shall we place upon the power of government? Rousseau has only
emphasized the urgency of the debate.

Wherein, perhaps, the most profound distinction between Locke's teaching
and our own time may be discovered is in our sense of the impossibility
that a final answer can be found to political questions. Each age has
new materials at its command; and, today, a static philosophy would
condemn itself before completion. We do not build Utopias; and the
attempt to discover the eternal principles of political right invites
disaster at the outset. Yet that does not render useless, even for our
own day, the kind of work Locke did. In the largest sense, his questions
are still our own. In the largest sense, also, we are near enough to his
time to profit at each step of our own efforts by the hints he proffers.
The point at which he stood in English history bears not a little
resemblance to our own. The emphasis, now as then, is upon the problem
of freedom. The problem, now as then, was its translation into
institutional terms. It is the glory of Locke that he brought a generous
patience and a searching wisdom to the solution he proffered to his
generation.




CHAPTER III

CHURCH AND STATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY



I