Page 53 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1354 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government

The enormous scientific and intellectual advancements philosophical basis for both the American and French
made in France and England during the seventeenth Revolutions of the late eighteenth century, and was
century—the Enlightenment (or Age of Reason)—were embodied in the U.S. Constitution of 1787.The excerpt
critical in terms of man’s need to test his theories below, from Chapter VII (Of Political or Civil Society)
against knowledge empirically rooted in the natural of Locke’s Second Treatise, sets forth his basic ideas on
world. Thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Montes- the relationship between man, government, and civil
quieu, and Jefferson applied this scientific approach to society.
political and social issues, and so arose the liberal be-
Those who are united into one body, and have a
liefs in a sense of human progress and that the state
common established law and judicature to appeal to,
could be a rational instrument in bringing peace to the
with authority to decide controversies between them
whole of society.
and punish offenders, are in civil society one with
The Englishman John Locke (1632-1704), the fore- another; but those who have no such common
most of these new political thinkers, elaborated upon appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the state of
the view of Sir Francis Bacon that all knowledge is Nature, each being where there is no other, judge for
founded on and ultimately derives itself from sense. himself and executioner; which is, as I have before
While Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government showed it, the perfect state of Nature.
(1690) set forth his belief in the natural morality of . . . Wherever, therefore, any number of men so
pre-social man, he also thought it best for an individ- unite into one society as to quit every one his execu-
ual to contract into civil society by surrendering per- tive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the
sonal power to a civil government. For Locke, this was public, there and there only is a political or civil
a more efficient way of securing natural morality. society.
Moreover, Locke’s belief that ruling bodies that offend Source: Locke. J. (1690) Second treatise on civil government. Retrieved from http://lib-
natural law must be disposed was to some extent the ertyonline.hypermall.com/Locke/second/second-frame.htm

for practical morality and politics. As the Natural Law thought, a universal and absolute moral law was applied
comprised what Cicero called “right reason,” it was appli- to all political institutions and laws.
cable to (and was accessible by) all people in all places
at all times. Thus, it became key to grounding political The Modern Theory
theory in a moral theory based on a universal human of Natural Law
attribute: the human mind or, more precisely, the human Early Church Fathers, such as St. Ambrose of Milan (c.
capacity for reason. 340–397 CE), utilized Cicero’s version of Natural Law to
This conception of Natural Law soon found a role in justify the emerging Christian Roman Empire. The con-
the unique and revolutionary tripartite division of socio- cept largely disappeared, though, from philosophical—
political rules developed by the Romans. In political and and what became theological—work for much of the
legal practice, the Romans had already conceptualized Medieval Era, and was replaced by the Christian con-
two types of law: the law of nations (jus gentium), an ception of Divine Law. Natural Law would reemerge
embryonic version of international law, and the civil law after the turn of the first millennium in the work of Mas-
(jus civile), the particular laws of each sovereign empire ter Gratian (c. twelfth century), and, most importantly, in
or kingdom. Cicero’s conception of Natural Law (jus nat- the work of St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274).
urale) was incorporated into this structure, serving as a Aquinas synthesized Christian theology with rediscov-
universal, absolute moral foundation for both the law of ered antiquarian texts, including those of the Stoics and
nations and the civil law. For the first time in Western Roman jurists.The result was the explicit reintroduction