" Locke also enounced the maxim, that
the state of nature is one of equality. Mr. Mill's special views on
the land question are not without parallel in Locke; for that acute
thinker distinctively laid down that "labor" was the true ground even
of property in land. Still it must be confessed that Locke's political
philosophy is much cruder than Mr. Mill's. His "Essay on Government"
is as the rough work of a boy of genius, the "Representative
Government" a finished work of art of the experienced master. And this
difference corresponds with the rate of political progress. The
English constitution, as we now understand it, was unknown at the
Revolution: it had to be slowly created. Now the great task of the
future is to raise the mass of the people to a higher standard of
political intelligence and material comfort. To that great end no man
has contributed so much as Mr. Mill.
Perhaps the one writing for which above all others Mr. Mill's
disciples will love his memory is his essay "On Liberty." In this
undertaking Mr. Mill followed the noble precedent of Locke, with
greater largeness of view and perfection of work. Locke's four letters
"Concerning Toleration" constitute a splendid manifesto of the
Liberals of the seventeenth century.
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