conquerors in the realms of abstract speculation--is their relation to
politics. Locke was the political philosopher of the Revolution of
1688; Mr. Mill has been the political philosopher of the democracy of
the nineteenth century. The vast space that lies between their
treatises represents a difference, not in the men, but in the times.
Locke found opposed to the common weal an odious theory of arbitrary
and absolute power. It is interesting to remember what were the giants
necessary to be slain in those days. The titles of his first chapters
on "Government" significantly attest the rudimentary condition of
political philosophy in Locke's day. Adam was generally considered to
have had a divine power of government, which was transmitted to a
favored few of his descendants. Accordingly Locke disposes of Adam's
title to sovereignty to whatever origin it may have been ascribed,--to
"creation," "donation," "the subjection of Eve," or "fatherhood."
There is something almost ludicrous in discussing fundamental
questions of government with reference to such scriptural topics; and
it is a striking evidence of the change that has passed over England
since the Revolution, that, whereas Locke's argument looks like a
commentary on the Bible, even the bishops now do not in Parliament
quote the Bible on the question of marriage with a deceased wife's
sister. Nevertheless Locke clearly propounded the great principle,
which, in spite of many errors and much selfishness, has been the
fruitful heritage of the Whig party. "Political power, then, I take to
be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently
all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and
of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws,
and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, _and all
this only for the public good_." Locke also enounced the maxim, that
the state of nature is one of equality. Mr. Mill's special views on
the land question are not without parallel in Locke; for that acute