John Locke

The First Treatise of Government John Locke

This book contains Locke's First Treatise, which argues against the idea of divine right and the absolute monarchy praised by his contemporary Robert Filmer.

At the time his treatises were written, English politics had undergone decades of upheaval in the wake of the English Civil War. When Dutch monarch William of Orange ascended to the English throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, burning questions over the best form of governance for England were prominent in the intelligentsia of the era. It was a time when England grappled with its incremental transition from monarchy to early forms of democracy and right to vote, where dynastic monarchy and religious theory still held considerable power over the formation of the state.

In the first treatise Locke proceeds to attack and dissect his prominent contemporary Robert Filmer, who was broadly in favour of absolute monarchy under the principle of divine right. The allusions to the Biblical Adam, wherein the monarch can be intimated as a continuation of the first man ever created, are debunked by Locke who asserts that God never asserted that one man had province to rule over all other human beings. Supporting his argument with known history, Locke concludes that no king over the centuries had asserted to be the heir of Adam and thereby the rightful ruler of a country.

Lauded as a classic of political philosophy, the treatises by Locke are a common requirement in various educational courses concerning political science and philosophy to this day. While steeped in the historical realities of the late 17th century, the arguments Locke composes for governance favourable to the people and their country's development were immensely influential on political theory during and after the Enlightenment era.