Locke’s political theoryIan HarrisThe author ofTwo Treatises of Governmentalso wroteAn Essay concerning HumanUnderstanding. This is an elementary fact, but one with an important implication forunderstanding Locke’s political theory. ForTwo Treatisesis an explanatory work. Itsobjective is to explain the proper character of political authority (or, in the Latinate usageLocke preferred, political power).1To consider Locke’s political theory in this way is to place it within the framework ofhis other intellectual concerns. This is not the only way of writing about theories ofpolitics, but it has a special relevance to Locke.Two Treatisesis one of the most studiedworks in political theory. Yet the design of its argument has not been much considered.The picture which the student may form is one of disorder within the text.2 Thisimpression is unfortunate, because a modest examination of Locke’s political argument inthe light of his broader thought will yield a much clearer picture: and a justified clarity,after all, is the best assistance that scholarship can give to the reader.One word of caution should be added, indicating a way in whichonephilosophicalapproach to Locke’s political theory would give a misleading impression of the author inhis time. Locke is often supposed to be a progenitor of modern liberalism. Nowliberalism assumes as many guises as an imaginative chameleon, but the sort mostprominent in philosophical thinking about politics presently is ‘unLockean’ in animportant way This thinking distinguishes between the right and the good, meaning bythe former a basic organization of society according to some canon of justice (though thecanon varies) and by the latter a view of how one is to run one’s own life. The latter is tobe decided by the individual in a manner satisfying to him or her, subject only to theprotection or entitlements afforded to others in the name of the right.However the right isunderstood, there is present a belief that the moral life is determined by and not for theindividual: that there is no moral arbiter set over him or her.3 This view is a completeinversion of Locke’s fundamental position. To his mind the human condition waspatterned by moral obligations imposed by God, patterned indeed in highly specific ways.This moral patterning has implications for politics, because Locke used the idea of Godas a moral legislator to explain the sort of political organization he preferred.The political doctrine of John Locke, briefly characterised, was founded on theassumption that God had ordered matters in a manner that aligns the force of theologyand ethics behind responsible government. The Lockean God is taken to be mankind’ssuperior: this means that He excels people in all salient aspects and, on the basis of these,is fitted to direct and guide them. The content of God’s directions is manifold, but itsfundamental points are straightforward. That is to say, first, that God wishes mankind tosurvive, to increase in number and to subdue the earth, and second, that He haspromulgated laws, through both reason and revelation, that prescribe measures conducingto those ends. These laws, understood correctly, would conduct people to a sort ofgovernment that was limited to certain defined goals and accountable to its citizens.We may contrast this doctrine of responsible government, limited and accountable,with absolutism. Absolutism is the doctrine that the ruler bears no responsibility to theruled, and this because God is supposed to have ordered matters in a manner somewhatdifferent to that which Locke attributed to Him. According to this view God eitherconferred authority directly upon the ruler (so that he was responsible to God rather thanthe ruled) or permitted the ruled to transfer whatever rights they had to the ruler,irrevocably and unconditionally.4 Absolutism is a notion foreign to modern fashion: weare all used to the idea of responsible government. But it wasà la modein Locke’s dayand it is worth our while to see how his mind developed quite another cast.IIt fell to Locke, as a young don at Christ Church, Oxford, to deliver a series of lectures onnatural law. For our purpose the significance of the result, which we know asEssays onthe Law of Nature,5 is that it contained a theological and ethical position that would playan important role in Locke’s political theory.The primary supposition of theseEssayswas that God was the author of moralprescriptions to mankind. These prescriptions characteristically assumed two media,namely revelation and reason. Though revelation, essentially God’s word in the Bible,was relevant to the whole human race it had been diffused to a section of people that wasrelatively small. Reason, on the other hand, was a faculty possessed by all humans: acode expounded through it could be said to be available to all. This code, called the lawof nature, was obviously convenient to moralists who wished to give an explanation ofethical values by using theology. Thus natural law is found in the works of thinkers asvarious as Aquinas and Luther or Calvin and Culverwell.6 Whilst the precisespecification of its contents varied from writer to writer, its fundamental lines were clear.These took their rise from one central supposition of fact. This was that man was acreature constructed by God. On the one hand God had implanted in the human racecertain natural drives. The chief of these were desires for self-preservation and theperpetuation of the species. But the human agent, considered individually, was unequal tothe very task of surviving, so that the satisfaction of these desires implied co-operationwith others in order to produce favourable conditions: that is to say, to produce society.Rational reflection on these facts suggested a series of precepts directing people to theseends—to preserve oneself and live in society (and, additionally, further precepts of thesame tendency). On the other hand, reflecting on God’s work in making mankind meantrecognizing that He had conferred an incalculable benefit on it. This implied a debt ofgratitude to Him, which was thought to be expressed fitly through worship. Thus topreserve oneself, to live socially and to worship were the basic terms of natural law.7Locke’sEssayswere distinguished not by altering this content—indeed he endorsedit8—but by explaining its origin and binding force, and how mankind might know thesethings. That is to say, he argued that God was the moral legislator and that His preceptswere always and everywhere of binding force. God was entitled to legislate because hewas superior to man in the respects required for the proper direction of agents: not least inunderstanding, for God was understood to be omniscient. The notion of superiority, oftenconceived in terms of intelligence (and, when considering human superiors, birth, wealthand education) pervaded contemporary thought. Such attributes were supposed bycontemporaries to be a title to direct others: as Obadiah Walker suggested, writing of thenobility, some had attributes ‘rendring them eminent and conspicuous above other men,[which] sets them also at least as lights and examples to be followed by their Inferiors’.9The Lockean God not only provided directions but also complemented them withobligations. Locke understood obligation to imply not only a superior but also thatsuperior’s ability to bring sanctions to bear: God certainly qualified as an imposer ofobligations, since He was omnipotent. The obligation to God’s directions was universalin extent(for God was superior to all people) and perpetual in duration (since He waseternal).10These theological and ethical points had a political relevance. They went most of thedistance necessary to disbar the explanation of absolutism given by the notion of atransfer of right. That is to say, if we accept Locke’s line of thought about obligation,people were bound to obey God’s directions. They could not be entitled to surrenderthemselves without reservation to another human being’s guidance. All Locke needed toadd in order to rule such a transfer out of court was the assertion that God’s directionswould be undercut by those of absolute rulers (and others who threatened freedom), aswe shall see.IITwo Treatises of Governmentargued that absolutist explanations did not make sense andthat the true explanation of political power is quite different. Its discourse was throughouttailored to these ends. Locke applied the word ‘demonstration’ to his own text andcriticized Sir Robert Filmer, one of his principal absolutist targets, for preferring assertionto