or maltreat his subjects. Whatever Hobbes may say, a subject may be injured by his sovereign. But we should bear minor injuries patiently, and in the worst cases avoid personal resistance. Those are not to be listened to who assert that a king, degenerating into a tyrant, may be resisted and punished by his people. He admits only a right of self-defence, if he manifestly becomes a public enemy: in all this he seems to go quite as far as Grotius himself. The next question is as to the right of invaders and usurpers to obedience. This, it will be observed, he had already in some measure discussed; but Puffendorf is neither strict in method, nor free from repetitions. He labours much about the rights of the lawful prince insisting upon them, where the subjects have promised allegiance to the usurper. This, he thinks, must be deemed temporary, until the legitimate sovereign has recovered his dominions. But what may be done towards this end by such as have sworn fidelity to the actual ruler, he does not intimate. It is one of the nicest problems in political casuistry.[939]

[939] C. 8.

70. Civil laws are such as emanate from the supreme power, with respect to things left indifferent by the laws of God and nature. What chiefly belongs to them is the form and method of acquiring rights or obtaining redress for wrongs. If we give the law of nature all that belongs to it, and take away from the civilians what they have hitherto engrossed and promiscuously treated of, we shall bring the civil law to a much narrower compass; not to say that at present whenever the civil law is deficient we must have recourse to the law of nature, and that therefore in all commonwealths the natural laws supply the defects of the civil.[940] He argues against Hobbes’s tenet that the civil law cannot be contrary to the law of nature; and that what shall be deemed theft, murder, or adultery, depends on the former. The subject is bound generally not to obey the unjust commands of his sovereign; but in the case of war he thinks it, on the whole, safest, considering the usual difficulties of such questions, that the subject should serve, and throw the responsibility before God or the prince.[941] In this problem of casuistry, common usage is wholly against theory.

[940] L. viii., c. 1.

[941] L. viii., c. 1.

71. Punishment may be defined an evil inflicted by authority upon view of antecedent transgression.[942] Hence, exclusion, on political grounds, from public office, or separation of the sick for the sake of the healthy, is not punishment. It does not belong to distributive justice, nor is the magistrate bound to apportion it to the malignity of the offence, though this is usual. Superior authority is necessary to punishment; and he differs from Grotius by denying that we have a right to avenge the injuries of those who have no claim upon us. Punishment ought never to be inflicted without the prospect of some advantage from it; either the correction of the offender, or the prevention of his repeating the offence. But example he seems not to think a direct end of punishment, though it should be regarded in its infliction. It is not necessary that all offences which the law denounces should be actually punished, though some jurists have questioned the right of pardon. Punishments ought to be measured according to the object of the crime, the injury to the commonwealth, and the malice of the delinquent. Hence, offences against God should be deemed most criminal, and next, such as disturb the state; then whatever affect life, the peace or honour of families, private property or reputation, following the scale of the Decalogue. But though all crimes do not require equal severity, an exact proportion of penalties is not required. Most of this chapter exhibits the vacillating, indistinct, and almost self-contradictory resolutions of difficulties so frequent in Puffendorf. He concludes by establishing a great truth, that no man can be justly punished for the offence of another; nor even a community for the acts of their forefathers, notwithstanding their fictitious immortality.[943]

[942] C. 3.

[943] C. 3.

72. After some chapters on the law of nations, Puffendorf concludes with discussing the cessation of subjection. This may ordinarily be by voluntarily removing to another state with permission of the sovereign. And if no law or custom interferes, the subject has a right to do this at his discretion. The state has not a right to expel citizens without some offence. It loses all authority over a banished man. He concludes by considering the rare case of so great a diminution of the people, as to raise a doubt of their political identity.[944]

[944] C. 11. 12.

