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John Locke
First published Sun Sep 2, 2001; substantive revision Sat May 5, 2007
John Locke (b. 1632, d. 1704) was a British philosopher, Oxford academic and medical researcher, whose association with
Anthony Ashley Cooper (later the First Earl of Shaftesbury) led him to become successively a government official charged with
collecting information about trade and colonies, economic writer, opposition political activist, and finally a revolutionary
whose cause ultimately triumphed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Much of Locke's work is characterized by opposition to
authoritarianism. This opposition is both on the level of the individual person and on the level of institutions such as government
and church. For the individual, Locke wants each of us to use reason to search after truth rather than simply accept the opinion
of authorities or be subject to superstition. He wants us to proportion assent to propositions to the evidence for them. On
the level of institutions it becomes important to distinguish the legitimate from the illegitimate functions of institutions
and to make the corresponding distinction for the uses of force by these institutions. The positive side of Locke's anti-authoritarianism
is that he believes that using reason to try to grasp the truth, and determining the legitimate functions of institutions
will optimize human flourishing for the individual and society both in respect to its material and spiritual welfare. This
in turn, amounts to following natural law and the fulfillment of the divine purpose for humanity. Locke's monumental An
Essay Concerning Human Understanding concerns itself with determining the limits of human understanding in respect to
God, the self, natural kinds and artifacts, as well as a variety of different kinds of ideas. It thus tells us in some detail
what one can legitimately claim to know and what one cannot. Locke also wrote a variety of important political, religious
and educational works including the Two Treatises of Government, the Letters Concerning Toleration, The
Reasonableness of Christianity and Some Thoughts Concerning Education.
John Locke (1632-1704) was one of the greatest philosophers in Europe at the end of the seventeenth century. Locke grew
up and lived through one of the most extraordinary centuries of English political and intellectual history. It was a century
in which conflicts between Crown and Parliament and the overlapping conflicts between Protestants, Anglicans and Catholics
swirled into civil war in the 1640s. With the defeat and death of Charles I, there began a great experiment in governmental
institutions including the abolishment of the monarchy, the House of Lords and the Anglican church, and the establishment
of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate in the 1650s. The collapse of the Protectorate after the death of Cromwell was followed
by the Restoration of Charles II — the return of the monarchy, the House of Lords and the Anglican Church. This period
lasted from 1660 to 1688. It was marked by continued conflicts between King and Parliament and debates over religious toleration
for Protestant dissenters and Catholics. This period ends with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which James II was driven
from England and replaced by William of Orange and his wife Mary. The final period during which Locke lived involved the consolidation
of power by William and Mary, and the beginning of William's efforts to oppose the domination of Europe by the France of Louis
XIV, which later culminated in the military victories of John Churchill — the Duke of Marlborough.
Locke was born in Wrington to Puritan parents of modest means. His father was a country lawyer who served in a cavalry
company on the Puritan side in the early stages of the English civil war. His father's commander, Alexander Popham, became
the local MP, and it was his patronage which allowed the young John Locke to gain an excellent education. In 1647 Locke went
to Westminster School in London. The importance of Westminster school in the intellectual life of the seventeenth century
can scarcely be exaggerated. Locke was a King's Scholar. The King's Scholars were a small group of special boys who had the
privilege of living in the school and who received a stipend for two or three years before standing for election for either
Christ Church, Oxford or Trinity College Cambridge. While the “major elections” were probably political, the “minor
elections” or “challenges” were among the most genuinely competitive admissions processes in English schools
of the period. Locke did not succeed in the challenge until 1650.
From Westminster school he went to Christ Church, Oxford, in the autumn of 1652 at the age of twenty. As Westminster school
was the most important English school, so Christ Church was the most important Oxford college. Education at Oxford was medieval.
Reform came, but not in Locke's time there. The three and a half years devoted to getting a B.A. was mainly given to logic
and metaphysics and the classical languages. Conversations with tutors, even between undergraduates in the Hall were in Latin.
Locke, like Hobbes before him, found the Aristotelian philosophy he was taught at Oxford of little use. There was, however,
more at Oxford than Aristotle. The new experimental philosophy had arrived. John Wilkins, Cromwell's brother in law, had become
Warden of Wadham College. The group around Wilkins was the nucleus of what was to become the English Royal Society. The Society
grew out of informal meetings and discussion groups and moved to London after the Restoration and became a formal institution
in the 1660s with charters from Charles II. The Society saw its aims in contrast with the Scholastic/Aristotelian traditions
that dominated the universities. The program was to study nature rather than books.[1] Many of Wilkins associates were people interested in pursuing medicine by observation rather than the reading of classic
texts. Bacon's interest in careful experimentation and the systematic collection of facts from which generalizations could
be made was characteristic of this group. One of Locke's friends from Westminster school, Richard Lower, introduced Locke
to medicine and the experimental philosophy being pursued by the virtuosi at Wadham.
Locke received his B.A. in February 1656. His career at Oxford, however, continued beyond his undergraduate days. In June
of 1658 Locke qualified as a Master of Arts and was elected a Senior Student of Christ Church College. The rank was equivalent
to a Fellow at any of the other colleges, but was not permanent. Locke had yet to determine what his career was to be. Locke
was elected Lecturer in Greek at Christ Church in December of 1660 and he was elected Lecturer in Rhetoric in 1663. At this
point, Locke needed to make a decision. The statutes of Christ Church laid it down that fifty five of the senior studentships
should be reserved for men in orders or reading for orders. Only five could be held by others, two in medicine, two in law
and one in moral philosophy. Thus, there was good reason for Locke to become a clergyman. Locke decided to become a doctor.
John Wilkins had left Oxford with the Restoration of Charles II. The new leader of the Oxford scientific group was Robert
Boyle. He was also Locke's scientific mentor. Boyle (with the help of his astonishing assistant Robert Hooke) built an air
pump which led to the formulation of Boyle's law and devised a barometer as a weather indicator. Boyle was, however, most
influential as a theorist. He was a mechanical philosopher who treated the world as reducible to matter in motion. Locke read
Boyle before he read Descartes. When he did read Descartes, he saw the great French philosopher as providing a viable alternative
to the sterile Aristotelianism he had been taught at Oxford. In writing An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke
adopted Descartes' ‘way of ideas’; though it is transformed so as to become an organic part of Locke's philosophy.
Still, while admiring Descartes, Locke's involvement with the Oxford scientists gave him a perspective which made him critical
of the rationalist elements in Descartes' philosophy.
In the Epistle to the Reader at the beginning of the Essay Locke remarks:
The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the
sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but every one must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham;
and in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that
strain, it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the
rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge … (pp. 9-10. All quotations are from the Nidditch edition of An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding.)
