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Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham By: Harold Joseph Laski (1893-1950) |
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No. 103 Editors: HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.
PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, LITT.D. LL.D., F.B.A.
PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND FROM LOCKE TO BENTHAM
BY HAROLD J. LASKI
SOMETIME EXHIBITIONER OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF STUDIES IN THE PROBLEM OF
SOVEREIGNTY AND AUTHORITY IN THE MODERN STATE NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE
1920
NOTE It is impossible for me to publish this book without some expression of
the debt it owes to Leslie Stephen's History of the English Thought in
the Eighteenth Century . It is almost insolent to praise such work; but
I may be permitted to say that no one can fully appreciate either its
wisdom or its knowledge who has not had to dig among the original texts. Were so small a volume worthy to bear a dedication, I should associate
it with the name of my friend Walter Lippmann. He and I have so often
discussed the substance of its problems that I am certain a good deal of
what I feel to be my own is, where it has merit, really his. This volume
is thus in great part a tribute to him; though there is little that can
repay such friendship as he gives. H.J.L. HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Sept. 15, 1919
CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION 7 II. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION 24 III. CHURCH AND STATE 77 IV. THE ERA OF STAGNATION 127 V. SIGNS OF CHANGE 159 VI. BURKE 213 VII. THE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC LIBERALISM 281 BIBLIOGRAPHY 317 INDEX 321
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
The eighteenth century may be said to begin with the Revolution of 1688;
for, with its completion, the dogma of Divine Right disappeared for ever
from English politics. Its place was but partially filled until Hume and
Burke supplied the outlines of a new philosophy. For the observer of
this age can hardly fail, as he notes its relative barrenness of
abstract ideas, to be impressed by the large part Divine Right must have
played in the politics of the succeeding century. Its very absoluteness
made for keen partisanship on the one side and the other. It could
produce at once the longwinded rhapsodies of Filmer and, by repulsion,
the wearisome reiterations of Algernon Sidney. Once the foundations of
Divine Right had been destroyed by Locke, the basis of passionate
controversy was absent. The theory of a social contract never produced
in England the enthusiasm it evoked in France, for the simple reason
that the main objective of Rousseau and his disciples had already been
secured there by other weapons. And this has perhaps given to the
eighteenth century an urbaneness from which its predecessor was largely
free. Sermons are perhaps the best test of such a change; and it is a
relief to move from the addresses bristling with Suarez and Bellarmine
to the noble exhortations of Bishop Butler. Not until the French
Revolution were ultimate dogmas again called into question; and it is
about them only that political speculation provokes deep feeling. The
urbanity, indeed, is not entirely new. The Restoration had heralded its
coming, and the tone of Halifax has more in common with Bolingbroke and
Hume than with Hobbes and Filmer. Nor has the eighteenth century an
historical profundity to compare with that of the zealous pamphleteers
in the seventeenth. Heroic archivists like Prynne find very different
substitutes in brilliant journalists like Defoe, and if Dalrymple and
Blackstone are respectable, they bear no comparison with masters like
Selden and Sir Henry Spelman. Yet urbanity must not deceive us. The eighteenth century has an
importance in English politics which the comparative absence of
systematic speculation can not conceal... Continue reading book >>
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