JOHN STUART MILL. 3 8 7 



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 arbi- 

 trary 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 con- 

 dition of political philosophy in Locke's day. Adam was generally 

 considered to have had a divine power of government, winch 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 Script- 

 ural topics ; and it is a striking evidence of the change that has 

 passed over England since the Revolution, that, whereas Locke's argu- 

 ment 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 execu- 

 tion of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from for- 

 eign 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 thinker distinctly laid down that "labor" was 

 the true ground even of property in land. Still it must be confessed 

 that Locke's political philosophy is much cruder than Mr. Mill's. His 

 " Essay on Government " is as the rough work of a boy of genius, the 

 " Representative Government " a finished work of art of the experi- 

 enced master. And this difference corresponds with the rate of politi- 

 cal progress. The English constitution, as we now understand it, was 

 unknown at the Revolution ; it had to be slowly created ; now the 

 great task of the future is to raise the mass of the people to a higher 

 standard of political intelligence and material comfort. To that great 

 end no man has contributed so much as Mr. Mill. 



Perhaps, the one writing for which above all others Mr. Mill's dis- 

 ciples will love his memory, is his essay " On Liberty." In this under- 

 taking Mr. Mill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with greater 

 largeness of view, and perfection of work. Locke's four letters " Con- 

 cerning Toleration" constitute a splendid manifesto of the Liberals 

 of the seventeenth century. The principle that the ends of political 

 society are life, health, liberty, and immunity from harm, and not the 

 salvation of souls, has taken nearly two centuries to root itself in 



