Two Treatises
of
Government
In the Former, The False Principles and Foundation of Sir
Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and
Overthrown: The Latter, Is an Essay Concerning the Original,
Extent, and End, of Civil Government
John Locke
from The Works of John Locke.
A New Edition, Corrected.
In Ten Volumes. Vol. V.
London: Printed for Thomas Tegg; W. Sharpe and Son; G. Offor; G.
and J. Robinson; J. Evans and Co.: Also R. Griffin and Co. Glasgow;
and J. Gumming, Dublin.
1823.
Prepared by Rod Hay for the McMaster University Archive of the History of EconomicThought.
Contents
The Preface ........................................................................................ 5
Essay One: The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert
Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown .......... 7
I .......................................................................................................... 7
II: Of paternal and regal Power. ......................................................... 9
III: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Creation. ............................. 14
IV: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Donation, ........................... 19
V: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by the Subjection of Eve .......... 32
VI: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Fatherhood. ........................ 36
VII: Of Fatherhood and Property considered together as Fountains of
Sovereignty ................................................................................ 50
VIII: Of the Conveyance of Adam’s sovereigns monarchical Power 54
IX: Of Monarchy by Inheritance from Adam .................................. 56
X: Of the Heir to Adam’s Monarchical Power. ................................ 67
XI: Who Heir? ................................................................................. 69
Notes .............................................................................................. 104
Essay Two: Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil
Government ............................................................................. 105
I: Of Political Power ...................................................................... 105
II: Of the State of Nature ............................................................... 106
III: Of the State of War ................................................................... 112
IV: Of Slavery ................................................................................. 114
V: Of Property ................................................................................. 115
VI: Of Paternal Power ................................................................... 126
VII: Of Political or Civil Society ................................................... 138
VIII: Of the Beginning of Political Societies .................................. 146
IX: Of the Ends of Political Society and Government .................... 159
X: Of the Forms of a Commonwealth ............................................ 161
XI: Of the Extent of the Legislative Power .................................... 162
XII: The Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Commonwealth ............................................................................... 167
XIII: Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth .. 169
XIV: Of Prerogative ....................................................................... 175
XV: Of Paternal, Political and Despotical Power, Considered Together ....................................................................................... 179
Chapter XVI : Of Conquest ........................................................... 182
Chapter XVII: Of Usurpation ........................................................ 191
Chapter XVIII: Of Tyranny ........................................................... 192
Chapter XIX: Of the Dissolution of Government .......................... 197
Notes .............................................................................................. 214
The Preface
Reader.
Thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have
filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while
to tell thee. These which remain I hope are sufficient to establish the
throne of our great restorer, our present king William; to make good his
title in else consent of the people; which being the only one of all lawful
governments, he has more fully and clearly than any prince in
Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose
love of their just and natural rights? with their resolution to preserve
them, saved the nation when it war on the very brink of slavery and ruin.
If these papers have that evidence I flatter myself is to be found in them,
there will be no great miss of those which are lost, and my reader may
be satisfied without them. For I imagine I shall have neither the time nor
inclination to repeat my pains, and fill up the wanting part of my answer, by tracing sir Robert again through all the windings and obscurities which are to be met with in the several branches of his wonderful
system. The king, and body of the nation, have since so thoroughly
confuted his hypothesis, that I suppose nobody hereafter will have either the confidence to appear against our common safety, and be again
an advocate for slavery; or the weakness to be deceived with contradictions dressed up in a popular style and well turned periods. For if any
one will be at the pains himself, in those parts which are here untouched,
to strip sir Robert’s discourses of the flourish of doubtful expressions,
and endeavour to reduce his words to direct, positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare them one with another, he will quickly be
satisfied there was never so much glib nonsense put together in well
6/John Locke
sounding English. If he think it not worth while to examine his works all
through, let him make an experiment in that part where he treats of
usurpation; and let him try whether he can, with all his skill, make sir
Robert intelligible and consistent with himself, or common sense. I should
not speak so plainly of a gentleman, long since past answering, had not
the pulpit, of late years, publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the
current divinity of the times. It is necessary those men who, taking on
them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others, should be openly
showed of what authority this their patriarch is, whom they have so
blindly followed; that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds
they have vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they have preached up for Gospel, though they had no
better an author than an English courtier. For I should not have writ
against sir Robert, or taken the pains to show his mistakes, inconsistencies, and avant of (what he so much boasts of, and pretends wholly to
build on) Scripture-proofs, were there not men amongst us who, by
crying up his books, and espousing his doctrine, save me from the reproach of writing against a dead adversary. They have been so zealous
in this point, that if I have done him any wrong, I cannot hope they
should spare me. I wish, where they have done the truth and the public
wrong, they would be as ready to redress it, and allow its just weight to
this reflection, viz., that there cannot be done a greater mischief to prince
and people, than the propagating wrong notions concerning government;
that so at last all times might not have reason to complain of the “drum
ecclesiastic.” If any one really concerned for truth undertake the confutation of my hypothesis, I promise him either to recant my mistake,
upon fair conviction, or to answer his difficulties. But he must remember two things.
First, That cavilling here and there at some expression or little incident of my discourse, is not an answer to my book.
Secondly, That I shall not take railing for arguments, nor think either of these worth my notice: though I shall always look on myself as
bound to give satisfaction to any one who shall appear to be conscientiously scrupulous in the point, and shall show any just grounds for his
scruples.
I have nothing more but to advertise the reader, that A. stands for
our author, O. for his Observations on Hobbes, Milton, &c. And that a
bare quotation of pages always means pages of his Patriarcha, edit.
1680.
The False Principles and Foundation of Sir
Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected
and Overthrown
Chapter I
§1. Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so directly
opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that it is
hardly to be conceived that an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should
plead for it. And truly I should have taken sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha,
as any other treatise, which would persuade all mere that they are slaves,
and ought to be so, for such another exercise of wit as was his who writ
the encomium of Nero; rather than for a serious discourse, meant in
earnest: had not the gravity of the title and epistle, the picture in the
front of the book, and the applause that followed it, required me to
believe that the author and publisher were both in earnest. I therefore
took it into my hands with all the expectation, and read it through with
all the attention due to a treatise that made such a noise at its coming
abroad; and cannot but confess myself mightily surprised that in a book,
which was to provide chains for all mankind, I should find nothing but
a rope of sand; useful perhaps to such whose skill and business it is to
wise a dust, and would blind the people, the better to mislead them; but
in truth not of any force to draw those into bondage who have their eyes
open, and so much sense about them, as to consider that chains are but
an ill wearing, how much care soever hath been taken to file and polish
them.
§2. If any one think I take too much liberty in speaking so freely of
a man who is the great champion of absolute power, and the idol of
those who worship it; I beseech him to make this small allowance for
once, to one who, even after the reading of sir Robert’s book, cannot but
think himself; as the laws allow him a free man: and I know no fault it is
to do so, unless any one, better skilled in the fate of it than I, should have
it revealed to him that this treatise, which has lain dormant so long, was,
8/John Locke
plan it appeared in the world, to carry, by strength of its arguments, all
liberty out or it; and that, from thenceforth, our author’s short model
was to be the pattern in the mount, and the perfect standard of politics
for the future. His system lies in a little compass; it is no more but this,
“That all government is absolute monarchy.”
And the ground he builds on is this.
“That no man is born free.”
§3. In this last age a generation of men has sprung up amongst us,
that would flatter princes with an opinion, that they have a divine right
to absolute power, let the laws by which they are constituted and are to
govern, and the conditions under which they enter upon their authority,
be what they will; and their engagements to observe them ever so well
ratified by solemn oaths and promises. To make way for this doctrine,
they have denied mankind a right to natural freedom; whereby they have
not only, as much as in them lies, exposed all subjects to the utmost
misery of tyranny and oppression, but have also unsettled the titles and
shaken the thrones of princes: (for they too, by these men’s system,
except only one, are all born slaves, and by divine right are subjects to
Adam’s right heir); as if they had designed to make war upon all government, and subvert the very foundations of human society, to serve
their present turn.
§4. However we must believe them upon their own bare words,
when they tell us, “We are all born slaves, and we must continue so;”
there is no remedy for it; life and thraldom we entered into together, and
can never be quit of the one till we part with the other. Scripture or
reason, I am sure, do not any where say so, notwithstanding the noise of
divine right, as if divine authority hath subjected us to the unlimited will
of another. An admirable state of mankind, and that which they have not
lead wit enough to find out till this latter age! For however sir Robert
Filmier seems to condemn the novelty of the contrary opinion, Patr. p.
3, yet I believe it will be hard for him to find any other age, or country of
the world, but this, which has asserted monarchy to be jure divine. And
he confesses, Patr. p. 4, that “Heyward, Blackwood, Barclay, and others, that have bravely vindicated the right of kings in most points, never
thought of this; but, with one consent, admitted the natural liberty and
equality of mankind.”
§5. By whom this doctrine came at first to be broached, and brought
in fashion amongst us, and what sad elects it gave rise to, I leave to
historians to relate, or to the memory of those who were contemporaries
Two Treatises of Government/9
with Sibthorp and Manwaring to recollect. My business at present is
only to consider what sir Robert Filmer, who is allowed to have carried
this argument farthest, and is supposed to have brought it to perfection,
has said in it: for from him every one, who would be as fashionable as
French was at court, has learned and runs away with this short system
of politics, viz., “Men are not born free, and therefore could never have
the liberty to choose either governors, or forms of government.” Princes
have their power absolute, and by divine right; for slaves could never
have a right to compact or consent. Adam was an absolute monarch,
and so are all princes ever since.
