to justify to themselves the principles in which they were asked to acquiesce, the codes to which they were asked to conform, and the governments which they were required to obey. Of what can I be certain? was the question raised by Descartes, the first philosopher of our modern era and it is a question which men have been asking and answering ever since. With questions of science we are only indirectly concerned. Politics and religion are of primary importance. The progressive advancement of science in the closing years of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth century naturally induced a habit of looking for a positive explanation of everything in experience. French writers of the eighteenth century were profoundly influenced by Bacon and Locke. From the first they derived, above all things, encouragement to persevere in the attempt to solve the problems of man and the universe-to turn their inquiries to account for the relief of man's estate, and by both they were taught to limit themselves to the evidence of experience, to the exclusion of all a priori principles and beliefs. "Locke alone," says Voltaire, "has traced the progress of the human understanding in a book which contains nothing but truths; and what makes the book perfect is that all the truths are clear." Of the writers who influenced French thought all were admirers of English institutions, and some had resided in England. What struck Voltaire in England was the general toleration of opinions. Montesquieu declared that the English constitution was contrived to secure freedom to those who lived under it. Rousseau, to a large extent, repeats the political doctrines of Locke. Locke was the exponent. of the principles of 1688. His treatise is based on the

first book of the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, which was published about 1594. Locke and Rousseau were both opponents of absolutism. They both mention Hobbes by name, and repudiate his doctrine.

As man's knowledge of the world widened, and the diversity of institutions, laws, and customs was brought to view, it was not unnatural that the opinion should gain ground that government and law are mere matters of convention. The sceptical Montaigne* seems to take pleasure in emphasizing the variety and the arbitrariness of law and custom. It was the object of Hooker to show that there is a law prior to and independent of convention, and to give to political society a foundation in nature and in reason. Hooker in large measure repeats Aristotle. Man, he says, is by nature social. Society which, in the first instance, provides for the satisfaction of man's physical and material wants, serves also the higher purpose of rendering possible his perfection in virtue. "Men were naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others to supply the defects and imperfections which are in men living singly by themselves." But before the establishment of government and the promulgation of laws men were subjected to the law of nature or reason. Their reason revealed to them the legitimacy of self-defence, and the right of each man to freedom, limited only by the same right in others. In time experience showed that existence, without a supreme coercive power, produced endless strife and troubles, because each man was judge in his own cause. As, therefore, there was nothing to give to any one man, as such, authority over any other, men * 1533-1592.

agreed to submit to a government. Nothing but his own consent can subject a man to authority or law. In the laws of countries, besides the law of nature which they enforce, there is also a positive or conventional element, which, naturally, varies from country to country according to the special needs of time and place. The state, therefore, is justified, because it is the condition of human well-being. It is not the negation of freedom, but the security for it. By its authority it enforces the impartial administration of laws, which represent, directly or by implication, the will of the community. There is no single form of government which is legitimate to the exclusion of others. only reason why monarchy may have come first is that the first communities would naturally elect to be governed in the mode with which family life had familiarized them.

The

Hobbes, who wrote to justify the absolutism of the Stuarts, declared that the state of nature was a state of war. Every man was the enemy of every

other man. Men knew no law but that of their own passions. When the inconveniences of this state of war became manifest, men agreed to make a surrender of some of their natural rights, thinking that, if they all submitted to be governed, they would be more secure in the possession of those natural rights which they retained. Society was formed by a compact, by the terms of which they were bound to obey a sovereign. The power of the sovereign was absolute. Distinctions of right and wrong were first created when government was instituted. In opposition to this theory, as well as to the doctrine that kings rule by divine right, * 1588-1679.

Locke's treatises on Civil Government were written. In the state of nature, according to him, all men were equal. In other words, until men have consented to be governed, there is nothing which gives to any one man a right to govern any other. They were also free, except in so far as they were bound by the law of nature which was revealed to them by their reason, as soon as they came to man's estate. During their minority they were rightly governed by their parents. Locke, like Hooker, says that the rule of the father in the family suggested monarchy as the first form of government. But he denies that there is any foundation either in reason or experience for Hobbes's theory of absolutism. The father's rule was over minors and ceased with minority. From the fact that men in the state of nature were equal, it is deducible that each was bound not to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. All were free to enforce this law, and to punish transgression of it so far as might serve "for reparation or restraint." It was with a view to securing impartial and effective justice that individuals agreed to hand over the enforcement of their rights to the community, which then proceeded to elect a government. Thus the power of government is not absolute. It is a trust, or, as Locke calls it, a fiduciary power. The people retain their sovereignty, after the institution of government; but this sovereignty is in abeyance. The powers of government are limited by the end for which it was established, namely, the enforcement of natural rights. When it violates these, it transgresses the terms of its trust, and puts itself in a state of war against the people, who are justified in overthrowing

it. Thus the ultimate justification of the state is that it not only does not destroy the freedom of the individual, but that it secures to all equal justice and safety. Political society begins when each entrusts to the community the task of securing and protecting his natural rights, and "the liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent in the commonwealth, nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put in it." Such was the Whig doctrine of the seventeenth century. We may now proceed to consider the opinions of Rousseau.* He is such a prominent figure in history that it is desirable to state at length the substance of his three chief political treatises. The earliest in point of time is an answer to the question whether the re-establishment of the sciences and the arts has contributed to the purification of morals.

With the development of arts and letters, he says, comes politeness, politeness involves affectation, affectation involves insincerity, and insincerity involves crime. The luxury which is born of the arts is unfavourable to the existence of that robust virtue, which is practised when the conditions of life are more simple. Theories as to the origin and nature of virtue weaken its practical hold on man. The actual duties of life are sufficient to fill each man's life. Sciences spring from and abet the worst elements in human nature. They confirm the idleness in which they arise. History shows how cultured and, therefore, luxurious and corrupt nations have fallen before the arms of poor and un* Born 1712.