In estimating the value of Blackstone’s work, however, we should not make too much of the fact that his general theories are either weak or borrowed. The truth is that when we have got rid of them we have not touched the substance of the work itself; his exposition of English law remains unaffected, whether they be true or false. Moreover, these same theories of his have a considerable indirect interest; for as they afford us an opportunity of observing how, at a turning-point in the history of modern thought, certain important ideas acted upon an intellect, which, from its very want of independence and courage, all the better reflected the common opinions of the time. His philosophy exhibits the doctrine of the social contract in a state of decay, and enables us to watch the English mind preparing itself for utilitarianism. Blackstone refuses to accept the social contract in its naked form; he ridicules the notion of individuals meeting together on a large plain to choose the tallest man present as their governor; and he traces the growth of society upwards from the family living a pastoral life to the settled agricultural community. His conception of social development comes as near the current modern theories as that of any thinker of his century, save Mandeville. But the social contract was too tempting to be altogether abandoned. He speaks of it as a tacit agreement between governor and governed, of protection on the one side and submission on the other, and from this implied agreement he draws conclusions as freely as if it were a historical fact. Stating Locke’s theory without any qualification, he bases upon the contract (for he recurs to the word) the right of society to punish crime. The laws under which thieves suffer were made, he tells us, with their own consent. So he says that the oath of allegiance is nothing more than a declaration in words of what was before implied in law. And he justifies the Revolution on the ground that King James had endeavored to subvert the constitution by breaking the original contract. Believer as he is in the law of nature, Blackstone is more than half a utilitarian. True, he has based all law on both the natural and the revealed law; but by a fortunate coincidence everything that tends to man’s happiness is in accordance with the former. Except where the revealed law applies, the actual rule of life is that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness. “This,” he says, “is the foundation of what we call ethics or natural law.” Throughout the whole of his work his tests are purely those of utility, and with his broad principles of unbending orthodoxy he mingles theories, some of which the most thoroughgoing utilitarian would think too bluntly stated. Repudiating the notion of atonement or expiation, he maintains that punishment is only a precaution against future offences. He treats property as an adventitious right, unknown in the natural state; and to the amazement