Chapter II
Of paternal and regal Power.
§6. Sir Robert Filmer’s great position is, that “men are not naturally
free.” This is the foundation on which his absolute monarchy stands,
and from which it erects itself to an height, that its power is above every
power: caput inter nubilia, so high above all earthly and human things,
that thought can scarce reach it; that promises and oaths, which tie the
infinite Deity, cannot confine it. But if this foundation fails, all his fabric falls with it, and governments must be left again to the old way of
being made by contrivance and the consent of men (/Anqrwp nh ct sij)
making use of their reason to unite together into society. To prove this
grand position of his, he tells us, p. 12, “Men are born in subjection to
their parents,” and therefore cannot be free. And this authority of parents he calls “royal authority,” p. 12,14, “fatherly authority, right of
fatherhood,” p. 12, 20. One would have thought he would, in the beginning of such a work as this, on which was to depend the authority of
princes, and the obedience of subjects, have told us expressly what that
fatherly authority is, have definer it, though not limited it, because in
some other treatises of his he tells us, it is unlimited, and unlimitable;1
he should at least have given us such an account of it, that we might
have had an entire notion of this fatherhood, or fatherly authority, whenever it came in our way, in his writings: this I expected to have found in
the first chapter of his Patriarchal But instead thereof, having, 1. En
passant, made his obeisance to the arcana imperii, p. 5; 2. Made his
compliment to the “rights and liberties of this or any other nation,” p. 6,
which he is going presently to null and destroy; and 3. Made his leg to
those learned men who did not see so far into the matter as himself; p. 7:
he comes to fall on Bellarmine, p. 8, and by a victory over him estab-
10/John Locke
lishes his fatherly authority beyond any question. Bellarmine being routed
by his own confession, p. 11, the day is clear got, and there is no more
need of any forces: for having done that, I observe not that he states the
question, or rallies up any arguments to make good his opinion, but
rather tells us the story as he thinks fit of this strange kind of domineering phantom called the fatherhood, which whoever could catch presently got empire, and unlimited absolute power. He acquaints us how
this fatherhood liege in Adam, continued its course, and kept the world
in order all the time of the patriarchs till the flood; got out of the ark
with Noah and his sons, made and supported all the kings of the earth
till the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt; and then the poor fatherhood
was under hatches, till “God, by giving the Israelites kings, re-established the ancient and prime right of the lineal succession in paternal
government.” This is his business from p. 12 to 19. And then, obviating
au objection, and clearing a difficulty or two with one-half reason, p.
23, “to confirm the natural right of regal power,” he ends the first chapter. I hope it is no injury to call an half quotation an half reason; for God
says, “Honour thy father and mother;” but our author contents himself
with half, leaves out “thy mother” quite, as little serviceable to his purpose. But of that more in another place.
§7. I do not think our author so little skilled in the way of writing
discourses of this nature, nor so careless of the point in hand, that he by
oversight commits the fault that he himself, in his “anarchy of a mixed
monarchy,” p. 239, objects to Mr. Hunton in these words: “Where first
I charge the A. that he hath not given us any definition or description of
monarchy in general; for by the rules of method he should have first
defined.” And by the like rule of method, sir Robert should have told us
what his fatherhood, or fatherly authority is, before he had told us in
whom it w as to be found, and talked so much of it. But, perhaps, sir
Robert found, that this fatherly authority, this power of fathers, and of
kings, for he makes them both the same, p. 24, would make a very odd
and frightful figure, and very disagreeing with what either children imagine of their parents, or subjects of their kings, if he should have given us
the whole draught together, in that gigantic form he had painted it in his
own fancy; and therefore, like a wary physician, when he would have
his patient swallow some harsh or corrosive liquor, he mingles it with a
large quantity of that which may dilute it, that the scattered parts may
go down with less feeling, and cause less aversion.
§8. Let us then endeavour to find what account he gives us of this
Two Treatises of Government/11
fatherly authority, as it lies scattered in the several parts of his writings.
And first, as it was vested in Adam, he says, “Not only Adam, but the
succeeding patriarchs, had, by right of fatherhood, royal authority over
their children, p. 12. This lordship, which Adam by command had over
the wholes world, and by right descending from him the patriarchs did
enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolute dominion of any monarch
which hath been since the creation, p. 15. Dominion of life and death,
making war, and concluding peace, p. 13. Adam and the patriarchs had
absolute power of life and death, p. 35. Kings, in the right of parents,
succeed to the exercise of supreme jurisdiction, p. 19. As kingly power
is by the law of God, so it hath no inferior law to limit it; Adam was lord
of all, p. 40. The father of a family governs by no other law than by his
own will, p. 78. The superiority of princes is above laws, p. 79. The
unlimited jurisdiction of kings is so amply described by Samuel, p. 80.
Kings are above the laws,” p. 93. And to this purpose see a great deal
more, which our A. delivers in Bodin’s words: “It is certain, that all
laws, privileges, and grants of princes, have no force but during their
life, if they be not ratified by the express consent, or by sufferance of the
prince following, especially privileges, O. p. 279. The reason why laws
have been also made by kings, was this: when kings were either busied
with wars, or distracted with public cares, so that every private man
could not have access to their persons, to learn their wills and pleasure,
then were laws of necessity invented, that so every particular subject
might find his prince’s pleasure deciphered unto him in the tables of his
laws, p. 92. In a monarchy, the lying must by necessity be above the
laws, p. 100. A perfect kingdom is that, wherein the king rules all things,
according to his own will, p. 100. Neither common nor statute laws are,
or can be, any diminution of that general power, which kings have over
their peon pie, by right of fatherhood, p. 115. Adam was the father,
king, and lord over his family; a son, a subject, and a servant or slave,
were one and the same thing at first. The father had power to dispose or
sell his children or servants; whence we find, that, in the first reckoning
up of goods in Scripture, the man-servant and the maid-servant are numbered among the possessions and substance of the owner, as other goods
were, O. pref. God also hath given to the father a right or liberty to alien
his power over his children to any other; whence we find the sale and
gift of children to have been much in use in the beginning of the world,
when men had their servants for a possession and an inheritance, as well
as other goods; whereupon we find the power of castrating and making
12/John Locke
eunuchs much in use in old times, O. p. 155. Law is nothing else but the
will of him that hath the power of the supreme father, O. p. 223. It was
God’s ordinance that the supremacy should be unlimited in Adam, and
as large as all the acts of his will; and as in him, so in all others that have
supreme power,” O. p. 245.
§9. I have been fain to trouble my reader with these several quotations in our A.’s own words, that in them might be seen his own description of his fatherly authority, as it lies scattered up and down in his
writings, which he supposes was first vested in Adam, and by right
belongs to all princes ever since. This fatherly authority there, or right
of fatherhood, in our A.’s sense, is a divine unalterable right of sovereignty, whereby a father or a prince hath an absolute, arbitrary, unlimited, and unlimitable power over the lives, liberties, and estates of his
children and subjects; so that he may take or alienate their estates, sell,
castrate, or use their persons as he pleases, they being all his slaves, and
he lord or proprietor of every thing, and his unbounded will their law.
§10. Our A. having placed such a mighty power in Adam, and upon
that supposition founded all government and all power of princes, it is
reasonable to expect that he should have proved this with arguments
clear and evident, suitable to the weightiness of the cause. That since
men had nothing else left them, they might in slavery have such undeniable proofs of its necessity, that their consciences might be convinced,
and oblige them to submit peaceably to that absolute dominion, which
their governors had a right to exercise over them. Without this, what
good could our A. do, or pretend to do, by erecting such an unlimited
power, but flatter the natural vanity and ambition of men, too apt of
itself to grow and increase with the possession of any power? And by
persuading those, who, by the consent of their fellow-men, are advanced
to great but limited degrees of it, that by that part which is given them,
they have a right to all that was not so; and therefore may do what they
please, because they have authority to do more than others, and so tempt
them to do what is neither for their own, nor the good of those under
their care; whereby great mischief cannot but follow.
§11. The sovereignty of Adam being that on which, as a sure basis,
our A. builds his mighty absolute monarchy, I expected, that, in his
Patriarcha, this his main supposition would have been proved and established with all that evidence of arguments that such a fundamental
tenet required; and that this, which the great stress of the business depends, would have been made out, with reasons sufficient to justify the
Two Treatises of Government/13
confidence with which it was assumed. But, In all that treatise, I could
find very little tending that way; the thing is there so taken for granted,
without proof, that I could scarce believe myself, when, upon attentive
reading that treatise, I found there so mighty a structure raised upon the
bare supposition of this foundation. For it is scarce credible, that in a
discourse, where he pretends to confute the erroneous principle of man’s
natural freedom, he should do it by a bare supposition of Adam’s authority, without offering any proof for that authority. Indeed, he confidently says, that Adam had “royal authority, p. 12 and 13. Absolute
lordship and dominion of life and death, p. 13. An universal monarchy,
p. 83. Absolute power of life and death,” p. 35. He is very frequent in
such assertions; but, what is strange, in all his whole Patriarcha, I find
not one presence of a reason to establish this his great foundation of
government; not any thing that looks like an argument, but these words:
“To confirm this natural right of regal power, we find in the decalogue,
that the law which enjoins obedience to kings, is delivered ill the terms,
Honour thy father; as if all power were originally in the father.” And
why may I not add as well, that in the decalogue the law that enjoins
obedience to queens, is delivered in the terms of “Honour thy mother,”
as if all power were originally in the mother? The argument, as sir Robert puts it, will hold as well for one as the other; but of this more in its
due place.