explanation. He criticized the quality of Filmer’s work, terming it‘glib Nonsense’anddescribing his reasoning as ‘nothing but a Rope of Sand’. But though Locke expresseddisdain for its quality, he regarded it as an explanation. Filmer’s argument was ‘hisHypothesis’ and its refutation provided ‘premises’ for Locke’s conclusions; Locke’s firstbook aimed to refute Filmer’sFalse Principlesand his second to revealThe TrueOriginal, Extent, and End of Civil-Government.11Absolutism did not harmonize with the political prepossessions of the circle in whichLocke moved. As early as 1675 Shaftesbury, Locke’s patron, or an adherent of his hadsignalled his distaste of it, observing in particular that absolute governments were notentitled to unlimited obedience.A Letter from a Person of Qualitydistinguished‘bounded’ from ‘absolute’ governments. A ‘bounded’ government was one ‘limited byhumane laws’, denoting a contrast with absolute governments whose rulers were boundonly by God’s laws. The relevance of the distinction became .dear whenA Letterasked‘how can there be a distinction…between Absolute, and bounded Monarchys, ifMonarchshave only the fear ofGodand no fear of humane Resistance to restrain them’.England,A Letteradded, was a bounded government.12Explanation is far from being the sole constituent of political discourse. Practical endscan be connected or annexed to theoretical writings. There has been some question aboutLocke’s hypothesized involvement in political affairs and about the possible practical useof hisTreatises.13 But whatever the character of these, the work itself has an explanatorycharacter. The work sets out to show how ‘political power’ is specific in its goals andlimited in its authority, the latter being revocable.We find argument also in two modes. Of course the argument has one primary subject,namely political power, but to this there were not one but two origins. All power was ofGod,14 but derived from Him either directly or indirectly. The former source workedwhen God conveyed power by His command to some individual or group. This in effectmeant conveyance through scripture. The latter source suggested that power wasmediated through a longer route, as for instance popular consent. This would bediscovered most characteristically through reason.Locke had therefore to deal in the media of both scripture and reason and through theseneeded to both dispatch absolutism and establish ‘bounded’ government. This may sounda complicated agenda, but the structure of Locke’s argument is straightforward enough.The first of hisTwo Treatisesconcerns primarily scripture and his second reason, thoughLocke deployed both media in each. He criticized absolutism and developed hisalternativepari passu. For in his attack on Filmer throughout the first book Locke laiddown several premises from which his own argument about government in the secondproceeded, whilst that argument itself offered an alternative to the devices of absolutismby explaining a ‘bounded’ government. The two books ofTwo Treatises of Governmentform a continuous treatment of Locke’s theme.IIIHisTwo Treatiseswere complementary, for each considered one of two routes. The firstbook considered one of the explanations that power is directly of God. This was the onedeveloped in Locke’s day by churchmen like Ussher and Sanderson, and found mostextendedly in Filmer.15 Locke set out to destroy Filmer’s explanation of absolutism.Locke’s second book provided an account of power on the other model by the ‘indirect’route.They were not merely complementary in subject matter, but also in their manner oftreating it. For Locke’sFirst Treatiseprovided a description of God’s purposes whichprovides a large part of the basis of theSecond Treatise. TheFirst16 is usually conceivedas a refutation of one explanation of absolutism, and a rather tedious one at that. Thisjudgement of tedium perhaps obscures the fact that the way in which Locke executed hisattack on Filmer’s view of political superiority involves also the rebuttal of Filmer’s viewof God’s purposes: and brought with it a relocation of His intentions and, conformably, ofpolitical superiority.Locke’s method of dealing with superiorities, whether negatively or positively, wasdemonstrative in the sense that he set out to show the terms in which political superioritywas created by tracing out connections amongst ideas. This method harmonized with hisphilosophical approach. By demonstration Locke intended ‘noe thing else but shewingmen how they shall see right’.17 In his first book Locke was concerned to break theconnections Filmer had set up, whilst in his second he aimed to establish connections ofhis own.Filmer dealt essentially in one superiority, on the basis of which he attempted toestablish a wide range of connections. In his view God had conferred on Adam auniversal superiority over the earth and mankind. God’s medium of expression waspreserved in scripture and His conferral was direct. The contents of the grant comprised asuperiority over the world as a whole: a power which was absolute over all Adam’sdescendants and unlimited in extent, as well as a parallel lordship over the whole earthand its creatures. This authority, Filmer argued, passed by descent to subsequentmonarchs so that they enjoyed an absolute and unlimited power over person andproperty.18Locke was not much amused by these connections. He required for the purposes of hisown argument about government that man by nature be free from any superior (exceptingGod).19 Filmer asserted that everyone had a superior, and that was one whose authoritywas complete in every way. Locke’s first book was devoted to unpicking Filmer’sconnections. Sometimes his method was to suggest that these were insecurely groundedin scripture. At other times he argued that Filmer had not connected his ideas properly.These arguments are in their naturead hominem. They are fairly exhaustive, though thosewho have not been exhausted before reaching section 80 know that Locke went beyondthe text that found its way into print to discuss grant, usurpation and election as titles togovernment.20 But in the course of breaking Filmer’s connections Locke suggested someof his own. There were two points of especial importance here.First, the absence of power given directly by God to one individual allows us tosuppose that the same faculties presume the same moral standing for all, since God hadmade those faculties and their make reflected His intentions, because (Locke assumed)God acted purposively. That is to say, the similarity of people one to another afforded nogrounds for setting one human above another: and so they should have the same status.As Locke put it,Creatures of the same species and rank promiscuously born to all the sameadvantages of Nature and the use of the same faculties, should be equal oneamongst another without Subordination…unless the Lord and Master of themall, should by any manifest Declaration of his Will set one above another.21To this equality is correlated freedom from direction by others, for the faculties possessedwere adequate to self-direction, and so direction by another was intellectuallysuperfluous: or, in Locke’s own words, people were in ‘aState of perfect Freedomtoorder their Actions…as they think fit…without asking leave, or depending upon the Willof any other Man’.22 Self-direction was the product of adequate and equal faculties,subject (of course) to God’s superiority and His direction.23This identity of status amongst people ‘born to all the same advantages’, as we shallsee in a moment, was important in explaining the duty of preservation, which in its turnwas integral to Locke’s view of political organization. But central to many other mattersis our second point.Locke provided an explanation of a superiority common to the whole human race, asuperiority over the world and its creatures, whether as dominion or as right, and suggestsduties addressed to all. All these are cast in terms of the very point to which Lockealluded in his statement of equality, namely that the human intellect was a salient aspectof the image of man in God.These are found in what Locke terms ‘the great design of God’.24 This design, as itsname suggests, signified God’s purpose for the human race. The direction wasstraightforward: people were required ‘to promote the great Design of God,IncreaseandMultiply’. This language alluded to the narrative of God’s setting the human race overlower animals recorded in the first chapter ofGenesis. Indeed Locke adduced just this toemphasize the purpose. The