Abstract
Political theory contains one particularly contestable issue. Should force have a decisive influence upon policy and in this sense become a source of authority in a state? ‘Force’ and ‘power’ are among those words most frequently used in the Second Treatise. It is therefore of interest to inquire whether Locke regards the existence of a supreme coercive power in society as necessary and, if so, whether his views in this direction form part of a theory of political obligation and of the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate government.
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Notes
Hanna Pitkin, ‘Obligation and Consent’, American Political Science Review, LIX, 1965, and LX, 1966.
A. H. Maclean has suggested (‘George Lawson and John Locke’, Cam-bridge Historical Journal, 9, 1947, 69–77) that Lawson, in his Politica sacra et civilis, London, 1660, anticipated Locke’s views on the dissolution of government. Though there are a number of resemblances (five or six, to be exact), I am more struck by the divergencies. Above all, there is nothing in Lawson to compare with the variety of topics raised in both Hobbes’s and Locke’s discussion.
Maclean’s thesis has been resuscitated by J. H. Franklin, John Locke and the Theory of Sovereignty, Cambridge, 1978.
Cf. Laslett, Introduction, pp. 71–4, and Appendix B, nos. 42–4, p. 139. Also J. Harrison and P. Laslett, The Library of John Locke, Oxford, 1971 (2nd ed.), p. 22.
James Harrington, in Oceana, London, 1656 (ed. of 1737, p. 149) speaks of ‘external and internal causes of Commotion in a Commonwealth’. In The Prerogative of Popular Government, London, 1658 (above ed., p. 244) he distinguishes between ‘natural Revolution’ (which ‘happens from within’) and ‘violent Revolution’ (which ‘happens from without’). Milton in his History of Britain, London, 1670 (Works, ed. F. A. Patterson, New York, vol. X, 1932, p. 1), speaking of the fate of nations, remarks: ‘⋯ were it the violence of barbarous inundations, or they themselves at certain revolutions of time, fatally decaying ⋯’ (For passages like these
See M. J. Lasky, ‘The Birth of a Metaphor’, Encounter, 1970, pp. 16–17. Also his Utopia and Revolution, Chicago and London, 1976, pp. 246–7.) Then there is Aristotle, Politics, Bk. V, ch. vii, sect. 14: ‘Constitutions generally may be undermined from without, as well as from within’.
As R. A. Gold win points out (‘John Locke’, History of Political Philosophy, ed. L. Strauss and J. Cropsey, Chicago, 1963, p. 461), Locke rarely uses the word ‘revolution’ throughout this discussion (though see sect. 223, lines 14–15 and sect. 225, line 1), preferring ‘rebellion’; for according to his argument, there is no right to overturn an established government, ‘only a right to resist upon the return of war’.
Sect. 226, line 4. The term ‘fence’ occurs repeatedly in the Second Treatise (e.g. sect. 93, line 16, sect. 136, line 9, and sect. 222, lines 4 and 42). ‘Hedge’ is used in sect. 57 in relation to the protective nature of the law, not unlike Hobbes’s use in Leviathan, ch. 30, p. 268. For the use of ‘fence’ in Locke’s early work see his First Tract on Government, p. 158, line 9. For the law as ‘fence’ see Henry Ireton in the Putney Debates of 1647 (Puritanism and Liberty, ed. A. S. P. Woodhouse, London, 1938, p. 26).
His comments on these topics are to be found in his Essay concerning Human Understanding, Bk. IV, chs. xviii and xix. Some of the chapter on enthusiasm (of 1700) was anticipated by Locke in his Journal for 19 and 21 February 1681/82 (An Early Draft of Locke’s Essay, ed. R. I. Aaron and J. Gibb, Oxford, 1936, pp. 119–21 and 123–5). The Locke documents in the Lovelace Collection (Bodleian Library, Oxford) show that the entry for 21 February was written in answer to a letter from ‘Philoclea’ (Lady Damaris Masham) of 16 February 1681/82, who is the person addressed as ‘you’ in the first line and elsewhere in the entry, and whose reply is dated 27 February.
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© 1981 W. von Leyden
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von Leyden, W. (1981). State Power and Civil Disobedience. In: Hobbes and Locke. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05060-4_6
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