Second Treatise of Government

Second Treatise of Government

by

John Locke

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Themes and Colors
Nature, War, and Civil Society Theme Icon
Consent of the Governed and the Role of Government Theme Icon
Power and Absolute Monarchies Theme Icon
The Dissolution of Government Theme Icon
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Power and Absolute Monarchies Theme Icon

While it is John Locke’s First Treatise of Government that is primarily concerned with refuting the idea of patriarchalism, or the belief in the absolute power of monarchies, Locke does not ignore the monarchy in the Second Treatise of Government. Locke frequently refers to Sir Robert Filmer, a 17th-century philosopher, whose 1680 publication of Patriarcha advocates the absolute power of kings and the monarchy, and Locke vehemently rejects Filmer’s understanding of power. According to Locke, there are many different forms of power, but political power stands separate from them all. “[T]he power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave,” Locke contends. Power is the basis of nearly all Locke’s arguments, and it is central to both nature and society. Locke outlines these forms of power in the Second Treatise of Government, and in doing so, he underscores the danger of confusing political and paternal power and ultimately argues that all power, including Filmer’s understanding of the monarchy, is limited.

Locke fully outlines three forms of power—paternal, political, and “despotical”—all of which are limited in their own right. Paternal power, which comes from nature, is the power of parents over children, but Locke argues it is best understood as “parental” power rather than paternal. Under “parental” power, it is better assumed that the power over children lies with one’s father and mother. Under this form of power, “parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over [children], when they come into the world, and for some time after; but it is but a temporary one.” Children, of course, grow, and in time they will outgrow the reach of parental power. Political power, which comes from consent, and especially legislative power as previously outlined, is absolute in a political society. However, since political power is nontransferable and cannot be arbitrary or used to strip one of personal property without consent, Locke argues that it is likewise limited. “Despotical power,” according to Locke, is “an absolute, arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life, whenever he pleases.” Yet to speak of this power as absolute is not exactly right, Locke contends, as it is effectively a “forfeiture” of all reason and life, which places one in a state of war with one another.

Locke spends much time outlining his understanding of paternal power—the type of power exerted by the monarchy in Locke’s day—which he says should never be confused with legitimate political power. The law of nature assumes that all people are equal, yet this equality does not extend to children under paternal power. Children, Locke maintains, “are not born in this full state of equality, though they are born to it.” Children are not equal until after they are grown. Thus, as paternal power assumes all people aren’t equal, it should not be confused with political power, which must maintain the equality of all. Children are not considered equal under paternal power because they are ignorant and lack the ability to reason. According to Locke, “no body can be under a law, which is not promulgated to him; and this law being promulgated or made known by reason only, he that is not come to the use of his reason, cannot be said to be under this law.” The ability to reason, of course, comes with age and maturity, and since grown people have the ability to reason, paternal power should not be confused with political power. Locke maintains that confusing paternal power for political power is especially dangerous. If political power is confused for paternal power, Locke argues, “all paternal power being in the prince, the subject could naturally have none of it.” Conflating political power with paternal strips a subject of their own agency, rights, and ability to reason, and places these things in the hands of the monarchy.

Locke warns that confusing paternal and political power inevitably leads to an absolute monarchy, in which all people are beholden to a king. Paternal power applied to a civil society is counterproductive to the betterment of that society and does nothing but dismantle progress. Thus, Locke contends, an “absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil-government at all.” To Locke, an absolute monarchy is “the end of civil society,” as a monarchy reverts humankind back to a state of nature, which is not a society at all.

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Power and Absolute Monarchies Quotes in Second Treatise of Government

Below you will find the important quotes in Second Treatise of Government related to the theme of Power and Absolute Monarchies.
Preface Quotes

I imagine, I shall have neither the time, nor inclination to repeat my pains, and fill up the wanting part of my answer, by tracing Sir Robert again, through all the windings and obscurities, which are to be met with in the several branches of his wonderful system. The king, and body of the nation, have since so thoroughly confuted his Hypothesis, that I suppose no body hereafter will have either the confidence to appear against our common safety, and be again an advocate for slavery; or the weakness to be deceived with contradictions dressed up in a popular stile, and well-turned periods: for if any one will be at the pains, himself, in those parts, which are here untouched, to strip Sir Robert's discourses of the flourish of doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce his words to direct, positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare them one with another, he will quickly be satisfied, there was never so much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding English.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker), Sir Robert Filmer
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 1: Of Civil-Government Quotes

To this purpose, I think it may not be amiss, to set down what I take to be political power; that the power of a magistrate over a subject may be distinguished from that of a father over his children, a master over his servant, a husband over his wife, and a lord over his slave. All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the same man, if he be considered under these different relations, it may help us to distinguish these powers one from another, and shew the difference betwixt a ruler of a common-wealth, a father of a family, and a captain of a galley.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 7-8
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2: Of the State of Nature Quotes

But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, 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 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 omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker […].

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Related Symbols: Nature
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

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 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 […].

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Related Symbols: Nature
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

I doubt not but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side, that ill nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men. I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagined, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker), Thomas Hobbes
Related Symbols: Nature
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4: Of Slavery Quotes

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man's preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together: for a man, not having the power of his own life, cannot, by compact, or his own consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute, arbitrary power of another, to take away his life, when he pleases. No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6: Of Paternal Power Quotes

Had but this one thing been well considered, without looking any deeper into the matter, it might perhaps have kept men from running into those gross mistakes, they have made, about this power of parents; which, however it might, without any great harshness, bear the name of absolute dominion, and regal authority, when under the title of paternal power it seemed appropriated to the father, would yet have founded but oddly, and in the very name shewn the absurdity, if this supposed absolute power over children had been called parental; and thereby have discovered, that it belonged to the mother too: for it will but very ill serve the turn of those men, who contend so much for the absolute power and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it, that the mother should have any share in it; and it would have but ill supported the monarchy they contend for, when by the very name it appeared, that that fundamental authority, from whence they would derive their government of a single person only, was not placed in one, but two persons jointly. But to let this of names pass.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 30-31
Explanation and Analysis:

The law, that was to govern Adam, was the same that was to govern all his posterity, the law of reason. But his offspring having another way of entrance into the world, different from him, by a natural birth, that produced them ignorant and without the use of reason, they were not presently under that law; for no body can be under a law, which is not promulgated to him; and this law being promulgated or made known by reason only, he that is not come to the use of his reason, cannot be said to be under this law; and Adam's children, being not presently as soon as born under this law of reason, were not presently free: for law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under that law […].

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

The freedom of a man at years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to his parents, whilst yet short of that age, are so consistent, and so distinguishable, that the most blinded contenders for monarchy, by right of fatherhood, cannot miss this difference; the most obstinate cannot but allow their consistency: for were their doctrine all true, were the right heir of Adam now known, and by that title settled a monarch in his throne, invested with all the absolute unlimited power Sir Robert Filmer talks of; if he should die as soon as his heir were born, must not the child, notwithstanding he were never so free, never so much sovereign, be in subjection to his mother and nurse, to tutors and governors, till age and education brought him reason and ability to govern himself and others?

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker), Sir Robert Filmer
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7: Of Political of Civil Society Quotes

Let us therefore consider a master of a family with all these subordinate relations of wife, children, servants, and slaves, united under the domestic rule of a family; which, what resemblance soever it may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little common-wealth, yet is very far from it, both in its constitution, power and end: or if it must be thought a monarchy, and the paterfamilias the absolute monarch in it, absolute monarchy will have but a very shattered and short power, when it is plain, by what has been said before, that the master of the family has a very distinct and differently limited power, both as to time and extent, over those several persons that are in it; for excepting the slave (and the family is as much a family, and his power as paterfamilias as great, whether there be any slaves in his family or no) he has no legislative power of life and death over any of them, and none too but what a mistress of a family may have as well as he.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:

And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a common-wealth, by setting up a judge on earth, with authority to determine all the controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth; which judge is the legislative, or magistrates appointed by it. And where-ever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of nature.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:

No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it: for if any man may do what he thinks fit, and there be no appeal on earth, for redress or security against any harm he shall do; I ask, whether he be not perfectly still in the state of nature, and so can be no part or member of that civil society; unless any one will say, the state of nature and civil society are one and the same thing, which I have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to affirm.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9: Of the End of Political Society and Government Quotes

But though men, when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative, as the good of the society shall require; yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther, than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one's property, by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11: Of the Extent of Legislative Power Quotes

But in governments, where the legislative is in one lasting assembly always in being, or in one man, as in absolute monarchies, there is danger still, that they will think themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community; and so will be apt to increase their own riches and power, by taking what they think fit from the people: for a man's property is not at all secure, tho' there be good and equitable laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and dispose of it as he thinks good.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 73-74
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16: Of Conquest Quotes

That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man's right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men, who will not think, that robbers and pyrates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master; or that men are bound by promises, which unlawful force extorts from them.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17: Of Usurpation Quotes

As conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this difference, that an usurper can never have right on his side, it being no usurpation, but where one is got into the possession of what another has right to. This, so far as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the forms and rules of the government: for if the usurper extend his power beyond what of right belonged to the lawful princes, or governors of the commonwealth, it is tyranny added to usurpation.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 100-101
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19: Of the Dissolution of Government Quotes

He that will with any clearness speak of the dissolution of government, ought in the first place to distinguish between the dissolution of the society and the dissolution of the government. That which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of nature, into one politic society, is the agreement which every one has with the rest to incorporate, and act as one body, and so be one distinct common-wealth. The usual, and almost only way whereby this union is dissolved, is the inroad of foreign force making a conquest upon them: for in that case, (not being able to maintain and support themselves, as one intire and independent body) the union belonging to that body which consisted therein, must necessarily cease, and so every one return to the state he was in before, with a liberty to shift for himself, and provide for his own safety, as he thinks fit, in some other society. Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society cannot remain.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:

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 common-wealth, 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.

Related Characters: John Locke (speaker)
Page Number: 123-124
Explanation and Analysis: