The Sheila Variations

The Books: "Two Treatises of Government" (John Locke)

More from "Red's Bookshelf - An Excerpt a Day".

Next book in my politics/philosophy section section is Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, by John Locke.

I came to John Locke obliquely. I figured I needed to read the works of the guy who had inspired "my guys" (heh heh) ... Having read so much about the Founding Fathers, John Locke's name comes up all the time, obviously, and so I took it upon myself to read the original.

Any and all political authority is rooted in the consent of the governed. A king is not a king if the people do not consent to his leadership. It is the "governed" who have the real spiritual power.

It has never been nailed down, with any certainty, when Two Treatises was published, but they (the infamous "they" - the experts) think that it appeared in between 1679 and 1681, at a time of great crisis and conflict in England. It's fascinating to read the debates on where and why Locke nailed down his ideas. Some think (and I believe that this was pretty much understood for quite some time) that it was written as a justification for the Revolution in England. Locke sympathized with Parliament when James II was forced from the throne. The idea that there needed to be restraints on the monarchy, and restraints on the absolute power of the monarch ... runs throughout the Second Treatise in particular. People have the right to resist absolute power.

The theory that Locke wrote his treatise in defense of the Revolution was debunked by two scholars - who determined that most of the Treatise had actually been written a decade earlier than previously thought. So any "justification of Revolution" idea had to be tossed out. As far as I understand, most of this is speculation on the part of scholars, and nothing has been nailed down. I am not a Locke expert, however ... but this is what I get from the little I have read. Scholars continue to debate Locke - his ideas, his relevance - he remains a controversial figure.

Ian Shapiro wrote the introduction to my copy of this book, and he concludes with a compare and contrast between John Locke and John Stuart Mill:

One cannot help but be struck by the affinities between Locke's argument in the Letter and John Stuart Mill's argument in On Liberty, even if Mill's principle is more capacious in extending the realm of what must be tolerated beyond religion and including all types of belief -- even atheism -- within it. But there are important underlying differences. Both writers define the limits to toleration in political terms by reference to when beliefs or actions become threatening to others, not by refernce to any claim about the validity of the beliefs themselves. And, even though Locke was profoundly religious while Mill could scarcely conceal his hostility to religion in general and Christianity in particular, both saw freedom of conscience and belief as the surest path to discovery of the truth in human affairs. But at the end of the day, Mill's commitment to freedom was for its own sake -- in this he was a true child of the Enlightenment. He saw individual freedom in the greatest good. For Locke, by contrast, freedom of conscience was valuable for the more Lutheran reason that he thought it essential to spiritual salvation. In this reasoning, as in many other matters taken up in our interpretive essays, Locke is something of a hybrid figure. He makes arguments that endure as defining features of political argument in the modern West, yet he does so in ways that reflect and embody premodern concerns. Reading Locke reveals that we have more complex links to our past than we might otherwise perceive.

There's so much to choose from in the Second Treatise, but I've decided to go with the concluding passage.

EXCERPT FROM Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, by John Locke.

Here, it is like, the common question will be made, "Who shall be judge, whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust?" This, perhaps, ill-affected and factious men may spread amongst the people, when the prince only makes use of his due prerogative. To this I reply, "The people shall be judge;" for who shall be judge whether his trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in him, but he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, have still a power to discard him, when he fails in his trust? If this be reasonable in particular cases of private men, why should it be otherwise in that of the greatest moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned, and also where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the redress very difficult, dear, and dangerous?

But farther, this question ("Who shall be judge?") cannot mean that there is no judge at all: for where there is no judicature on earth, to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge. He alone, it is true, is judge of the right. But every man is judge for himself, as in all other cases, so in this, whether another hath put himself into a state of war with him, and whether he should appeal to the supreme Judge, as Jephthah did.

If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the people, in a matter where the law is silent or doubtful, and the thing be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire, in such a case, should be the body of the people: for in cases where the prince hath a trust reposed in him, an dis dispensed from the common ordinary rules of the law; there, if any men find themselves aggrieved, and think the prince cacts contrary to, or beyond that trust, who so proper to judge as the body of the people, (who, at first, lodged that trust in him) how far they meant it should extend? But if the prince, or whoever they be in the administration, decline that way of determination, the appeal then lies nowhere but to Heaven; force between either persons, who have no known superior on earth, or which permits no appeal to a judge on earth, being properly a state of war, wherein the appeal lies only to Heaven; and in that state the injured party must judge for himself, when he will think fit to make use of that appeal, and put himself upon it.

To conclude, The power that every individual gave the society, when he entered into it, can never revert to the individuals again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the community; because without this there can be no community, no commonwealth, which is contrary to the original agreement: so also when the society hath placed the legislative in any assembly of men, to continue in them and their successors, with direction and authority for providing such successors, the legislative can never revert to the people whilst that government lasts; because, having provided a legislative with power to continue for ever, they have given up their political power to the legislative, and cannot resume it. But if they have set limits to the duration of their legislative, and made this supreme power in any person, or assembly, only temporary; or else, when by the miscarriages of those in authority it is forfeited; upon the forfeiture, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts to the society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves; or erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new hands, as they think good.

Posted by sheila