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Updated: June 25, 2025
For example, the American who has read one or more of the over-simplified text-books dealing with the history of his country, which are used in the schools, has a clear-cut picture of the various events, knows exactly how they occurred and who was in the right.
No one can read the Second Treatise without perceiving that Locke looked upon the State as a machine which can be built and taken to pieces in very simple fashion. Herein, undoubtedly, he over-simplified the problem; and that made him miss some of the cardinal points a true psychology of the State must seize. His very contractualism, indeed, is part of this affection for the rational.
With this hysterically over-simplified view of life, fostered by lack of self-knowledge, was connected a corresponding mistake as to the means by which his ends could be reached. One of the first observations which generous spirits often make is that the unsatisfactory state of society is due to some very small kink or flaw in the dispositions of the majority of people.
'T is necessarily one and the same to every man's understanding, just as light is the same, to every man's eyes." We cannot but recognize a certain amount of practical truth in this picture. But it is over-simplified, and it is fundamentally unsatisfactory to the intellect. We shall now pass in review its most obvious inadequacies. Do the deliverances of different people's consciences agree?
How can principles and general views ever be anything but abstract outlines? Was Cologne cathedral built without an architect's plan on paper? Is refinement in itself an abomination? Is concrete rudeness the only thing that's true? Believe me, I feel the full force of the indictment. The picture I have given is indeed monstrously over-simplified and rude.
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