specification in full runs as follows:And God Blessed them, and God said unto them, be Fruitful and Multiply andReplenish the Earth and subdue it, and have Dominion over the Fish of the Sea,and over the Fowl of the Air, and over every living thing that moveth upon theEarth[I Gen. 28]and it is unambiguous. The God of Locke commanded the human race to propagatethemselves, subdue the earth and have dominion over creatures. This was the ‘great andprimary Blessing of God Almighty’.25Though the great design was cast as a command, it implied a right. To be specific, itexplained how mankind collectively had a right to dominion and indeed property over theearth and over its creatures. Locke distinguished the concepts of dominion and property.But he was clear that the benediction ofGenesisix, 1–3, to Noah and his sons gave to thehuman race ‘the utmost Property Man is capable of, which is to have a right to destroyany thing by using it’.26 So mankind collectively had a right to property in the earth andits creatures.How was the presence of a right made clear? We might say, simply, throughrevelation, but though true this would not be complete. The allusion todominionmakesthe point clear. Dominion over animals, we may note, derived to mankind from theirintellectual superiority. The common assumption of the day was that animals did notthink or, if they did, that their thought was so conspicuously beneath man’s that theywere manifestly his inferiors. Thus he was their superior or, as Locke put it, had‘Dominion,or Superiority’27 over them. In the language of the piece known asDraft B,one of his early writings on the human mind, ‘it is the Understanding that sets man abovethe rest of sensible beings & gives him all that dominion he hath over them’.28 This wasbecause mankind was like God, in that it had a superior understanding, ‘for whereinsoever else theImage of Godconsisted, the intellectual Nature was certainly a part ofit’.29 Thus the possession of theimago deiproduced the right.God made the grant, of course, for the sake of a purpose. A phrase common to bothGenesistexts we have mentioned (1, 28 and 9, 1) specified the same purposes formankind’s performance in the same general terms, namely: be fruitful, and multiply, andreplenish the earth. This general formula may be mediated into a number of particularforms. One of these is worth especial attention. The intention implicit in the grantrequired people to preserve themselves. Locke, indeed, indicated that there was a duty ofself-preservation,30 a duty which was matched by a desire for survival and whose contentpointed towards the perpetuation of God’s design.31 We may infer that the great designgave people a right to the means of self-preservation; for example, to destroy an animal inorder to eat it. Locke inferred as much himself, remarking that God would be unlikely togive property to Adam alone becauseit is more reasonable to think, that God who bid Mankind increase and multiply,should rather himself give them all a Right, to make use of the Food andRayment, and other Conveniences of Life, the Materials whereof he had soplentifully provided for them32In short the great design suggested that God had given the earth to all mankind, having inmind that it should survive and increase. A duty to preserve oneself was implicit in this.Here we see Locke deploying conceptions gathered from the general thought of theday, not least his own. Self-preservation was a concern of writing about natural law,including his ownEssays. The notion of the human dominion over animals had appearedin his writings on this understanding. These assumed also that God had equipped peoplewith apprehensions fitting them to survive. We may add, if we care, that the design’sprescription for the multiplication of mankind captured Locke’s assumption, seen in hisearly writings on political economy, that large populations were best.33 More pointedly,we may say that Locke had taken these motifs and formed from them a determinatepattern. That pattern, as we shall see, was central to his political thought.We should attend to the generic form behind these formulations: that God had signifiedan intention for mankind. The design presents a teleology—an end or ends marked out byGod for mankind to follow. The ‘great Design’ is an example of the sort of intentionalityLocke had quietly attributed to God in constructing Draft B in 1671. The generalprinciple that there was such a divine plan does not imply the content of the example of itLocke adduced in hisTreatises,of course. But there is a continuity of thought betweenhis early writings on the understanding and his political doctrine. For he assumed in theformer that God had equipped mankind with apprehensions adapted to survival and toallow it to dominate the earth and its animals: in the latter the ‘great Design’ embodiedthese suppositions. For it was mankind’s ‘Senses and Reason’, as well as his desires, thatset it on the path God had indicated.34 Thus Locke’s view of the human understandinginformed the bases of his politics. We should now turn to the super-structure.IIIThese points were significant for Locke’s larger intention. They provided some of themajor bases for his argument about political power in his second book and concurrentlyabout society too. TheEssay… of Civil-Government,like the first book, was concernedwith superiorities in society. Locke took care to distinguish these from each other. Hisprime concern was the superiority of the civil government (or, as he put it, magistrateover the citizen). This was differentiated carefully from the superiority of lord over slave(or, as Locke called it, absolute power).To this end Locke distinguished types of power. He was concerned not just withdemonstration but also with relations. Space precludes treating all of these here, but it isworth glimpsing the full extent of Locke’s project. That is to say Locke wished todistinguish the relation between magistrate and subject from that between father and childor between master and slave, amongst others. In his own words:I think it may not be amiss, to set down what I take to be Political Power. Thatthe Power of aMagistrateover a Subject, may be distinguished from that of aFatherover his Children, aMasterover his Servant, aHusbandover his Wife,and aLordover his Slave. All which distinct Powers happening sometimestogether in the same Man, if he be considered under these different Relations, itmay help us to distinguish these Powers one from another, and shew thedifference betwixt a Ruler of a Common-wealth, a Father of a Family, and aCaptain of a Galley.35To these we might add the control which an owner enjoys over property, for Locketreated this in a manner congruent with his view of political power. Thus theEssay…ofCivil-Governmentpresented an alternative to Filmer’s conflation of these differentrelations. It did so, of course, in the interests of explaining ‘bounded’ government.This argument required that people by nature have no superior. This meant a politicalsuperior. Locke was not disposed to deny the superiorities inherent in the society of hisday, of parents over children or the owner over his property, for instance.36 But Filmerhad identified freedom by nature from a political superior as the central assumption oflimited government.37 Locke was as good as Filmer’s word.Locke’s method of explaining the difference amongst different relations was to outlinetheir source—in his vocabulary, their original. The original, in fact, was one, in that theywere all referred to God’s intentions. These are best understood by referring to the greatdesign. All the relations important to Locke’s argument are explained, wholly or partly,in terms of the great design, except for the relations of master and slave. It is thiscommon explanation which united the terms of Locke’sEssay…concerning Civil-Government. Viewed as a list of contents, the principal items of theEssaymight appearsomewhat miscellaneous. Duties of self-preservation and preservation, slavery, propertyand political organization, to name no others, follow each other in a succession whichdoes not seem entirely orderly at first blush. But there is a connection between theseitems. The laws of self-preservation and preservation explain the terms on whichgovernment is instituted, just as Locke’s treatment of slavery illustrates how God’spurposes limited these terms.The great design had a major role in all of these arguments. The duty of selfpreservationwas part of the design. We shall see that the law of preservation followsfrom it, once set in