to discovery; and, indeed, it
is most largely absent from its speculation. In its political ideas this
is necessarily and especially the case. For the State is at no time an
unchanging organization; it reflects with singular exactness the
dominating ideas of its environment. That division into government and
subjects which is its main characteristic is here noteworthy for the
narrowness of the class from which the government is derived, and the
consistent inertia of those over whom it rules. There is curiously
little controversy over the seat of sovereign power. That is with most
men acknowledged to reside in the king in Parliament. What balance of
forces is necessary to its most perfect equilibrium may arouse
dissension when George III forgets the result of half a century's
evolution. Junius may have to explain in invective what Burke
magistrally demonstrated in terms of political philosophy. But the
deeper problems of the state lay hidden until Bentham and the
revolutionists came to insist upon their presence. That did not mean
that the eighteenth century was a soulless failure. Rather did it mean
that a period of transition had been successfully bridged. The stage was
set for a new effort simply because the theories of the older philosophy
no longer represented the facts at issue.

It was thus Locke only in this period who confronted the general
problems of the modern State. Other thinkers assumed his structure and
dealt with the details he left undetermined. The main problems, the
Church apart, arose when a foreigner occupied the English throne and
left the methods of government to those who were acquainted with them.
That most happy of all the happy accidents in English history made
Walpole the fundamental statesman of the time. He used his opportunity
to the full. Inheriting the possibilities of the cabinet system he gave
it its modern expression by creating the office of Prime Minister. The
party-system was already inevitable; and with his advent to full power
in 1727 we have the characteristic outlines of English representative
government. Thenceforward, there are, on the whole, but three large
questions with which the age concerned itself. Toleration had already
been won by the persistent necessities of two generations, and the noble
determination of William III; but the place of the Church in the
Revolution State and the nature of that State were still undetermined.
Hoadly had one solution, Law another; and t