From Locke, that is to say, the subject of discussion is rather _politik_ than _staatslehre_.

The great debate inaugurated by the Reformation ceased when Locke had outlined an intelligible basis for parliamentary government.

Hume, Bolingbroke, Burke, are all of them concerned with the detail of political arrangement in a fashion which presupposes the acceptance of a basis previously known.

Burke, indeed, toward the latter part of his life, awoke to the realization that men were dissatisfied with the traditional substance of the State.

But he met the new desires with hate instead of understanding, and the Napoleonic wars drove the current of democratic opinion underground.