Locke, indeed, seems to him, as a natural conservative, to go too far, and he rejects the original contract as without basis in history; yet contractual notions are present at every fundamental stage of his argument.

The sovereign power, so we are told, is irresistible; and then because Blackstone is uncertain what right is to mean, we hear of moral limitations upon its exercise.

He speaks continually of representation without any effort to examine into the notions it conveys.

The members of society are held to be equal; and great pains are taken to justify existent inequalities.

"The natural foundations of sovereignty," he writes, "are the three great requisites...