Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/39

 doubtedly Parliament won valuable support by appealing to thinking men on general principles of political science. But the substitution of abstract reasoning for dogmatic legal assertions encouraged men to reason for themselves. In the end, many who did so arrived at conclusions that their earlier teachers would hardly have endorsed. The political philosophy used in 1642 by Parliament’s partisans to defend its sovereignty is therefore important as a source of political ideas, if for no other reason.

In May of 1642, relations between the king and the Parliament were passing beyond the stage where the recorded laws and precedents could by any interpretation be made conveniently to apply. The claim to supremacy being vital to Parliament’s position, the Parliament’s penmen had to delve back into the origins of government to justify that claim. Assertion that the Parliament possessed certain powers was not sufficient; demonstrations that in the nature of things it was expedient for Parliament to possess them were needed. Henry Parker’s Observations upon some of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses, an original and brilliant attempt at a demonstration of this type, may be said to open a new era in the political controversies of the Great Civil War.

The problem that Parker avowedly set himself was the inquiry into the “efficient and finall