John Locke Political Writings Edited, with Introduction, by David Wootton JOHN LOCKE Political Writings JOHN LOCKE Political Writings Edited and with an Introduction by DAVID WOOTTON Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis/Cambridge John Loclrc: 1612 1704 Originally published hy Penguin Bonks copyright C- 1994. Reprinted in 2(M)3 b\ Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the Unired Stares of America 22 21 20 19 IS 5 6 7 8 9 For further information, please address: f lackell Publishing Company. Inc. P.O Bov 4+937 Indianapolis, IN 462+4-0937 www.hackeitpublishing.com Cover design by Listenberger I>csign & Associates Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Locke, John, 1632 1704. Political writings/John Locke; edited and with an inlrod by David Won ran. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87220-677-7 {doth) ISBN 0-87220-676-9 (paper) I Political science—KarK works to 1800. 1 Woot ton, David, 1952- II. Title JCI55.L79 2003 320.1— tlc21 2002191253 ISBN-13: 97X-0-K7220-677-9 (< loth) ISBN-13: 97X-0-H7220-670-2 (pbk.) Contents Acknowledgements viii Preface i Introduction 7 Locke's liberalism (p. 7); Locke’s life (p. 16); Locke before Shaftesbury (p. 26); Locke and Shaftesbury (p. 36); Locke and Tyrrell (p. 49); The First Treatise of Government (p 64); The Second Treatise of Government (p. 77); Interlude: Seeds and trees, locks and ciphers <p. $9); A Letter Concerning Toleratton (p. 94), Some more equal than others? (p 110); Notes (p. 119). Suggestions for Further Reading 123 A Note on the Texts 131 1. Letter toS.H. [Henry Stubbe] (mid-September? 1659; published I9&7) 137 3. Letter to Tom (20 October 1659; published 1976) 139 3. From: ‘Question: Whether the civil magistrate may lawfully impose and determine the use of indifferent things in reference to religious worship. Answer: {First Tract on GoiYrrmtnl, »66o; published 1961) 141 4. ‘Preface to the Reader’ from the First Traci on Government (1661; published 1961) 146 5. ‘Question: Can the civil magistrate specify indifferent things to be included within the order of divine worship* and impose them upon the people? Answer: Yes' (Second Tract on Government, c. 1662; published F96i). Translated from the Latin 152 6. 'Question: Is each man’s private interest the foundation of the law of nature? Answer No’ (Essays on the Lost of Nature, No. VIII* 1664; published 1954). Translated from the Latin 177 7. Letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle (12/22 December 1665; pub­ lished 1744) 184 8. /frt Essay Concerning Toleration (1667; published 1876) 186 9. The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina <: 669; published c. 1670) 210 r CONTENTS 10. ‘Philanthropy, or The Christian Philosophers’ (1675; published >97*) 23* 11. 'Obligation of Penal Laws' (Journal, 25 February tf> 76; pub­ lished 1K20I 234 12. kLaw’ (Journal, 21 April 1678: published 1829) 23b 13. ‘Credit, Disgrace* (Journal, 12 December 1678: published 1829) 236 14. ‘J'hc Idea We Have of God’ (Journal, 1 August 1680; published 1829) 237 15. ‘Inspiration* (Journal, 3 April 1681; published 1829) 238 16. ‘Virtus* (i68r; from the < 661 Commonplace Book; published 1829) 240 17. From The First Treatise of Government (e. 1681, published 1689) 242 CHAPTER five. Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by the Subject ion of F.ve 242 chapter NINE: Of Monarchy b\ Inheritance from Adam 249 18. Two Sorts of Knowledge* (Journal, 26 June i6Si, published 1829) 259 19. Tke SeeonJ Treatise of Government {(. 1681, published 1689) 261 CHAPTER ONE: 261 chapter TWO; Of the Stale of Nature 262 chapter three: Of the State of War 269 CHAPTER four; Of Slavery 272 chapter five: Of Property 273 chapter six: Of Paternal Power 286 chapter SEVEN: Of Political or Civil Society joo chapter EIGHT: Of the Beginning of Political Societies 309 chapter nine: Of the Ends of Political Society and Government 324 CHAPTER TEN: Of the Forms of a Commonwealth 327 chapter eleven Of the Extent of the Legislative Power 328 CHAPTER twelve: Of the Legislative, F.xecutivc.and Federative Power of the Commonwealth 335 chapter thirteen: Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth 337 vt CONTENTS CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Of Prerogative 344 CHAPTER fifteen: Of Paternal* Political, and Despodcal Power Considered Together 349 ch APTER sixteen; Of Conquest 35a chapter seventeen: Of Usurpation 362 CHAPTER eighteen: Of Tyranny 363 _ chapter nineteen Of the Dissolution of Government 36$ 20. Letter to Edward Qartc (27 January/6 February 1685; pub­ lished 1927) 387 21 .A Letter Concerning Toleration, trans. William Popple (1685; published 1680) 390 22. Letter to Edward Clarke (29 January^ February t68g; pub­ lished 1927) 436 23. Preface to Ttoo Treatises of Government (written and published 1689) 438 24. ‘Labour’ (1693; from the 1661 Commonplace Book; published 1991) 440 25. ‘Venditio’ (1695; from the 1661 Commonplace Book; published 1968) 442 26. draft of a Representation Contaming a Scheme of .Methods for the Employment oj the Poor. Proposed by Mr Locke, the 26" October tfjQ? (published 1789) 446 Bibliography 462 Index 471 YU Ack no wled gemen ts The Text of the 7uw Treatises is reproduced by permission of the Master and Fellows of Christ's College. Cambridge, The texts of 'Virtus\ ‘Labour1, and ‘Venditio* are reproduced with the permis­ sion of the private collector who owns the 1661 Commonplace Booh. I would like to thank those scholars who were kind enough to show me prc-publication copies of their work while 1 was working on this book: John Dunn, Mark Goldie, Ian Harris, Alan Houston, John Marshall, Jonathan Scott, James Tullv. I am grateful to Constantin Fasolt and Julius Kirshncr for invit­ ing me to talk to their history Seminar at the University of Chicago; Stephen Holmes and Nathan Tarcov for inviting me to talk to their political science seminar there; Blair Worden for inviting me to talk to his history seminar in Oxford; and John Robertson for inviting me to give a public lecture in Oxford. Students and colleagues, first in London, Ontario, and then in Victoria, British Columbia, have lis­ tened 10 me on the subject of Locke over and over again. [ am immensely grateful to Richard Ashcraft, John Dunn, Jeffrey Friedman, Mark Goldie, Alan Houston and Paul Wood for patiently reading the Introduction in draft. I have not adopted all their suggestions, and so the faults that remain are mine alone. 