Two Treatises of Government
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This foundational work of political philosophy provides the intellectual bedrock for modern democracy, individual rights, and the principle that government derives its authority from the people.
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Book Summary
John Locke's Two Treatises of Government dismantles Sir Robert Filmer's defense of absolute monarchy and divine right, arguing instead that all people are born free and equal. Locke establishes that legitimate government arises from the consent of the governed, exists to protect natural rights, and can be dissolved when it violates its trust.
Locke divides his work into two treatises. The first systematically refutes Filmer's patriarchal theory, which claims Adam's sovereignty by creation, donation, and fatherhood, exposing logical contradictions and the impossibility of identifying Adam's heir. The second treatise presents Locke's positive theory: humans exist in a state of nature governed by natural law, possessing rights to life, liberty, and property. To secure these rights, individuals consent to form civil society and establish government, which is a fiduciary trust. Locke distinguishes legislative, executive, and federative powers, arguing for their separation to prevent abuse. He defines prerogative as executive discretion for the public good, but insists government must rule by established laws and cannot tax without consent. When a government acts tyrannically—invading property, imposing arbitrary power, or corrupting elections—the people retain the right to resist and dissolve it. Locke also addresses conquest, usurpation, and tyranny, concluding that only consent can legitimize authority.
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Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
- Setup
- Escalation
Adam
Adam stands at the center of the entire debate: Filmer insists his fatherhood over all posterity is the fountainhead of every king's authority, while Locke presses the awkward question of what 'monarch in habit, not in act' could possibly mean before any children exist. The tension is sharp—a title supposedly inherited by every ruler on earth, yet resting on a begetting that hadn't yet happened at creation. Locke's relentless parsing of this figure sets the terms for the whole First Treatise, making Adam less a patriarch than a stress test for divine-right theory.
Sir Robert Filmer
Filmer is the adversary Locke takes into his hands 'with all the expectation' and reads through with attention, only to find a system compressed into two claims: all government is absolute monarchy, and no man is born free. His book, adorned with a frontispiece and applause, aims to provide chains for all mankind, yet Locke finds it useful only to those who raise dust to blind the people. As the idol of absolute-power worshippers, Filmer gives Locke both his target and his occasion—without him, the Two Treatises would have no foil.
Noah
Noah appears in Locke's argument as a test case: if Shem inherited universal lordship as eldest heir, then Noah's laborious division of territories by lot among his sons was 'labour lost.' The tension is between paternal power and private dominion—two distinct titles that Filmer jumbles together but that plainly separate at Adam's and Noah's deaths. Noah matters because his story exposes how succession and grant cannot both ground sovereignty, forcing Filmer's system to choose between two supremes that cannot agree.
Abraham
Abraham enters the argument as a scriptural precedent for how paternal authority and property rights actually operated among the patriarchs, not as Filmer imagines them. The tension lies in whether his dealings with sons and servants demonstrate absolute fatherly rule or something more contractual and limited. His presence in the First Treatise matters because Locke needs biblical history itself to show that even the patriarchs did not exercise the unbounded sovereignty Filmer attributes to them.
Jacob
Jacob's story of purchasing Esau's birthright and receiving Isaac's blessing becomes a trap for careless argument: Filmer reports it as if the blessing followed immediately on the purchase, but Scripture places a distance between them. The tension is between compact and paternal grant—if a birthright can be sold, it is not the sacred, inalienable inheritance Filmer needs it to be. Locke's close reading of Jacob matters because it shows how loosely Filmer handles the very scriptural evidence on which his whole edifice rests.
Isaac
Isaac stands in the argument as the father whose blessing Filmer claims followed directly upon Jacob's purchase of the birthright, a sequence Locke shows Scripture contradicts. The tension is whether a father's blessing is a sovereign act of will or a recognition of an already-transferable right—and what happens when the wrong son receives it. Isaac matters because his story forces the reader to see that paternal power, as practiced in Genesis, is neither absolute nor neatly inheritable, undercutting the foundation Filmer builds upon it.
Natural Rights and Liberty
Locke argues that all men are born free and equal, possessing natural rights to life, liberty, and property, which government must protect and cannot arbitrarily violate.
Consent of the Governed
Legitimate political authority derives from the consent of the people, who voluntarily unite into society and establish government through mutual agreement, not from divine right or paternal inheritance.
Limited Government and Rule of Law
Government power must be constrained by established, known laws, and the legislative and executive powers are limited to serving the public good, with no authority to act arbitrarily or despotically.
Right to Revolution
When a government violates its trust by acting against the people's liberty and property, the people have the right to resist, alter, or dissolve that government and establish a new one.
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