Two Treatises of Government

Two Treatises of Government

By John Locke.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Preface
4. Two Treatises of Government
   1. Book I: Of Government
      1. I
      2. II: Of Paternal and Regal Power
      3. III: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Creation
      4. IV: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Donation, Gen. 1:28
      5. V: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by the Subjection of Eve
      6. VI: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Fatherhood
      7. VII: Of Fatherhood and Property Considered Together as Fountains of Sovereignty
      8. VIII: Of the Conveyance of Adam’s Sovereign Monarchical Power
      9. IX: Of Monarchy, by Inheritance from Adam
      10. X: Of the Heir to Adam’s Monarchical Power
      11. XI: Who Heir?
   2. Book II: Of Civil Government
      1. I
      2. II: Of the State of Nature
      3. III: Of the State of War
      4. IV: Of Slavery
      5. V: Of Property
      6. VI: Of Paternal Power
      7. VII: Of Political or Civil Society
      8. VIII: Of the Beginning of Political Societies
      9. IX: Of the Ends of Political Society and Government
      10. X: Of the Forms of a Commonwealth
      11. XI: Of the Extent of the Legislative Power
      12. XII: Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Commonwealth
      13. XIII: Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth
      14. XIV: Of Prerogative
      15. XV: Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power, Considered Together
      16. XVI: Of Conquest
      17. XVII: Of Usurpation
      18. XVIII: Of Tyranny
      19. XIX: Of the Dissolution of Government
5. Endnotes
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Preface

Reader,

Thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee. These, which remain, I hope are sufficient to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present king William; to make good his title in the consent of the people; which being our only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin. If these papers have that evidence, I flatter myself is to be found in them, there will be no great miss of those which are lost, and my reader may be satisfied without them. For 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 nobody 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 style and well turned periods. For if anyone 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. If he think it not worth while to examine his works all through, let him make an experiment in that part where he treats of usurpation; and let him try whether he can, with all his skill, make Sir Robert intelligible, and consistent with himself, or common sense. I should not speak so plainly of a gentleman, long since past answering, had not the pulpit, of late years, publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of the times. It is necessary those men, who, taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly showed of what authority this their patriarch is, whom they have so blindly followed; that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they have preached up for gospel, though they had no better an author than an English courtier. For I should not have writ against Sir Robert, or taken the pains to show his mistakes, inconsistencies, and want of (what he so much boasts of, and pretends wholly to build on) scripture-proofs, were there not men amongst us, who, by crying