Second Treatise of Government

Summary

The Second Treatise, subtitled 'An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government', is the constructive half of Locke's Two Treatises. The First Treatise demolishes Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, which derived the absolute power of kings from Adam's fatherly dominion. The Second offers an alternative account of political power as a trust created by the consent of free and equal individuals for limited ends. Locke begins with the state of nature. This is a condition of perfect freedom and equality, but not of licence, because the law of nature, which is reason, teaches that no one ought to harm another in 'life, health, liberty, or possessions'. Humans are God's workmanship, so they may not destroy themselves or others at will. In this state everyone holds the executive power of the law of nature and may punish transgressors. A state of war arises when someone tries to place another under absolute power. With no common judge, the only recourse is 'an appeal to heaven'. Slavery is legitimate only as the continuation of a state of war against a captured aggressor, since no one can consent to give another a power over his own life that he does not possess. The famous chapter on property argues that every person has a property in his own person, and that by mixing labour with what nature provides he makes it his own, within limits set by spoilage and by leaving enough and as good for others. Money, by allowing accumulation without spoilage, makes unequal possessions legitimate by tacit consent: 'in the beginning all the world was America'. Paternal power is a temporary duty to care for children until they reach the age of reason. Persons who never attain reason (Locke's 'lunatics and ideots') remain under the government of others. Political society arises when individuals give up their private executive power to a community and agree to be bound by the majority, chiefly for the preservation of their property, a word Locke uses for 'lives, liberties and estates'. The commonwealth needs established laws, impartial judges and the power to enforce. The legislative is the supreme power, but it is held in trust. It cannot rule by arbitrary decree, take property without consent, or transfer its authority. The executive may exercise prerogative for the public good where law is silent. Conquest gives no title over the conquered people's rights, and usurpation and tyranny are the exercise of power beyond right. The final chapter, on the dissolution of government, defends the people's right to resist and replace rulers who betray their trust. Locke insists that people bear 'many wrong and inconvenient laws' patiently, and only a 'long train of abuses' will move them to revolt. Written in the Exclusion Crisis and published after 1688, the work became a charter for limited government and natural rights, echoed nearly word for word in the American Declaration of Independence.

Plot or Argument

• Ch. I–II: political power and the state of nature

  Political power is the right to make laws with penalties for the preservation of property and the public good. In the state of nature people are free and equal under the law of nature, which forbids harm to life, health, liberty or possessions and gives each person a right to punish offenders.

• Ch. III–IV: the state of war and slavery

  Attempting to bring another under absolute power is a declaration of war; without a common judge one can only appeal to heaven. Since no one has arbitrary power over his own life, no one can enslave himself by consent; slavery is legitimate only against a captured aggressor.

• Ch. V: property

  Labour mixed with common nature creates property, limited by spoilage and sufficiency for others. Most of the value of goods comes from labour. Money permits durable accumulation and, by tacit consent, unequal holdings.

• Ch. VI: paternal power

  Parents (mothers as well as fathers) govern children only until reason matures. The duty is one of care, not dominion, and it continues for those who never reach reason, as Hooker says of 'innocents' and 'madmen'.

• Ch. VII–IX: the origin and ends of political society

  Conjugal, familial and master–servant relations differ from political society. Individuals unite by consent, binding themselves to majority rule, to secure property against the inconveniences of the state of nature: no settled law, no impartial judge, no reliable enforcement.

• Ch. X–XIV: legislative, executive, federative and prerogative

  The legislative is supreme but limited by the law of nature, by standing laws and by consent to taxation. Executive and federative (foreign) powers are distinct; prerogative is discretion for the public good where law fails.

• Ch. XV–XVIII: despotism, conquest, usurpation and tyranny

  Paternal, political and despotical power compared; an unjust conqueror gains no right; a just conqueror gains power only over the aggressors, not their families' estates. Tyranny is the use of power beyond right: 'Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins'.

• Ch. XIX: the dissolution of government

  Government dissolves by foreign conquest or by the legislature or prince breaching trust. The people are judge and may resist and establish a new legislative, and Locke argues that this right makes rebellion less likely.