conjunction with freedom, equality and the golden rule. God’ssuperiority, prescribing self-preservation, excluded slavery (except in some marginalcases) and suggested that men must remain free. Property in general, we know from theFirst Treatise,derives to mankind from the great design. We shall see that property couldbe made private through an aspect of freedom; and that privatization was required by theterms of the design. Parental power Locke explained through the function of fittingchildren to be free and the design will explain the binding character of the function. Afterall this, it is natural to reflect that rights traditionally associated with Locke’s name, allrelate to the design. Government, of course, existed to protect them. In short, Locke’saccount of political power is related to the view of human purpose which he called thegreat design of God.IVIf we start with government we soon find ourselves drawn back to the great design.Locke argued that civil government was empowered by two rights—rights belonging tothe individual and whose exercise he or she delegated to ensure that they would beapplied efficiently. These were the rights to execute the law of nature and to preserveoneself. These rights themselves derive from two duties, to preserve others and topreserve oneself.38We have seen the duty to preserve oneself in book one, but what of duty to preserveothers? The idea of a duty to preserve others is quite intelligible in itself. Its explanationis another matter. It does not figure in scripture. Locke argued that because we have aduty to preserve others: that ‘Every one as he isbound to preserve himself…so by the likereason…ought he, as much as he can,to preserve the rest of Mankind’.39 How can weexplain it?Locke, as often in hisTreatises,may seem to write elliptically in explaining the law ofpreservation. But he had no need to be more than allusive because he employed an ideawell known to his contemporaries. The law of preservation he explained by combiningman’s desire for self-preservation with the golden rule. The golden rule was a centralitem in the thought of the day. The agent’s duty, therefore, could be summarized in theform: love God, and thy neighbour as thyself. This thought figured in a variety ofChristian sources, from St. Matthew to Hooker (to go no further). So habitual was its usethat there was evidently little need to set it out in explicit language. But its role becomesclear as we pursue the reasoning in chapter 2 of hisEssay on…Civil-Government.40Locke reminded the reader that men were in a state of freedom and equality and wenton to say that Hooker had made ‘thisequalityof Men by Nature’ ‘the Foundation of thatObligation to mutual Love amongst Men, on which he Builds the Duties they owe oneanother’.41 Hooker had argued that each man should expect no more from his neighbourthan he himself performed, for they were equal by nature and so in that respect there wasno ground for differentiating between them. He also wrote of taking care to satisfy whatone supposed one’s neighbour to desire. This follows on the ground of equality. Let usput these considerations more formally.The conjunction of the golden rule with desire we may describe first in very generalterms. It implies the procedure of putting oneself, mentally, in another’s place. There oneconsiders how one would like to be treated if really in his or her shoes. One formulatesone’s conclusion as a rule and one should treat others according to it if one wishes todeserve like conduct from them towards oneself. The procedure could be stated formallyin these terms: it cannot be right for A to treat B in a manner in which it would be wrongfor B to treat A, merely on the ground that they are two different individuals, and withoutthere being any difference between the nature or circumstances of the two which can bestated as a proper ground for any difference of treatment.Locke chose to adduce the ‘strong desire of Self-preservation’, which we have seencorrelated to the great design, ‘the desire, strong desire of Preserving his Life andBeing…Planted in him, as a Principle of Action by God himself’.42 This desire, joinedwith the golden rule, brings us to the law of preservation.There is a further significance to self-preservation: on Locke’s terms it preventedabsolutism on the terms preferred by modern thinkers. To trace power directly from Godwas one route to the absolutist destination. But the same result could be had by anunreserved transfer of right from free men, as we have noted. These argumentspresupposed that people were free to transfer their rights.Locke precluded this by asserting that people answerable to God and that God requiredof them conduct incompatible with an unreserved transfer of freedom. God required manto preserve himself and self-preservation was ensured by freedom from absolute power.According to Locke the only reason why anyone would attempt to gain absolute powerover another was to threaten his life.43 To subordinate oneself to a superior withoutreservation was therefore out of the question:Freedomfrom Absolute, Arbitrary Power, is so necessary to, and closely joynedwith a Man’s Preservation, that he cannot part with it…For a Man, not havingthe Power of his own Life,cannot,by Compact, or his own Consent,enslavehimselfto any one, nor put himself under the Absolute, Arbitrary Power ofanother, to take away his Life, when he pleases. No body can give more Powerthan he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own Life, cannot giveanother power over it.44So people could not countenance submission to absolutism in this mode because theywere answerable to God and because the content of God’s purposes required them toretain their natural freedom. Freedom, that is to say, cannot be utterly alienated. We shallsee that it could be transferred in order to execute other purposes, but that only onconditions which admitted recall. Thus the operations Locke attributed to God restrictedthe range of possible governments.VLocke had not only to explain political power but also to explain those values his societyprized. Once the ability to direct oneself and so the basis of civil freedom had beenestablished, property was the most important of these. Hence the second ofTwo Treatisespasses from freedom (in chapters 2–4) to property (in chapter 5). This ordering had alogic beyond psychological linkage (it has the latter because liberty and property werekey values in politics in Locke’s day). For having established political power in terms ofGod’s design, including intellect and freedom, it was incumbent upon him to explainproperty in a like manner.Locke placed the retention of freedom significantly, for freedom in his hands would bethe instrument of explaining how property could be private. To explain it so wasimportant, for the prevalent style of explanation founded private property on terms thatadmitted absolutism. To substitute a version that grounded private property in freedomrather than subjection would be a major coup.What was the task before Locke? The great design of God gave property in the earthand its creatures to mankind collectively. The question, then, was how to move from thatto private property. Locke explained this in terms of freedom, for he argued that it was anattribute of a free man that his labour was his own. It was free labour, under the auspicesof the great design once more, that produced appropriation and was present in theaccumulation of more sophisticated forms of property.A dictionary of the seventeenth century distinguished an individual’s property by itsindependence from others’ control, defining it as ‘the highest right that a man hath or canhave to any thing, which is no way depending vpon any other mans courtesie’.45 Thewriter followed the usage we employ today by applying this definition only to materialpossessions. Locke is well known for construing the term in a broader way. He embracednot only property as land and goods but also the property each man had in his person.This dual usage is important because it situated ‘property’ in his wider politicalexplanation.Locke needed to treat private property in a certain way in order to sustain his ownpolitical theory. HisSecond Treatiseundertook to explain political power in a way whichdistinguished it from other sorts of power. He wished to do so in a way incompatible withabsolutism. The plausibility of his doctrine to contemporary readers would depend notjust on his reasoning about political power itself but also on showing that property couldbe explained adequately