§12. All that I take notice of here is, that this is all our A. says, in
this first, or any of the following chapters, to prove the absolute power
of Adam, which is his great principle: and yet, as if he had there settled
it upon sure demonstration, he begins his second chapter with these
words, “By conferring these proofs and reasons, drawn from the authority of the Scripture.” Where those proofs and reasons for Adam’s
sovereignty are, bating that of Honour thy father, above-mentioned, I
confess, I cannot find; unless what he says, p. 11, “In these words we
have an evident confession,” viz., of Bellarmine, “that creation made
man prince of his posterity,” must be taken for proofs and reasons drawn
from Scripture, or for any sort of proof at all: though from thence, by a
new way of inference, in the words immediately following, he concludes
the royal authority of Adam sufficiently settled in him.
§13. If he has in that chapter, or any where in the whole treatise,
given any other proofs of Adam’s royal authority, other than by often
repeating it, which, among some men, goes for argument, I desire any
body for him to show me the place and page, that I may be convinced of
14/John Locke
my mistake, and acknowledge my oversight. If no such arguments are to
be found, I beseech those men, who have so much cried up this book, to
consider, whether they do not give the world cause to suspect that it is
not the force of reason and argument that makes them for absolute monarchy, but some other by interest, and therefore are resolved to applaud
any author that writes in favour of this doctrine, whether he support it
with reason or no. But I hope they do not expect, that rational and indifferent men should be brought over to their opinion, because this their
great doctor of it, In a discourse made on purpose to set up the absolute
monarchical power of Adam, in opposition to the natural freedom of
mankind, has said so little to prove it, from whence it is rather naturally
to be concluded, that there is little to be said.
§14. But that I might omit no care to inform myself in our author’s
full sense, I consulted his Observations on Aristotle, Hobbes, &c. to see
whether in disputing with others he made use of any arguments for this
his darling tenet of Adam’s sovereignty; since in his treatise of the Natural Power of Kings, he hath been so sparing of them. In his Observations on Mr. Hobbes’s Leviathan, I think he has put, in short, all those
arguments for it together, which in his writings I find him any where to
make use of: his words are these: “If God created only Adam, and of a
piece of him made the woman, and if by generation from them two, as
parts of them, all mankind be propagated: if also God gave to Adam not
only the dominion over the woman and the children that should issue
from them, but also over all the earth to subdue it, and over all the
creatures on it, so that, as long as Adam lived, no man could claim or
enjoy any thing but by donation, assignation, or permission from him, I
wonder,” &c. Obs. 165. Here we have the sum of all his arguments, for
Adam’s sovereignty, and against natural freedom, which I find up and
down In his other treatises: and they are these following; “God s creation of Adam, the dominion he gave him over Eve, an the dominion he
had as father over his children; all which I shall particularly consider.
Chapter III
Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Creation.
§15. Sir Robert, in his preface to his Observations on Aristotle’s Politics, tells us, “A natural freedom of mankind cannot be supposed, without the denial of the creation of Adam:” but how Adam’s being created,
which was nothing but his receiving a being, immediately from
Omnipotency, and the hand of God, gave Adam a sovereignty over any
Two Treatises of Government/15
thing, I cannot see; nor consequently understand, how a supposition of
natural freedom is a denial of Adam’s creation; and would be glad any
body else (since our A. did not vouchsafe us the favour) would make it
out for him. For I find no difficulty to suppose the freedom of mankind,
though I have always believed the creation of Adam. He was created, or
began to exist, by God’s immediate power, without the intervention of
parents, or the pre-existence of any of the same species to beget him,
when it pleased God he should; and so did the lion, the king of beasts,
before him, by the same creating power of God: and if bare existence by
that power, and in that way, will give dominion, without any more ado,
our A. by this argument, will make the hon have as good a title to it as
he, and certainly the ancienter. No; for Adam had his title “by the appointment of God,” says our A. in another place. Then bare creation
gave him not dominion, and one might have supposed mankind free,
without the denying the creation of Adam, since it was God’s appointment made him monarch.
§16. But let us see how he puts his creation and this appointment
together. “By the appointment of God, says sir Robert, as soon as Adam
was created, he was monarch of the world, though he had no subjects;
for though there could not be actual government till there were subjects,
yet by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his
posterity: though not in act, yet at least in habit, Adam was a king from
his creation.” I wish he had told us here, what he meant by God’s appointment. For whatsoever providence orders, or the law of nature directs, or positive revelation declares, may be said to be by God s appointment: but I suppose it cannot be meant here in the first sense, i.e.,
by providence; because that would be to say no more, but that as soon
as Adam was created, he was de facto monarch, because by right of
nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity. But he could
not, de facto, be by providence constituted the governor of the world, at
a time when there was actually no government, no subjects to be governed, which our A. here confesses. Monarch of the world is also differently used by our A., for sometimes he means by it a proprietor of all the
world, exclusive of the rest of mankind, and thus he does in the same
page of his preface before cited: “Adam, says he, being commanded to
multiply and people the earth, and subdue it, and having dominion given
him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world;
none of his posterity had any right to possess any thing but by his grant
or permission, or by succession from him.” 2. Let us understand then,
16/John Locke
by monarch, proprietor of the world, and, by appointment, God’s actual
donation, and revealed positive grant made to Adam, Gen. i. 28, as we
see sir Robert himself does in this parallel place; and then his argument
wills tend thus: “by the positive grant of God: as soon as Adam was
created, he was proprietor of the world, because by the right of nature it
was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity.” In which way of
arguing there are two manifest falsehoods. First, it is false, that God
made that grant to Adam, as soon as he was created, since, though it
stands in the text immediately after his creation, yet it is plain it could
not be spoken to Adam till after Eve was made and brought to him; and
how then could he be monarch by appointment as soon as created, especially since he calls, if I mistake not, that which God says to Eve, Gen.
iii. 16, the original grant of government, which not being till after the
fall, when Adam was somewhat, at least in time, and very much distant
in condition, from his creation, I cannot see, how our A. can say in this
sense, that, “by God’s appointment, as soon as Adam was created, he
was monarch of the world.” Secondly, were it true, that God’s actual
donation “appointed Adam monarch of the world, as soon as he was
created,” yet the reason here given for it would not prove it; but it would
always be a false inference that God, by a positive donation, “appointed
Adam monarch of the world, because by right of nature it was due to
Adam to be governor of his posterity:” for having given him the right of
government by nature, there was no need of a positive donation; at least
it will never be a proof of such a donation.
§17. On the other side, the matter will not be much mended, if we
understand by God’s appointment the law of nature, (though it be a
pretty harsh expression for it in this place) and by monarch of the world,
sovereign ruler of mankind: for then the sentence under consideration
must run thus: “By the law of nature, as soon as Adam was created he
was governor of mankind, for by right of nature it divas due to Adam to
be governor of his posterity;” which amounts to this, he was governor
by right of nature, because he was governor by right of nature. But
supposing we should grant, that a man is by nature governor of his
children, Adam could not hereby be monarch as soon as created: for this
right of nature being founded in his being their father, how Adam could
have a natural right to be governor, before he was a father, Men by
being a father only he had that right, is, methinks, hard to conceive,
unless he would have him to be a father before he was a father, and have
a title before he had it.
Two Treatises of Government/17
§18. To this foreseen objection, our A. answers very logically, “He
was governor in habit, and not in act:” a very pretty way of being a
governor without government, a father without children, and a king without subjects. And thus sir Robert was an author before he writ his book;
not in act, it is true, but in habit; for when he had once published it, it
was due to him, by the right of nature, to be an author, as much as it was
to Adam to be governor of his children, when he had begot them; and if
to be such a monarch of the world, an absolute monarch in habit, but
not in act, will serve the turn, I should not much envy it to any of sir
Robert’s friends, that he thought fit graciously to bestow it upon; though
even this of act and habit, if it signified any thing but our A.’s skill in
distinctions be not to his purpose in this place. For the question is not
here about Adam’s actual exercise of government, but actually having a
title to be governor. Government, says our A. was “due to Adam by the
right of nature:” what is this right of nature? A right fathers have over
their children by begetting them; generatione jus acquiritur parentibus
in liberos, says our A. out of Grotius, de J. B. P. L. 2. C. 5. S. 1. The
right then follows the begetting as arising from it; so that, according to
this way of reasoning or distinguishing of our A. Adam, as soon as he
was created, had a title only in habit, and not in act, which in plain
English is, he had actually no title at all.
§19. To speak less learnedly, and more intelligibly, one may say of
Adam, he was in a possibility of being governor, since it was possible he
might beget children, laid thereby acquire that right of nature, be it what
it will, to govern them, that accrues from thence: but what connexion
has this with Adam’s creation, to make him say, that “as soon as he was
created, he was monarch of the world?” For it may as well be said of
Noah, that as soon as he was born he was monarch of the world, since
he was in possibility (which in our A.’s sense is enough to make a monarch, “a monarch in habit,”) to outlive all mankind but his own posterity. What such necessary connexion there is betwixt Adam’s creation
and his right to government, so that a “natural freedom of mankind
cannot be supposed without the denial of the creation of Adam,” I confess for my part I do not see; nor how those words, “by the appointment,” &c. Obs. 254, however explained, can be put together, to make
any tolerable sense, at least to establish this position, with which they
end, viz., “Adam was a king from his creation;” a king, says our author,
“not in act, but in habit,” i.e., actually no king at all.