Locke knew all of these men and their work. Locke, Boyle and Newton were all founding or early members of the English Royal
Society. It is from Boyle that Locke learned about atomism (or the corpuscular hypothesis) and it is from Boyle's book The
Origin of Forms and Qualities that Locke took the language of primary and secondary qualities. Sydenham was one of the
most famous English physicians of the 17th century and Locke did medical research with him. Locke read Newton's Principia
Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis while in exile in Holland, and consulted Huygens as to the soundness of its mathematics.
Locke and Newton became friends after Locke's return from Holland in 1688. It may be that in referring to himself as an ‘under-labourer’,
Locke is not only displaying a certain literary modesty, he is contrasting the positive discoveries of these men, with his
own attempt to show the inadequacies of the Aristotelian and Scholastic and to some degree the Cartesian philosophies. There
are, however, many aspects of Locke's project to which this image of an under-labourer does not do justice. (See Jolley 1999,
pp. 15-17) While the corpuscular philosophy and Newton's discoveries clearly influenced Locke, it is the Baconian program
of producing natural histories that Locke makes reference to when he talks about the Essay in the Introduction. He
writes:
It shall suffice to my present Purpose, to consider the discerning Faculties of a Man, as they are employ'd about
the Objects, which they have to do with: and I shall imagine that I have not wholly misimploy'd my self in the Thoughts I
shall have on this Occasion, if in this Historical, Plain Method, I can give any Account of the Ways, whereby our Understanding
comes to attain those Notions of Things, and can set down any Measure of the Certainty of our Knowledge… (I. 1. 2.,
pp. 43-4 — the three numbers, are book, chapter and section numbers respectively, followed by the page number in the
Nidditch edition.)
The ‘Historical, Plain Method’ is apparently to give a genetic account of how we come by our ideas. Presumably
this will reveal the degree of certainty of the knowledge based on such ideas. Locke's own active involvement with the scientific
movement was largely through his informal studies of medicine. Dr. David Thomas was his friend and collaborator. Locke and
Thomas had a laboratory in Oxford which was very likely, in effect, a pharmacy. In 1666 Locke had a fateful meeting with Lord
Ashley as a result of his friendship with Thomas. Ashley, one of the richest men in England, came to Oxford. He proposed to
drink some medicinal waters there. He had asked Dr. Thomas to provide them. Thomas had to be out of town and asked Locke to
see that the water was delivered. Locke met Ashley and they liked one another. As a result of this encounter, Ashley invited
Locke to come to London as his personal physician. In 1667 Locke did move to London becoming not only Lord Ashley's personal
physician, but secretary, researcher, political operative and friend. Living with him Locke found himself at the very heart
of English politics in the 1670s and 1680s.
Locke's chief work while living at Lord Ashley's residence, Exeter House, in 1668 was his work as secretary of the Board
of Trade and Plantations and Secretary to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas. Lord Ashley was one of the advocates of
the view that England would prosper through trade and that colonies could play an important role in promoting trade. Ashley
persuaded Charles II to create a Board of Trade and Plantations to collect information about trade and colonies, and Locke
became its secretary. In his capacity as the secretary of the Board of Trade Locke was the collection point for information
from around the globe about trade and colonies for the English government. Among Ashley's commercial projects was an effort
to found colonies in the Carolinas. In his capacity as the secretary to the Lords Proprietors, Locke was involved in the writing
of the fundamental constitution of the Carolinas. There is some controversy about the extent of Locke's role in writing the
constitution.[2] In addition to issues about trade and colonies, Locke was involved through Shaftesbury in other controversies about
public policy. There was a monetary crisis in England involving the value of money, and the clipping of coins. Locke wrote
papers for Lord Ashley on economic matters, including the coinage crisis.
While living in London at Exeter House, Locke continued to be involved in philosophical discussions. He tells us that:
Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee, that five or six friends meeting
at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties
that rose on every side. After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which
perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that
nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to
deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our first
inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against our next
meeting, gave the first entrance into this Discourse; which having been thus begun by chance, was continued by intreaty; written
by incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at last,
in a retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now seest it. (Epistle
to the Reader, p. 7)
James Tyrrell, one of Locke's friends was at that meeting. He recalls the discussion being about the principles of morality
and revealed religion. (Cranston, 1957, pp. 140-1) Thus the Oxford scholar and medical researcher came to begin the work which
was to occupy him off and on over the next twenty years.
In 1674 after Shaftesbury had left the government, Locke went back to Oxford, where he acquired the degree Bachelor of
medicine, and a license to practice medicine, and then went to France. (Cranston, 1957. p. 160) In France Locke went from
Calais to Paris, Lyons and on to Montpellier, where he spent the next fifteen months. Much of Locke's time was spent learning
about Protestantism in France. The Edict of Nantes was in force, and so there was a degree of religious toleration in France.
Louis XIV was to revoke the edict in 1685 and French Protestants were then killed or forced into exile.
While Locke was in France, Shaftesbury's fortunes fluctuated. In 1676 Shaftesbury was imprisoned in the tower. His imprisonment
lasted for a year. In 1678, after the mysterious murder of a London judge, informers (most notably Titus Oates) started coming
forward to reveal a supposed Catholic conspiracy to assassinate the King and put his brother on the throne. This whipped up
public anti-Catholic frenzy and gave Shaftesbury a wide base of public support for excluding James, Duke of York from the
throne. Though Shaftesbury had not fabricated the conspiracy story, nor did he prompt Oates to come forward, he did exploit
the situation to the advantage of his party. In the public chaos surrounding the sensational revelations, Shaftesbury organized
an extensive party network, exercised great control over elections, and built up a large parliamentary majority. His strategy
was to secure the passage of an Exclusion bill that would prevent Charles II's Catholic brother from becoming King. Although
the Exclusion bill passed in the Commons it was rejected in the House of Lords because of the King's strong opposition to
it. As the panic over the Popish plot receded, Shaftesbury was left without a following or a cause. Shaftesbury was seized
on July 21, 1681 and again put in the tower. He was tried on trumped-up charges of treason but acquitted by a London grand
jury (filled with his supporters) in November.
At this point some of the Country Party leaders began plotting an armed insurrection which, had it come off, would have
begun with the assassination of Charles and his brother on their way back to London from the races at Newmarket. The chances
of such a rising occurring were not as good as the plotters supposed. Memories of the turmoil of the civil war were still
relatively fresh. Eventually Shaftesbury, who was moving from safe house to safe house, gave up and fled to Holland in November
1682. He died there in January 1683. Locke stayed in England until the Rye House Plot (named after the house from which the
plotters were to fire upon the King and his brother) was discovered in June of 1683. Locke left for the West country to put
his affairs in order the very week the plot was revealed to the government and by September he was in exile in Holland.
