Tolerating the intolerable by William Rees-Mogg

“This narrowness of spirit on all sides has undoubtedly been the principal occasion of our miseries and confusions. But whatever has been the occasion, it is now high time to seek for a thorough cure. We have need for more generous remedies than have yet been made use of . . . absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the thing we stand in need of.”

This last sentence was much quoted in the American Revolution, as though the precis had been written by Locke himself. But it was not, and it goes beyond what Locke himself believed. The criticism of “narrowness of spirit” is certainly Lockean, and so is the call for “generous remedies”, but he was a physician and not a fanatic, even in the cause of liberty. He calls for liberty restrained by reason and law, rather than absolute liberty in all kinds and circumstances. That makes him more helpful to our age of contradiction.