Characters

• Sir Robert Filmer, chief opponent

  Royalist author of Patriarcha whose theory of divine-right monarchy descended from Adam is refuted in the First Treatise and haunts the Second.

• Richard Hooker, authority

  Elizabethan theologian of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, quoted repeatedly to give Locke's natural-law argument Anglican respectability.

• Thomas Hobbes, unnamed interlocutor

  Never mentioned, but Locke's distinction between the state of nature and the state of war answers Leviathan.

• Jephtha, biblical example

  The judge of Israel whose 'appeal to heaven' against the Ammonites is Locke's model for resistance when there is no earthly judge.

• The Indian of America, recurrent figure

  The native who hunts the deer or gathers acorns, used as Locke's image of the state of nature and of unimproved land.

Lessons

• Power is a trust that can be forfeited

  For Locke, rulers are trustees of power given for specific ends. When they act beyond those ends, invading property or ruling arbitrarily, they forfeit the trust, and the people may judge and resist. This fiduciary model of authority also underlies modern ideas of professional duty, including the doctor's.

  • What counts, for Locke, as a 'long train of abuses'? Who decides?
  • How does a fiduciary model of authority differ from Hobbes's sovereign?

• Self-ownership and its limits

  Locke grounds property in a 'property in his own person', yet he also holds that we are God's workmanship and may not destroy ourselves or sell ourselves into slavery. The tension between self-ownership and inalienable life runs through modern debates on bodily autonomy, organ sales and assisted dying.

  • Can Locke consistently say that I own my body but may not end my life?
  • Does labour-mixing justify ownership of genetic information or biological samples?

• Reason as the threshold of freedom

  Locke ties freedom to the capacity to know the law. Children are free in potential; those who never reach reason remain under guardianship. The passage is an early theory of capacity and guardianship, with all its benefits and dangers for people deemed 'lunatics and ideots'.

  • What protections does Locke give to those who remain under another's government?
  • How does Locke's 'age of discretion' compare with modern assessments of decision-making capacity?

• Property theory and colonial dispossession

  Locke's claim that uncultivated land is waste, and his image of America as the world 'in the beginning', supplied arguments for settlers' title over Indigenous land. Locke himself was involved in colonial administration and investment. The chapter has to be read with that history in view.

  • How does the spoilage proviso work once money exists?
  • Does the 'enough and as good' condition remain meaningful in a world without unclaimed land?

Context

The Two Treatises came out of the Restoration crisis over the succession of the Catholic James, Duke of York. Shaftesbury and the Whigs sought to exclude him by Act of Parliament (1679–81), while royalist writers revived Filmer's patriarchalism to defend hereditary divine right. The Rye House Plot of 1683 sent Locke into exile. The treatises were published after William of Orange's invasion and James II's flight, and the preface presents them as justifying King William's title 'in the consent of the people'.

Composition

Peter Laslett's research established that most of the work was written around 1679–83, during the Exclusion Crisis, not after 1688 as a justification of the Revolution. Locke revised it before publication and continued to correct later editions. It was published anonymously in late 1689 (dated 1690), and Locke acknowledged authorship only in a codicil to his will.

Reception

Initially less influential than the Essay, the Second Treatise became central to eighteenth-century Whig and American revolutionary thought. Jefferson echoed it in the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist debates drew on its separation of powers. Critics from Hume onward questioned the historical fiction of consent. Twentieth-century scholarship (Laslett, Dunn, Tully, Macpherson's 'possessive individualism') has debated its theological premises, its relation to capitalism, and its argument that labor and cultivation create property in land, including Locke's examples drawn from America.

Comparisons

• leviathan

  Hobbes's state of nature is already a war of all against all and calls for an absolute sovereign. Locke separates nature from war, gives natural law real content before government, and keeps a right of resistance Hobbes denies.

• an-essay-concerning-human-understanding

  Published the same year, the Essay's account of the mind as unfurnished at birth underlies the Treatise's picture of children growing into reason and the claim that no one is born subject to another's will.

• the-social-contract

  Rousseau also grounds legitimacy in consent but rejects Locke's representative legislature and his defence of private property, treating the first enclosure as the origin of inequality rather than a natural right.

