John Locke (1632-1704)

Major Written Work:  "Of Civil Government" (1690)

    Locke was opposed to the 'Divine Right of Kings' and to the absolute ste of Hobbes.  He found the origin of the state in a social contract and deduced from it the wisdom of a balanced constitution and a closely limited monarchy. 

    Before government was established, all men, living in a state of nature, possessed certain natural rights, he said.  These rights consisted principally of the rights of life, liberty, and property.  By common consent, an agreement or contract, was entered into by which a sovereign was set up with owner to govern and enforce the laws of nature.  Through this contract the people give up some of their rights to the government, but their basic general rights are in to way surrendered.

    The social contract is bilateral, or binding upon both parties.  The government, for its part, can demand the obedience of the people, but the people may also expect that the government will  keep its part of the contract by not in any abridging the natural rights of the people.  If these rights are violated, if the government rules unwisely and tyrannically, the people have a perfect right to overthrow their rulers.  In short, the people are the real rulers, the custodians of popular sovereignty, which gives them the right of revolution.

    Thus, unlike Hobbes, Locke used the social contract theory to challenge rather than to support absolutism.  For a century Locke's writings remained the great exposition of the views of the Whigs and the English constitution.  His ideas found new expression in the American and French revolutions a century later.  Locke also put forward the idea of the "Separation of Powers" which was developed by Montesquieu, who visited England in the reign of George II.

Nandy, Milon, Terms & Theories in Politics, Government International Relations and the Humanities, EurAsia-Pacific Books, 1993.