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of his life through which we have as yet followed him, must now be given.

Though his connection with the university was maintained for many years longer, he made a greater change than he appears to have anticipated when, in the early summer of 1667, he left Oxford to find a home with Lord Ashley. After that it was impossible for him to be a mere student, learning to think for himself: he was forced, and not too soon, to begin work as a leader of other men's thoughts. What had he done with his pen to prove his fitness for the task?

It

Remarkable evidence of Locke's opinions on many points, while he was an Oxford student, appears in a hitherto unknown essay, not dated, but certainly written either before or very soon after the Restoration, entitled 'Reflections upon the Roman Commonwealth.'1 occupies forty-six pages of closely written manuscript, each being nearly as full as a page of print, and, though all that we have, probably all that was written, is only the first portion, complete in itself, of the whole work that was projected. It shows that, before writing it, Locke had made a profound study of Roman history and politics, nearly every sentence being supported by a reference to one or more Latin authors. It shows also that he had already arrived at convictions in political science from which he never greatly swerved. In later life he may not have had such an unqualified admiration for Roman institutions as he here expressed; he may have discovered that in some respects he had seen more wisdom.

1 The original, in Locke's handwriting, is among the Shaftesbury Papers, series viii., no. 6.

and truer philosophy in those institutions than they really contained; but the political truths that he here held up to admiration in or before the time of Charles the Second, were the political truths that he propounded when he was recognised as the greatest thinker in the England of William the Third.

"Romulus, at the head of a numerous colony from Alba, was the first founder of the Roman state. This colony was, in the original state of nature, free, and independent of any dominion whatsoever, and only chose Romulus for their leader till their new city was built, and they were at liberty to consider what form of government they should resolve upon." So Locke began his essay; and the Hobbism of the introduction must not be lost sight of. These Alban colonists were in a state of nature, absolutely their own masters; but they found it expedient to band together in a society, and to that end it became necessary that they should elect a leader, a magistrate, into whose hands they surrendered their individual liberties. Their choice of Romulus was fortunate, thought Locke, for he, "immediately after his advancement, erected a frame of government upon such admirable orders, both civil, military, and religious, that, if no alteration had been made in the fundamental laws, by himself or his successors, it would have been the most noble as well as the most lasting constitution of limited monarchy that ever was in the world."/

Locke gave an epitome of this ideal constitution, commending it alike for its assertion of the sanctity of monarchy and strengthening of monarchical power, by providing the king with large revenues from land and with complete executive and much legislative authority, for its arrangement of a nobility dependent on the monarchy

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and of clients dependent on the nobles, and for all its political and religious institutions.

"The religious institution," which, begun by Romulus, was completed by Numa, he said, "whether we consider the simplicity of its precepts, and their mighty influence upon the morality of the people, or their admirable. application to all the ends of civil society, and particularly to the support of the monarchy, will appear to be the wisest and the most politic system of religion that ever any lawgiver founded. He did not introduce any opinions unworthy of the Gods and inconsistent with the divine nature; nor did he require the belief of many articles of faith, which create heresies and schisms in the church, and end in the ruin of religion; for, if schisms and heresies were traced up to their original causes, it would be found that they have sprung chiefly from the multiplying articles of faith, and narrowing the bottom of religion by clogging it with creeds and catechisms and endless niceties about the essences, properties, and attributes of God. The common principles of religion all mankind agree in, and the belief of these doctrines a lawgiver may venture to enjoin; but he must go no farther if he means to preserve an uniformity in religion. For the injunctions of positive laws, how much soever they contradict the inclinations of mankind, rarely produce any schisms; so much easier 'tis for men to practise against their passions than believe against their understandings. But Numa, by a wise conduct, prevented all factions and divisions in the church by the institution of only two articles of faith: the first, that the Gods were the authors of all good to mankind; and the second, that to merit this good the Gods were to be worshipped, in which worship the chief of all was to be innocent, good, and just."

Locke then proceeded at some length to show the wise comprehensiveness of the religion of the Romans. Even the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, though "always cherished and encouraged by the commonwealth as an opinion of great use and service to the state," was not essential with them, being "rather a problem of philosophy than an article of divinity." Justice, "which in a manner comprehends all other moral virtues," was the great virtue required by the Roman religion; which was not "soured with needless severities and affected austerities, by imposing doctrines of penance, abstinence, and mortification, which serve only to cross the innocent appetites of mankind, without making them better or wiser." It was a grand merit in Numa's religion that its "wide bottom" thus "prevented all heresies in fundamentals;" it was no less a merit that "in the particular forms of worship he allowed a general liberty of conscience.

"This generous principle of tolerating all religions in the commonwealth," said Locke, "was that above all others which fitted his system to the chief design of the government; for the rise and progress of the Roman greatness was wholly owing to the mighty confluence of people from all parts of the world, with customs and ceremonies very different from the Romans', who would never have settled there without an allowance of the free exercise of their particular religions."

And the establishment and maintenance of this admirable tolerance he attributed to the fact that the management of the national religion was assigned to the senate and the people, not to the priests. "The government of religion being in the hands of the state was a necessary

cause of liberty of conscience. For there is scarce an

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instance in history of a persecution raised by a free government. Persecutions are generally made to gratify the pride, the ambition, or the interest of the clergy; which a state that has the command of the national conscience will never indulge at the expense of the public good." "As the Roman religion," he went on to say in very memorable words, "was a part of their policy, so their clergy likewise were a part of their laity, and interwoven with the general interest of the state; not a separate independent body from the rest of the community, nor any considerable balance in the civil government, but settled upon such an institution as they could have neither interest nor power to act against the public good; a constitution which the modern policy has overlooked out of ignorance or neglected out of design, as appears from the unlimited power of the modern priesthood, who have usurped a supremacy, or at least an independency, on the civil power over half of Europe, and, where their jurisdiction is more restrained, by virtue of their great possessions and endowments look the civil government in the face and have raised such convulsions in the latter ages as were unknown to the ancient world."

Locke said much more of excellent purport and to excellent effect on the Roman priesthood and the points of difference between it and the ecclesiastical institutions of later times. He enlarged also on the subject of ecclesiastical revenues, and he greatly commended the arrangement by which in the Roman government it was rendered impossible for priests to amass large property either for themselves or for their order. "It may seem strange to our age, where godliness is such a great gain, that the Roman clergy should serve their Gods for naught; but there will be no reason to wonder if they consider that