Politics of Spinosa. 73. The political portion of this large work, is not, as will appear, very fertile in original or sagacious reflection. A greater degree of both, though by no means accompanied with a sound theory, distinguishes the Political Treatise of Spinosa, one which must not be confounded with the Theologico-political Treatise, a very different work. In this he undertakes to show how a state under a regal or aristocratic government ought to be constituted so as to secure the tranquility and freedom of the citizens. Whether Spinosa borrowed his theory on the origin of government from Hobbes, is perhaps hard to determine: he seems acquainted with the treatise, De Cive; but the philosophical system of both was such as, in minds habituated like theirs to close reasoning, could not lead to any other result. Political theory, as Spinosa justly observes, is to be founded on our experience of human kind as it is, and on no visionary notions of an Utopia or golden age; and hence politicians of practical knowledge have written better on these subjects than philosophers. We must treat of men as liable to passions, prone more to revenge than to pity, eager to rule and to compel others to act like themselves, more pleased with having done harm to others than with procuring their own good. Hence, no state wherein the public affairs are entrusted to anyone’s good faith can be secure of their due administration; but means should be devised that neither reason nor passion should induce those who govern, to obstruct the public weal; it being indifferent by what motive men act if they can be brought to act for the common good.

His theory of a monarchy. 78. He next proceeds to his scheme of a well regulated monarchy, which is in some measure original and ingenious. The people are to be divided into families, by which he seems to mean something like the φρατριαι of Attica. From each of these, counsellors, fifty years of age, are to be chosen by the king, succeeding in a rotation quinquennial, or less, so as to form a numerous senate. This assembly is to be consulted upon all public affairs, and the king is to be guided by its unanimous opinion. In case, however, of disagreement, the different propositions being laid before the king, he may choose that of the minority, provided at least one hundred counsellors have recommended it. The less remarkable provisions of this ideal polity it would be waste of time to mention; except that he advises that all the citizens should be armed as a militia, and that the principal towns should be fortified, and, consequently, as it seems, in their power. A monarchy thus constituted would probably not degenerate into the despotic form. Spinosa appeals to the ancient government of Aragon, as a proof of the possibility of carrying his theory into execution.

Harrington’s Oceana. 81. England, thrown at the commencement of this period upon the resources of her own invention to replace an ancient monarchy by something new, and rich at that time in reflecting as well as learned men, with an unshackled press, and a growing disdain of authority as opposed to argument, was the natural soil of political theory. The earliest fruit was Sir James Harrington’s Oceana, published in 1656. This once famous book is a political allegory, partly suggested, perhaps, by the Dodona’s Grove of Howell, or by Barclay’s Argenis, and a few other fictions of the preceding age. His Oceana represents England, the history of which is shadowed out with fictitious names. But this is preliminary to the great object, the scheme of a new commonwealth, which, under the auspices of Olphaus Megaletor, the lord Archon, meaning, of course, Cromwell, not as he was, but as he ought to have been, the author feigns to have been established. The various laws and constitutions of this polity occupy the whole work.

82. The leading principle of Harrington is that power depends on property; denying the common saying, that knowledge or prudence is power. But this property must be in land, “because, as to property producing empire, it is required that it should have some certain root or foot-hold, which, except in land, it cannot have, being otherwise, as it were, upon the wing. Nevertheless, in such cities as subsist mostly by trade, and have little or no land, as Holland and Genoa, the balance of treasure may be equal to that of land.”[945] The law fixing the balance of lands is called by him agrarian, and without an agrarian law, he holds that no government, whether monarchical, aristocratic, or popular, has any long duration; this is rather paradoxical; but his distribution of lands varies according to the form of the commonwealth. In one best constituted the possession of lands is limited to £2,000 a year; which, of course, in his time, was a much greater estate than at present.

[945] P. 38, edit. 1771.

83. Harrington’s general scheme of a good government is one “established upon an equal agrarian arising into the superstructure, or three orders, the senate debating and proposing, the people resolving, and the magistracy executing by an equal rotation through the suffrage of the people given by the ballot.” His more particular form of polity, devised for his Oceana, it would be tedious to give in detail: the result is a moderate aristocracy; property, though under the control of his agrarian, which prevents its excess, having so great a share in the elections that it must predominate. But it is an aristocracy of what we should call the middle ranks, and might not be unfit for a small state. In general, it may be said of Harrington, that he is prolix, dull, pedantic, yet seldom profound; but sometimes redeems himself by just observations. Like most theoretical politicians of that age he had an excessive admiration for the republic of Venice.[946] His other political writings are in the same spirit as the Oceana, but still less interesting.

