SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT by JOHN LOCKE
John Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" was published in 1690.
The complete unabridged text has been republished several times in
edited commentaries. This is based on the paperback book, "John
Locke Second Treatise of Government", Edited, with an Introduction,
By C.B. McPherson, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis and
Cambridge, 1980. None of the McPherson edition is included in the
Etext; only the original words contained in the 1690 Locke text is
included. The 1690 edition text is free of copyright.
This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN, posted to Wiretap 1 Jul 94.
TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT
BY IOHN LOCKE
SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX ESTO
LONDON PRINTED MDCLXXXVIIII
REPRINTED, THE SIXTH TIME, BY A. MILLAR, H.
WOODFALL, 1. WHISTON AND B. WHITE, 1. RI VINGTON, L. DAVIS AND C. REYMERS, R. BALD WIN, HAWES CLARKE AND COLLINS; W. IOHN STON, W. OWEN, 1. RICHARDSON, S. CROWDER,
T. LONGMAN, B. LAW, C. RIVINGTON, E.
DILLY, R. WITHY, C. AND R. WARE, S, BAKER,
T. PAYNE, A. SHUCKBURGH, 1. HINXMAN
MDCCLXIIII
TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT.
IN THE FORMER THE FALSE PRIN CIPLES AND FOUNDATION OF SIR
ROBERT FILMER AND HIS FOL LOWERS ARE DETECTED AND
OVERTHROWN.
THE LATTER IS AN ESSAY CON CERNING THE TRUE ORIGINAL
EXTENT AND END OF CIVIL
GOVERNMENT.
1764 EDITOR'S NOTE
The present Edition of this Book has not only been collated with
the first three Editions, which were published during the
Author's Life, but also has the Advantage of his last Corrections
and Improvements, from a Copy delivered by him to Mr. Peter
Coste, communicated to the Editor, and now lodged in Christ
College, Cambridge.
PREFACE
Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse
concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the
papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than
all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee. These, which
remain, I hope are sufficient to establish the throne of our
great restorer, our present King William; to make good his title,
in the consent of the people, which being the only one of all
lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly, than any
prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of
England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with their
resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the
very brink of slavery and ruin. If these papers have that
evidence, I flatter myself is to be found in them, there will be
no great miss of those which are lost, and my reader may be
satisfied without them: for I imagine, I shall have neither the
time, nor inclination to repeat my pains, and fill up the wanting
part of my answer, by tracing Sir Robert again, through all the
windings and obscurities, which are to be met with in the several
branches of his wonderful system. The king, and body of the
nation, have since so thoroughly confuted his Hypothesis, that I
suppose no body hereafter will have either the confidence to
appear against our common safety, and be again an advocate for
slavery; or the weakness to be deceived with contradictions
dressed up in a popular stile, and well-turned periods: for if
any one will be at the pains, himself, in those parts, which are
here untouched, to strip Sir Robert's discourses of the flourish
of doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce his words to
direct, positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare
them one with another, he will quickly be satisfied, there was
never so much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding
English. If he think it not worth while to examine his works all
thro', let him make an experiment in that part, where he treats
of usurpation; and let him try, whether he can, with all his
skill, make Sir Robert intelligible, and consistent with himself,
or common sense. I should not speak so plainly of a gentleman,
long since past answering, had not the pulpit, of late years,
publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of
the times. It is necessary those men, who taking on them to be
teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly
shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they
have so blindly followed, that so they may either retract what
upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained;
or else justify those principles which they preached up for
gospel; though they had no better an author than an English
courtier: for I should not have writ against Sir Robert, or taken
the pains to shew his mistakes, inconsistencies, and want of
(what he so much boasts of, and pretends wholly to build on)
scripture-proofs, were there not men amongst us, who, by crying
up his books, and espousing his doctrine, save me from the
reproach of writing against a dead adversary. They have been so
zealous in this point, that, if I have done him any wrong, I
cannot hope they should spare me. I wish, where they have done
the truth and the public wrong, they would be as ready to redress
it, and allow its just weight to this reflection, viz. that there
cannot be done a greater mischief to prince and people, than the
propagating wrong notions concerning government; that so at last
all times might not have reason to complain of the Drum
Ecclesiastic. If any one, concerned really for truth, undertake
the confutation of my Hypothesis, I promise him either to recant
my mistake, upon fair conviction; or to answer his difficulties.
But he must remember two things.
First, That cavilling here and there, at some expression, or
little incident of my discourse, is not an answer to my book.
Secondly, That I shall not take railing for arguments, nor
think either of these worth my notice, though I shall always look
on myself as bound to give satisfaction to any one, who shall
appear to be conscientiously scrupulous in the point, and shall
shew any just grounds for his scruples.
I have nothing more, but to advertise the reader, that
Observations stands for Observations on Hobbs, Milton, &c. and
that a bare quotation of pages always means pages of his
Patriarcha, Edition 1680.
OF CIVIL-GOVERNMENT
Book II
Chap. I. Sect. 1. It having been shewn in the foregoing
discourse,
1. That Adam had not, either by natural right of
fatherhood, or by positive donation from God, any such
authority over his children, or dominion over the world, as is
pretended:
2. That if he had, his heirs, yet, had no right to it:
3. That if his heirs had, there being no law of nature nor
positive law of God that determines which is the right heir in
all cases that may arise, the right of succession, and
consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly
determined:
4. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge
of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity, being so long
since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of
the world, there remains not to one above another, the least
pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of
inheritance:
All these premises having, as I think, been clearly made out,
it is impossible that the rulers now on earth should make any
benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from that,
which is held to be the fountain of all power, Adam's private
dominion and paternal jurisdiction; so that he that will not
give just occasion to think that all government in the world is
the product only of force and violence, and that men live
together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the
strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual
disorder and mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion, (things
that the followers of that hypothesis so loudly cry out against)
must of necessity find out another rise of government, another
original of political power, and another way of designing and
knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer
hath taught us.
Sect. 2. To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss, to
set down what I take to be political power; that the power of a
MAGISTRATE over a subject may be distinguished from that of a
FATHER over his children, a MASTER over his servant, a HUSBAND
over his wife, and a LORD over his slave. All which distinct
powers happening sometimes together in the same man, if he be
considered under these different relations, it may help us to
distinguish these powers one from wealth, a father of a family,
and a captain of a galley.
Sect. 3. POLITICAL POWER, then, I take to be a RIGHT of
making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less
penalties, for the regulating and preserving ...
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