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OF POLITICAL THEORIES. 331It has never taken a place among the classics of his country.Tins, indeed, the form of it would not permit, for while itspolemical interest necessarily expired with the short-livedreputation of Filmer, there was nothing in the vaguenessand unphilosophical arrangement of its parts which couldsupply the deficiency.If Algernon Sidney then did contribute, and assuredly hedid 3to awaken a spirit of freedom among his countrymen,it was rather by his life and death than by any thing thatever came from his pen,John Locke/ of whom we have now to speak, requires avery different notice. He is to be reckoned among thosewho have acquired, and still continue to exercise., a greatnational influence ;for whatever opinion we may entertainof his powers of thought, it is undeniable that to him England chiefly owes the direction of its philosophical pursuits.Those of his writings with which we have here to do, arehis two treatises of government.- The first of these, as itstitle denotes, was in answer to Filnier ;but the second goesfurther, and being an attempt to establish the general theoryof government, bears more directly upon our subject.In it Locke proceeds, as Hobbes had clone, from "thestate of nature ;" but the vagueness which we before attributed to the idea of such a state, is at once shown by thevery different picture which he gives of it from that sketchedby Hobbes. The latter had asserted that, in " the state ofnature" eveiy man was in continual warfare with his neighbour. Locke, on the other hand, imposes upon men in thisstate a natural law, by which they are bound alike to provide for their own safety,and to abstain from injuringthatof others.By the same law, persons who may have sufferedinjury are permitted to exert themselves in self-defence, andto retaliate so far as at once to procure reparation to themselves, and to prevent the aggressors from any renewal oftheir attacks. In spite, therefore, of his own doctrine, withwhich he combats Filmer and Hobbes, that all men in the1He was torn 1632, spent a portion of Ms life abroad, especiaEy in France,and died 1704.2The two treatises of government. In the former, the false principles andfoandation of Sir Robert Filmer, Bart. sand Ms followers* are detected andoverthrown. The latter is an essay concerning the tree original extent anclend of civil government.