[946] “If I be worthy to give advice to a man that would study politics, let him understand Venice; he that understands Venice right, shall go nearest to judge, notwithstanding the difference that is in every policy, right of any government in the world.” Harrington’s Works, p. 292.

Patriarcha of Filmer. 84. The manly republicanism of Harrington, though sometimes visionary and, perhaps, impracticable, shines by comparison with a very opposite theory, which, having been countenanced in the early part of the century by our clergy, revived with additional favour after the Restoration. This was maintained in the Patriarcha of Sir Robert Filmer, written, as it appears, in the reign of Charles I., but not published till 1680, at a time when very high notions of royal prerogative were as well received by one faction as they were indignantly rejected by another. The object, as the author declares, was to prove that the first kings were fathers of families; that it is unnatural for the people to govern or to choose governors; that positive laws do not infringe the natural and fatherly power of kings. He refers the tenet of natural liberty and the popular origin of government to the schoolmen, allowing that all papists and the reformed divines have imbibed it, but denying that it is found in the fathers. He seems, indeed, to claim the credit of an original hypothesis; those who have vindicated the rights of kings in most points not having thought of this, but with one consent admitted the natural liberty and equality of mankind. It is certain, nevertheless, that the patriarchal theory of government as the basis of actual right was laid down as explicitly as by himself in what is called Bishop Overall’s Convocation Book, at the beginning of the reign of James I. But this book had not been published when Filmer wrote. His arguments are singularly insufficient; he quotes nothing but a few irrelevant texts from Genesis; he seems not to have known at all the strength, whatever it may be, of his own case, and it is hardly possible to find a more trifling and feeble work. It had, however, the advantage of opportunity to be received by a party with approbation.

Sydney’s Discourses on Government. 85. Algernon Sydney was the first who devoted his time to a refutation of this patriarchal theory, propounded as it was, not as a plausible hypothesis to explain the origin of civil communities, but as a paramount title, by virtue of which all actual sovereigns, who were not manifest usurpers, were to reign with an unmitigated despotism. Sydney’s Discourses on Government, not published till 1698, are a diffuse reply to Filmer. They contain, indeed, many chapters full of historical learning and judicious reflection; yet the constant anxiety to refute that which needs no refutation renders them a little tedious. Sydney does not condemn a limited monarchy like the English, but his partiality is for a form of republic which would be deemed too aristocratical for our popular theories.

87. In the second part of Locke’s Treatise on Civil Government, he proceeds to lay down what he holds to be the true principles upon which society is founded. A state of nature is a state of perfect freedom and equality; but within the bounds of the law of nature, which obliges every one, and renders a state of liberty no state of licence. And the execution of this law, in such a state, is put into everyone’s hands, so that he may punish transgressors against it, not merely by way of reparation for his own wrongs, but for those of others. “Every offence that can be committed in the state of nature may, in the state of nature, be punished equally, and as far forth, as it may in a commonwealth.” And not only independent communities, but all men, as he thinks, till they voluntarily enter into some society, are in a state of nature.[947]

[947] L. ii., c. 2.

88. Whoever declares by word or action a settled design against another’s life, puts himself in a state of war against him, and exposes his own life to be taken away, either by the other party, or by anyone who shall espouse his cause. And he who endeavours to obtain absolute power over another, may be construed to have a design on his life, or at least to take away his property. Where laws prevail, they must determine the punishment of those who injure others; but if the law is silenced, it is hard to think but that the appeal to Heaven returns, and the aggressor may be treated as one in a state of war.[948]

[948] C. 3.

89. Natural liberty is freedom from any superior power except the law of nature. Civil liberty is freedom from the dominion of any authority except that which a legislature, established by consent of the commonwealth, shall confirm. No man, according to Locke, can by his own consent enslave himself, or give power to another to take away his life. For slavery, in a strict sense, is but a continuance of the state of war between a conqueror and his captive.[949]

[949] C. 4.

