is right or wrong by its tendency to promote human happiness or misery. And they do not view with very different eyes a system (like that of Austin) which adds to such advice the further clause, When you have discovered by observation what is the effect of a given practice upon human happiness or misery, you may infer further that, if it promotes human happiness, it is enjoined, and that if it diminishes it, it is forbidden, by God.

Whatever may have been his place in the history of utilitarianism, Locke certainly does not appear to have given that doctrine the special edge and point which is communicated to it by working out its consequences systematically in the field of political speculation. We shall illustrate this more fully in speaking of his Essay on Civil Government, and on Toleration. But this is the place for the general observation that the principles upon which Locke discusses these matters tend straight to the application made of them by Hobbes before his time, and by Bentham and Austin long afterwards, to the general conception of justice and of rights.

A person who fully accepts Locke's metaphysics, and who carries out to their natural result his views as to the foundation of morality, is led of necessity to the conclusion that there are only two definite senses in which the words 'right' and 'justice' can be used. They may be used, that is, as synonymous with 'power secured by law,' and 'impartial adherence to any fixed rule whatever.' Or they may be used to

mean, by way of distinction, 'powers suitable to the production of general happiness and secured by law,' and adherence to fixed rules tending to produce general happiness.'

Neither Hobbes nor Locke fully worked out this, and the result is that Hobbes founds his system on a supposed contract, without showing satisfactorily why you should keep that or any other contract when you have made it; and that Locke, throughout the whole of his political works, writes (as we shall try to show hereafter) upon a set of tacit suppositions as to rights, their value, their transmission, and the like, which it is not easy to put into plain words, and which he probably did not realise distinctly himself. This, however, can hardly be imputed to him as a fault. He comes across morality and politics in his great speculative work only indirectly, and by the somewhat eccentric path which we have tried to trace; and in the Essay on Civil Government and the Letters on Toleration he was writing with a distinctly practical aim, and of course adopted that turn of language, and form of expression, which he thought would be most likely to produce the practical result which he had in view.

IX

LOCKE ON GOVERNMENT1

LOCKE'S Essay on Government, famous as it is, and wonderful as was its success, is essentially a popular performance, and is, to a considerable extent, to be regarded also as an occasional one. As Warburton's Essay on the Alliance between Church and State might more properly have been entitled an attempt to construct a theory of the Church of England, the Treatise on Government might have been called a defence of the Revolution of 1688 considered in the abstract; still it deserves attention on several accounts, both as being singularly characteristic of Locke and as marking a point in the history of English speculation.

The first part of the treatise, which is a refutation of Sir Robert Filmer, is in the present day a

1 Two Treatises of Government. In the former, the False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer and his Followers are detected and overthrown. The latter is an Essay concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government. By John Locke.

mere weariness to the flesh, and in no degree worth reading. To judge, indeed, from Locke's account of it, Sir Robert Filmer's doctrine must have been so monstrously absurd that the wonder is how it could ever have been thought to deserve a refutation. Adam, it appears, had supreme authority over all his descendants. Adam was the 'father, king, and lord over his family; a son, a subject, and a servant or slave were one and the same thing at first.' Somehow or other this sovereignty of Adam's came to be vested in kings, who accordingly are all absolute over their subjects.

Locke goes elaborately through all the different parts of this singular theory, discussing in separate chapters 'Adam's title to sovereignty by creation, his 'title by donation,' his 'title by the subjection of Eve,' his 'title by fatherhood.' He discusses various questions of a sort of transcendental real-property law which it appears may have arisen between Cain and Seth and the three sons of Noah, upon whose respective rights we have this amongst other curious remarks: 'If the regal power descended to Shem as eldest and heir to his father, then "Noah's division of the world by lot to his sons, or his ten years' sailing about the Mediterranean to appoint each son his part" which our author tells us of, was labour lost.' We have then a long discussion of the difficult question, Who are and have been Adam's heirs? The only document with which we are acquainted which throws any light on this subject is a genealogy in the Library

of Trinity College, Cambridge, which traces the descent of Henry VIII. from Adam.

He

Locke raises questions not only as to the fact, which is obviously difficult enough to be ascertained, but also as to the law applicable to the fact. observes with the utmost gravity, 'I go on then to ask whether, in the inheritance of this paternal power, the grandson by a daughter hath a right before a nephew by a brother?' and much more of the same kind. Except as a curious illustration of the sort of nonsense which has had its day in the world, all this matter is now of the very least possible interest.

The second part of the treatise, which is headed 'Of Civil Government,' is a work of quite a different order of merit. It was in its day extremely popular, and its practical effects were no doubt great, as it furnished people with the best and most accessible popular justification for the Revolution of 1688. It would be difficult, however, to find a better illustration of the fact that we have travelled a very long road since Locke's time, and have carried the metaphysical principles of which he perceived certain aspects, to consequences which have made his political speculations appear altogether superannuated and bygone. Few things can give so vivid a notion of the course which subsequent speculation has taken as to go back to books which in their day had a great name and almost boundless popularity, and to consider the reasons why they now fall so flatly upon us. This