• on-liberty

  Mill keeps Locke's limited government but replaces natural rights with utility and worries less about kings than about social conformity; both exclude children and those lacking 'maturity of faculties' from full liberty.

• twelve-years-a-slave

  Locke allows slavery only for captives taken in a just war, a doctrine that could not justify the hereditary chattel slavery Northup suffered, though Locke invested in the Royal African Company and helped draft the Carolina constitutions that sanctioned it.

• The Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson et al.)

  The Declaration's 'long train of abuses', unalienable rights and government by consent closely track Locke's final chapter, with 'pursuit of happiness' in place of Locke's 'estates'.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Chapter II's state of nature, which Locke describes as perfect freedom and equality but not licence, because the law of nature binds everyone even before any government exists.
• The appeal to heaven in Chapter III and again in Chapter XIX, drawn from Jephtha in Judges 11. Notice that it is Locke's name for what people may do when there is no judge on earth.
• The property chapter (Chapter V), where labour mixed with common nature makes things one's own, and the limits of spoilage and enough and as good left for others are later loosened by the invention of money.
• Chapter VI on paternal power, where Locke insists mothers share parental authority and that it ends when the child reaches reason. This is his reply to Filmer's claim that kings inherit Adam's fatherly rule.
• The final chapter on the dissolution of government, where Locke argues that only a long train of abuses will move a patient people to resist.

Key terms and names

State of nature

The condition of people with no common earthly judge, which Locke describes in Chapter II as free and equal but governed by the law of nature. Its inconveniences, not its wickedness, lead people to form governments.

Law of nature

The moral law, known by reason, that forbids anyone to harm another in life, health, liberty, or possessions. Locke grounds it in the fact that humans are God's workmanship and belong to him.

Property

In Chapter V, what a person makes his own by mixing his labour with nature; elsewhere in the treatise Locke uses the word broadly for lives, liberties, and estates. Preserving property in this wide sense is the chief end of government.

Consent

The agreement by which free individuals join a political society and bind themselves to majority rule. Locke distinguishes express consent from tacit consent, which he finds in anyone who enjoys property under a government.

Legislative power

The supreme power in a commonwealth, according to Chapters X to XIII, but held in trust. It may not rule by arbitrary decree, take property without consent, or hand its authority to anyone else.

Prerogative

The executive's power, discussed in Chapter XIV, to act for the public good where the law is silent or even against its letter. Locke admits it is necessary and dangerous.

Sir Robert Filmer

The royalist author of Patriarcha, who argued that kings hold absolute power as heirs of Adam's fatherly dominion. Locke refutes him in the First Treatise and builds the Second as the alternative.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How does Locke describe the state of nature in Chapter II, and what law governs it?
2. Comprehension According to Chapter V, how does a person come to own something that nature gave to all in common, and what limits does Locke place on how much he may take?
3. Comprehension What are the three inconveniences of the state of nature that lead people to form political society in Chapter IX?
4. Interpretation Locke grounds natural rights in the claim that humans are God's workmanship. How much of the argument would survive if that premise were removed?
5. Interpretation Why does Locke argue in Chapter IV that no one can enslave himself by consent? How does this connect to his claim that the legislative cannot hold arbitrary power?
6. Interpretation Locke writes that the world in the beginning was like America because there was no money. What role does money play in turning the limited property of Chapter V into large and unequal estates?
7. Big Question If you never signed any agreement, in what sense have you consented to the government you live under? Is Locke's idea of tacit consent convincing?
8. Big Question When, if ever, may a people rightly resist the rulers set over them?

Faith Connections

• Judges 11:27 (Scripture)

  Jephtha, facing the Ammonites with no earthly judge between them, says the Lord the Judge be judge this day. Locke cites this verse for his appeal to heaven, making a biblical war the model for resistance where no human authority can decide.

• Genesis 1:28 (Scripture)

  God commands man to be fruitful, fill the earth, and subdue it. In Chapter V Locke reads this command as God's direction to labour, and so as the root of the property that labour creates.