1 believe I am prepared, as Locke claimed to be, ‘to resign any opinion I have, or to recede from anything I have writ, upon the first evidence of any error in it’, hut there is scope for some difference of opinion as to how this principle should be implemented in practice. Finally I warn to thank wo Locke scholars, John Dunn and Ld Hundcrt, who have made me fed at home on both sides of the Atlantic, and who supported me long before 1 began work on this book. v»n Preface Two events mark the beginning of modern Locke scholarship: Eric Stokes’s discovery, in 1944 or 1945, in the library of Christ’s College, Cambridge, of a revised text of the Too Treatises of Govern­ ment, prepared by Locke for the printer (Lasfctt in Locke 1967b, xiv); and rite purchase of the Earl of Lovelace’s collection of Locke manuscripts by the Bodleian Library in 1947 (Long 1959). The first event gave rise to Peter Laslett’s brilliant edition of the Too Treatises (i960), and to the work of a long series of Locke scholars trained in Cambridge, including John Dunn, Patrick Kelly, Philip Abrams, Richard Tuck, and James TulJy. The second led to the Clarendon Edition of Locke’s works, which is still in progress, and to the work of scholars such as Peter Nidditch, E. S. De Beer, W. von Leyden, and G. A. J Rogers. Meanwhile a series of North American scholars - John Yolton, Leo Strauss, C. B Macpherson, Richard Ashcraft, and others - have provided sharply contrasting accounts of Locke’s intellectual commitments. It is this distinguished body of modem scholarship that makes a selccriun of Locke’s political writings timely, for students and a wider public need to have ea$> access to the texts that scholars have long been debating. Where this is the first wide-ranging selection from Locke's political works, there arc by now numerous competing introductions tn Locke’s political thought: my Introduction is not intended to replace them, but to help those reading Locke for the first lime to find their way among them and, at the same time, to provide a new account of the place of religion in Locke’s political thought (an account that places particular srress on Sociniamsm), and a new account of the development of Locke’s political ideas (an account that emphasizes the importance of James Tyrrell’s Patn- areha non Monarches'). My main principle of selection has been a straightforward one. 1 simply excluded those works by Locke that were primarily polemi­ cal, and concentrated instead on those in which he was mainly concerned to express his own views. This meant excluding the 1 PREFACE greater pan of the First Tract on Government (j66o) and the three Letters Concerning Toleration he wrote after the first (1685). It also meant excluding the bulk of the First Treahse. Laslett, who insisted that the Two Treatises were a single work directed against Filmcr, acknowledged that Locke probably approved the separate publi­ cation of the Second Treatise in French translation, and he himself found remarkably little to say about the argument of the First Treatise. In my Introduction 1 defend the view rhat the two works were originally intended to serve quite different purposes, while suggesting that one section of the First Treatise may be read as an immediate prelude to the Second, and trying to explain why Locke thought the whole of the surviving fragment of the First Treatise worth publishing. The texts presented here art all based on the original manu­ scripts, except in the case of the Second Tract and the eighth of the Essays on the law of Nature, where 1 have made my own translations of the Latin originals; the letter to Robert Boyle, where there is no surviving manuscript; the Constitutions of Carolina, where I have followed the first edition; the Two Treatises, where I have fallow'cd the Christ’s College copy, corrected by Locke for the press; and the Letter Concerning Toleration, where 1 have followed the second, corrected edition of Popple’s translation. In every case 1 have modernized the spelling and, to the extent that it seemed necessary to make the text easier to read, punctuation; I apologize to scholar*, but in almost every case there is a scholarly edition to which they can mm, and their loss is outweighed by the gain of those readers who arc less accustomed to sevenreenth-century spelling and punctua­ tion, and who may be saved, for example, from the error of thinking that ‘propriety’ in Locke means something other than ‘property’. As I have worked on Locke, I have been acutely conscious of my debt to my predecessors and contemporaries. The progress of Locke scholarship since the war has been a collective accomplishment, the result of both cooperation and conflict among scholars. If there is little agreement over the interpretation of Locke, there is no doubt that the range and subtlety of arguments, and the quality and quantity of information, have advanced immeasurably. Many before me have sec out on that arduous intellectual journey that begins in the Duke Humphrey reading room of the Bodleian Library, where 2