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in spite of his attempts to conciliate the latter by granting them toleration in defiance of Parliament. Foreign policy also played a part. The Stuarts, in order to avoid the taxation required in war-time, which would have made them dependent upon Parliament, pursued a policy of subservience, first to Spain and then to France. The growing power of France roused the invariable English hostility to the leading Continental State, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes made Protestant feeling bitterly opposed to Louis XIV. In the end, almost everybody in England wished to be rid of James. But almost everybody was equally determined to avoid a return to the days of the Civil War and Cromwell's dictatorship. Since there was no constitutional way of getting rid of James, there must be a revolution, but it must be quickly ended, so as to give no opportunity for disruptive forces. The rights of Parliament must be secured once for all. The king must go, but monarchy must be preserved; it should be, however, not a monarchy of Divine Right, but one dependent upon legislative sanction, and so upon Parliament. By a combination of aristocracy and big business, all this was achieved in a moment, without the necessity of firing a shot. Compromise and moderation had succeeded, after every form of intransigence had been tried and had failed.

The new king, being Dutch, brought with him the commercial and theological wisdom for which his country was noted. The Bank of England was created; the national debt was made into a secure investment, no longer liable to repudiation at the caprice of the monarch. The Act of Toleration, while leaving Catholics and Nonconformists subject to various disabilities, put an end to actual persecution. Foreign policy became resolutely anti-French, and remained so, with brief intermissions, until the defeat of Napoleon.

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13

LOCKE'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

John Locke (1632–1704) is the apostle of the Revolution of 1688, the most moderate and the most successful of all revolutions. Its aims were modest, but they were exactly achieved, and no subsequent revolution has hitherto been found necessary in England. Locke faithfully embodies its spirit, and most of his works appeared within a few years of 1688. His chief work in theoretical philosophy, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, was finished in 1687 and published in 1690. His First Letter on Toleration was originally published in Latin in 1689, in Holland, to which country Locke had found it prudent to withdraw in 1683. Two further letters on Toleration were published in 1690 and 1692. His two Treatises on Government were licensed for printing in 1689, and published soon afterwards. His book on Education was published in 1693. Although his life was long, all his influential writings are confined to the few years from 1687 to 1693. Successful revolutions are stimulating to those who believe in them.

Locke's father was a Puritan, who fought on the side of Parliament. In the time of Cromwell, when Locke was at Oxford, the university was still scholastic in its philosophy; Locke disliked both scholasticism and the fanaticism of the Independents. He was much influenced by Descartes. He became a physician, and his patron was Lord Shaftesbury, Dryden's 'Achitophel'. When Shaftesbury fell in 1683, Locke fled with him to Holland, and remained there until the Revolution. After the Revolution, except for a few years during which he was employed at the Board of Trade, his life was devoted to literary work and to numerous controversies arising out of his books.

The years before the Revolution of 1688, when Locke could not, without grave risk, take any part, theoretical or practical, in English politics, were spent by him in composing his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. This is his most important book, and the one upon which his fame most securely rests; but his influence on the philosophy of politics was so great and so lasting that he must be treated as the founder of philosophical liberalism as much as of empiricism in theory of knowledge.