§20. I fear I have tired my reader’s patience, by dwelling longer on
18/John Locke
this passage than the weightiness of any argument in it seems to require:
but I have unavoidably been engaged in it by our author’s way of writing, who, huddling several suppositions together, and that in doubtful
and general terms, makes such a medley and confusion, that it is impossible to show his mistakes, without examining the several senses wherein
his words may be taken, and without seeing how, in any of these various
meanings, they will consist together, and have any truth in then: for in
this present passage before us, how can any one argue against this position of his, “that Adam was a king from his creation,” unless one examine, whether the words, “from his creation,” be to be taken, as they may,
for the time of the commencement of his government, as the fore going
words import, “as soon as he was created he was monarch;” or, for the
cause of it, as he says, p. 11, “creation made man prince of his posterity?” How farther can one judge of the truth of his being thus king, till
one has examined whether king be to be taken, as the words in the beginning of this passage would persuade, on supposition of his private
dominion which was, lay God’s positive grant, “monarch of the world
by appointment;” or king on supposition of lies fatherly power over his
offspring, which was by nature, “due by the right of nature;” whether, I
say, king be to be taken in both, or one only of these two senses, or in
neither of then, but only this, that creation made him prince, in a way
different from both the other? For though this assertion, that “Adam
was king from his creation,” be true in no sense, yet it stands here as an
evident conclusion drawn from the preceding words, though in truth it
be but a bare assertion joined to other assertions of the same kind, which
confidently put together in words of undetermined and dubious meaning, look like a sort of arguing, when there is indeed neither proof nor
connexion; a way very familiar with our author; of which having given
the reader a taste here, I shall, as much as the argument will permit me,
avoid touching on hereafter; and should not have done it here, were it
not to let the world see, how incoherences in matter, and suppositions
without proofs, put handsomely together in good words and a plausible
style, are apt to pass for strong reason and good sense, till they come to
be looked into with attention.
Two Treatises of Government/19
Chapter IV
Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by Donation,
Gen. i. 28.
§21. Having at last got through the foregoing passage, where we have
been so long detained, not by the force of arguments and opposition, but
by the intricacy of the words, and the doubtfulness of the meaning; let
us go on to his next argument, for Adam’s sovereignty. Our author tells
us in the words of Mr. Selden, that “Adam by donation from God, Gen.
i. 28, was made the general lord of all things, not without such a private
dominion to himself, as without his grant did exclude his children. This
determination of Mr. Selden, says our author, is consonant to the history of the Bible, and natural reason,” Obs. 910. And in his Pref. to his
Observations on Aristotle, he says thus, “The first government in the
world was monarchical in the father of all flesh, Adam being commanded
to multiply and people the earth, and to subdue it, and having dominion
given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole
world. None of his posterity had any right to possess any thing, but by
his grant or permission, or by succession from him. The earth, saith the
Psalmist, hath he given to the children of men, which shows the title
comes from fatherhood.”
§22. Before I examine this argument, and the text on which it is
founded, it is necessary to desire the reader to observe, that our author,
according to his usual method, begins in one sense, and concludes in
another; he begins here with Adam’s propriety, or private dominion, by
donation; and his conclusion is, “which shows the title comes from fatherhood.”
§23. But let us see the argument. The words of the text are these:
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth,” Gen. i. 28; from whence our author concludes, “that Adam, having here dominion given him over all creatures,
was thereby the monarch of the whole world:” whereby must be meant,
that either this grant of God gave Adam property, or, as our author calls
it, private dominion over the earth, and all inferior or irrational creatures, and so consequently that he was thereby monarch; or, 2dly, that it
gave him rule and dominion over all earthly creatures whatsoever, and
thereby over his children; and so he was monarch: for, as Mr. Selden
20/John Locke
has properly worded it, “Adam was made general lord of all things,”
one may very clearly understand him, that he means nothing to be granted
to Adam here but property, and therefore he says not one word of Adam’s
monarchy. But our author says, “Adam was hereby monarch of the
world,” which, properly speaking, signifies Sovereign ruler of all the
men in the world; and so Adam, by this grant, must be constituted such
a ruler. If our author means otherwise, he might with much clearness
have said, that “Adam was hereby proprietor of the whole world.” But
he begs your pardon in that point: clear distinct speaking not serving
every where to his purpose, you must not expect it in him, as in Mr.
Selden, or other such writers.
§24. In opposition, therefore, to our author’s doctrine, that “Adam
was monarch of the whole world,” founded on this place, I shall show
1. That by this grant, Gen. i. 28, God gave no immediate power to
Adam over men, over his children, over those of his own species; and so
he was not made ruler, or monarch, by this charter.
2. That by this grant God gave him not private dominion over the
inferior creatures, but right in common with all mankind; so neither was
he monarch upon the account of the property here given him.
§25. 1. That this donation, Gen. i. 28, gave Adam no power over
men, will appear if we consider the words of it: for since all positive
grants convey no more than the express words they are made in will
carry, let us see which of them here will comprehend mankind or Adam’s
posterity; and those I imagine, if any, must be these, “every living thing
that moveth:” the words in Hebrew are ;:/9%%h( i.e., bestiam
reptantem, of which words the Scripture itself is the best interpreter:
God having created the fishes and fowls the 5th day, the beginning of the
6th, he creates the irrational inhabitants of the dry land, which, ver. 24,
are described in these words, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind; cattle and creeping thins, and beasts of the earth,
after his kind; and ver. 2, and God made the beasts of the earth after his
kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth on the
earth after his kind:” here, in the creation of the brute inhabitants of the
earth, he first speaks of them all under one general name, of living creatures, and then afterwards divides them into three ranks, 1. Cattle, or
such creatures as were or might be tame, and so be the private possession of particular men; 2. %g( which, ver. 24, 25, in our Bible, is translated beasts, and by the Septuagint qhr a, wild beasts, and is the same
word, that here in our text, ver. 28, where we have this great charter to
Two Treatises of Government/21
Adam, is translated living thing, and is also the same word used, Gen.
ix. 2, where this grant is renewed to Noah, and there likewise translated
beast. 3. The third rank were the creeping animals, which, ver. 24, 25,
are comprised under the word, ;:/9(, the same that is used here, ver.
28, and is translated moving, but in the former verses creeping, and by
the Septuagint in all these places, pet¦ or reptiles; from whence it
appears, that the words which we translate here in God’s donation, ver.
28, “living creatures moving,” are the same, which in the history of the
creation, ver. 24, 25, signify two ranks of terrestrial creatures, viz., wild
beasts and reptiles, and are so understood by the Septuagint.
§26. When God had made the irrational animals of the world, divided into three kinds, from the places of their habitation, viz., fishes of
the sea, fowls of the air, and living creatures of the earth, and these
again into cattle, wild beasts, and reptiles; he considers of making man,
and the dominion he should have over the terrestrial world, ver. 26, and
then he reckons up the inhabitants of these three kingdoms, but in the
terrestrial leaves out the second rank %h( or wild beasts: but here, ver.
28, where he actually exercises this design, and gives him this dominion, the text mentions the fishes of the sea, and fowls of the air, and the
terrestrial creatures in the words that signify the wild beasts and reptiles, though translated living thing that moveth, leaving out cattle. In
both which places, though the word that signifies wild beasts be omitted
in one, and that which signifies cattle in the other, yet, since God certainly executed in one lilacs, what he declares he designed in the other,
we cannot but understand the same in both places, and have here only
an account how the terrestrial irrational animals, which were already
created and reckoned up at their creation, in three distinct ranks of cattle,
wild beasts, and reptiles, were here, ver. 28, actually put under the dominion of man, as they were designed, ver. 26; nor do these words contain in them the least appearance of any thing that can be wrested to
signify God’s giving to one man dominion over another, to Adam over
his posterity.
§27. And this further appears front Gen. ix. 2, where God renewing
this charter to Noah and his sons, he gives them dominion over the fowls
of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and the terrestrial creatures, expressed by %h(:/9$ wild beasts and reptiles, the same words that in
the text before us, Gen. i. 28, are translated every moving thing that
moveth on the earth, which by no means can comprehend man, the grant
being made to Noah and his sons, all the men then living, and not to one
22/John Locke
part of men over another; which is yet more evident from the very next
words, ver. 3, where God gives every :/9 “every moving thing,” the
very words used ch. i. 28, to them for food. By all which it is plain that
God’s donation to Adam, ch. i. 28, and his designation, ver. 26, and his
grant again to Noah and his sons; refer to, and contain in them, neither
more nor less than the works of the creation the fifth day, and the beginning of the sixth, as they are set down from the both to 26th ver. inclusively of the 1st ch. and so comprehend all the species of irrational
animals of the terraqueous globe; though all the words, whereby they
are expressed in the history of their creation, are nowhere used in any of
the following grants, but some of them omitted in one, and some in
another From whence I think it is past all doubt that man can not be
comprehended in this grant, nor any dominion over those of his own
species be conveyed to Adam. All the terrestrial irrational creatures are
enumerated at their creation, ver. 25, under the names, “beasts of the
earth, cattle, and creeping things;” but man, being not then created, was
not contained under any of those names; and therefore, whether we understand the Hebrew words right or no, they cannot be supposed to
comprehend man, in the very same history, and the very next verses
following, especially since that Hebrew word :/9 which, if any in this
donation to Adam, ch. i. 28, must comprehend man, is so plainly used in
contradistinction to him, as Gen. vi. 20. vii. 14, 21, 28. Gen. viii. 17,
19. And if God made all mankind slaves to Adam and his heirs, by
giving Adam dominion over “every living thing that moveth on the earth,”
ch. i. 28, as our author would have it; methinks sir Robert should leave
carried his monarchical power one step higher, and satisfied the world
that princes might eat their subjects too, since God gave as full power to
Noah and his heirs, ch. ix. 2, to eat “every living thing that moveth,” as
he did to Adam to have dominion over them; the Hebrew word in both
places being the same.