within the terms Locke proposed. His wider argument would notbe acceptable if it did not base their cherished property soundly.Political theory likewise explained property in terms which made it easy to refer it togovernment. The most powerful explanation was Grotius’. He assumed that mankindoriginally held property in common and subsequently agreed to partition it amongstthemselves, thus producing private property. Pufendorf added the refinement ofclassifying the original ownership by the whole community in two ways, as negative(which was common because not marked out by any action) and positive (which wascommon to a given group but not to outsiders), but he did not modify the fundamentaltheory.46 Whilst this view of itself implies nothing about government, the two combinedeasily in the suggestion that only government could produce an enforceable and thereforestable partition. Hobbes asserted that ‘there be no Propriety, no Dominion, noMineandThinedistinct’ without government.47 Hence private property turned out to be thecreation of governmental power.That the most persuasive criticism of Grotius came from a source radically hostile tonatural freedom did not help. Filmer had pointed out an acute difficulty in producing adivision of common property because he disliked the implications of the natural freedomit implied.48 Such a division, he argued, would require a consent of all mankind.Hobbes’s view that the state of nature could hardly sustain a viable agreement aboutproperty was equally unhelpful to anyone who wished to explain property without relyingon government. Their arguments in effect required a new explanation of private propertyfrom one who wished both to uphold natural freedom and to explain property in termsfree of governmental attachments. Locke noted the difficulty49 and proceeded to solve it.TheSecond Treatiseset out an explanation of property which is founded on naturalfreedom and isincompatiblewith absolutism. Locke reasoned from the assumption thatman was by nature free of a political superior: he retained his natural freedom. That leftopen the way to set property in terms of freedom. How was this accomplished?If a human being were free it followed that ‘every Man has aPropertyin his ownPerson’.50 If a human being enjoyed freedom from another’s control it followed that theyhad authority over themselves. As we have seen the seventeenth century called thisexclusive controldominium. Sometimes too it was called property orsuum. This controlreferred to the qualities inhering in a person and was thought to comprise his life, limbs,liberty and so on. Grotius described it as life, liberty, limbs, honour and reputation. Thosewho opposed absolutism emphasized that material possessions belonged with these, sothat property in the ordinary sense was classified assuumrather than explained throughgovernment. Hence within the framework ofdominiumproperty in the sense of controlover oneself came to include property in goods and estates. The Lockean trinity of life,liberty and property is only one example of this.51It was one thing to move property in the concrete sense on the conceptual map andanother to explain it in terms that would securely locate it there. Writers before Lockehad not attempted this. He did so by suggesting that a deployment of the agent’sdominium,his property in the wider sense, produced property in the narrower one. WhenLocke emphasized the property each had in his person, he added that the ‘Labourof hisBody, and theWorkof his Hands…are properly his’.52 That labour Locke used as themeans to property. It was easy to describe this as appropriation, since it implied takingsomething to oneself. The activity had been mentioned by Grotius and Pufendorf, butonly marginally.53 Locke made appropriation the instrument of acquiring property.But why should this use of the agent’s property, his ‘labour’, produce property in theordinary sense? It is a mystery why applying one’s labour to something, even consumingit, makes the thing taken one’s own.54 After all we call one variety of this activity theft.The solution is that the world already belonged to God, who required mankind to use itfor an end which necessitated labour.Locke had argued for God’s superiority in hisEssaysand assumed it in hisTreatises:and indeed His ownership of the world was a datum common to all writers on the subjectof property. They assumed, additionally, that He had given the world to man: Filmerargued one man, Adam, and Grotius and the rest all mankind. His donation wassupposed, by Grotius and Filmer amongst others, to take the form declared inGenesis: beFruitful and Multiply and Replenish the Earth and subdue it. Locke, of course, had usedthis passage to found his God’s great design, and here we see its special bearing onproperty. That lies in a point which is itself quite small, but which has importantimplications. Most writers treated this instruction of God’s merely as a permission—Filmer described it officially as a blessing or benediction and Grotius as a right—whichentitled people to live on the earth but did not demand anything of them. Locke bycontrast treated it as a direction from God to man. This interpretation was crucial for hisargument about property.55The command was conveyed through both revelation and reason. The former, as wehave seen, disclosed that God had set up ‘the Dominion of the whole Species ofMankind, over the inferior Species of Creatures’ and that this was entailed by Hiscommand. ‘God who bid Mankind increase and multiply’ intended to ‘give them all aRight to make use of the Food and Rayment, and other Conveniences of Life, theMaterials whereof he had so plentifully provided for them’.56 The latter, we may add,was made as an inference from the nature of man and the world to the effect that Godmeant man to use the earth to preserve himself: ‘God…spoke to him, (that is) directedhim by his Senses and Reason…to the use of those things, which were serviceable for hisSubsistence, and given him as means of hisPreservation’.57So God not only gave the world to man but also gave it for a purpose. That purpose,the preservation and increase of the human race, was integral to Locke’s account ofproperty.In the first place it required appropriation as the means of God’s design and thereforelegitimated that activity. Locke was quick to insist that this required appropriation. ‘God,who hath given the World to Men in common, hath also given them reason to make useof it to the best advantage of Life, and convenience’, he remarked, and reason pretty soonconcluded that ‘there must of necessity be a meansto appropriate’ things before theycould be used by anyone. The means of appropriation was labour. Hence the man wholaboured in order to sustain life acquired property because He did as God willed withGod’s creation. ‘The Law Man was under’, in Locke’s words, ‘was rather forappropriating’.58Whilst appropriation of itself suggested consumption or seizure, it could also be theinstrument of service to the end attributed to God. His command to subdue the earthcould be glossed to legitimate property in land. ‘God and his Reason commanded him tosubdue the Earth’, we read, ‘i.e.improve it for the benefit of Life’ which was achievedthrough appropriating land and farming it. The increase of mankind could be sustained, itseemed, by fencing in ground and more pointedly by improving land. Locke insistedeventually that at least 90 per cent ‘of theProductsof the Earth useful to the Life of Man’were ‘theeffects of labour’.59The institution of money would encourage improvement still more, for it removed thelimit to rational labour and acquisition set by the perishable character of natural products:people could exchange their produce for money.60 Thus both land and money turned outto be terms in God’s design, for they both implied an increase in the resources availableto sustain the human race.Locke wrote near the end of his life that ‘Propriety, I have no where found moreclearly explain’d than in a Book intituledTwo Treatises of Government’.61 Theoutstanding immodesty of the assertion bespeaks the importance of a plausibleexplanation of property for his purpose. It accommodated the principal varieties ofproperty in a way which relied upon man’s natural freedom; it avoided the difficultieswhich Filmer and Hobbes had seen in the Grotian account; and it was incompatible withabsolutism. So property and political power fell into the same pattern of explanation forLocke.So the great design, because it involved freedom, made possible an explanation ofprivate