Two Treatises of Government

What It's About

Published anonymously, this work is really two books in one. The First Treatise is a point-by-point demolition of Sir Robert Filmer's claim that kings rule by divine right, inheriting absolute authority from Adam. The Second Treatise, the part most readers come for, builds a positive case. Political power, it argues, exists to protect the lives, liberties and property of the people, and it is legitimate only when those people consent to it. When a government breaks that trust, the people may remove it.

Key Concepts

The argument begins in the "state of nature," where everyone is free and equal but bound by a natural law that forbids harming others. Property arises when a person mixes their labour with something held in common. People then agree to form a civil society to settle disputes impartially, handing authority to a legislature whose power is held in trust and limited by the purposes it serves. Locke also separates legislative from executive power and defends a right of revolution against rulers who act against the public good. Critics have long pointed out that the First Treatise is argued against a theory few now read, and that Locke's account of property, which permits unequal accumulation once money exists, was later used to justify taking land from indigenous peoples in the colonies.

About the Author

John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher and physician, educated at Oxford. He served as secretary and adviser to the politician Lord Shaftesbury, and spent several years in exile in the Netherlands for his political associations. He is widely regarded as the father of classical liberalism, and his ideas helped shape Enlightenment thought and the political language of the American and French revolutions.