Second
Treatise on Civil Government
John Locke
CHAPTER. II.
Of the State
of Nature.
Sec. 4. TO understand political power right,
and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are
naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions,
and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the
bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will
of any other man. A state also of
equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having
more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the
same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature,
and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another
without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all
should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and
confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to
dominion and sovereignty.
Sec. 6. But
though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man
in that state have an uncontroulable 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; all the
servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about
his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last
during his, not one another's pleasure: and being furnished with like
faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any
such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as
if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are
for our's. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his
station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in
competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and
may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the
life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb,
or goods of another.
Chapter IV
Of Slavery.
Sec. 22. THE natural liberty of man is to be
free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or
legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.
The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that
established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any
will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according
to the trust put in it. Freedom then is not . . . a liberty for everyone to do what he lists,
to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws: but freedom of men under
government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that
society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow
my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject
to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as
freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature.
Sec. 23.
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. .
Sec. 24. This is the perfect condition of
slavery, which is nothing else, but the state of war continued, between a
lawful conqueror and a captive: for, if once compact enter between them, and
make an agreement for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the
other, the state of war and slavery ceases, as long as the compact endures:
for, as has been said, no man can, by agreement, pass over to another that
which he hath not in himself, a power over his own life.
CHAPTER V.
Of Property.
Sec. 26. God, who hath given the world to men
in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage
of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men
for the support and comfort of their being. And tho' all the fruits it
naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they
are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a
private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are
thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of
necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be
of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit, or venison,
which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant
in common, must be his, and so his, i.e. a part of him, that another can no
longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of
his life.
Sec. 27.
Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every
man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but
himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are
properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath
provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it
something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him
removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour
something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this
labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can
have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough,
and as good, left in common for others.
Chapter XI.
Of the
Extent of the Legislative Power.
Sec. 142.
These are the bounds which the trust, that is put in them by the society, and
the law of God and nature, have set to the legislative power of every
common-wealth, in all forms of government.
First, They
are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular
cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at court, and
the country man at plough.
Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed
for no other end ultimately, but the good of the people.
Chapter XIII
Of the
Subordination of the Powers of the Common-wealth.
Sec. 150. In
all cases, whilst the government subsists, the legislative is the supreme
power: for what can give laws to another, must needs be superior to him; and
since the legislative is not otherwise legislative of the society, but by the
right it has to make laws for all the parts, and for every member of the
society, prescribing rules to their actions, and giving power of execution,
where they are transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme, and all
other powers, in any members or parts of the society, derived from and
subordinate to it.
Sec. 152.
The executive power, placed anywhere but in a person that has also a share in
the legislative, is visibly subordinate and accountable to it, and may be at
pleasure changed and displaced; so that it is not the supreme executive power,
that is exempt from subordination, but the supreme executive power vested in
one, who having a share in the legislative, has no distinct superior
legislative to be subordinate and accountable to, farther than he himself shall
join and consent; so that he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think
fit, which one may certainly conclude will be but very little. Of other
ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth, we need not speak, they
being so multiplied with infinite variety, in the different customs and
constitutions of distinct commonwealths, that it is impossible to give a
particular account of them all. Only thus much, which is necessary to our
present purpose, we may take notice of concerning them, that they have no
manner of authority, any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and
commission delegated to them, and are all of them accountable to some other
power in the common-wealth.
Sec. 158. Salus populi suprema lex, is
certainly so just and fundamental a rule, that he, who sincerely follows it,
cannot dangerously err. . . Whatsoever cannot but be acknowledged to be
of advantage to the society, and people in general, upon just and lasting
measures, will always, when done, justify itself; and whenever the people shall
chuse their representatives upon just and undeniably equal measures, suitable
to the original frame of the government, it cannot be doubted to be the will
and act of the society, whoever permitted or caused them so to do.
Chapter XIX
Of the
Dissolution of Government.
Sec. 212.
Besides this over-turning from without, governments are dissolved from within,
Sec. 223. To this perhaps it will be said,
that the people being ignorant, and always discontented, to lay the foundation
of government in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to
expose it to certain ruin; and no government will be able long to subsist, if
the people may set up a new legislative, whenever they take offence at the old
one. To this I answer, Quite the contrary. People are not so easily got out of
their old forms, as some are apt to suggest. They are hardly to be prevailed
with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame they have been accustomed
to. And if there be any original defects, or adventitious ones introduced by
time, or corruption; it is not an easy thing to get them changed, even when all
the world sees there is an opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in
the people to quit their old constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which
have been seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or,
after some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought us back again to our
old legislative of king, lords and commons: and whatever provocations have made
the crown be taken from some of our princes heads, they never carried the
people so far as to place it in another line.
Sec. 224.
But it will be said, this hypothesis lays a ferment for frequent rebellion. To
which I answer,
First, No more than any other hypothesis: for
when the people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill
usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors, as much as you will, for sons
of Jupiter; let them be sacred and divine, descended, or authorized from
heaven; give them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen. The
people generally ill treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any
occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. They will
wish, and seek for the opportunity, which in the change, weakness and accidents
of human affairs, seldom delays long to offer itself. He must have lived but a
little while in the world, who has not seen examples of this in his time; and
he must have read very little, who cannot produce examples of it in all sorts
of governments in the world.
Sec. 225.
Secondly, I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement
in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and
inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be born by the
people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications
and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people,
and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going;
it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour
to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which
government was at first erected; and without which, ancient names, and specious
forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse, than the state
of nature, or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near,
but the remedy farther off and more difficult.
Sect. 229.
The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind,
that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or
that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed, when they grow
exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and
not the preservation of the properties of their people?
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