property in terms congruent with Locke’s view of political power.VILocke had indicated that political power resided in each agent. He had explained propertyin a way which showed that it was prior to civil government and unrelated to theunderpinning of polity. Instead he referred both property to his view of God’s intentionsin the great design. But one great task remained: to treat government itself in the sameterms.For Locke’s task was at once to explain government and to limit it. To explaingovernment was necessary, because otherwise the obvious safeguard of liberty andproperty would be absent. For despite the suspicion of rulers built into the structure ofTwo Treatisesboth of its books assume the need for government. The explanation wouldhave to be managed in terms of freedom too, in order to show how Locke’s argument,which had begun without political superiors, conducted his reader to a securegovernment. That government had to be limited, in order to fulfil the aim of establishing‘bounded’ government. One task, then, was to show how a polity could exist on his termsand the other was to show its limitations.To show that government could exist legitimately was straightforward enough. Therights of each and everyone to preserve themselves and to execute the law of nature,which we have seen flow from Locke’s general views, explained government easilyenough. Locke supposed that in order to secure the objectives corresponding to theserights people would consent to creation of a political society, that is to say a societywhose governors were entitled to pursue just those objectives.62 To suppose these rightsinhered to each individual presupposed that everyone by nature was free of a politicalsuperior. So government was founded on terms compatible with freedom.More positively he conceived that the agent’s natural endowments, reason and will,could be used to establish political power on terms that suited him. First, setting up agovernment was a rational act. Civil government was a device designed to secure theends embodied in God’s design. It was supposed to secure them better than individualagents considered separately could secure them. For it made sense for people to docollectively what they could not individually.63 Locke argued, in effect, that the creationof government was an exercise of rationality.The very act ofsetting upa government implied adding something to nature. In thissense government for Locke was artifice. As such it appeared at an intelligible stage inthe text. For having begun the second book ofTwo Treatiseswith natural matters, such asthe endowments of mankind and their duties under natural law, Locke had moved tomatters that required action, such as the acquisition of property and the exercise ofparenthood. These activities, of course, accorded with God’s prescriptions. But theyinvolved people acting to better the nature they had received, whether by improving theearth or educating a child. Making a government, too, meant bettering the state of natureand was a deliberate act of artifice.Yet it remains to ask, to what, precisely, did people consent? Locke’s answer was castin terms of reason and freedom.VIISo far examination of political power has suggested that it was an instrument for securingcertain ends, those connected with God’s intent. His plans for mankind explained anddefined its authority. It followed that an authority that was not defined so stood apartfrom this divinely warranted pattern. Absolutism, Locke felt able to conclude, was not aform of government at all.64Having distinguished political power thus, Locke examined its character. Polity,according to him, had three aspects—executive, legislative and federative. Thedistinction, as stated in his text, was amongst functions. One agency was to legislate,another to execute the laws and so on, and another still to conduct foreign relations.These were not necessarily distinctions amongst personnel, for in government one agentmight have more than one function.65 It was the distinction of those functions thatmattered, for it was integral to the responsible character of government. That is to say,Locke wished to subordinate the executive and federative to the legislative and to showthat the latter depended on the consent of the governed.66Locke specified that the purpose for which government existed was to sustain rights.How does this relate to the matters discussed so far? Right in Locke can be understood inrelation to authority. In its root sense the latter involved an ability to direct. To say that Ahad authority over B would imply that A was able to direct B more successfully than Bcould have managed for himself. This would be partly a matter of intellect and partly ofother faculties. Where faculties were in some sense equal, no one was better equipped bynature to guide others, as we have noted. But Locke maintained his general model.Hence, for example, God’s authority over people derived from His superior ability todirect and to reward or punish them. This superiority, Locke thought, gave Him a right todeal with mankind as He chose.67On this model, right would be an attribute of a bearer of authority. It would beattributable in respect of a superiority, meaning by that both that it accrued to a superiorand referred to the aspect in which he or she excelled the inferior. Since God wassuperior to all forms of existence, His right held good over all aspects of creation. But weneed not assume that the right enjoyed by a mere human agent over another would be socomplete.In particular we might emphasize that God’s supereminent superiority gave Him aright over everything. It followed that His inferiors enjoyed a right only on terms ofaspect and extent granted by Him. We have seen already that mankind enjoyed a right tothe earth and its creatures because God decided it was so. We have seen, too, that Godenlarged the extent of that grant (to embrace destroying the animals). It is worth addingthe more striking illustration that people enjoyed life only as God chose.68 On this basis,then, rights would be grants made by God.This affects how we understand the concept of right. Most importantly, the attributionof right to an agent would relate to God’s purposes. After all, God, if understood as wise,would not deal out rights without purpose. Rights would be attributed to those capable ofdoing His work and, by the same measure, discontinued if the capability were misused.Thus, for example, all human agents have the same faculties, faculties which weresupposed to be adequate for self-direction. Hence each agent was entitled to directhimself or herself. This implies a right to be free from the direction of others, ‘the Rightof my Freedom’.69 Again, each agent had a superiority over their persons, described byLocke as their right (and sometimes their property). The language suggests an exclusivepossession, beyond the proper role of other human agents: but this self-direction wassubject to direction by God. We find Locke’s statement of the agent’s independence wassubject to natural law. By the same measure we find that those who contravened God’spurposes decisively lost their rights, most dramatically by forfeiting their lives.70Second, there may be an extension of usage, an extension relating to purpose. Ithappens several times in Locke’s thought that rights are attributed to people by reason ofthe fact that they correspond to the means necessary to do God’s work. Amongst these wecan list the right to use the earth and its creatures as a means of self-preservation (withoutwhich the duty to preserve oneself would be impossible), and the right to punishaggressors (glossed immediately after its appearance as the right to execute the law ofnature); without supposing this, as Locke pointed out, natural law could not be enforcedterrestrially.71This brings us to a further sense which right denoted, namely agreement with measuresprescribing proper conduct. This was present generally in the seventeenth century, as inHobbes’s view that right existed where the laws were silent.72 With Locke there is thespecial assumption that rights would not merely accord with law but would relate to thepurpose for which the latter was made. This was true, for example, of the rights protectedby government.What was the subject matter of these? We say traditionally, life, liberty and property.These cohere as parts in God’s design. Liberty was a condition of Locke’s design, for theliberty it denoted was that of an agent independent of another’s direction.73 Property, aswe have seen, was in its simplest