While in exile Locke finished An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and published a fifty page advanced notice
of it in French. (This was to provide the intellectual world on the continent with most of their information about the Essay
until Pierre Coste's French translation appeared.) He also wrote and published his Epistola de Tolerentia in Latin.
Recent scholarship suggests that while in Holland Locke was not only finishing An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
and nursing his health, he was closely associated with the English revolutionaries in exile. The English government was much
concerned with this group. They tried to get a number of them, including Locke, extradited to England. Locke's studentship
at Oxford was taken away from him. In the meanwhile, the English intelligence service infiltrated the rebel group in Holland
and effectively thwarted their efforts — at least for a while. While Locke was living in exile in Holland, Charles II
died on Feb. 6, 1685 and was succeeded by his brother — who became James II of England. Soon after this the rebels in
Holland sent a force of soldiers under the Duke of Monmouth to England to try to overthrow James II. Because of the excellent
work of the Stuart spies, the government knew where the force was going to land before the troops on the ships did. The revolt
was crushed, Monmouth captured and executed (Ashcraft, 1986).
Ultimately, however, the rebels were successful. James II alienated most of his supporters and William of Orange was invited
to bring a Dutch force to England. After William's army landed, James II realizing that he could not mount an effective resistance,
fled the country to exile in France. This became known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688. It is a watershed in English history.
For it marks the point at which the balance of power in the English government passed from the King to the Parliament. Locke
returned to England in 1688 on board the royal yacht, accompanying Princess Mary on her voyage to join her husband.
After his return from exile, Locke published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and The Two Treatises
of Government. In addition, Popple's translation of Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration was also published.
It is worth noting that the Two Treatises and the Letter Concerning Toleration were published anonymously.
Locke took up residence in the country at Oates in Essex, the home of Sir Francis and Lady Masham (Damaris Cudworth). Locke
had met Damaris Cudworth in 1682 and became involved intellectually and romantically with her. She was the daughter of Ralph
Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonist, and a philosopher in her own right. After Locke went into exile in Holland in 1683, she
married Sir Francis Masham. Locke and Lady Masham remained good friends and intellectual companions to the end of Locke's
life. During the remaining years of his life Locke oversaw four more editions of the Essay and engaged in controversies
over the Essay most notably in a series of published letters with Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester. In a
similar way, Locke defended the Letter Concerning Toleration against a series of attacks. He wrote The Reasonableness
of Christianity and Some Thoughts on Education during this period as well.
Nor was Locke finished with public affairs. In 1696 the Board of Trade was revived. Locke played an important part in its
revival and served as the most influential member on it until 1700. The Board of Trade was, in Peter Laslett's phrase “…
the body which administered the United States before the American revolution.” (Laslett in Yolton 1990 p. 127) The board
was, in fact, concerned with a wide range of issues, from the Irish wool trade and the suppression of piracy, to the governance
of the colonies and the treatment of the poor in England. During these last eight years of his life, Locke was asthmatic,
and he suffered so much from it that he could only bear the smoke of London during the four warmer months of the year. Locke
plainly engaged in the activities of the Board out of a strong sense of patriotic duty. After his retirement from the Board
of Trade in 1700, Locke remained in retirement at Oates until his death on Sunday 28 October 1704.
Locke is often classified as the first of the great English empiricists (ignoring the claims of Bacon and Hobbes). This
reputation rests on Locke's greatest work, the monumental An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke explains
his project in several places. Perhaps the most important of his goals is to determine the limits of human understanding.
Locke writes:
For I thought that the first Step towards satisfying the several Enquiries, the Mind of Man was apt to run into,
was, to take a Survey of our own Understandings, examine our own Powers, and see to what Things they were adapted. Till that
was done, I suspected that we began at the wrong end, and in vain sought for Satisfaction in a quiet and secure Possession
of Truths, that most concern'd us whilst we let loose our Thoughts into the vast Ocean of Being, as if all the boundless
Extent, were the natural and undoubted Possessions of our Understandings, wherein there was nothing that escaped its Decisions,
or that escaped its Comprehension. Thus Men, extending their Enquiries beyond their Capacities, and letting their Thoughts
wander into those depths where they can find no sure Footing; ‘tis no Wonder, that they raise Questions and multiply
Disputes, which never coming to any clear Resolution, are proper to only continue and increase their Doubts, and to confirm
them at last in a perfect Skepticism. Wheras were the Capacities of our Understanding well considered, the Extent of our Knowledge
once discovered, and the Horizon found, which sets the boundary between the enlightened and the dark Parts of Things; between
what is and what is not comprehensible by us, Men would perhaps with less scruple acquiesce in the avow'd Ignorance of the
one; and employ their Thoughts and Discourse, with more Advantage and Satisfaction in the other. (I.1.7., p. 47)
Some philosophers before Locke had suggested that it would be good to find the limits of the Understanding, but what Locke
does is to carry out this project in detail. In the four books of the Essay Locke considers the sources and nature
of human knowledge. Book I argues that we have no innate knowledge. (In this he resembles Berkeley and Hume, and differs from
Descartes and Leibniz.) So, at birth, the human mind is a sort of blank slate on which experience writes. In Book II Locke
claims that ideas are the materials of knowledge and all ideas come from experience. The term ‘idea,’ Locke tells
us “…stands for whatsoever is the Object of the Understanding, when a man thinks.” (Essay I, 1, 8, p. 47)
Experience is of two kinds, sensation and reflection. One of these — sensation — tells us about things and processes
in the external world. The other — reflection — tells us about the operations of our own minds. Reflection is
a sort of internal sense that makes us conscious of the mental processes we are engaged in. Some ideas we get only from sensation,
some only from reflection and some from both.
Locke has an atomic or perhaps more accurately a corpuscular theory of ideas.[3] There is, that is to say, an analogy between the way atoms or corpuscles combine into complexes to form physical objects
and the way ideas combine. Ideas are either simple or complex. We cannot create simple ideas, we can only get them from experience.
In this respect the mind is passive. Once the mind has a store of simple ideas, it can combine them into complex ideas of
a variety of kinds. In this respect the mind is active. Thus, Locke subscribes to a version of the empiricist axiom that there
is nothing in the intellect that was not previously in the senses — where the senses are broadened to include reflection.
Book III deals with the nature of language, its connections with ideas and its role in knowledge. Book IV, the culmination
of the previous reflections, explains the nature and limits of knowledge, probability, and the relation of reason and faith.
The introduction of the work was written latter than the main text, and gave people the impression that the book was written
in 1688 to justify the Glorious Revolution. We now know that the Two Treatises of Government were written during
the Exclusion crisis and were probably intended to justify the general armed rising which the Country Party leaders were planning.