90. The excellent chapter on property which follows would be sufficient, if all Locke’s other writings had perished, to leave him a high name in philosophy. Nothing can be more luminous than his deduction of the natural right of property from labour, not merely in gathering the fruits of the earth, or catching wild animals, but in the cultivation of land, for which occupancy is but the preliminary, and gives as it were an inchoate title. “As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common.” Whatever is beyond the scanty limits of individual or family labour, has been appropriated under the authority of civil society. But labour is the primary basis of natural right. Nor can it be thought unreasonable that labour should confer an exclusive right, when it is remembered how much of everything’s value depends upon labour alone. “Whatever bread is more worth than acorns, wine than water, and cloth or silk than leaves, skins, or moss, that is wholly owing to labour and industry.” The superiority in good sense and satisfactory elucidation of his principle, which Locke has manifested in this important chapter over Grotius and Puffendorf, will strike those who consult those writers, or look at the brief sketch of their theories in the foregoing pages. It is no less contrasted with the puerile rant of Rousseau against all territorial property. That property owes its origin to occupancy accompanied with labour, is now generally admitted; the care of cattle being of course to be considered as one species of labour, and requiring at least a temporary ownership of the soil.[950]

[950] C. 5.

91. Locke, after acutely remarking that the common arguments for the power of a father over his children would extend equally to the mother, so that it should be called parental power, reverts to the train of reasoning in the first book of this treatise against the regal authority of fathers. What they possess is not derived from generation, but from the care they necessarily take of the infant child, and during his minority; the power then terminates, though reverence, support, and even compliance are still due. Children are also held in subordination to their parents by the institutions of property, which commonly make them dependent both as to maintenance and succession. But Locke, which is worthy to be remarked, inclines to derive the origin of civil government from the patriarchal authority; one not strictly coercive, yet voluntarily conceded by habit and family consent. “Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible change, became the politic monarchs of them too; and as they chanced to live long, and leave worthy and able heirs for several successions or otherwise, so they laid the foundations of hereditary or elective kingdoms.”[951]

[951] C. 6.

92. The necessity that man should not live alone, produced the primary society of husband and wife, parent and children, to which that of master and servant was early added; whether of freemen engaging their service for hire, or of slaves taken in just war, who are by the right of nature subject to the absolute dominion of the captor. Such a family may sometimes resemble a little commonwealth by its numbers, but is essentially distinct from one, because its chief has no imperial power of life and death except over his slaves, nature having given him none over his children, though all men have a right to punish breaches of the law of nature in others according to the offence. But this natural power they quit and resign into the hands of the community, when civil society is instituted; and it is in this union of the several rights of its members that the legislative right of the commonwealth consists, whether this be done by general consent at the first formation of government, or by the adhesion which any individual may give to one already established. By either of these ways men pass from a state of nature to one of political society, the magistrate having now that power to redress injuries, which had previously been each man’s right. Hence, absolute monarchy, in Locke’s opinion, is no form of civil government; for there being no common authority to appeal to, the sovereign is still in a state of nature with regard to his subjects.[952]

93. A community is formed by the unanimous consent of any body of men; but when thus become one body, the determination of the majority must bind the rest, else it would not be one. Unanimity, after a community is once formed, can no longer be required; but this consent of men to form a civil society is that which alone did or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world. It is idle to object that we have no records of such an event; for few commonwealths preserve the tradition of their own infancy; and whatever we do know of the origin of particular states gives indications of this mode of union. Yet he again inclines to deduce the usual origin of civil societies from imitation of patriarchal authority, which having been recognised by each family in the arbitration of disputes and even punishment of offences, was transferred with more readiness to some one person, as the father and representative head of the infant community. He even admits that this authority might tacitly devolve upon the eldest son. Thus the first governments were monarchies, and those with no express limitations of power, till exposure of its abuse gave occasion to social laws, or to co-ordinate authority. In all this he follows Hooker, from the first book of whose Ecclesiastical Polity he quotes largely in his notes.[953]

[952] C. 7.

[953] C. 8.

94. A difficulty commonly raised against the theory of compact is, that all men being born under some government, they cannot be at liberty to erect a new one, or even to make choice whether they will obey or no. This objection Locke does not meet, like Hooker and the jurists, by supposing the agreement of a distant ancestor to oblige all his posterity. But explicitly acknowledging that nothing can bind freemen to obey any government save their own consent, he rests the evidence of a tacit consent, on the enjoyment of land, or even on mere residence within the dominions of the community; every man being at liberty to relinquish his possessions, or change his residence, and either incorporate himself with another commonwealth, or, if he can find an opportunity, set up for himself in some unoccupied part of the world. But nothing can make a man irrevocably a member of one society, except his own voluntary declaration; such perhaps as the oath of allegiance, which Locke does not mention, ought to be reckoned.[954]

[954] C. 8.

