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it; but as a rule the pleasure is due to the desire, not the desire to the pleasure. It is possible, as happens with masochists, to desire pain; in that case, there is still pleasure in the gratification of the desire, but it is mixed with its opposite. Even in Locke's own doctrine, it is not pleasure as such that is desired, since a proximate pleasure is more desired than a remote one. If morality is to be deduced from the psychology of desire, as Locke and his disciples attempt to do, there can be no reason for deprecating the discounting of distant pleasures, or for urging prudence as a moral duty. His argument, in a nutshell, is: 'We only desire pleasure. But, in fact, many men desire,

not pleasure as such, but proximate pleasure. This contradicts our doctrine that they desire pleasure as such, and is therefore wicked.' Almost all philosophers, in their ethical systems, first lay down a false doctrine, and then argue that wickedness consists in acting in a manner that proves it false, which would be impossible if the doctrine were true. Of this pattern Locke affords an example.

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14

LOCKE'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

A. THE HEREDITARY PRINCIPLE

In the years 1689 and 1690, just after the Revolution of 1688, Locke wrote his two Treatises on Government, of which the second especially is very important in the history of political ideas.

The first of these two treatises is a criticism of the doctrine of hereditary power. It is a reply to Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha: or The Natural Power of Kings, which was published in 1680, but written under Charles I. Sir Robert Filmer, who was a devout upholder of the divine right of kings, had the misfortune to live till 1653, and must have suffered acutely from the execution of Charles I and the victory of Cromwell. But Patriarcha was written before these sad events, though not before the Civil War, so that it naturally shows awareness of the existence of subversive doctrines. Such doctrines, as Filmer points out, were not new in 1640. In fact, both Protestant and Catholic divines, in their contest with Catholic and Protestant monarchs respectively, had vigorously affirmed the right of subjects to resist tyrannical princes, and their writings supplied Sir Robert with abundant material for controversy.

Sir Robert Filmer was knighted by Charles I, and his house is said to have been plundered by the Parliamentarians ten times. He thinks it not unlikely that Noah sailed up the Mediterranean and allotted Africa, Asia, and Europe to Ham, Shem, and Japheth respectively. He held that, by the English Constitution, the Lords only give counsel to the king, and the Commons have even less power; the king, he says, alone makes the laws, which proceed solely from his will. The king, according to Filmer, is perfectly free from all human control, and cannot be bound by the acts of his predecessors, or even by his own, for 'impossible it is in nature that a man should give a law unto himself'.

Filmer, as these opinions show, belonged to the most extreme section of the Divine Right party.

Patriarcha begins by combating the 'common opinion' that 'mankind is naturally endowed and born with freedom from all subjection, and at liberty to choose what form of government it please, and the power which any one man hath over others was first bestowed according to the discretion of the multitude.' 'This tenet,' he says, 'was first hatched in the schools.' The truth, according to him, is quite different; it is, that originally God bestowed the kingly power upon Adam, from whom it descended to his heirs, and ultimately reached the various monarchs of modern times. Kings now, he assures us, 'either are, or are to be reputed, the next heirs to those first progenitors who were at first the natural parents of the whole people'. Our first parent, it seems, did not adequately appreciate his privilege as universal monarch, for 'the desire of liberty was the first cause of the fall of Adam'. The desire of liberty is a sentiment which Sir Robert Filmer regards as impious.

The claims made by Charles I,