form acquired in terms of the great design and in moresophisticated forms authorized by it. The generality of the formulation ‘life’ accords withthe design. ‘Life’ is certainly general and seems oddly so, till we remember that activitiesto which it relates are as various as, preserve self and preserve others, charity and bringup children—and all of these in the best way possible.74 Thus these rights refer to statesof being integral to the purpose Locke attributed to God. So we see that the authorities onearth authorized by God—political, familial and so on—are to be explained in terms ofHis purpose, the great design.In a like way the rights enjoyed by governors answered to the purpose Locke laid out.These rights issued directly from the rights enjoyed by every agent to preserve himself(and others) and to punish aggressors, which were themselves inferred from the law ofpreservation.75 These rights proved difficult to exercise, and the point of government wasto execute them where the individual could not do so easily.Because the creation of a polity was an exercise in rationality, the same purposes forwhich it was created bounded its activity. This meant, first, that just as the agent had onlya limited range of actionsopen to him or her legitimately, so too the government wasrestricted. The authority of polity came from the power an agent enjoyed over herselfunder the terms of the great design. That was limited and so polity at the utmost wouldenjoy no more. Locke put the matter with a clarity edging on pleonasm. ‘No Body cantransfer to another more power than he has in himself; he wrote,and no Body has an absolute Arbitrary Power over himself or over any other, todestroy his own Life, or take away the Life or Property of another. A Man, ashas been proved, cannot subject himself to the Arbitrary Power of another; andhaving in the State of Nature no Arbitrary Power over the Life, Liberty, orPossession of another, but only so much as the Law of Nature gave him for thepreservation of himself, and the rest of Mankind; this is all he doth, or can giveup to the Commonwealth.76Where with Marvell the same arts that did a power gain must it maintain, with Locke thesame power which did a power create bounded it.Its boundaries were threefold. They lay with creation and function and forfeiture.Locke’s agenda in the creation of a government did not admit of an unreserved contract,unlike Bodin, Grotius or Hobbes. These theorists had conceived that the agent wassubject to no constraints on how he disposed of his or her person. For instance, it waspermissible to enslave oneself. On these terms a transfer of right to a ruler could becomplete and irreversible. But for Locke, because government was an instrument createdfor a specific end, it ceased to have validity when it ceased to serve that end. Thus polityloses its authority so soon as the purposes for which it was set up were violated.77 Thushe made out his model of bounded government.VIIILocke’s political theory took elements from his preceding thought and treated them in amanner that combined them with the devices and the needs of current thought in order toexplain his preferred style of government. Locke wished to explain that government mustbe responsible, rather than absolute. Two items were especially significant in his project.These were his view of God as mankind’s legislative superior, drawn from his moraltheory, and his assessment of human faculties, based upon his writings on the humanunderstanding, but not developed there in quite this direction. He used these devices, incompany with his view of relations, to attribute a divinely-warranted pur-pose tomankind, which comprised an understanding of morality and of human life inconsistentwith absolutism and favouring ‘bounded’ government.This account suggests that Locke was a more powerful and single-minded theorist thanthe figure found in our textbooks. This may be a surprise, but should not be. For it shouldhardly be anticipated that the author ofAn Essay concerning Human Understandingwould be less acute in dealing with politics: though this is not to say that his work isflawless.NOTES1 In the vocabulary of the seventeenth century ‘power’ connoted the Latin potestas, whichembraces both authority and the ability to enforce one’s will. Hence Locke’s project ofexplaining political power has an emphasis on the normative. Note too that the century wasreduced to describing power without right as power de facto. The author would like to thankDr. Ian Tipton for commenting on an earlier draft.2 E.g. [4.49], 537; the example could be matched by many others.3 The outstanding specimen is now a classic: [4.54].4 For different derivations of absolutism, cf. [4.20], chs 1–2 in [4.23]; [4.15] esp. 1.8, cf. [4.21]in [4.23], 172–83; [4.25], I.iii.viii.1–2; [4.26] H.xviii.5 Locke’s manuscripts were edited by Wolfgang Von Leyden under this title as [4.1] and reeditedby Robert Horwitz, Jenny Strauss Clay and Diskin Clay as [4.2]. This latter workexpresses reservations about Von Leyden’s edition: but these, if valid, would not affect theuse of the text made here. The older edition (i.e. [4.1]) is cited because more accessible.Since Von Leyden’s text is printed with a facing translation I have given the folio numbersprinted in his edition in order to give a continuous numeration.6 See [4.12], Ia, Iae.94 and generally 90–7 and Ia.IIae. 10–12; [4.27], 403:612; [4.17], IV: 3–5;[4.19].7 See e.g. [4.12], Ia.IIae.94.a.2. For an important commentary on the aspect of selfpreservation,see [4.51].8 [4.1], no. 4,ff. 60–1, pp. 156/158.9 [4.33], I.iv: 31. Cf. II.v: 267: To admonish and reprehend is not an action of an Inferior’.10 [4.1], no. 4, ff. 52–9, pp. 150–6.11 [4.6], preface; I.i.i; II.i.i; title page: 153, 155, 159, 285.12 [4.13], i, 16.13 See for this especially [4.38]. This fascinating volume has attracted a great deal of comment,much of which is used by [4.39]. Ashcraft replied to this in [4.40].14 [4–59] xiii:i.15 See [4.32], with a preface by Robert Sanderson.16 Strictly there is no work entitled First Treatise and the expression Second Treatise appears aspart of a larger title page. Locke regularly denominated both as books (see the contents page,[4.6], 157 and 159, 285). The usage, however, is convenient.17 [4.5], sect. 44:153.18 This is found most fully in the manuscript piece, given to the world after Filmer’s death as[4.20].19 The logic is well illustrated in [4.16], i: ‘It is certain, that the Law of Nature has put nodifference nor subordination among Men…so that…all Men are born free’.20 [4.6], I.viii.So: 220, a passage that, curiously, Dr Laslett and the other commentators haveoverlooked in trying to discover the contents of the lost ending of First Treatise.21 [4.6], II.ii.4:287.22 Ibid.23 For a fuller examination of this passage, including its intellectual background, see the presentwriter’s [4.46], ch. 6.24 [4.6], I.iv.41:188.25 [4.6], I.iv.41:23, 33:188, 174f., 182f.26 [4.6], I.iv.39:185.27 Ibid.28 [4.5], sect 1:101. Sensible means accessible to sensation; a contrast is being drawn implicitlywith angels and other spirits supposed to be usually beyond detection by human faculties.29 [4.6], I.iv.30:180.30 [4.6], I.ix.86:223:For the desire, strong desire of Preserving his Life and Being having been Plantedin him, as a Principle of Action by God himself, Reason, which was the Voice ofGod in him, could not but teach him and assure him, that pursuing that naturalInclination he had to preserve his Being, he followed the Will of his Maker.31 [4.6], I. ix. 86:222f.:God having made Man, and planted in him…a strong desire of Self-preservation,and furnished the World with things fit for Food and Rayment and otherNecessaries of Life, Subservient to his design, that Man should live and abide forsome time upon the Face of the Earth, and not that so curious and wonderful apiece of Workmanship by its own Negligence, or want of Necessaries, shouldperish again, presently after a few moments continuance.32 [4.6], I.iv.41:187.33 See [4.5], sect. 39:147,For our facultys being suited…to the preservation of us to whome they are given orin whome they are & are accommodated to the uses of life, they serve to ourpurposes well enough if they will but give us certain notice of those things thateither delight or hurt us, are convenient or inconvenient to us.Also [4.3], 102f.; ‘Trade’ in [4.4], ii: 485; cf. [4.6], I.iv.33:183 and I.iv.41:188, ondepopulation under absolutist regimes.34 [4.6], I.ix.86:223.35 [4.6], II.i.2:286.36 See notably [4.6], II. vi.54:322.37 [4.20], I.i; [4.23], 