On such a theory, it may be objected, of the relations of the people to the government, what is to prevent incessant disturbance and repeated revolutions? Locke relies on the inertia of mankind. Moreover, as he says, with considerable truth, in a previous passage, whatever theories may be propounded, or whatever traditions may have been handed down, as to the origin, nature, and extent of government, a people, which knows itself to be rendered miserable by the faults of its rulers and which sees any chance of bettering its condition, will not be deterred from attempting to throw off a yoke which has become intolerable. "When the people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill-usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors, as much as you will, for sons of Jupiter; let them be sacred and divine, descended or authorized from heaven; give them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen. The people generally ill-treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them." But, though there is much truth in this last remark, there can be little question that absolutist theories of government, especially when clothed with a religious sanction which appeals to the beliefs of the people at large, have much influence in protecting the person of an absolute ruler, as well as in ensuring the execution of his orders; while, on the other hand, theories like those of Locke have a tendency to encourage criticism, and to weaken many of the motives which have usually prevented men from offering resistance to the established government. The practical consequences of Locke's theories, as reproduced and improved on by later writers, would probably be found, if we could trace them, to be represented, in no inconsiderable degree, in the French and American revolutions which occurred about a century after the publication of the Treatises. Nor have his speculations been without their share, probably, in determining much of the political history and still more of the political sentiment of our own country. To maintain that kings have a divine right to misgovern their subjects, or to deny that the people are, in the last resort, the supreme arbiters of the fate of their rulers, are paradoxes which, to Englishmen of our generation, would appear not so much dangerous as foolish. This altered state of sentiment, and the good fruit it has borne in the improved relations between the Legislature and the People, the Crown and the Parliament, may, without undue partiality, be ascribed, at least in some measure, to the generous spirit of liberty which warms our author's pages, and to the Whig tradition which so long cherished his doctrines, till at last they became the common heritage of the English people.