were bound to hold, that the communication of his particular brand of
truth outweighed in value all other questions. "Every Church," he wrote,
"is orthodox to itself; to others, erroneous or heretical"; but to any
earnest believer this would approximate to blasphemy. Nor could any
serious Christian accept the view that "under the gospel '...there is no
such thing as a Christian commonwealth'"; to Catholics and Presbyterians
this must have appeared the merest travesty of their faith.

[Footnote 8: Cf. also Coleridge's apt remark. _Table Talk_, Jan. 3,
1834.]

Here, indeed, as elsewhere Locke is the true progenitor of Benthamism,
and his work can hardly be understood save in this context. Just as in
his ethical enquiries it was always the happiness of the individual that
he sought, so in his politics it was the happiness of the subject he had
in view. In each case it was to immediate experience that he made his
appeal; and this perhaps explains the clear sense of a contempt for past
tradition which pervades all his work. "That which is for the public
welfare," he said, "is God's will"; and therein we have the root of that
utilitarianism which, as Maine pointed out, is the real parent of all
nineteenth century change. And with Locke, as with the Benthamites, his
clear sense of what utilitarianism demanded led to an over-emphasis of
human rationalism. No one can read the _Second Treatise_ without
perceiving that Locke looked upon the State as a machine which can be
built and taken to pieces in very simple fashion. Herein, undoubtedly,
he over-simplified the problem; and that made him miss some of the
cardinal points a true psychology of the State must seize. His very
contractualism, indeed, is part of this affection for the rational. It
resulted in his failure to perceive how complex is the mass of motives
imbedded in the political act. The significance of herd instinct and the