the effect of a potent desire which the obstacle excites; this tension,
therefore, is an indication of nothing except the potency of the desire and
the existence of an obstacle. Now this desire, so potent that it is
irritated by the obstacle, and, so to speak, unites us against it, is a
passion dominating and filling our being; so that we are never more swayed
by passion than when we believe ourselves to be exercising our will, and in
consequence the more we desire the less are we free.

It is not essential formally and absolutely to confound will with
desire. Overpowered by heat, we desire to drink cold water, and because we
know that that would do us harm we have the will not to drink; but although
this is an important distinction it is not a fundamental one; what incites
us to drink is a passion, what prevents us is another passion, one more
general and stronger, the desire not to die, and because this passion by
meeting with and fighting another produces in all our being a powerful
tension, it is none the less a passion, even if we ought not to say that it
is a still more impassioned passion.

LOCKE'S THEORY OF POLITICS.--In politics Locke was the adversary of
Hobbes, whose theories of absolutism have already been noticed. He did not
believe that the natural state was the war of all against all. He believed
men formed societies not to escape cannibalism, but more easily to
guarantee and protect their natural rights: ownership, personal liberty,
legitimate defence. Society exists only to protect these rights, and the
reason of its existence lies in this duty to defend them. The sovereign
therefore is not the saviour of the nation, he is its law-maker and
magistrate. If he violates the rights of man, he acts so directly contrary
to his mission and his mandate that insurrection against him is
legitimate. The "wise Locke," as Voltaire always called him, was the
inventor of the Rights of Man.