In both these lines of his activity circumstances forced upon
him the position of a controversialist whose aims and results are by the
necessity of the case desultory and ephemeral. Hooker before him and
Hobbes after him had a far firmer grasp of fundamental principles than
he. His studies in these matters were perfunctory and occasional, and his
opinions were heated to the temper of the times and shaped to the instant
exigencies of the forum, sometimes to his own convenience at the moment,
instead of being the slow result of a deliberate judgment enlightened by
intellectual and above all historical sympathy with his subject. His
interest was rather in the occasion than the matter of the controversy.
No aphorisms of political science are to be gleaned from his writings as
from those of Burke. His intense personality could never so far
dissociate itself from the question at issue as to see it in its larger
scope and more universal relations. He was essentially a _doctrinaire_,
ready to sacrifice everything to what at the moment seemed the abstract
truth, and with no regard to historical antecedents and consequences,
provided those of scholastic logic were carefully observed. He has no
respect for usage or tradition except when they count in his favor, and
sees no virtue in that power of the past over the minds and conduct of
men which alone insures the continuity of national growth and is the
great safeguard of order and progress.
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