§28. David, who might be supposed to understand the donation of
God in this text, and the right of kings too, as well as our author, in his
comment on this place, as the learned and judicious Ainsworth calls it,
in the 8th Psalm, finds here no such charter of monarchical power: his
words are, “Thou hast made him, i.e., man, the son of man, a little lower
than the angels; thou madest him to have dominion over the works of
thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and
the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air, and fish of the sea, and
whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.” In which words, if
Two Treatises of Government/23
any one can find out, that there is meant any monarchical power of one
man over another, but only the dominion of the whole species of mankind over the inferior species of creatures, he may, for aught I know,
deserve to be one of sir Robert’s monarchs in habit, for the rareness of
the discovery. And by this time, I hope it is evident, that he that gave
“dominion over every hying thing that moveth on the earth,” gave Adam
no monarchical power over those of his own species, which will yet
appear more fully in the next thing I am to show.
§99. 2.Whatever God gave by the words of this grant Gen. i. 28, it
was not to Adam in particular, exclusive of all other men: whatever
dominion he had thereby, it was not a private dominion, but a dominion
in common with the rest of mankind. That this donation was not made in
particular to Adam, appears evidently from the words of the text, it
being made to more than one; for it was spoken in the plural number,
God blessed them, and said unto them, have dominion. God says unto
Adam and Eve, have dominion; thereby, says our author, “Adam was
monarch of the world:” but the grant being to them, i.e., spoken to Eve
also, as many interpreters think with reason, that these words were not
spoken till Adam had his wife, must not she thereby be lady, as well as
he lord of the world? If it be said that Eve was subjected to Adam, it
seems she was not so subjected to him as to hinder her dominion over
the creatures, or property in them for shall we say that God ever made a
joint grant to two, and one only was to have the benefit of it?
§30. But perhaps it will be said Eve was not made till afterward:
grant it so, what advantage will our author get by it? The text will be
only the more directly against him, and show that God, in this donation,
gave the world to mankind in common, and not to Adam in particular.
The word them in the text must include the species of man, for it is
certain them can by no means signify Adam alone. In the 26th verse,
where God declares his intention to give this dominion, it is plain he
meant that he would make a species of creatures that should have dominion over the other species of this terrestrial globe. The words are,
“And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let
them have dominion over the fish,” &c. They then were to have dominion. Who? even those who were to have the image of God, the individuals of that species of man that he was going to make; for that them
should signify Adam singly, of the rest that should be in the world with
him, is against both Scripture and all reason: and it cannot possibly be
made sense, if man in the former part of the verse do not signify the
24/John Locke
same with them in the latter; only man there, as is usual, is taken for the
species, and them the individuals of that species: and we leave a reason
in the very text. God makes him “in his own image, after his own likeness; makes him an intellectual creature, and so capable of dominion:”
for wherein soever else the image of God consisted, the intellectual nature was certainly a part of it, and belonged to the whole species, and
enabled them to have dominion over the inferior creatures; and therefore
David says, in the 8th Psalm above cited, “Thou hast made him little
longer than the angels; thou hast made him to have dominion.” It is not
of Adam king David speaks here; for, verse 4, it is plain it is of man, and
the son of man, of the species of mankind.
§31. And that this grant spoken to Adam was made to him, and the
whole species of man, is clear from our author’s own proof out of the
Psalmist. “The earth, saith the Psalmist, hath he given to the children of
men, which shows the title comes from fatherhood.” These are sir
Robert’s words in the preface before cited, and a strange inference it is
he makes: “God hath given the earth to the children of men, ergo the title
comes from fatherhood.” It is pity the propriety of the Hebrew tongue
had not used fathers of men, instead of children of men, to express mankind: then indeed our author might have had the countenance of talc
socials of the words to have placed the title in the fatherhood. But to
conclude, that the fatherhood lead the right to the earth, because God
gave it to the children of men, is a way of arguing peculiar to our author:
and a man must have a great mind to go contrary to the sound as well as
sense of the words before he could light on it. But the sense is yet harder,
and more remote from our author’s purpose: for as it stands in his preface it is to prove Adam’s being monarch, and his reasoning is thus,
“God gave the partly to the children of men, ergo Adam was monarch of
the world.” I defy any man try make a more pleasant conclusion than
this, which cannot be excused from the most obvious absurdity, till it
can be shown that by children of men, he who had no father, Adam
alone is signified; but whatever our author does, the Scripture speaks
not nonsense.
§32. To maintain this property and private dominion of Adam, our
author labours in the following page to destroy the community granted
to Noah and his sons, in that parallel place, Gen. ix. 1, 2, 3; and he
endeavours to do it two ways.
1. Sir Robert would persuade us, against the express words of the
Scripture, that what was here granted to Noah, was not granted to his
Two Treatises of Government/25
sons in common with him. His words are, “As for the general community between Noah and his sons, which Mr. Selden will have to be granted
to them, Gen. ix. 2, the text cloth not warrant it.” What warrant our
author would have when the plain express words of Scripture, not capable of another meaning, will not satisfy him, who pretends to build
wholly on Scripture, is not easy to imagine. The text says, “God blessed
Noah and his sons, and said unto them, i.e., as our author would have it,
unto him: for, saith he, although the sons are there unmentioned with
Noah in the blessing, yet it may best be understood, with a subordination or benediction m succession,” O. 211. That indeed is best for our
author to be understood, which best serves to his purpose; but that truly
may best be understood by any body else, which best agrees with the
plain construction of the words, and arises from the obvious meaning of
the place; and then with subordination and in succession will not be lest
understood in a grant of God, where he himself put them not, nor mentions any such limitation. But yet our author has reasons why it may
best he understood so. “The blessing, says he in the following words,
might truly be fulfilled, if the sons, either under or after their father,
enjoyed a private dominion,” O. 211; That is to say, that a grant, whose
express words give a joint title in present (for the text says, into your
hands they are delivered) may best be understood with a subordination
or in succession; because it is possible that in subordination, in succession, it may be enjoyed. Which is all one as to say, that a grant of any
thing in present possession may best be understood of reversion; because it is possible one may live to enjoy it in reversion. If the grant be
indeed to a father and to his sons after him, who is so kind as to let his
children enjoy it presently in common with him, one may truly say, as to
the event one will be as good as the other; but it can never be true that
what the express words grant in possession, and in common, may best
be understood to be in reversion. The sum of all his reasoning amounts
to this: God did not give to the sons of Noah the world in common with
their father, because it was possible they might enjoy it under or after
him. A very good sort of argument against an express text of Scripture:
but God must not be believed, though he speaks it himself, when he says
he does any thing which will not consist with sir Robert’s hypothesis.
§33. For it is plain, however he would exclude them, that part of
this benediction, as he would have it in succession, must needs be meant
to the sons, and not to Noah himself at all: “Be fruitful and multiply, and
replenish the earth,” says God in this blessing This part of the benedic-
26/John Locke
tion, as appears by the sequel, concerned not Noah himself at all: for we
read not of any children he had after the flood; and in the following
chapter, where his posterity is reckoned up, there is no mention of any;
and so this benediction in succession was not to take place till 350 years
after: and to save our author’s imaginary monarchy, the peopling of the
world must be deferred 350 years; for this part of the benediction cannot be understood with subordination, unless our author will say that
they must ask leave of their father Noah to lie with their wives. But in
this one point our author is constant to himself in all his discourses; he
takes care there should be monarchs in the world, but very little that
there should be people; and indeed his way of government is not the way
to people the world: for how much absolute monarchy helps to fulfil this
great and primary blessing of God Almighty, “Be fruitful and multiply,
and replenish the earth,” which contains in it the improvement too of
arts and sciences, and the conveniencies of life; may be seen in those
large and rich countries which are happy under the Turkish government,
where are not now to be found one-third, nay in many, if not most parts
of them, one-thirtieth, perhaps I might say not one-hundredth of the
people, that were formerly, as will easily appear to any one, who will
compare the accounts we have of it at this time with ancient history But
this by the by.
§34. The other parts of this benediction or grant are so expressed,
that they must needs be understood to belong equally to them all; as
much to Noah’s sons as to Noah himself, and not to his sons with a
subordination, or in succession. “The fear of you, and the dread of you,
says God, shall be upon every beast,” &c. Will any body but our author
say that the creatures feared and stood in awe of Noah only, and not of
his sons without his leave, or till after his death? And the following
words, “into your hands they are delivered,” are they to be understood
as our author says, if your father please, or they shall be delivered into
your hands hereafter? If this be to argue from Scripture, I know not
what may not be proved by it; and I can scarce see how much this
dithers from that fiction and fancy, or how much a surer foundation it
will prove than the opinions of philosophers and poets, which our author so much condemns in his preface.
§35. But our author goes on to prove, that “it may best be understood with a subordination, or a benediction in succession; for, says he,
it is not probable that the private dominion which God gave to Adam,
and by his donation, assignation, or cession to his children, was abro-
Two Treatises of Government/27
gated, and a community of all things instituted between Noah and his
sons—Noah was left the sole heir of the world; why should it be thought
that God would disinherit him of his birth right, and make him of all
men in the world the only tenant in common with his children?” O. 211.
