him into exile with his patron, and before James had attempted the
subversion of all constitutional government. To deny the right of
revolution was to justify the worst demands of James, and it is in its
favor that he exerts his ablest controversial power. "The true remedy,"
he says, "of force without authority is to oppose force to it." Let the
sovereign but step outside the powers derived from the social contract
and resistance becomes a natural right. But how define such invasion of
powers? The instances Locke chose show how closely, here at least, he
was following the events of 1688. The substitution of arbitrary will for
law, the corruption of Parliament by packing it with the prince's
instruments, betrayal to a foreign prince, prevention of the due
assemblage of Parliament--all these are a perversion of the trust
imposed and operate to effect the dissolution of the contract. The
state of nature again supervenes, and a new contract may be made with
one more fitted to observe it. Here, also, Locke takes occasion to deny
the central position of Hobbes' thesis. Power, the latter had argued,
must be absolute and there cannot, therefore, be usurpation. But Locke
retorts that an absolute government is no government at all since it
proceeds by caprice instead of reason; and it is comparable only to a
state of war since it implies the absence of judgment upon the character
of power. It lacks the essential element of consent without which the
binding force of law is absent. All government is a moral trust, and the
idea of limitation is therein implied. But a limitation without the
means of enforcement would be worthless, and revolution remains as the
reserve power in society. The only hindrance to its exertion that Locke
suggests is that of number. Revolution should not, he urges, be the act
of a minority; for the contract is the action of the major portion of
the people and its consent should likewise obtain to the dissolution of
the covenant.