It was a truly revolutionary work. Supposing that the Two Treatises may have been intended to explain and defend
the revolutionary plot against Charles II and his brother, how does it do this?
The First Treatise of Government is a polemical work aimed at refuting the patriarchal version of the Divine Right
of Kings doctrine put forth by Sir Robert Filmer. Locke singles out Filmer's contention that men are not ”naturally
free“ as the key issue, for that is the ”ground“ or premise on which Filmer erects his argument for the
claim that all ”legitimate“ government is ”absolute monarchy.“ — kings being descended from
the first man, Adam. Early in the First Treatise Locke denies that either scripture or reason supports Filmer's premise or
arguments. In what follows, Locke minutely examines key Biblical passages.
The Second Treatise of Government provides Locke's positive theory of government - he explicitly says that he
must do this ”lest men fall into the dangerous belief that all government in the world is merely the product of force
and violence.“ Locke's account involves several devices which were common in seventeenth and eighteenth century political
philosophy — natural rights theory and the social contract. Natural rights are those rights which we are supposed to
have as human beings before ever government comes into being. We might suppose, that like other animals, we have a natural
right to struggle for our survival. Locke will argue that we have a right to the means to survive. When Locke comes to explain
how government comes into being, he uses the idea that people agree that their condition in the state of nature is unsatisfactory,
and so agree to transfer some of their rights to a central government, while retaining others. This is the theory of the social
contract. There are many versions of natural rights theory and the social contract in seventeenth and eighteenth century European
political philosophy, some conservative and some radical. Locke's version belongs on the radical side of the spectrum. These
radical natural right theories influenced the ideologies of the American and French revolutions.
Here is the subject matter of the various chapters of the Second Treatise:
- Chapter 1 Book I: the definition of Political power
- Chapter II-VII: the bases of government, states of nature, war, slavery, the nature of property
- Chapters VIII-XIV: the nature of political power and legitimate civil government
- Chapter XV: recapitulates the fundamental distinctions between paternal, political and despotic power.
- Chapter XVI-XVIII: elaborates the nature of illegitimate civil government. It specifies three forms of such illegitimacy:
1. an unjust foreign conquest, 2. internal usurpation of political rule and 3. tyrannical extension of power by those who
were originally legitimately in power.
- Chapter XIX: gives the conditions under which legitimate revolution may occur.
Figuring out what the proper or legitimate role of civil government is would be a difficult task indeed if one were to
examine the vast complexity of existing civil governments. How should one proceed? One strategy is to consider what life is
like in the absence of civil government. Presumably this is a simpler state, one which may be easier to understand. Then one
might see what role civil government ought to play. This is the strategy which Locke pursues, following Hobbes and others.
So, in the first chapter of the Second Treatise Locke defines political power.
Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently
all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution
of such laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good
In the second chapter of The Second Treatise Locke describes the state in which there is no government with real
political power. This is the state of nature. It is sometimes assumed that the state of nature is a state in which there is
no government at all. This is only partially true. It is possible to have in the state of nature either no government, illegitimate
government, or legitimate government with less than full political power. (See the section on State of Nature in the entry on Locke's Political Philosophy.)
If we consider the state of nature before there was government, it is a state of political equality in which there is no
natural superior or inferior. From this equality flows the obligation to mutual love and the duties that people owe one another,
and the great maxims of justice and charity. Was there ever such a state? There has been considerable debate about this. Still,
it is plain that both Hobbes and Locke would answer this question affirmatively. Whenever people have not agreed to establish
a common political authority, they remain in the state of nature. It's like saying that people are in the state of being naturally
single until they are married. Locke clearly thinks one can find the state of nature in his time at least in the inland vacant
parts of America and in the relations between different peoples. Perhaps the historical development of states also went though
the stages of a state of nature. An alternative possibility is that the state of nature is not a real historical state, but
rather a theoretical construct, intended to help determine the proper function of government. If one rejects the historicity
of states of nature, one may still find them a useful analytical device. For Locke, it is very likely both.
According to Locke, God created man and we are, in effect, God's property. The chief end set us by our creator as a species
and as individuals is survival. A wise and omnipotent God, having made people and sent them into this 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 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.
It follows immediately that ”he has no liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession,
yet when some nobler use than its bare possession calls for it.“ (II. ii. 5) So, murder and suicide violate the divine
purpose.
If one takes survival as the end, then we may ask what are the means necessary to that end. On Locke's account, these turn
out to be life, liberty, health and property. Since the end is set by God, on Locke's view we have a right to the means to
that end. So we have rights to life, liberty, health and property. These are natural rights, that is they are rights that
we have in a state of nature before the introduction of civil government, and all people have these rights equally.
If God's purpose for me on earth is my survival and that of my species, and the means to that survival are my life, health,
liberty and property — then clearly I don't want anyone to violate my rights to these things. Equally, considering other
people, who are my natural equals, I should conclude that I should not violate their rights to life, liberty, health and property.
This is the law of nature. It is the Golden Rule, interpreted in terms of natural rights. Thus Locke writes: ”The state
of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone: 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…“
(II, 6) Locke tells us that the law of nature is revealed by reason. Locke makes the point about the law that it commands
what is best for us. If it did not, he says, the law would vanish for it would not be obeyed. It is in this sense, I think,
that Locke means that reason reveals the law. If you reflect on what is best for yourself and others, given the goal of survival
and our natural equality, you will come to this conclusion. (See the section on The Law of Nature in the entry on Locke's Political Philosophy.)
Locke does not intend his account of the state of nature as a sort of utopia. Rather it serves as an analytical device
that explains why it becomes necessary to introduce civil government and what the legitimate function of civil government
is. Thus, as Locke conceives it, there are problems with life in the state of nature. The law of nature, like civil laws can
be violated. There are no police, prosecutors or judges in the state of nature as these are all representatives of a government
with full political power. The victims, then, must enforce the law of nature in the state of nature. In addition to our other
rights in the state of nature, we have the rights to enforce the law and to judge on our own behalf. We may, Locke tells us,
help one another. We may intervene in cases where our own interests are not directly under threat to help enforce the law
of nature. Still, the person who is most likely to enforce the law under these circumstances is the person who has been wronged.
The basic principle of justice is that the punishment should be proportionate to the crime. But when the victims are judging
the seriousness of the crime, they are more likely to judge it of greater severity than might an impartial judge. As a result,
there will be regular miscarriages of justice. This is perhaps the most important problem with the state of nature.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Locke defines the states of war and slavery. The state of war is a state in which someone has a sedate
and settled intention of violating someone's right to life. Such a person puts themselves into a state of war with the person
whose life they intend to take. In such a war the person who intends to violate someone's right to life is an unjust aggressor.
