LOCKE'S POLITICAL THEORY>

Locke's political theory is to be found in his Two Treatises of Civil Government, particularly in the second of these. The immediate aim of that treatise is apparent: to justify the Revolution of 1688 and to help 'establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William'. But this aim is achieved by securing in turn a great and fundamental political principle, true for the English nation in 1688 and true, in Locke's opinion, for all well regulated communities everywhere and at all times, that government must be with the consent of the governed, that a ruler who has lost the confidence of his people no longer has the right to govern them.

The principle involves a particular view of government and of political community. Locke set himself to refute two theories which were used to justify privilege, oppression, and political slavery. The first was the theory of the divine right of kings as put forward by Robert Filmer, that the king is the divinely ordained father of his people, and that the relation between king and subjects is precisely the same as that between father and child. Locke ridicules the comparison. In the modern state, a large, highly complex organization, parental or patriarchal government is no longer possible, and the claim that it is divinely ordained cannot be substantiated. The second theory is to be found in its most explicit form in the works of Hobbes, although Locke does not refer to Hobbes by name, at least in the Treatise. Government, in this theory, necessarily involves the complete subjection of the governed to the absolute will of the governor, for without such subjection no civil society is possible. Locke denies this theory categorically. The facts of human experience are against it and reason is against it. A political community is possible in which the governor is limited; in which sovereignty ultimately pertains not to the monarch, as opposed to those whom he governs, but to the people as a whole. Government becomes an instrument for securing the lives, property, and well-being of the governed, and this without enslaving the governed in any way. Government is not their master; it is created by the people voluntarily and maintained by them to secure their own good. Those who, because of their superior talent, have been set to rule by the community, rule not as masters over slaves, or even as fathers over children. They are officers elected by the people to carry out certain tasks. Their powers are to be used in accordance with 'that trust which is put into their hands by their brethren'. For Locke government is a 'trust' and a political community is an organization of equals, of 'brothers', into which men enter voluntarily in order to achieve what they cannot achieve apart.

Such was the view of government which Locke adopted, and the second treatise is an effort to discover a rational justification of this view. Locke might have appealed to experience and to history, or again he might have contented himself with showing the public utility of the theory he advocated. But the late seventeenth century was rationalist and would listen to no arguments other than rationalist ones, and so Locke analysed the notion of political society in order to prove rationally that it was from the first a community of free individuals and that it remained so throughout. He spoke in the language of his day and he made use of the theories of his day. In particular, he borrowed two concepts from earlier political theories, the law of nature and the social contract.

(From John Locke by Richard I. Aaron)