Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham by Harold J. Laski
page 119 of 195 (61%)
page 119 of 195 (61%)
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like the Duke of Richmond; but the vast majority remained, if irritated,
unconvinced. It needed the realization that the new doctrines were part of a vaster synthesis which swept within its purview the fortunes of Europe and America before they would give serious heed; and even then they met antagonism with nothing save oppression and hate. Yet the doctrines remained; for thought, after all, is killed by reasoned answer alone. And when the first gusts of war and revolution had passed, the cause for which they stood was found to have permeated all classes save that which had all to lose by learning. We must not, however, commit the error of thinking of Price and Priestley as representing more than an important segment of opinion. The opposition to their theories was not less articulate than their own defence of them. Some, like Burke, desired a purification of the existing system; others, like Dr. Johnson, had no sort of sympathy with new-fangled ideas. One thinker, at least, deserves some mention less for the inherent value of what he had to say, than for the nature of the opinions he expounded. Josiah Tucker, the Dean of Gloucester, has a reputation alike in political and economic enquiry. He represents the sturdy nationalism of Arbuthnot's _John Bull_, the unreasoned prejudice against all foreigners, the hatred of all metaphysics as inconsistent with common sense, the desire to let things be on the ground that the effort after change is worse than the evil of which men complain. His _Treatise on Civil Government_ (1781) is in many ways a delightful book, bluff, hardy, full of common sense, with, at times, a quaint humor that is all its own. He had really two objects in view; to deal, in the first place, faithfully with the American problem, and, in the second, to explode the new bubble of Rousseau's followers. The second point takes the form of an examination of Locke, to whom, as Tucker shrewdly saw, the theories of the school may trace their ancestry. He analyses the |
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