§36. The prejudices of our own ill-grounded opinions, however by
us called probable, cannot authorize us to understand Scripture contrary to the direct and plain meaning of the words. I grant it is not
probable that Adam’s private dominion was here abrogated; because it
is more than improbable (for it will never be proved) that Adam had any
such private dominion: and since parallel places of Scripture are most
probable to make us know how they may be best understood, there needs
but the comparing this blessing here to Noah and his sons, after the
flood, with that to Adam after the creation, Gen. i. 28, to assure any one
that God gave Adam no such private dominion. It is probable, I confess,
that Noah should have the same title, the same property and dominion
after the flood, that Adam had before it: but since private dominion
cannot consist with the blessing and grant God gave to him and his sons
in common, it is a sufficient reason to conclude that Adam had none,
especially since, in the donation made to him, there are no words that
express it, or do in the least favour it; and then let my reader judge
whether it may best be understood, when in the one place there is not
one word for it, not to say what has been above proved, that the test
itself proves the contrary; and in the other, the words and sense are
directly against it.
§37. But our author says, “Noah was the sole heir of the world;
why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birth
right?” Heir indeed, in England, signifies the eldest son, who is by the
law of England to have all his father’s land: but where God ever appointed any such heir of the world, our author would have done well to
have showed us; and how God disinherited him of his birth right, or
what harm was done him if God gave his sons a right to make use of a
part of the earth for support of themselves and families, when the whole
was not only more than Noah himself, but infinitely more than they all
could make use of, and the possessions of one could not at all prejudice,
or, as to any use, straiten that of the other.
§38. Our author probably foreseeing he might not be very successful in persuading people out of their senses, and, say what he could, men
would be apt to believe the plain words of Scripture, and think, as they
say, that the grant was spoken to Noah and his sons jointly; he endeavours
28/John Locke
to insinuate, as if this grant to Noah conveyed no property, no dominion; because “subduing the earth and dominion over the creatures are
therein omitted, nor the earth once named.” And therefore, says he, “there
is a considerable difference between these two texts; the first blessing
gave Adam a dominion over the earth and all creatures the latter allows
Noah liberty to use the living creatures for food: here is no alteration or
diminishing of his title to a property of all things, but an enlargement
only of his commons,” O. 211. So that, in our author’s sense, all that
was said here to Noah and his sons, gave them no dominion, no property, but only enlarged the commons; their commons, I should say, since
God says, “to you are they given;” though our author says his; for as to
Noah’s sons, they, it seems, by sir Robert’s appointment, during their
father’s lifetime, were to keep fasting-days.
§39. Any one but our author would be mightily suspected to be
blinded with prejudice, that in all this blessing to Noah and his sons,
could see nothing but only an enlargement of commons: for as to dominion which our author thinks omitted, “the fear of you, and the dread of
you, says God, shall be upon every beast,” which I suppose expresses
the dominion, or superiority, was designed man over the living creatures, as fully as may be; for in that fear and dread seems chiefly to
consist what was given to Adam over the inferior animals, who, as absolute a monarch as he was could not make bold with a lark or rabbit to
satisfy his hunger, and had the herbs but in common with the besets, as
is plain from Gen. i. 2, 9, and 30. In the next place, it is manifest that in
this blessing to Noah and his sons, property is not only given in clear
words, but in a larger extent than it was to Adam. “Into your hands they
are given,” says God to Noah and his sons; which words, if they give
not property, nay, property in possession, it will be hard to find words
that can; since there is not a way to express a man’s being possessed of
any thing more natural, nor more certain, than to say, it is delivered into
his hands. And ver. 3, to show, that they had then given them the utmost
property man is capable of, which is to have a right to destroy any thing
by using it: “Every moving thing that liveth, saith God, shall be meat for
you;” which was not allowed to Adam in his charter. This our author
calls “a liberty of using them for food, and also an enlargement of commons, but no alteration of property,” O. 211. What other property man
can have in the creatures, but the “liberty of using them,” is hard to be
understood: so that if the first blessing, as our author says, gave Adam
“ dominion over the creatures,” and the blessing to Noah and his sons
Two Treatises of Government/29
gave them “such a liberty to use them” as Adam had not; it must needs
give them something that Adam with all his sovereignty wanted, something that one would be apt to take for a greater property; for certainly
he has no absolute dominion over even the brutal part of the creatures,
and the property he has in them is very narrow and scanty, who cannot
make that use of them which is permitted to another. Should any one,
who is absolute lord of a country, have bidden our author subdue the
earth, and given him dominion over the creatures in it, but not have
permitted him to have taken a kid or a lamb out of the flock to satisfy his
hunger, I guess he would scarce leave thought himself lord or proprietor
of that land, or the cattle on it; but would have found the difference
between “having dominion,” which a shepherd may have, and having
full property as an owner. So that, had it been his own case, sir Robert,
I believe, would have thought here was an alteration, nay an enlarging
of property; and that Noah and his children had by this grant not only
property given them, but such a property given them in the creatures, as
Adam had not: for however, in respect of one another, Slice may lo
allowed to have propriety in their distinct portions of the creatures; yet
in respect of God the maker of heaven and earth, who is sole lord and
proprietor of the whole world, man’s propriety in the creatures is nothing but that “liberty to use them,” which God has permitted; and so
man’s property may be altered and enlarged, as we see it here, after the
flood, when other uses of them are allowed, which before were not.
From all which I suppose it is clear, that neither Adam, nor Noah, had
any “private dominion,” any property in the creatures, exclusive of his
posterity, as they should successively grow up into need of them, and
come to be able to make use of them.
§40. Thus we have examined our author’s argument for Adams
monarchy, founded on the blessing pronounced, Gen. i. 28. Wherein I
think it is impossible for any sober reader to find any other but the
setting of mankind above the other kinds of creatures in this habitable
earth of ours. It is nothing but the giving to man, the whole species of
man, as the chief inhabitant, who is the image of his Maker, the dominion over the other creatures. This lies so obvious in the plain words, that
any one but our author would have thought it necessary to have shown,
how these words, that seemed to say the quite contrary, gave “Adam
monarchical absolute power” over other men, or the sole property in all
the creatures; and methinks in a business of this moment, and that whereon
he builds all that follows, he should have done something more than
30/John Locke
barely cite words, which apparently make against him; for I confess, I
cannot see any thing in them tending to Adam’s monarchy, or private
dominion, but quite the contrary. And I the less deplore the dulness of
my apprehension herein, since I find the apostle seems to have as little
notion of any such “private dominion of Adam” as I, when he says,
“God gives us all things richly to enjoy;” which he could not do, if it
were all given away already to monarch Adam, and the monarchs his
heirs and successors. To conclude, this text is so far from proving Adam
sole proprietor, that, on the contrary, it is a confirmation of the original
community of all things amongst the sons of men, which appearing from
this donation of God, as well as other places of Scripture, the sovereignty of Adam, built upon his “private dominion,” must fall, not haying
any foundation to support it.
§41. But yet, if after all any one will needs have it so, that by this
donation of God Adam was made sole proprietor of the whole earth,
what will this be to his sovereignty? and how will it appear, that propriety in land gives a man power over the life of another? or how will the
possession even of the whole earth give any one a sovereign arbitrary
authority over the persons of men? The most specious thing to be said
is, that he that is proprietor of the whole world, may deny all the rest of
mankind food, and so at his pleasure starve them, if they will not acknowledge his sovereignty, and obey his will. If this were true, it would
be a good argument to prove, that there never was any such property,
that God never gave any such private dominion; since it is more reasonable to think, that God, who bid mankind increase and multiply, should
rather himself give them all a right to make use of the food and raiment,
and other conveniencies of life, the materials whereof he had so plentifully provided for them; than to make them depend upon the will of a
man for their subsistence, who should have power to destroy them all
when he pleased, and who, being no better than other men, was in succession likelier, by want and the dependence of a scanty fortune, to tie
them to hard service, than by liberal allowance of the conveniencies of
life to promote the great design of God, “increase and multiply:” he that
doubts this, let him look into the absolute monarchies of the world, and
see what becomes of the conveniencies of life, and the multitudes of
people.
§42. But we know God hath not left one man so to the mercy of
another, that he may starve him if he please: God, the Lord and Father
of all, has given no one of his children such a property in his peculiar
Two Treatises of Government/31
portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother
a right to the surplusage of his goods; so that it cannot justly be denied
him, when his pressing wants call for it: and therefore no man could
ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in
land or possessions; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate,
to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty.
As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry,
and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him; so charity
gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty as will keep
him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise:
and a man can no mare justly make use of another’s necessity to force
him to become his vassal, by withholding that relief God requires him to
afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can
seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at
his throat offer him death or slavery.
§43. Should any one make so perverse an use of God’s blessings
poured on him with a liberal hand; should any one be cruel and uncharitable to that extremity; yet all this would not prove that propriety ill
land, even in this case, gave any authority over the persons of men, but
only that compact might since the authority of the rich proprietor, and
the subjections of the needy beggar, began not from the possession of
the lord, but the consent of the poor man, who preferred being his subject to starving. And the man he thus submits to, can pretend to no more
power over him than he has consented to, upon compact. Upon this
ground a man’s having his stores filled in a time of scarcity, having
money in his pocket, being in a vessel at sea, being able to swim, &c.
may as well be the foundation of rule and dominion, as being possessor
of all the land in the world: any of these being sufficient to enable me to
save a man’s life, who would perish, if such assistance were denied him;
and any thing, by this rule, that may be an occasion of working upon
another’s necessity to sale his life, or any thing dear to him, at the of his
freedom, may be made a foundation of sovereignty, as well as property.
