[Durus]

For Hobbes, man’s heart was savage. In the mythic pre-social “state of nature,” life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” That required the restraints of strong government. For Locke, in contrast, “the state of nature has a law of nature to govern it … and reason … is that law.” Thus the restraints of government could be mild. Perhaps Hobbes was conservative, Locke liberal.

I stopped reading right here. First of all I could debate his synopsis of both Hobbes and Lockes ideologies. However, even if his synopsis was accurate, he then goes further stating that Hobbes was a conservative and Locke was a liberal when by the very synopsis he gave demonstrates that the opposite is true. Unless of course he is talking about the definitions of liberal and conservative that existed in the 18th making his whole essay rather pointless. Talk about your "ideologues remote from fact".

[massadvj]

he then goes further stating that Hobbes was a conservative and Locke was a liberal

By the standards of their time, they were. Just as Jefferson was a "liberal" based on an early 19th century definition of that term. Today's conservatives would have far more in common with Locke, and Jefferson, than today's liberals. I think Hart was referring to the classical definitions, but he should have made that clear.