This is not the normal relationship between people enjoined by the law of nature in the state of nature. Locke is distancing
himself from Hobbes who had made the state of nature and the state of war equivalent terms. For Locke, the state of nature
is ordinarily one in which we follow the Golden Rule interpreted in terms of natural rights, and thus love our fellow human
creatures. The state of war only comes about when someone proposes to violate someone else's rights. Thus, on Locke's theory
of war, there will always be an innocent victim on on side and an unjust aggressor on the other.
Slavery is the state of being in the absolute or arbitrary power of another. On Locke's definition of slavery there is
only one rather remarkable way to become a legitimate slave. In order to do so one must be an unjust aggressor defeated in
war. The just victor then has the option to either kill the aggressor or enslave them. Locke tells us that the state of slavery
is the continuation of the state of war between a lawful conqueror and a captive, in which the conqueror delays to take the
life of the captive, and instead makes use of him. This is a continued war because if conqueror and captive make some compact
for obedience on the one side and limited power on the other, the state of slavery ceases. The reason that slavery ceases
with the compact is that ”no man, can, by agreement pass over to another that which he hath not in himself, a power
over his own life.“ (II. 4, 24) Legitimate slavery is an important concept in Locke's political philosophy largely because
it tells us what the legitimate extant of despotic power is and defines and illuminates by contrast the nature of illegitimate
slavery. Illegitimate slavery is that state in which someone possesses absolute or despotic power over someone else without
just cause. Locke holds that it is this illegitimate state of slavery which absolute monarchs wish to impose upon their subjects.
It is very likely for this reason that legitimate slavery is so narrowly defined.
There have been a steady stream of articles over the last forty years arguing that given Locke's involvement with trade
and colonial government, the theory of slavery in the Second Treatise was intended to justify the institutions and
practices of Afro-American slavery. This seems quite unlikely. Had he intended to do so, Locke would have done much better
with a vastly more inclusive definition of legitimate slavery than the one he gives. It is sometimes suggested that Locke's
account of ”just war“ is so vague that it could easily be twisted to justify the institutions and practices of
Afro-American slavery. This, however, is also not the case. In the Chapter ”Of Conquest“ Locke explicitly lists
the limits of the legitimate power of conquerors. These limits on who can become a legitimate slave and what the powers of
a just conqueror are ensure that this theory of conquest and slavery would condemn the institutions and practices of Afro-American
slavery in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
”Of Property“ is one of the most famous, influential and important chapters in the Second Treatise of Government.
Indeed, some of the most controversial issues about the Second Treatise come from varying interpretations of it.
In this chapter Locke, in effect, describes the evolution of the state of nature to the point where it becomes expedient for
those in it to found a civil government. So, it is not only an account of the nature and origin of private property, but leads
up to the explanation of why civil government replaces the state of nature. (See the section on Property in the entry on Locke's Political Philosophy.)
In discussing the origin of private property Locke begins by noting that God gave the earth to all men in common. Thus
there is a question about how private property comes to be. Locke finds it a serious difficulty. He points out, however, that
we are supposed to make use of the earth ”for the best advantage of life and convenience.“ (II. 5, 25) What then
is the means to appropriate property from the common store? Locke argues that private property does not come about by universal
consent. If one had to go about and ask everyone if one could eat these berries, one would starve to death before getting
everyone's agreement. Locke holds that we have a property in our own person. And the labor of our body and the work of our
hands properly belong to us. So, when one picks up acorns or berries, they thereby belong to the person who picked them up.
There has been some controversy about what Locke means by ”labor“ Daniel Russell has recently suggested that for
Locke, labor is a goal-directed activity that converts materials that might meet our needs into resources that actually do.
(Russell 2004) This interpretation of what Locke means by ”labor“ connects nicely with his claim that we have
a natural law obligation first to preserve ourselves and then to help in the preservation and flourishing of others.
One might think that one could then acquire as much as one wished, but this is not the case. Locke introduces at least
two important qualifications on how much property can be acquired. The first qualification has to do with waste. Locke writes:
”As much as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much by his labor he may fix a property
in; whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others.“ (II. v. 31) Since originally, populations
were small and resources great, living within the bounds set by reason, there would be little quarrel or contention over property,
for a single man could make use of only a very small part of what was available.
Note that Locke has, thus far, been talking about hunting and gathering, and the kinds of limitations which reason imposes
on the kind of property that hunters and gatherers hold. In the next section he turns to agriculture and the ownership of
land and the kinds of limitations there are on that kind of property. In effect, we see the evolution of the state of nature
from a hunter/gatherer kind of society to that of a farming and agricultural society. Once again it is labor which imposes
limitations upon how much land can be enclosed. It is only as much as one can work. But there is an additional qualification.
Locke says:
Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any other
man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the as yet unprovided could use. So that, in effect, there
was never the less for others because of his inclosure for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use of,
does as good as take nothing at all. No body could consider himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took
a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left to quench his thirst: and the case of land and water, where there
is enough, is perfectly the same. (II. v. 33)
The next stage in the evolution of the state of nature involves the introduction of money. Locke remarks that:
. … before the desire of having more than one needed had altered the intrinsic value of things, which depends
only on their usefulness to the life of man; or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without
wasting or decay, should be worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn; though men had a right to appropriate by
their labor, each one of himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use; yet this could not be much, nor to the
prejudice of others, where the same plenty was left to those who would use the same industry. (II. 5. 37.)
So, before the introduction of money, there was a degree of economic equality imposed on mankind both by reason and the
barter system. And men were largely confined to the satisfaction of their needs and conveniences. Most of the necessities
of life are relatively short lived — berries, plums, venison and so forth. One could reasonably barter one's berries
for nuts which would last not weeks but perhaps a whole year. And says Locke:
…if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its color, or exchange his sheep for shells,
or wool for a sparkling pebble or diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded not the right of others, he might
heap up as much of these durable things as he pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his property not lying in the largeness
of his possessions, but the perishing of anything uselessly in it. (II. 5. 146.)
The introduction of money is necessary for the differential increase in property, with resulting economic inequality. Without
money there would be no point in going beyond the economic equality of the earlier stage. In a money economy, different degrees
of industry could give men vastly different proportions. ”This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions,
men have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and
tacitly agreeing to the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulate the rights of property, and the possession of
land is determined by positive constitutions.“ (II. 5. 50) The implication is that it is the introduction of money,
which causes inequality, which in turn causes quarrels and contentions and increased numbers of violations of the law of nature.