95. The majority having, in the first constitution of a state, the whole power, may retain it themselves, or delegate it to one or more persons.[955] And the supreme power is, in other words, the legislature sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it, without which no law can exist, and in which all obedience terminates. Yet this legislative authority itself is not absolute or arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of its subjects. It is the joint power of individuals surrendered to the state; but no man has power over his own life or his neighbour’s property. The laws enacted by the legislature must be conformable to the will of God, or natural justice. Nor can it take any part of the subject’s property without his own consent, or that of the majority. “For if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government. For what property have I in that which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself?” Lastly, the legislative power is inalienable; being but delegated from the people, it cannot be transferred to others.[956] This is the part of Locke’s treatise which has been open to most objection, and which in some measure seems to charge with usurpation all the established governments of Europe. It has been a theory fertile of great revolutions, and perhaps pregnant with more. In some part of this chapter also, though by no means in the most practical corollaries, the language of Hooker has led onward his more hardy disciple.

[955] C. 10.

[956] C. 11.

96. Though the legislative power is alone supreme in the constitution, it is yet subject to the people themselves, who may alter it whenever they find that it acts against the trust reposed in it; all power given in trust for a particular end being evidently forfeited when that end is manifestly disregarded or obstructed. But while the government subsists the legislature is alone sovereign, though it may be the usage to call a single executive magistrate sovereign, if he has also a share in legislation. Where this is not the case, the appellation is plainly improper. Locke has in this chapter a remarkable passage, one perhaps of the first declarations in favour of a change in the electoral system of England. “To what gross absurdities the following of custom, when reason has left it, may lead, we may be satisfied when we see the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing as a sheep-cot, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, send as many representatives to the grand assembly of law-makers as a whole county, numerous in people and powerful in riches. This strangers stand amazed at, and every one must confess needs a remedy, though most think it hard to find one, because the constitution of the legislative being the original and supreme act of the society, antecedent to all positive laws in it, and depending wholly on the people, no inferior power can alter it.” But Locke is less timid about a remedy, and suggests that the executive magistrate might regulate the number of representatives, not according to old custom but reason, which is not setting up a new legislature, but restoring an old one. “Whatsoever, shall be done manifestly for the good of the people and the establishing the government on its true foundation, is, and always will be, just prerogative;”[957] a maxim of too dangerous latitude for a constitutional monarchy.

[957] C. 13.

97. Prerogative he defines to be “a power of acting according to discretion for the public good without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it.” This however is not by any means a good definition in the eyes of a lawyer; and the word, being merely technical, ought not to have been employed in so partial if not so incorrect a sense. Nor is it very precise to say, that in England the prerogative was always largest in the hands of our wisest and best princes, not only because the fact is otherwise, but because he confounds the legal prerogative with its actual exercise. This chapter is the most loosely reasoned of any in the treatise.[958]

[958] C. 14.

98. Conquest, in an unjust war, can give no right at all, unless robbers and pirates may acquire a right. Nor is anyone bound by promises which unjust force extorts from him. If we are not strong enough to resist, we have no remedy save patience; but our children may appeal to Heaven, and repeat their appeals till they recover their ancestral rights, which was to be governed by such a legislation as themselves approve. He that appeals to Heaven must be sure that he has right on his side, and right too that is worth the trouble and cost of his appeal, as he will answer at a tribunal that cannot be deceived. Even just conquest gives no further right than to reparation of injury; and the posterity of the vanquished, he seems to hold, can forfeit nothing by their parent’s offence, so that they have always a right to throw off the yoke. The title of prescription, which has commonly been admitted to silence the complaints, if not to heal the wounds, of the injured, finds no favour with Locke.[959] And hence, it seems that no state composed, as most have been, out of the spoils of conquest, can exercise a legitimate authority over the latest posterity of those it has incorporated. Wales, for instance, has an eternal right to shake off the yoke of England; for what Locke says of consent to laws by representatives, is of little weight when these must be out-numbered in the general legislature of both countries; and indeed the first question for the Cambro-Britons would be to determine whether they would form part of such a common legislation.