2–5.38 In logical sequence, [4.6], II.ii.8–11:290–2; vii. 87–8:341–3.39 [4.6], II.ii.6:289.40 For a fuller explanation of this derivation, see [4.47].41 [4.6], II.ii.5:288.42 [4.6], I.ix.86:223.43 [4.6], II.iii.17:297.44 [4.6], II.iv.23:302.45 [4.18], s.n. Property.46 [4.25], II.2.ii, esp. 1,5; [4.29], IV.v.2,4.47 [4.26], I.xiii: 63, cf. II.xxiv: 127.48 For Filmer’s objections, see [4.22], 234.49 [4.6], II.v.25:303f.50 [4.6], II.v.27:305.51 For an objection to slavery, without Locke ‘s argument against it, see [4.28], 36f.; forproperty as a quality inhering in a person, see [4.24], V.xiii: 409; for Grotius on suum, see[4.25], I.2.i.5 and II.17.2,1. It is worth remembering that Locke would admit slavery on otherterms: see [4.6], II.iii-iv.52 For instance Hobbes had included material possessions in his catalogue of ‘propriety’, buthad been able to suggest that along with other examples of suum they were explained by theBIBLIOGRAPHYWorks by Locke4.1Essays on the Law of Nature,ed. Wolfgang Von Leyden, Oxford, Oxford UniversityPress, 1954, etc. See also4.2Questions concerning the Law of Nature,ed. Robert Horwitz, Jenny Strauss Clay andDiskin Clay, edition of the same mss as [4.1], London, Cornell University Press, 1990.4.3 ‘An Essay concerning Toleration’ (1667) in C.A.Viano (ed.)Scritti Editi e Ineditisovereign’s actions: see [4.26], II.xxx: 179. [4.6], II.v.27:305f.53 Pufendorf only discussed appropriation after partition (see [4.29], IV.iv.12) and Grotius usedthe verb arripere to describe prior appropriation, which scarcely suggests a legitimate title toproperty (see [4.25], II.2.ii.1).54 For some gaminesque queries, see [4.55], 174–82.55 [4.22] in [4.20], 217; [4.25], II.2.ii.1.56 [4.6], I.iv.28:178f.; 41:187.57 [4.6], I.ix.86:223.58 [4.6], II.v.26:304; v.35:310; II.v.37:312: ‘he who appropriates land to himself by his labour,does not lessen but increase the common stock of mankind’.59 See seriatim [4.6], II.v.28–9 (consumption), 30 (seizure), 32 (improvement), 40 (labour):306–14.60 [4.6], II.v.48; 50:319, 320.61 Locke to the Rev. Richard King, 25 August 1703 in [4.9], viii: 58.62 See generally [4.6], II.vii-ix; [4–6], II.vii.78–88:336–41.63 [4.6], II.ix. esp. 131:371.64 [4.6], II.xv. 169–74:398–402.65 [4.6], II.xii generally; for personnel see xii.148:384 and xiii.15i: 386.66 As [4.6], II.xiii esp. 149:384f.67 [4.1], no. 4.68 [4.6], I.iv.39:185f.; [4.8], 8 for the fact that human life was understood to be God’s: ‘if Godafford them a Temporary, Mortal Life, ‘tis his Gift, they owe it to his Bounty, they could notclaim it as their Right, nor does he injure them when he takes it from them’. Cf. [4.1], no. 4,f. 56 (p. 154).69 [4.6], II.iii.17:297.70 E.g. [4.6], II.ii.4:287, vi.63. 327; II.ii.11:292.71 [4.6], I.ix.86:223; II.ii.7:289f.: the supposition of the latter right obviated Hobbes’ view thatGod’s law was not enforced as such on earth (but only as a terrestrial sovereign’s command):but the Lockean God gave people a legitimate title to enforce His commands.72 E.g. [4.26], I.xiv: 64; [4.31], II.i: 167–8; [4.30], I.xiv.3:194 and the young Locke [4.1], no. 1,f.11: no.73 See [4.46] for this.74 For charity see [4.47], sect. 2.75 See p.106 above.76 [4.6], II.xi.135:375.77 See esp. [4.6], II.xix.211–19:424–9.sulla Toleranza,Turin, Taylor Turino, 1961.4.4Locke on Money,ed. Patrick Kelly, 2 vols, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991.4.5Draft B in Drafts for the Essay concerning Human Understanding and otherphilosophical writings,ed. P.H.Nidditch and G.A.J.Rogers, vol. i, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press, 1990.4.6Two Treatises of Governmented. Peter Laslett, 2nd edn, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 1967.4.7An Essay concerning Human Understandinged. P.H.Nidditch, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press, 1975.4.8The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the scriptures,London, 1956.4.9The Correspondence of John Lockeed. E.S.de Beer, Oxford, 8 vols, OxfordUniversity Press, 1976–89.Amongst the works of Locke not mentioned here, especially important are4.10Two Tracts of Government,ed. Philip Abrams, Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress, 1967 and4.11Epistola de Tolerantia,ed. Raymond Klibansky, Oxford, Oxford University Press,1968.Other Primary Works4.12 Aquinas, ThomasSumma Theologica,trans. T.Gilbyet al,London, Eyre andSpottiswoode, 60 vols, 1963–75.4.13 Anon.A Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country,n.p. [probablyLondon], 1675.4.14 Anon.Vox Populi, Vox dei,London, 1681.4.15 Bodin, JeanLes Six Livres de la Republique(1576), ed. and trans. M.J.Tooley,Oxford, Blackwell, 1955.4.16 Burnet, GilbertAn Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the SupreamAuthority,London, 1688.4.17 Calvin, JeanInstitutes of the Christian Religion,trans, F.L.Battles, 2 vols, London,S.C.M. Press, 1962.4.18 Cowell, JohnThe Interpreter,Cambridge, 1607.4.19 Culverwell, NathanielA Learned and Elegant Discourse of the Light of Nature,ed.R.A.Greene and H.Macallum, Toronto, Toronto University Press, 1971.4.20 Filmer, Sir RobertPatriarcha,4.21The Necessity of the Absolute Power of all Kings,4.22Observations concerning the Originall of Governmentall in4.23Patriarcha and Other Writings,ed. J.P.Sommerville, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991.4.24 Fuller, ThomasThe Holy State and the Prophane State,Cambridge, 1642.4.25 Grotius, HugoDe Jure Belli ac Pacis,Paris, 1625.4.26 Hobbes, ThomasLeviathan,London, 1651.4.27 Luther, MartinWerke,Weimar, 1883-.4.28 Parker,Henry Jus Populi,London, 1644.4.29 Pufendorf, SamuelDe Jure Naturae et Gentium,Lund, 1672; edn Amsterdam, 1688.4.30Elementa Jurisprudentiae Universalis,1660, edn, Cambridge, 1672.4.31 Taylor, JeremyDuctor Dubitantium,1660; edn London, 1676.4.32 Ussher, JamesThe Power Communicated to the Prince by God,London, 1660, witha preface by Robert Sanderson.4.33 Walker, ObadiahOf Education,Oxford, 1673.Other WorksA full listing of secondary works will be found in4.34 Hall, R., and Woolhouse, R.S.Eighty Years of Locke Scholarship,Edinburgh,Edinburgh University Press, 1983, which covers 1900–80. Subsequent work is listedannually in the4.35Locke Newsletter,ed. R.Hall. See too4.36 Yolton, J.S. and J.W.John Locke: A Reference Guide,Boston, Hall, 1985. Works onLocke’s political theory include:4.37 Ashcraft, R.Locke’s Two Treatises of Government,London, Unwin Hyman, 1987.4.38Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government,Princeton, NJ,Princeton University Press, 1986, on which see4.39 Wootton, D. ‘John Locke and Richard Ashcraft’sRevolutionary Politics’, PoliticalStudies40 (1992): 79–98 and4.40 Richard Ashcraft ‘Simple Objections and Complex Reality’, ibid. 40 (1992): 99–115.4.41 Colman, J.John Locke’s Moral Philosophy,Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press,1983.4.42 Dunn, J.The Political Thought of John Locke,Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress, 1969.4.43Locke,Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984.4.44 Fagiani, F.Nel crepuscolo della probilita,Naples, Bibliopolis, 1983.4.45 Franklin, J.John Locke and the Theory of Sovereignty,Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 1978.4.46 Harris, I.The Mind of John Locke,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994.4.47 ‘Locke on Justice’,Oxford Studies in the History of Philosophy: 2; Seventeenth —Century Philosophy,Oxford, forthcoming.4.48 Parry, G.John Locke,London, Allen & Unwin, 1978.4.49 Sabine, G.A History of Political Thought3,London, Cassell, 1963.4.50 Tuck, R.Natural Rights Theories,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979–‘The Modern Theory of Natural Law’ in4.51 Pagden, A. (ed.)The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.4.52 Tully, J.A Discourse of Property,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1980.For articles, see4.53 Ashcraft, R. (ed.)John Locke: critical assessments,4 vols, London, Routledge,1991. A list of writings about Locke’s philosophy will be found in Dr Tipton’s chapter(ch.3) in this volume. For modern liberal thought, see:4.54 Rawls, J.A Theory of Justice,Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1971.4.55 Nozick, R.Anarchy, State and Utopia,Oxford, Blackwell, 1974.4.56 Ackerman, B.Social Justice in the Liberal State,New Haven, Conn., YaleUniversity Press, 1980, and the commentaries in4.57 Sandel, M. (ed.)Liberalism and its Critics,Oxford, Blackwell, 1982.4.58 Campbell, T.Justice,London, Macmillan, 1988. In a distinct class is4.59 St. Paul,Epistle to the Romans.