Two Treatises of Government

132. THE majority having, as has been shewed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy: or else may put the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors; and then it is an oligarchy: or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy: if to him and his heirs, it is an hereditary monarchy: if to him only for life, but upon his death the power only of nominating a successor to return to them; an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of these the community may make compounded and mixed forms of government, as they think good. And if the legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more persons only for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again; when it is so reverted, the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they please, and so constitute a new form of government: for the form of government depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the common-wealth.

133. By common-wealth, I must be understood all along to mean, not a democracy, or any form of government, but any independent community, which the Latines signified by the word civitas, to which the word which best answers in our language, is common-wealth, and most properly expresses such a society of men, which community or city in English does not; for there may be subordinate communities in a government; and city amongst us has a quite different notion from common-wealth: and therefore, to avoid ambiguity, I crave leave to use the word common-wealth in that sense, in which I find it used by king James the first; and I take it to be its genuine signification; which if any body dislike, I consent with him to change it for a better.

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TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT BY JOHN LOCKE In the Former, The False Principles, and Foundation OF Sir ROBERT FILMER, And his Followers, ARE Detected and Overthrown. The Latter Is an ESSAY CONCERNING THE True Original, Extent, and End OF Civil Government. The Preface BOOK I: The First Treatise of Government: The False Principles and Foundations of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, are Detected and Overthrown Chapter 1: The Introduction Chapter 2: Of Paternal and Regal Power Chapter 3: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Creation Chapter 4: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Donation Chapter 5: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by the Subjection of Eve Chapter 6: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Fatherhood Chapter 7: Of Fatherhood and Property, as Fountains of Sovereignty Chapter 8: Of the Conveyance of Adam’s Sovereign Monarchial Power Chapter 9: Of Monarchy, by Inheritance from Adam Chapter 10: Of the Heir to the Monarchial Power of Adam Chapter 11: Who Heir? BOOK II: The Second Trea

John Locke Biography

John Locke was born in 1632, during the reign of Charles I, and died in 1704, two years after the accession of Queen Anne. His life covered an unusually turbulent period of English history and his fortunes were affected by the stresses of the times in which he lived. He was born at Wrington in Somerset, the son of a West Country lawyer. The Civil War broke out when young John Locke was ten years old and his father joined the Parliamentary army. John Locke spent his childhood in Somerset and at the age of fourteen was sent to Westminster School where he stayed until his election to a junior studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1652. From his Thoughts on Education, published in 1693, John Locke seems not to have been favorably impressed either by the curriculum at Westminster or with the savage discipline of the English public school of his time.

Of the Conduct of the Understanding

Of the Conduct of the Understanding by John Locke 1706 Section 01. Introduction. The last resort a man has recourse to in the conduct of himself is his understanding; for though we distinguish the faculties of the mind and give the supreme command to the will as to an agent, yet the truth is, the man which is the agent determines himself to this or that voluntary action upon some precedent knowledge or appearance of knowledge in the understanding. No man ever sets himself about anything but upon some view or other which serves him for a reason for what he does; and whatsoever faculties he employs, the understanding, with such light as it has, well or ill informed, constantly leads; and by that light, true or false, all his operative powers are directed. The will itself, how absolute and uncontrollable however it may be thought, never fails in its obedience to the dictates of the understanding. Temples have their sacred images, and we see what influence they have always had over a great

John Locke

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