breakfast.

_Oxford and Cambridge._--Curious how, like two buckets, whenever one was
up, the other was down. Cambridge has never produced four such men of
action in successive ages as Wolsey, Laud, Wesley, and Newman.

_J. M._--In the region of thought Cambridge has produced the greatest of
all names, Newton.

_Mr. G._--In the earlier times Oxford has it--with Wycliff, Occam, above all
Roger Bacon. And then in the eighteenth century, Butler.

_J. M._--But why not Locke, too, in the century before?

This brought on a tremendous tussle, for Mr. G. was of the same mind, and
perhaps for the same sort of reason, as Joseph de Maistre, that contempt
for Locke is the beginning of knowledge. All very well for De Maistre, but
not for a man in line with European liberalism. I pressed the very obvious
point that you must take into account not only a man's intellectual
product or his general stature, but also (M169) his influence as a
historic force. From the point of view of influence Locke was the origin
of the emancipatory movement of the eighteenth century abroad, and laid
the philosophic foundations of liberalism in civil government at home. Mr.
G. insisted on a passage of Hume's which he believed to be in the history,
disparaging Locke as a metaphysical thinker.(292) "That may be," said I,
"though Hume in his _Essays_ is not above paying many compliments to 'the
great reasoner,' etc., to whom, for that matter, I fancy that he stood in
pretty direct relation. But far be it from me to deny that Hume saw deeper
than Locke into the metaphysical millstone. That is not the point. I'm
only thinking of his historic place, and, after all, the history of
philosophy is itself a philosophy." To minds nursed in dogmatic schools,
all this is both unpalatable and incredible.

Somehow we slid into the freedom of the will and Jonathan Edwards. I told
him that Mill had often told us how Edwards argued the necessarian or
determinist case as keenly as any modern.

_Tuesday, Dec. 29._--Mr. G. 82 to-day. I gave him Mackail's Greek Epigrams,
and if it affords him half as much pleasure as it has given me, he will be
very grateful. Various people brought Mr. G. bouquets and addresses. Mr.
G. went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon took a walk with
me.... _Land Question._ As you go through France you see the soil
cultivated by the population. In our little dash into Spain the other day,
we saw again the soil cultivated by the populati