The Theory of Toleration under the later Stuarts. - By
A. A. Seaton, M.A. (Cambridge University Press. 6s.)—Mr. Seaton's essay is one of two to which the Prince Consort Prize was awarded last year. It discusses the subject theoretically and historically, giving special attention to the time when it was a peculiarly important factor in political life, the later decades of the seven- teenth century and the earliest of the eighteenth. There are many difficulties in the consideration of the subject, the greatest of these being perhaps the extent to which men's judgments are, and indeed must be, affected by their fears. How, for instance, could an English Protestant think calmly on the question whether his Roman Catholic countrymen should be freed of all disabilities when he knew what was going on in France and Spain and Portugal ? Even now the question is not a matter of pure reason. Does not the Papacy still hold in reserve the doctrine, which it has enunciated again and again, that it has the right to depose princes ? Mr. Seaton has brought to bear upon his subject an ample store of learning and a spirit of moderation.
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