This leads to the decision to create a civil government. Before turning to the institution of civil government, however, we
should ask what happens to the qualifications on the acquisition of property after the advent of money? One answer proposed
by C. B. Macpherson is that the qualifications are completely set aside, and we now have a system for the unlimited acquisition
of private property. This does not seem to be correct. It seems plain, rather, that at least the non-spoilage qualification
is satisfied, because money does not spoil. The other qualifications may be rendered somewhat irrelevant by the advent of
the conventions about property adopted in civil society. This leaves open the question of whether Locke approved of these
changes. Macpherson, who takes Locke to be a spokesman for a proto-capitalist system, sees Locke as advocating the unlimited
acquisition of wealth. According to James Tully, on the other side, Locke sees the new conditions, the change in values and
the economic inequality which arise as a result of the advent of money, as the fall of man. Tully sees Locke as a persistent
and powerful critic of self-interest. This remarkable difference in interpretation has been a significant topic for debates
among scholars over the last forty years. Let us then, turn to the institution of civil government.
The institution of civil government comes about because of the difficulties in the state of nature. Rather clearly, on
Locke's view, these difficulties increase with the increase in population, the decrease in available resources, and the advent
of economic inequality which results from the introduction of money. These conditions lead to an increase in the number of
violations of the natural law. Thus, the inconvenience of having to redress such grievances on one's own behalf become much
more acute, since there are significantly more of them. These lead to the introduction of civil government.
Just as natural rights and natural law theory had a florescence in the 17th and 18th century, so did the social contract
theory. Why is Locke a social contract theorist? Is it merely that this was one prevailing way of thinking about government
at the time which Locke blindly adopted? I think the answer is that there is something about Locke's project which pushes
him strongly in the direction of the social contract. One might hold that governments were originally instituted by force,
and that no agreement was involved. Were Locke to adopt this view, he would be forced to go back on many of the things which
are at the heart of his project in the Second Treatise. Remember that The Second Treatise provides Locke's
positive theory of government, and that he explicitly says that he must do this ”lest men fall into the dangerous belief
that “all government in the world is merely the product of force and violence.” So, while Locke might admit that
some governments come about through force or violence, he would be destroying the most central and vital distinction, that
between legitimate and illegitimate civil government, if he admitted that legitimate civil government can come about in this
way. So, for Locke, legitimate civil government is instituted by the explicit consent of those governed. (See the section
on Consent, Political Obligation, and the Ends of Government in the entry on Locke's Political Philosophy.) Those who make this agreement transfer to the civil government their right
of executing the law of nature and judging their own case. These are the powers which they give to the central government,
and this is what makes the justice system of civil governments a legitimate function of such governments.
Ruth Grant has persuasively argued that the establishment of civil government is in effect a two step process. Universal
consent is necessary to form a political community. Consent to join a community once given is binding and cannot be withdrawn.
This makes political communities stable. Grant writes: “Having established that the membership in a community entails
the obligation to abide by the will of the community, the question remains: Who rules?” (Grant, 1987 p. 115) The answer
to this question is determined by majority rule. The point is that universal consent is necessary to establish a political
community, majority consent to answer the question who is to rule such a community. Universal consent and majority consent
are thus different in kind, not just in degree. Grant writes:
Locke's argument for the right of the majority is the theoretical ground for the distinction between duty to society
and duty to government, the distinction that permits an argument for resistance without anarchy. When the designated government
dissolves, men remain obligated to society acting through majority rule.
It is entirely possible for the majority to confer the rule of the community on a king and his heirs, or a group of oligarchs
or on a democratic assembly. Thus, the social contract is not inextricably linked to democracy. Still, a government of any
kind must perform the legitimate function of a civil government.
Locke is now in a position to explain the function of a legitimate civil government and distinguish it from illegitimate
civil government. The aim of such a legitimate civil government is to preserve, so far as possible, the rights to life, liberty,
health and property of its citizens, and to prosecute and punish those of its citizens who violate the rights of others others
and to pursue the public good even where this may conflict with the rights of individuals. In doing this it provides something
unavailable in the state of nature, an impartial judge to determine the severity of the crime, and to set a punishment proportionate
to the crime. This is one of the main reasons why civil society is an improvement on the state of nature. An illegitimate
civil government will fail to protect the rights to life, liberty, health and property of its subjects, and in the worst cases,
such an illegitimate government will claim to be able to violate the rights of its subjects, that is it will claim to have
despotic power over its subjects. Since Locke is arguing against the position of Sir Robert Filmer who held that patriarchal
power and political power are the same, and that in effect these amount to despotic power, Locke is at pains to distinguish
these three forms of power, and to show that they are not equivalent. Thus at the beginning of Chapter XV Of Paternal, Political
and Despotic power considered together he writes: “THOUGH I have had occasion to speak of these before, yet the great
mistakes of late about government, having as I suppose arisen from confounding these distinct powers one with another, it
may not be amiss, to consider them together.” Chapters VI and VII give Locke's account of paternal and political power
respectively. Paternal power is limited. It lasts only through the minority of children, and has other limitations. Political
power, derived as it is from the transfer of the power of individuals to enforce the law of nature, has with it the right
to kill in the interest of preserving the rights of the citizens or otherwise supporting the public good. Despotic power,
by contrast, implies the right to take the life, liberty, health and at least some of the property of any person subject to
such a power.
At the end of the Second Treatise we learn about the nature of illegitimate civil governments and the conditions under
which rebellion and regicide are legitimate and appropriate. As noted above, scholars now hold that the book was written during
the Exclusion crisis, and may have been written to justify a general insurrection and the assassination of the king of England
and his brother. The argument for legitimate revolution follows from making the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate
civil government. A legitimate civil government seeks to preserve the life, health, liberty and property of its subjects,
insofar as this is compatible with the public good. Because it does this it deserves obedience. An illegitimate civil government
seeks to systematically violate the natural rights of its subjects. It seeks to make them illegitimate slaves. Because an
illegitimate civil government does this, it puts itself in a state of nature and a state of war with its subjects. The magistrate
or king of such a state violates the law of nature and so makes himself into a dangerous beast of prey who operates on the
principle that might makes right, or that the strongest carries it. In such circumstances, rebellion is legitimate as is the
killing of such a dangerous beast of prey. Thus Locke justifies rebellion and regicide (regarded by many during this period
as the most heinous of crimes) under certain circumstances. Presumably this was the justification that was going to be offered
for the killing of the King of England and his brother had the Rye House Plot succeeded.
The issue of religious toleration was of widespread interest in Europe in the 17th century. The Reformation had split Europe
into competing religious camps, and this provoked civil wars and massive religious persecutions. The Dutch Republic, where
Locke spent time, had been founded as a secular state which would allow religious differences. This was a reaction to Catholic
persecution of Protestants. Once the Calvinist Church gained power, however, they began persecuting other sects, such as the
Remonstrants who disagreed with them. In France, religious conflict had been temporarily quieted by the edict of Nantes. But
in 1685, the year in which Locke wrote the First Letter concerning religious toleration, Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of
Nantes, and the Huguenots were being persecuted and forced to emigrate on mass. People in England were keenly aware of the
events taking place in France.