• Romans 13:1-7 (Scripture)

  Paul tells the Romans that the powers that be are ordained of God and that rulers are ministers of God for good. Defenders of passive obedience in Locke's day relied on this passage, and Chapter XIX's right of resistance has to be read as an answer to it: Locke argues that a ruler who acts against the good for which power was given has ceased to act with authority.

• Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I (Great Conversation)

  Locke repeatedly cites the judicious Hooker, the Elizabethan Anglican theologian, for the natural equality of human beings and the law of reason binding them. By leaning on Hooker, Locke presents his account of natural law as continuous with the English church's own tradition.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: All people are God's workmanship and are by nature free and equal, bound only by the law of nature, which forbids harming another's life, health, liberty, or possessions. In the state of nature everyone must judge and punish for himself, which is uncertain and dangerous. People therefore consent to form a political society and entrust the power of making and enforcing laws to a government for the preservation of their property. Since that power is a trust given for a limited end, a government that acts arbitrarily or seizes property without consent betrays its trust, and the people may resist it and establish a new one.

Rhetorical device: antithesis. In Chapter II, Section 6, Locke sets liberty against licence in a single balanced sentence, and in Chapter XVIII he pairs law and tyranny so that where one ends the other begins. These sharp oppositions make his distinctions easy to remember and hard to blur.

Debate: Resolved: Enjoying the protection and property of a government is genuine consent to its authority.

Memory Work

But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence

Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm

Writing Prompts

Essay: Locke says that where there is no law there is no freedom, and also that a government may be resisted when it breaks its trust. Using Chapters II, VI, and XIX, explain how Locke understands the relation between law and liberty, and argue whether his right of resistance is consistent with his high view of law.

Comparison with Leviathan: Hobbes and Locke both begin with a state of nature and a social contract, but Hobbes's state of nature is a war of all against all ending in an absolute sovereign, while Locke's is governed by natural law and ends in limited government. Compare the two accounts of human nature before government, and argue which better explains why people should obey their rulers.

Medical Lens

The Treatise is not about medicine, but its author was a physician. Locke studied medicine at Oxford, collaborated with Thomas Sydenham on clinical observation, and in 1668 directed the surgery that drained the Earl of Shaftesbury's hydatid liver cyst and left a silver tube in place, the event that bound him to his patron. Within the text, three strands matter for medical ethics. First, the law of nature protects 'life, health, liberty, or possessions' and forbids self-destruction, since we are God's property. That premise links self-ownership to the prohibition of suicide and of self-enslavement. Second, Chapter VI's account of children, 'lunatics and ideots' and Hooker's 'madmen' as persons governed by others until or unless they reach reason is an early theory of guardianship and capacity. Third, Locke's fiduciary model of power is a precursor of the idea of professional trust.

• Ch. II, §6

  The law of nature forbids harming anyone in life, health, liberty or possessions; no one has liberty to destroy himself.

  Medical EthicsSuicide
• Ch. IV, §23

  No one can consent to absolute power over his own life, so self-enslavement is void.

  Medical Ethics
• Ch. VI, §§57–61

  Freedom tied to the age of reason; guardians must 'understand for' those without understanding; lunatics, 'ideots' and madmen remain under others' government.

  Madness PsychosisDisability DeformityNursing Caregiving

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Locke says we own our persons yet may not destroy ourselves. Use this tension to analyse a contemporary debate on assisted dying or the sale of organs.

• Fiction

  Narrate the 1668 operation on Shaftesbury's liver abscess from the point of view of the young physician-secretary John Locke, who is also drafting notes on government.

• Classroom

  Set Locke's Chapter VI on 'lunatics and ideots' beside a modern mental capacity statute and ask students what has changed in the grounds for substituted judgment.

• Dialogue

  Stage a debate between Locke and a Haudenosaunee diplomat of 1690 on whether hunting land is 'waste' and who may claim it.

Further Reading

• Two Treatises of Government (ed. Peter Laslett), John Locke

  The standard critical edition, with Laslett's dating argument.

• The Political Thought of John Locke, John Dunn

• The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, C. B. Macpherson

• John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility, John Marshall

• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke