Second Treatise on Civil Government

by Locke, John

• ISBN13: 9780915144860
• ISBN10: 0915144867
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1980-06-01
• Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Inc

Summary

The central principles of what today is broadly known as political liberalism were made current in large part by Locke's "Second Treatise of Government" (1690). The principles of individual liberty, the rule of law, government by consent of the people, and the right to private property are taken for granted as fundamental to the human condition now. Most liberal theorists writing today look back to Locke as the source of their ideas. Some maintain that religious fundamentalism, "post-modernism," and socialism are today the only remaining ideological threats to liberalism. To the extent that this is true, these ideologies are ultimately attacks on the ideas that Locke, arguably more than any other, helped to make the universal vocabulary of political discourse.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction	vii	(16)
Bibliography	xxiii
A Note on the Text	1	(1)
Title pages of the Two Treatises	2-3	(1)
1764 Editor's Note	4	(1)
Locke's Preface to the Two Treatises	5	(2)
THE SECOND TREATISE	7
Chapter I	7	(1)
II Of the State of Nature	8	(6)
III Of the State of War	14	(3)
IV Of Slavery	17	(1)
V Of Property	18	(12)
VI Of Paternal Power	30	(12)
VII Of Political or Civil Society	42	(10)
VIII Of the Beginning of Political Societies	52	(13)
IX Of the Ends of Political Society and Government	65	(3)
X Of the Forms of a Common-wealth	68	(1)
XI Of the Extent of the Legislative Power	69	(6)
XII Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Common-wealth	75	(2)
XIII Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Common-wealth	77	(6)
XIV Of Prerogative	83	(5)
XV Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power, considered together	88	(3)
XVI Of Conquest	91	(9)
XVII Of Usurpation	100	(1)
XVIII Of Tyranny	101	(6)
XIX Of the Dissolution of Government	107