From all which it is clear, that though God should have given Adam
private dominion, yet that private dominion could give him no sovereignty: but we have already sufficiently proved that God gave him no
“private dominion.”
32/John Locke
Chapter V
Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty, by the Subjection
of Eve
§44. The next place of Scripture we find our author builds his monarchy of Adam on, is Gen. iii. 26. “And thy desire shall be to thy husband,
and he shall rule over thee. Here we have (says he) the original grant of
government,” from whence he concludes, in the following part of the
page, O. 244, “That the supreme power is settled in the fatherhood, and
limited to one kind of government, that is, to monarchy.” For let his
premises be what they will, this is always the conclusion; let rule, in any
text, be but once named, and presently absolute monarchy is by divine
right established. If any one will but carefully read our author’s own
reasoning from these words, O. 244, and consider, among other things,
“the line and posterity of Adam,” as he there brings them in, he will find
some difficulty to make sense of what he says; but we will allow this at
present to his peculiar way of writing, and consider the force of the text
in hand. The words are the curse of God upon the woman for having
been the first and forwardest in the disobedience; and if we will consider
the occasion of what God says here to our first parents, that he was
denouncing judgment, and declaring his wrath against them both for
their disobedience, we cannot suppose that this was the time wherein
God was granting Adam prerogatives and privileges, investing him with
dignity and authority, elevating him to dominion and monarchy: for
though, as a holster in the temptation, live was laid below him, and so he
had accidentally a superiority over her, for her greater punishment; yet
he too had his share in the fall, as well as the sin, and was laid lower, as
may be seen in the following verses: and it would be hard to imagine,
that Gall, in the same breath, should make him universal monarch over
all mankind, and a day-labourer for his life; turn lain out of “paradise to
till the ground,” ver. 23, and at the same time advance him to a throne,
and all the privileges and case of absolute power.
§45. This was not a time when Adam could expect any favours, any
grant of privileges, from his offended Maker. If this be “the original
grant of government,” as our author tells us, and Adam was now made
monarch, whatever sir Robert would have him, it is plain, God made
him but a very poor monarch, such an one as our author himself would
have counted it no great privilege to be. God sets him to work for his
living, and seems rather to give him a spade into his hand to subdue the
Two Treatises of Government/33
earth, than a sceptre to rule over its inhabitants. “In the sweat of thy
face thou shalt eat thy bread,” says God to him, ver. 19. This was unavoidable, may it perhaps be answered, because he was yet without
subjects, and had nobody to work for him; but afterwards, living as he
did above 900 years, he might have people enough, whom he might
command to work for him: no, says God, not only whilst thou art without other help, save thy wife, but as long as thou livest, shalt thou live
by thy labour, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, till thou
return unto the ground, for out of it west thou taken; for dust thou art,
and unto dust shalt thou return,” ver. 19. It will perhaps be answered
again in favour of our author, that these words are not spoken personally to Adam, but in him, as their representative, to all mankind, this
being a curse upon mankind, because of the fall.
§46. God, I believe, speaks differently from men, because he speaks
with more truth, more certainty: but when he vouchsafes to speak to
men, l do not think he speaks differently from them, in crossing the rules
of language in use amongst them: this would not be to condescend to
their capacities, when he humbles himself to speak to them, but to lose
his design in speaking what, thus spoken, they could not understand.
And fact thus must we think of God, if the interpretations of Scripture,
necessary to maintain our author’s doctrine, must be received for good:
for by the ordinary rules of language, it will be very hard to understand
what God says, if what he speckles here, in the singular number, to
Adam, must be understood to be spoken to all mankind; and what he
says in the plural number, Gen. i. 20 and 28, must be understood of
Adam alone, exclusive of all others; and what he says to Noah and his
sons jointly, must be understood to be meant to Noah alone, Gen. ix.
§47. Farther it is to be noted, that these words here of Gen. iii. 16,
which our author calls “the original grant of government,” were not
spoken to Adam, neither indeed was there any grant in them Snide to
Adam, but a punishment laid upon Eve: and if we will take them as they
were directed in particular to her, or in her, as their representative. to all
other women, they will at most concern the female sex only, and im port
no more, but that subjection they should ordinarily be in to their husbands: but there is here no more law to oblige a woman to such subjection, if the circumstances either of her condition, or contract with her
husband, should exempt her from it, than there is, that she should bring
forth her children in sorrow and pain, if there could be found a remedy
for it,which is also a part of the same curse upon her: for the whole
34/John Locke
verse runs thus, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy
sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,
and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” It
would, I think, have been a hard matter for any body, but our author, to
have found out a grant of “monarchical government to Adam” in these
words, which were neither spoken to, nor of him: neither will any one, I
suppose, by these words, think the weaker sex, as by a law, so subjected
to the curse contained in them, that it is their duty not to endeavour to
avoid it. find will any one say that Eve, or any other woman, sinned, if
she were brought to bed without those multiplied pains God threatens
her here with? or that either of our queens, Mary or Elizabeth, had they
married any of their subjects, had been by this text put into a political
subjection to him? or that he should thereby have had monarchical rule
over her? God, in this text, gives note that I see, any authority to Adam
over Eve, or to men over their wives, but only foretell what should be
the woman’s lot; how by his providence he would order it so, that she
should be subject to her husband, as we see that generally the Laws of
mankind and customs of nations leave ordered it so: and there is, I grant,
a foundation in nature for it.
§48. Thus when God says of Jacob and Esau, “that the elder should
serve the younger,” Gen. xxv. 23, nobody supposes that God hereby
made Jacob Esau’s sovereign, but foretold what should de facto come to
pass.
But if these words here spoken to Eve must needs be understood as
a law to bind her and all other women to subjection, it can be no other
subjection than what every wife owes her husband; and then if this be
the “original grant of government, and the foundation of monarchical
power,” there will be as many monarchs as there are husbands: if therefore these words give any power to Adam, it can be only a conjugal
power, not political; the power that every husband hath to order the
things of private concernment in his family, as proprietor of the goods
and land there, and to have his will take place before that of his wife in
all things of their common concernment; but not a political power of life
and death over her, much less over any body else
§49. This I am sure: if our author will have this text to be a “grant,
the original grant of government,” political government, he ought to
have proved it by some better arguments than by barely saying, that
“thy desire shall be unto thy husband,” was a law whereby Eve, and “all
that should come of her,” were subjected to the absolute monarchical
Two Treatises of Government/35
power of Adam and his heirs. “Thy desire shall be to thy husband,” is
too doubtful an expression, of whose signification interpreters are not
agreed, to build so confidently on, and in a matter of such moment, and
so great and general concernment: but our author, according to his way
of writing, having once named the text, concludes presently, without
any more ado, that the meaning is as he would have it. Let the words
rule and subject be but found in the text or margin, and it immediately
signifies the duty of a subject to his prince; the relation is changed, and
though God says husband, sir Robert will have it king; Adam has presently absolute monarchical power over Eve, and not only over love, but
“all that should come of her,” though the Scripture says not a word of it,
nor our author a word to prove it. But Adam must for all that be an absolute
monarch, and so down to the end of the chapter. And here I leave my reader
to consider whether my bare saying, without offering any reasons to evince
it, that this text gave not Adam that absolute monarchical power, our author supposes, be not as sufficient to destroy that power, as his bare assertion is to establish it, since the text mentions neither prince nor people,
speckles nothing of absolute or monarchical power, but the subjection of
Eve to Adam, a wife to her husband. And he that would trace our author so
all through, would make a short and sufficient answer to the greatest part of
the grounds he proceeds on, and abundantly confute them by barely denying; it being a sufficient answer to assertions without proof, to deny them
without giving a reason. And therefore should I have said nothing, but
barely denied that by this text “the supreme power was settled and founded
by God himself, in the fatherhood, limited to monarchy, and that to Adam’s
person and heirs,” all which our author notably concludes from these words,
as may be seen in the same page, O. 244., it had been a sufficient answer:
should I have desired any sober man only to have read the text, and considered to whom and on what occasion it was spoken, he would no doubt have
wondered how our author found out monarchical absolute power in it, had
he not had an exceeding good faculty to find it himself, where he could not
show it others. And thus we have examined the two places of Scripture, all
that I remember our author brings to prove Adam’s sovereignty, that supremacy which he says “it was God’s ordinance should be unlimited in
Adam, and as large as all the acts of his will,” O. 254, viz. Gen. i. 28, and
Gen. iii. 16; one whereof signifies only the subjection of the inferior ranks
of creatures to mankind, and the other the subjection that is due from a wife
to her husband; both far enough from that which subjects owe the governors of political societies.
36/John Locke
Chapter VI
Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Fatherhood.
§50. There is one thing more, and then I think I have given you all that
our author brings for proof of Adam’s sovereignty, and that is a supposition of a natural right of dominion over his children, by being their
father: and this title of fatherhood he is so pleased with, that you will
find it brought in almost in every page; particularly he says, “not only
Adam, but the succeeding patriarchs had, by right of fatherhood, royal
authority over their children,” p. 12. And in the same page, “this subjection of children being the fountain of all regal authority,” &c. This being, as one would think by his so frequent mentioning it, the main basis
of all his frame, we may well expect clear and evident reason for it,
since he lays it down as a position necessary to his purpose, that “every
man that is born is so far from being free, that by his very birth he
becomes a subject of him that begets him,” O. 156. So that Adam being
the only man created, and all ever since being begotten, nobody has
been born free. If we ask how Adam comes by this power over his
children, he tells us here it is lay begetting them: and so again, O.223,
“This natural dominion of Adam,” says he, “may be proved out of Grotius
himself, who teacheth that ‘generations jus acquiritur parentibus in
liberos.’” And indeed the act of begetting being that which makes a man
a father, his right of a father over his children can naturally arise from
nothing else.
§51. Grotius tells us Lot here how far this “jus in liberos,” this
power of parents over their children extends; but our author, always
very clear in the point, assures us it is supreme power, and like that of
absolute monarchs over their slaves, absolute power of life and death.
He that should demand of him how, or for what reason it is, that begetting a child gives the father such an absolute power over him, will find
him answer nothing: we are to take his word for this, as well as several
other things, and by that the laws of nature and the constitutions of
government must stand or fall. Had he been an absolute monarch, this
way of talking might have suited well enough; “pro ratione voluntas,”
might have been of force in his mouth; but in the way of proof or argument is very unbecoming, and will little advantage his plea for absolute
monarchy. Sir Robert has too much lessened a subject’s authority to
leave himself the hopes of establishing any thing by his bare saying it;
one slave’s opinion without proof, is not of weight enough to dispose of
the liberty and fortunes of all mankind. If all men are not, as I think they
Two Treatises of Government/37
are, naturally equal, I am sure all slaves are; and then I may without
presumption oppose my single opinion to his; and be confident that my
saying, “that begetting of children makes them not slaves to their fathers,” as certainly sets all mankind free, as his affirming the contrary
makes them all slaves. But that this position, which is the foundation of
all their doctrine, who would have monarchy to be “jure divino,” may
have all fair play, let us hear what reasons others give for it, since our
author offers none.
§52. The argument I leave heard others make use of to prove that
fathers, by begetting them, come by an absolute power over their children, is this, that “fathers have a power over the lives of their children,
because they give them life and being,” which is the only proof it is
capable of: since there can be no reason why naturally one man should
have any claim or presence of right over that in another, which was
never his, which he bestowed not, but was received from the bounty of
another. 1. I answer, that every one who gives another any thing, has not
always thereby a right to take it away again. But, 2. They who say the
father gives life to children, are so dazzled with the thoughts of monarchy, that they do not, as they ought, remember God, who is “the author
and giver of life: it is in him alone we live, move, and have our being.”
How can he be thought to give life to another, that knows not wherein
his own life consists Philosophers are at a loss about it, after their most
diligent inquiries; and anatomists, after their whole lives and studies
spent in dissections, and diligent examining the bodies of men, confess
their ignorance in the structure and use of many parts of man’s body,
and in that operation wherein life consists in the whole. And doth the
rude ploughman, or the more ignorant voluptuary, frame or fashion such
an admirable engine as this is, and then put life and sense into it? Can
any man say he formed the parts that are necessary to the life of his
child? or can he suppose himself to give the life, and yet not know what
subject is fit to receive it, nor what actions or organs are necessary for
its reception or preservation?
§53. To give life to that which has yet no being, is to frame and
make a living creature, fashion the parts, and mould and suit them to
their uses; and having proportioned and fitted them together, to put into
them a hying soul. He that could do this, might indeed have some presence to destroy his own workmanship But is there any one so bold that
dares thus far arrogate to himself the incomprehensible works of the
Almighty? Who alone did at first, and continues still to make a living
38/John Locke
soul, he alone can breathe in the greatly of life. If any one thinks himself
an artist at this, let lain number up the parts of his child’s body will he
hath made, tell me their uses and operations, and when the living and
rational soul began to inhabit this curious structure, when sense began,
and how this engine, which he has framed, thinks and reasons: if he
made it, let him, when it is out of order, mend it, at least tell wherein the
defects lie. “Shall he that made the eye not see?” says the Psalmist,
Psalm xciv. 9. See these men’s vanities; the structure of that one part is
sufficient to convince us of an all-wise Contriver, and he has so visible
a claim to us as his workmanship, that one of the ordinary appellations
of God in Scripture is, “God our maker,” and “the Lord our maker.”
And therefore though our author, for the magnifying his fatherhood, be
pleased to say, O. 159, “That even the power which God himself
exerciseth over mankind is by right of fatherhood,” yet this fatherhood
is such an one as utterly excludes all presence of title in earthly parents;
for he is king, because he is indeed maker of us all, which no parents can
pretend to be of their children.
§54. But had men skill and power to make their children, it is not so
slight a piece of workmanship, that it can be imagined they could make
them without designing it. What father of a thousand, when he begets a
child, thinks farther than the satisfying his prey sent appetite? God in
his infinite wisdom has put strong desires of copulation into the constitution of men, thereby to continue the race of mankind, which he doth
most commonly without the intention, and often against the consent and
will of the begetter. And indeed those who desire and design children,
are but the occasions of their being, and, when they design and wish to
beget them, do little more towards their making than Deucalion and his
wife in the fable did towards the making of mankind, by throwing pebbles
over their heads.
§55. But grant that the parents made their children, gave them life
and being, and that hence there followed an absolute power. This would
give the father but a joint dominion with the mother over them: for nobody can deny but that the woman lath an equal share, if not the greater,
as nourishing the child a long time in her own body out of her own
substance: there it is fashioned, and from her it receives the materials
and principles of its constitution: and it is so hard to imagine the rational
soul should presently inhabit the yet unformed embryo, as soon as the
father has done his part in the act of generation, that if it must be supposed to derive any thing from the parents, it must certainly owe most to
Two Treatises of Government/39
the mother. But be that as it will, the mother cannot be denied an equal
share in begetting of the child nod so the absolute authority of the father
will not arise from hence. Our author indeed is of another mind; for he
says, “we know that God at the creation gave the sovereignty to the man
over the woman, as being the nobler and principal agent in generation,”
O.172. I remember not this in my Bible; and when the place is brought
where God at the creation gave the sovereignty to man over the woman,
and that for this reason, because “he is the nobler and principal agent in
generation,” it will be time enough to consider, and answer it. But it is
no new thing for our author to tell us his own fancies for certain and
divine truths, though there be often a great deal of difference between
his and divine revelations; for God in the Scripture says, “his father and
his mother that begot him.”
§56. They who allege the practice of mankind, for exposing or selling their children, as a proof of their power over them, are with sir
Robert happy arguers; and cannot but recommend their opinion, by founding it on the most shameful action, and most unnatural murder human
nature is capable of. The dens of lions and nurseries of wolves know no
such cruelty as this: these savage inhabitants of the desert obey God and
nature in being tender and careful of their offspring: they will hunt,
watch, fight, and almost starve for the preservation of their young; never
part with them never forsake them, till they are able to shift for themselves. And is it the privilege of man alone to act more contrary to
nature than the wild and most untamed part of the creation? doth God
forbid us under the severest penalty, that of death, to take away the life
of any man, a stranger, and upon provocation? and does he permit us to
destroy those he has given us the charge and care of; and by the dictates
of nature and reason, as well as his revealed command, requires us to
preserve? He has in all the parts of creation taken a peculiar care to
propagate and continue the several species of creatures, anal makes the
individuals act so strongly to this end, that they sometimes neglect their
own private good for it, and seem to forget that general rule, which
nature teaches all things, of self-preservation; and the preservation of
their young, as the strongest principle in them, over-rules the constitution of their particular natures. Thus we see, when their young stand in
need of it, the timorous become valiant, the fierce and savage kind, and
the ravenous, tender and liberal.
§57. But if the example of what hath been done be the rule of what
ought to be, history would have furnished our author with instances of
40/John Locke
this absolute fatherly power in its height and perfection, and he might
have showed us in Peru people that begot children on purpose to fatten
and eat them. The story is so remarkable, that I cannot but set it down in
the author’s words: “In some provinces, says he, they were so liquorish
after man’s flesh, that they would not have the patience to stay till the
breath was out of the body, but would suck the blood as it ran from the
wounds of the dying man; they had public shambles of man’s flesh, and
their madness herein was to that degree, that they spared not their own
children, which they had begot on strangers taken in war: for they made
their captives their mistresses, and choicely nourished the children they
lead by them, till about thirteen years old they butchered and eat them;
and they served the mothers after the same fashion, when they grew past
child-bearing, and ceased to bring them any more roasters.” Garcilasso
de la Vega, Hist. des Yncas de Peru, 1. i. c. 12.
§58. Thus far can the busy mind of man carry him to a brutality
below the level of beasts, when he quits his reason, which places him
almost equal to angels. Nor can it be otherwise in a creature, whose
thoughts are more than the sands, and wider than the ocean where fancy
and passion must needs run him into strange courses, if reason, which is
his only star and compass, be not that he steers by. The imagination is
always restless, and suggests variety of thoughts, and the will, reason
being laid afield, is ready for every extravagant project; and in this state
he that goes farthest out of the way, is thought fittest to lead, and is sure
of most followers: and when fashion hath once established what folly or
craft began, custom makes it sacred, and it will be thought impudence,
or madness, to contradict or question it. He that will impartially survey
the nations of the world, will find so much of their religions governments, and manners, brought in and continued amongst them by these
means, that he will have but little reverence for the practices which are
in use and credit amongst men; and will have reason to think, that the
woods and forests, where the irrational untaught inhabitants keep right
by following nature, are fitter to give us rules, than cities and palaces,
where those that call themselves civil and rational, go out of their way,
by the authority of example. If precedents are sufficient to establish a
rule in this c...
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