A Second Thought on Locke’s First Treatise

Abstract

John Locke’s First Treatise of Government is not a forgotten work, though not so well known or highly prized as the celebrated Second Treatise. This general neglect of the prior tract rests partly on a failure to grasp its central theme. There is more to the First Treatise than a refutation of Sir Robert Filmer’s derivation of political authority from Adam by a straight line of inheritance. The target of Locke’s attack is really Filmer’s assumption that possession of the state is the basis of legitimate political authority. Locke disputes not only the divine-right theory of the monarchical state, but equally the assumptions of the dynastic state. Obviously, behind Filmer, Locke saw James II. Yet for a dynast such as Louis XIV, who was James’ model, the state was his own property. He had rights over the state, and responsibilities to its people, because he owned it. L’état, c’est à moi, Louis XIV might have said. The dynasts’ certainty of legitimacy came from their right of inheritance; divine-right theory was the explanation and justification of what was to them a property right in fact.

Published originally in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 17/1 (January 1956). Reprinted with permission.