IX GOVERNMENT 403 



arguments, which is represented by individualism 

 in various shades of intensity. I have already 

 said that the founder and father of political in- 

 dividualism, as it is held by its more moderate 

 adherents at the present day, is John Locke ; and 

 that his primary assumptions the state of nature 

 and the contractual basis of society are the same 

 as those of his predecessor Hobbes, and of his suc- 

 cessors Rousseau and Mably. But I have also 

 remarked that the condition of men in the state 

 of nature, imagined by Locke, is different from 

 that assumed by either Hobbes or Rousseau. For 

 these last philosophers, primitive man was a sav- 

 age ; lawless and ferocious according to the older, 

 good and stupid, according to the younger, theorist. 

 Locke's fancy picture of primitive men, on the 

 other hand, represents them under the guise of 

 highly intelligent and respectable persons, " living 

 together according to reason, without a common 

 superior on earth, with authority to judge between 

 them " (" Civil Government," 19). 



The Law of Nature l is, in fact, thejawdictated 

 by__reason, wKich "teaches all mankmdwho will 

 but consult it, that, being all equal and independ- 

 ent, no one ought to harm another in his life, 



1 This view of the law of nature comes from the jurists. 

 Hobbes defines it in the same way, but he says that, in the state 

 of nature, the Law of Nature is silent. In speaking of Locke 

 as the founder and father of Individualism, I do not forget that 

 Hooker (to whom Locke often refers), and still earlier writers, 

 have expressed individualistic opinions. Nevertheless, I believe 

 that modern individualism is essentially Locke's work. 



D D 2 





