Page:Studies of a Biographer 4.djvu/117

 the assertion that the other pamphlets are neglected because their subjects are obsolete. The proposal for freedom of divorce, as he remarks, is so far from obsolete that it is only too prominent at the present day. Milton's argument, however, is obsolete enough. As Bagehot remarks, he is frankly and honestly anxious not for the rights of women, but for the rights of the man. He may be dealing with modern questions, but from a point of view so dependent upon his own prejudices and the accidents of the day that it has ceased to appeal to us. We may go further. 'Neither in politics, theology, nor social ethics,' says Lowell, 'did Milton leave any distinguishable trace upon the thought of his time or in the history of opinion.' His speculations on such topics are forgotten, because they were never really effectual. The theories of Hobbes may be as obsolete in some senses as Milton's; but no one could write the history of political thought without acknowledging their remarkable influence. Even Harrington—insignificant as his actual value has become—probably made a greater mark than Milton upon the speculations of the day. Political theories have an unpleasant way of falling into oblivion; but some of them have at least counted as