[959] C. 16.

99. Usurpation, which is a kind of domestic conquest, gives no more right to obedience than unjust war; it is necessary that the people should both be at liberty to consent, and have actually consented to allow and confirm a power which the constitution of their commonwealth does not recognise.[960] But tyranny may exist without usurpation, whenever the power reposed in anyone’s hands for the people’s benefit is abused to their impoverishment or slavery. Force may never be opposed but to unjust and unlawful force; in any other case, it is condemned before God and man. The king’s person is in some countries sacred by law; but this, as Locke thinks, does not extend to the case where, by putting himself in a state of war with his people, he dissolves the government.[961] A prince dissolves the government by ruling against law, by hindering the regular assembly of the legislature, by changing the form of election, or by rendering the people subject to a foreign power. He dissolves it also by neglecting or abandoning it, so that the laws cannot be put into execution. The government is also dissolved by breach of trust in either the legislature or the prince; by the former when it usurps an arbitrary power over the lives, liberties, and fortunes of the subject; by the latter, when he endeavours to corrupt the representatives or to influence the choice of the electors. If it be objected that no government will be able long to subsist, if the people may set up a new legislature whenever they take offence at the old one, he replies that mankind are too slow and averse to quit their old institutions for this danger to be apprehended. Much will be endured from rulers without mutiny or murmur. Nor is anything more likely to restrain governments than this doctrine of the right of resistance. It is as reasonable to tell men they should not defend themselves against robbers, because it may occasion disorder, as to use the same argument for passive obedience to illegal dominion. And he observes, after quoting some other writers, that Hooker alone might be enough to satisfy those who rely on him for their ecclesiastical polity.[962]

[960] C. 17.

[961] C. 18.

[962] C. 19.

Observations on this Treatise. 100. Such is, in substance, the celebrated treatise of Locke on civil government, which, with the favour of political circumstances, and the authority of his name, became the creed of a numerous party at home; while silently spreading the fibres from its root over Europe and America, it prepared the way for theories of political society, hardly bolder in their announcement, but expressed with more passionate ardour, from which the great revolutions of the last and present age have sprung. But as we do not launch our bark upon a stormy sea, we shall merely observe that neither the Revolution of 1688, nor the administration of William III., could have borne the test by which Locke has tried the legitimacy of government. There was certainly no appeal to the people in the former, nor would it have been convenient for the latter to have had the maxim established, that an attempt to corrupt the legislature entails a forfeiture of the entrusted power. Whether the opinion of Locke, that mankind are slow to political change, be conformable to an enlarged experience, must be judged by everyone according to his reading and observation; it is, at least, very different from that which Hooker, to whom he defers so greatly in most of his doctrine, has uttered in the very first sentence of his Ecclesiastical Polity. For my own part, I must confess, that in these latter chapters of Locke on Government I see, what sometimes appears in his other writings, that the influence of temporary circumstances on a mind a little too susceptible of passion and resentment, had prevented that calm and patient examination of all the bearings of this extensive subject which true philosophy requires.

Political economists. 103. The separation of political economy from the general science, which regards the well-being of communities, was not so strictly made by the earlier philosophers as in modern times. It does not follow that national wealth engaged none of their attention. Few, on the contrary, of those who have taken comprehensive views, could have failed to regard it. In Bodin, Botero, Bacon, Hobbes, Puffendorf, Locke, we have already seen proofs of this. These may be said to have discussed the subject, not systematically, nor always with thorough knowledge, but with acuteness and in a philosophical tone. Others there were of a more limited range, whose habits of life and experience led them to particular departments of economical inquiry, especially as to commerce, the precious metals, and the laws affecting them. The Italians led the way; Serra has been mentioned in our last volume, and a few more might find a place in this. De Witt’s Interest of Holland can hardly be reckoned among economical writings; and it is said by Morhof, that the Dutch were not fond of promulgating their commercial knowledge;[963] little, at least, was contributed from that country, even at a later period, towards the theory of becoming rich. But England now took a large share in this new literature. Free, inquisitive, thriving rapidly in commerce, so that her progress even in the nineteenth century has hardly been in a greater ratio than before, and after the middle of the seventeenth, if we may trust the statements of contemporaries, she produced some writers who, though few of them merit the name of philosophers, may not yet here be overlooked, on account of their influence, their reputation, or their position as links in the chain of science.