In England itself, religious conflict dominated the 17th century, contributing in important respects to the coming of the
English civil war, and the abolishing of the Anglican Church during the Protectorate. After the Restoration of Charles II,
Anglicans in parliament passed laws which repressed both Catholics and Protestant sects such as Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers
and Unitarians who did not agree with the doctrines or practices of the state Church. Of these various dissenting sects, some
were closer to the Anglicans, others more remote. One reason among others why King Charles may have found Shaftesbury useful
was that they were both concerned about religious toleration. They parted when it became clear that the King was mainly interested
in toleration for Catholics, and Shaftesbury of Protestant dissenters.
One widely discussed strategy for reducing religious conflict in England was called comprehension. The idea was to reduce
the doctrines and practices of the Anglican church to a minimum so that most, if not all, of the dissenting sects would be
included in the state church. For those which even this measure would not serve, there was to be toleration. Toleration we
may define as a lack of state persecution. Neither of these strategies made much progress during the course of the Restoration.
What were Locke's religious views and where did he fit into the debates about religious toleration? This is a quite difficult
question to answer. Religion and Christianity in particular is perhaps the most important influence on the shape of Locke's
philosophy. But what kind of Christian was Locke? Locke's family were Puritans. At Oxford, Locke avoided becoming an Anglican
priest. Still, Locke's nineteenth century biographer Fox Bourne thought that Locke was an Anglican and Locke himself claimed
to be an Anglican until he died. Others have identified him with the Latitudinarians — a movement among Anglicans to
argue for a reasonable Christianity that dissenters ought to accept. Still, there are some reasons to think that Locke was
neither an orthodox Anglican or a Latitudinarian. Locke got Isaac Newton to write Newton's most powerful anti-Trinitarian
tract. Locke arranged to have the work published anonymously in Holland though in the end Newton decided not to publish. (McLachlan,
Hugh, 1941) This strongly suggests that Locke too was by this time an Arian or unitarian. (Arius c. 250-336 asserted the primacy
of the Father over the son and thus rejected the doctrine of the trinity and was condemned as a heretic at the Council of
Nicea in 325. Newton held that the Church had gone in the wrong direction in condemning Arius.) Given that one main theme
of Locke's Letter on Toleration is that there should be a separation between Church and State, this does not seem
like the view of a man devoted to a state religion. It might appear that Locke's writing The Reasonableness of Christianity
in which he argues that the basic doctrines of Christianity are few and compatible with reason make him a Latitudinarian.
Yet Richard Ashcraft has argued that comprehension for the Anglicans meant conforming to the existing practices of the Anglican
Church; that is, the abandonment of religious dissent. Ashcraft also suggests that Latitudinarians were thus not a moderate
middle ground between contending extremes but part of one of the extremes — “the acceptable face of the persecution
of religious dissent.” (Ashcraft in Kroll, Ashcraft and Zagorin 1992 p. 155) Ashcraft holds that while the Latitudinarians
may have represented the ‘rational theology’ of the Anglican church, there was a competing dissenting ‘rational
theology’ Thus, while it is true that Locke had Latitudinarian friends, given Ashcraft's distinction between Anglican
and dissenting “rational theologies”, it is entirely possible that The Reasonableness of Christianity
is a work of dissenting “rational theology.”
Locke had been thinking, talking and writing about religious toleration since 1659. His views evolved. In the early 1660s
he very likely was an orthodox Anglican. He and Shaftesbury had instituted religious toleration in the Fundamental Constitution
of the Carolinas. He wrote the Epistola de Tolerentia in Latin in 1685 while in exile in Holland. He very likely
was seeing Protestant refugees pouring over the borders from France where Louis XIV had just revoked the Edict of Nantes.
Holland itself was a Calvinist theocracy with significant problems with religious toleration. But Locke's Letter does not
confine itself to the issues of the time. Locke gives a principled account of religious toleration, though this is mixed in
with arguments which apply only to Christians, and perhaps in some cases only to Protestants. He gives his general defense
of religious toleration while continuing the anti-Papist rhetoric of the Country party which sought to exclude James II from
the throne.
Locke's arguments for religious toleration connect nicely to his account of civil government. Locke defines life, liberty,
health and property as our civil interests. These are the proper concern of a magistrate or civil government. The magistrate
can use force and violence where this is necessary to preserve civil interests against attack. This is the central function
of the state. One's religious concerns with salvation, however, are not within the domain of civil interests, and so lie outside
of the legitimate concern of the magistrate or the civil government. In effect, Locke adds an additional right to the natural
rights of life, liberty, health and property — the right of freedom to choose one's own road to salvation. (See the
section on Toleration in the entry on Locke's Political Philosophy.)
Locke holds that the use of force by the state to get people to hold certain beliefs or engage in certain ceremonies or
practices is illegitimate. The chief means which the magistrate has at her disposal is force, but force is not an effective
means for changing or maintaining belief. Suppose then, that the magistrate uses force so as to make people profess that they
believe. Locke writes:
A sweet religion, indeed, that obliges men to dissemble, and tell lies to both God and man, for the salvation
of their souls! If the magistrate thinks to save men thus, he seems to understand little of the way of salvation; and if he
does it not in order to save them, why is he so solicitous of the articles of faith as to enact them by a law. (Mendus, 1991.
p. 41)
So, religious persecution by the state is inappropriate. Locke holds that “Whatever is lawful in the commonwealth
cannot be prohibited by the magistrate in the church.” This means that the use of bread and wine, or even the sacrificing
of a calf could not be prohibited by the magistrate.
If there are competing churches, one might ask which one should have the power? The answer is clearly that power should
go to the true church and not to the heretical church. But Locke claims, this amounts to saying nothing. For, every church
believes itself to be the true church, and there is no judge but God who can determine which of these claims is correct. Thus,
skepticism about the possibility of religious knowledge is central to Locke's argument for religious toleration.
I have provided an account of the influence of Locke's works in a supplementary document:
[Supplementary Document: Supplement on the Influence of Locke's Works]
Oxford University Press is in the process of producing a new edition of all of Locke's works. This will supersede The
Works of John Locke of which the 1823 edition is probably the most standard. The new Clarendon editions began with Peter
Nidditch's edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1975. The Oxford Clarendon editions contain much
of the material of the Lovelace collection, purchased and donated to Oxford by Paul Mellon. This treasure trove of Locke's
works and letters, which includes early drafts of the Essay and much other material, comes down from Peter King,
Locke's nephew, who inherited Locke's papers. Access to these papers has given scholars in the twentieth century a much better
view of Locke's philosophical development and provided a window into the details of his activities which is truly remarkable.
