The conflict today has turned to dust and ashes; and few who read the multitude of pamphlets it evoked, or stand amazed at their personal bitterness, can understand why more than a hundred writers should have thought it necessary to inform the world of their opinions, or why the London Stock Exchange should have felt so passionate an interest in the debate as to cease for a day the hubbub of its transactions.

Nor can any one make heroes from the personalities of its protagonists.

Hoadly himself was a typical bishop of the political school, who rose from humble circumstances to the wealthy bishopric of Winchester through a remarkable series of translations.

Before the debate of 1716, he was chiefly known by two political tracts in which he had rewritten, in less cogent form, and without adequate acknowledgment, the two treatises of Locke.

He clearly realized how worthless the dogma of Divine Right had become, without being certain of the principles by which it was to be replaced.