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(d) Locke granted, however, one point which is a slight inconsistency in his theory. A man who commits a wrong when he is drunk may be punished therefor, even though he is not, when sober, aware of having done it.57 The person who does something in his sleep or in a delirious illness is not answerable for his act; but a drunken man cannot plead the same extenuation. Locke thus seems to have violated his principle that consciousness is the only proper basis of punishment. But he justified this position, not on the ground that drunkenness is a crime and therefore cannot be alleged as an excuse for another crime,58 but rather on the ground that want of consciousness cannot be proven in favor of the man who was drunk. Persons may feign lack of consciousness of acts committed in past states, in order to escape punishment. So the officers of the commonwealth must be on their guard against deceit and trickery, and should presume that offenders are conscious of their past misdeeds except in the cases where walking in the sleep, temporary derangement due to fever, or some such valid excuse can be clearly and definitely established.

(e) Locke's view of the nature of the punishments which God will inflict in the future life is a consistent outcome of his general position. He rejected the Calvinistic position that God punished men for his own glory, and maintained that God punished them solely "for their good and benefit" and "for the preservation of his creatures in the order and beauty of the state that he has placed each of them in." 59 God will judge men more justly than civil magistrates possibly can. For whereas civil magistrates must assume men to be conscious of their past acts unless lack of consciousness is established, God will know the secrets of all hearts, and so need make no dangerous assumptions. He will not attach to men the consciousness of things which they never did,60 nor punish them for what is no longer part of their personality. His punishments will always be educative. He will, therefore, never use everlasting torments. Those souls on whom the infliction of pain is unable to bring about the needed reform and purification, he will simply deprive of immortality altogether.61 Unlimited misery is worse than annihilation; 62 hence, where pain cannot serve as educative purpose, it will not be used, and release from existence will be substituted as the more merciful procedure. Thus, though Locke was not a universalist in hoping for the eventual salvation of all men, he at least rejected the crudely unethical aspects of the doctrine of everlasting damnation.

57 Essay, II, 27, 22,

58 Cf. Correspondence between Locke and Molyneux. Locke: Works, Vol. IX, pp. 329, 331, 333, 336. 59 King: Op. cit., p. 123.

60 Essay, II, 27, 18.

81 Works, Vol. VII, p. 10.

#2 King: Op. cit., p. 124.

4. Locke's theories of toleration and punishment have the faults which any social philosophy based on a thoroughgoing rationalism is likely to have. His social theories, like his political theories, are ostensibly deduced as logical implications of certain alleged agreements of ideas, whereas the alleged agreements of ideas would be a bit of unwarranted dogmatism unless they were built upon a previous empirical estimate of the consequences of certain practical courses of conduct. For example, his contention that church and state are independent societies with distinct and separate functions, though the basis of his proof for toleration, was derived from a consideration of what it was advisable for church and state in the England of his day to attempt to do, and then from a reading of this consideration into historical contracts which were supposed to have been the origin of church and state. Of course, he thereby offended not only against sound philosophical procedure, but also against historical fact; for in primitive times the political organization of social groups was very intimately concerned with religious rites and ceremonies. The separation of church and state which has been attained in modern times is not to be made the norm for all levels of human civilization and all periods of social development. Just as Locke's opponents in advocating continued control of religious affairs by the government erred in supposing that what has long been must forever be, so Locke erred in supposing that what should come to be has always, except in cases of corruption, been the established rule.63 Locke may be quite correct in his contention that government should now be non-theocratic and secular, and consequently that all religious bodies should be, within limits of social welfare, tolerated. But he was not content, as was shown, above, to prove that force in matters of religion was not useful nor desirable in the light of its effects; he had a prejudice which made him intellectually restless until he had deduced the same conclusion from the nature of things. Similarly he did not justify his theory that punishment should be disciplinary and educative by the practical consequences of such a procedure, but attempted to derive the theory from a discovery by reason of the agreements between the ideas of punishment and personality and consciousness. Locke's work thus has the defect which is the inevitable accompaniment of his method. By basing his social philosophy upon his rationalistic instead of his hedonistic ethics, he became guilty of constantly insisting upon the historical and logical priority of that which is subsequent and derived.

63 Cf. Seaton: The Theory of Toleration under the later Stuarts, p. 267. Also Graham: English Political Philosophy from Hobbes to Maine, p. 82.

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