[963] Polyhistor, part iii., lib. iii., § 3.

Mun on Foreign Trade. 104. The first of these was Thomas Mun, an intelligent merchant in the earlier part of the century, whose posthumous treatise, England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade, was published in 1664, but seems to have been written soon after the accession of Charles I.[964] Mun is generally reckoned the founder of what has been called the mercantile system. His main position is that “the ordinary means to increase our wealth and treasure is by foreign trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.”[965] We must therefore sell as cheap as possible; it was by underselling the Venetians of late years, that we had exported a great deal of cloth to Turkey.[966] It is singular that Mun should not have perceived the difficulty of selling very cheap the productions of a country’s labour, whose gold and silver were in great abundance. He was, however, too good a merchant not to acknowledge the inefficacy and impolicy of restraining by law the exportation of coin, which is often a means of increasing our treasure in the long run; advising instead a due regard to the balance of trade, or general surplus of exported goods, by which we shall infallibly obtain a stock of gold and silver. These notions have long since been covered with ridicule; and it is plain that, in a merely economical view, they must always be delusive. Mun, however, looked to the accumulation of a portion of this imported treasure by the state; a resource in critical emergencies which we have now learned to despise, since others have been at hand, but which, in reality, had made a great difference in the events of war, and changed the balance of power between many commonwealths. |Child on Trade.| Mun was followed, about 1670, by Sir Josiah Child, in a discourse on Trade, written on the same principles of the mercantile system, but more copious and varied. The chief aim of Child is to effect a reduction of the legal interest of money, from six to four per cent., drawing an erroneous inference from the increase of wealth which had followed similar enactments.

[964] Mr. Maculloch says (Introductory Discourse to Smith’s Wealth of Nations), it had most probably been written about 1635 or 1640. I remarked some things which serve to carry it up a little higher.

[965] P. 11 (edit. 1664).

[966] P. 18.

Locke on the Coin. 105. Among the many difficulties with which the government of William III. had to contend, one of the most embarrassing was the scarcity of the precious metals and depreciated condition of the coin. This opened the whole field of controversy in that province of political economy; and the bold spirit of inquiry, unshackled by prejudice in favour of ancient custom, which, in all respects, was characteristic of that age, began to work by reasonings on general theorems, instead of collecting insulated and inconclusive details. Locke stood forward on this, as on so many subjects, with his masculine sense and habitual closeness of thinking. His “Considerations of the Consequences of lowering Interest, and raising the Value of Money” were published in 1691. Two further treatises are in answer to the pamphlets of Lowndes. These economical writings of Locke are not in all points conformable to the modern principles of the science. He seems to incline rather too much towards the mercantile theory, and to lay too much stress on the possession of the precious metals. From his excellent sense, however, as well as from some expressions, I should conceive that he only considers them, as they doubtless are, a portion of the exchangeable wealth of the nation, and by their inconsumable nature, as well as by the constancy of the demand for them, one of the most important. “Riches do not consist,” he says, “in having more gold and silver, but in having more in proportion than the rest of the world or than our neighbours, whereby we are enabled to procure to ourselves a greater plenty of the conveniences of life.”

106. Locke had the sagacity to perceive the impossibility of regulating the interest of money by law. It was an empirical proposition at that time, as we have just seen in Sir Josiah Child, to render loans more easy to the borrower by reducing the legal rate to four per cent. The whole drift of his reasoning is against any limitation, though, from fear of appearing too paradoxical, he does not arrive at that inference. For the reasons he gives in favour of a legal limit of interest, namely, that courts of law may have some rule where nothing is stipulated in the contract, and that a few money-lenders in the metropolis may not have the monopoly of all loans in England, are, especially the first, so trifling, that he could not have relied upon them; and, indeed, he admits that, in other circumstances, there would be no danger from the second. But his prudence having restrained him from speaking out, a famous writer, almost a century afterwards, came forward to assert a paradox, which he loved the better for seeming such, and, finally, to convince the thinking part of mankind.