Locke Ch. 2

SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT 31
SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT

JOHN LOCKE (–)
Locke’s Two Treatises of Government presented a critique of the divine

right of kings and outlined the principles of natural rights and govern-
ment by consent. Written during the 1670s, they were not published until
after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the passage of the English Bill
of Rights in 1689. Locke was the political theorist quoted most frequently
by Americans in the 1770s.

CHAPTER II. OF THE STATE OF NATURE.
4. To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we
must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect
freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions, and persons, as
they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave, or
depending upon the will of any other man. 5
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no
one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that
creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same
advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal
one amongst another without subordination or subjection; unless the lord and 10
master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above
another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted
right to dominion and sovereignty....
6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license: though
man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or pos- 15
sessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature
in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls
______________________
John Locke, “Book II,” in Two Treatises of Government (London: C. and J. Rivington, 1824),
131–34, 159–61, 175, 179–81, 186–88, 203–6, 208–9, 215–16, 256–57, 261–65, 275–76.
31
32 THE APPLE OF GOLD AND THE FRAME OF SILVER
for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every
one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult
it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his
life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one
5 omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign master,
sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property,
whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not another’s pleasure:
and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature,
there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize
10 us to destroy another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior
ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and
not to quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation
comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest
of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice to an offender, take away
15 or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of life, the liberty, health,
limb, or goods of another.
7. And that all men may be restrained from invading others’ rights, and from
doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the
peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is, in
20 that state, put into every man’s hands, whereby every one has a right to punish
the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation: for
the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world, be
in vain, if there were nobody that in the state of nature had a power to execute
that law, and thereby preserve the innocent and restrain offenders. And if any
25 one in the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every
one may do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no
superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution
of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.
8. And thus, in the state of nature, “one man comes by a power over another;”
30 but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when he has got him
in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of
his own will; but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience
dictate, what is proportionate to his transgression; which is so much as may
serve for reparation and restraint: for these two are the only reasons, why one
35 man may lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In
transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another
rule than that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set
to the actions of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes dangerous
to mankind, the tie, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being
SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT 33
slighted and broken by him. Which being a trespass against the whole species,
and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature; every man upon
this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may restrain,
or, where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may bring such
evil on any one, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent the 5
doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example others, from doing the
like mischief. And in this case, and upon this ground, “every man hath a right
to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of nature.”...
CHAPTER VI. OF PATERNAL POWER.
54. Though I have said above . . .“That all men by nature are equal,” I cannot
be supposed to understand all sorts of equality: age or virtue may give men 10
a just precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others above the
common level: birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay
an observance to those whom nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have
made it due: and yet all this consists with the equality, which all men are in, in
respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another; which was the equality 15
I there spoke of, as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right, that
every man hath, to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or
authority of any other man....
CHAPTER VII. OF POLITICAL OR CIVIL SOCIETY.
87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and
uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, 20
equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature
a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty, and estate,
against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of and punish the
breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offense deserves, even with
death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires 25
it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the
power to preserve the property, and, in order thereunto, punish the offenses of
all those of that society; there and there only is political society, where every one
of the members hath quitted his natural power, resigned it up into the hands of
the community in all cases that excludes him not from appealing for protection 30
to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular
member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire by settled standing
rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties; and by men having authority from
the community, for the execution of those rules, decides all the differences that
may happen between any members of that society concerning any matter of 35
right; and punishes those offenses which any member hath committed against

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SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT 31

SECOND TREATISE OF GOVERNMENT

Locke’s Two Treatises of Government presented a critique of the divine

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