Hence the new edition of Locke's works will very likely be definitive.
In addition to the Oxford Press edition, there are a few editions of some of Locke's works which are worth noting.
- Laslett, Peter (ed.) (1960), Locke's Two Treatises of Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Richard Aschcraft (ed.) (1989), The Two Treatises of Civil Government, London: Routledge.
- Abrams, Phillip (ed.) (1967), John Locke, Two Tracts of Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gough, J.W, and Klibansky (eds.) (1968), ‘Epistola de Tolerentia’, A Letter on Toleration,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Aaron, R. and Gibb, J. (eds.) (1936), An Early Draft of Locke's Essay, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- King, Peter Lord (1991) The Life of John Locke: with extracts from his correspondence, journals, and common-place
books, Bristol, England, Thoemmes
- Fox Bourne, H.R. (1876) Life of John Locke 2 volumes, reprinted Scientia Aalen, 1969.
- Maurice Cranston, (1957) John Locke, A Biography, reprinted Oxford University Press, 1985.
- Hall, Roland, Woolhouse, Roger (1983) 80 years of Locke scholarship: a bibliographical guide, Edinburgh, University
Press.
- Aarsleff, Hans, (1982) From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the Study of Language and Intellectual History, Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota Press
- Alexander, Peter (1985) Ideas Qualities and Corpuscles, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Arneil, Barbara, (1996) John Locke and America, Oxford, Clarendon Press
- Aaron, Richard, (1937) John Locke, Oxford, Oxford University Press
- Ashcraft, Richard, (1986) Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Civil Government, Princeton, Princeton
University Press.
- Ayers, Michael (1991) Locke: Epistemology and Ontology, 2 volumes, London Routledge.
- Bennett, Jonathan, (1971) Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Brandt, Reinhard, ed. (1981) John Locke: Symposium Wolfenbuttel 1979, Berlin, de Gruyter.
- Chappell, Vere (1992) Essays on Early Modern Philosophy, John ocke — Theory of Knowledge, London, Garland
Publishing, Inc.
- Chappell, Vere (1994) The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Dunn, John (1969) The Political Thought of John Locke, Cambridge University Press.
- Fox, Christopher, (1988) Locke and the Scriblerians, Berkeley, University of California Press.
- Gibson, James, (1968) Locke's Theory of Knowledge and its Historical Relations, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press
- Grant, Ruth, (1987) John Locke's Liberalism, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
- Kroll, Peter; Ashcraft, Richard; Zagorin, Peter, (1992) Philosophy, Science and Religion in England 1640-1700,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Jolley, Nicholas, (1984) Leibniz and Locke, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Jolley, Nicholas, (1999) Locke, His Philosophical Thought, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Lott, Tommy, (1998) Subjugation and Bondage: Critical Essays on Slavery and Social Philosophy, New York, Rowman
and Littlefield Publishers Inc..
- Lowe, E.J., (1995) Locke on Human Understanding, London, Routledge Publishing Co..
- Mackie, J. L. (1976) Problems from Locke, Oxford, Clarendon Press
- Macpherson, C.B. (1962) The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Mandelbaum, Maurice, Philosophy, Science and Sense Perception: Historical and Critical Studies, Baltimore, The
John Hopkins University Press.
- Martin, C. B. and D. M. Armstrong, eds. (1968) Locke and Berkeley: A Collection of Critical Essays, New York,
Anchor Books.
- McLachlan, Hugh, (1941) Religious Opinions of Milton, Locke and Newton, Manchester, Manchester University Press.
- Mendus, Susan, (1991) Locke on Toleration in Focus, London, Routledge.
- Schouls, Peter, (1992) Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and the Enlightenment, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press
- Simmons, A. John, (1992) The Lockean Theory of Rights, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
- Tarcov, Nathan, (1984) Locke's Education for Liberty, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
- Tipton, I.C., (1977) Locke on Human Understanding: Selected Essays, Oxford, Oxford University Press
- Tully, James, (1980) A Discourse on Property, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
- Tully, James, (1993) An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press.
- Uzgalis, William, (2007) Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding — A Reader's Guide, Continuum
- Wood, Neal, (1983) The Politics of Locke's Philosophy, Berkeley, University of California Press.
- Woolhouse, R.S., (1971) Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge New York, Barnes and Noble.
- Woolhouse, R.S., (1983) Locke, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
- Woolhouse, R.S., (1988) The Empiricists, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Yaffe, Gideon, (2000) Liberty Worth the Name: Locke on Free Agency, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
- Yolton, Jean, (1990) A Locke Miscellany, Bristol, Thommes Antiquarian Books.
- Yolton, John, (1956) John Locke and the Way of Ideas Oxford, Oxford University Press, Thoemmes Press reprint
1996.
- Yolton, John (1969) John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Yolton, John (1970) John Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
- Yolton, John (1984) Perceptual Acquaintance: From Descartes to Reid Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press
- Yolton, John (1984) Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth Century Britain, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press
- Armitage, David, (2004) “John Locke, Carolina and the Two Treatises of Government,” Political Theory;
32: 602-27.
- Bernasconi, Robert, (1992)“Locke's Almost Random Talk of Man,” Perspectiven der Philosohpie 18: 293-318.
- Bolton, Martha, (S. 2004) “Locke on the semantic and epistemic role of simple ideas of sensation,” Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly; 85(3): 301-321.
- Chappell, Vere, (S. 2004) “Symposium: Locke and the Veil of Perception: Preface,” Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly; 85(3): 243-244.
- Chappell, Vere, (S. 2004) “Comments.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly; 85(3): 338-355.
- Lennon,Thomas, (S. 2004) “Through a Glass Darkly: More on Locke's Logic of Ideas,” Pacific PhilosophicalQuarterl:
85(3): 322-337.
- Newman, Lex, (S. 2004) “Locke on Sensitive Knowledge and the Veil of Perception—Four Misconceptions,”
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly; 85(3): 273-300.
- Rogers, John, (S. 2004) “Locke and the Objects of Perception,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly; 85(3):
245-254.
- Russell, Daniel, (Jan. 2004) “Locke on Land and Labor” in Philosophical Studies, 117(1-2): 303-325.
- Soles, David, (1999) “Is Locke an Imagist?” in The Locke Newsletter 30: 17-66.
- Uzgalis, William, (1988) “The Anti-Essential Locke and Natural Kinds” in The Philosophical Quarterly;
38(152) 330-339.
- Yaffe, Gideon, (S. 2004) “Locke on Ideas of Substance and the Veil of Perception,” Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly; 85(3): 252-272.
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