John Locke: Political Writings

485 Pages·2003·82.524 MB·English

by  David Wootton

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.
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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