My purpose here is to extract what I think, are the important elements of Locke’s philosophy and political theory, for my own purposes. It was my experience of reading philosophy at university and over many years, that Locke was not often referred to, and I was never tempted to read his work. I have found that my copy of Bertrand Russell’s history of Western Philosophy, which back in the day I referred to as a guide book for my own reading, and which is covered in annotations, has no marks or comments on the pages devoted to Locke, and I think that I avoided even reading what Russell had to say about him. I will return to Russell at the end of this essay.
If I am entirely candid, I should say, that I have read Locke in recent months, after feeling more sympathy for my own country, and because of the rumour, that he wrote as a Christian. I have never before been tempted to read his work. Young people are more interested in foreign things, and strange ideas, which, from what I could gather, I was not going to find in Locke. But now that I find my country in serious trouble, and now that I have committed myself to membership of a church, and to alliance with God with my limited means, I have had reason to find out, what Britain’s first truly important thinker has written. I do have the intention of explaining what he seems to me, to have been intending to do; but I will not engage in this, except to advise British and Christian people, what they will find when reading him for themselves. What I mean is, I am making a general survey of his two most important books, and I do not intend to position myself in some kind of controversy, nor pay any attention to matters in his work, unless they concern me personally.
I don’t think Locke’s philosophy deserves to constitute a school of philosophy, to which I could belong. He has no system, anyway. His work is, rather, the expression of what was quite commonly believed in his own day; it is the view of a man of the late seventeenth century; the view of a man who was there when Britain had its last revolution, and when it was set up. So, this work has more of a historical interest, and a literary enjoyment, for me.
I must say, that at this moment, as I begin, I want to turn immediately to his political work, namely the Two Treatises of Government. For some reason, what he says there, has a grip on my intellectual faculty, which far outmatches, the fascination I have, for his view of the human understanding. I suppose that this is easy to explain, since, Locke obviously wrote that book in four parts, on the human understanding, in order to fight a battle which is now part of history, and no longer has any meaning for us. Namely, he wrote against scholasticism and the schoolmen. Perhaps the main animus driving him to compose those four books collected as the Essay, was the war of the English mind, on the departing Catholic and European world.
Locke begins the work by attacking the belief that human beings were born with ideas already in their minds. It is not so much, that Locke is correct to attack this, which interests us, as that, it was a corner stone of scholastic thinking, and that he from the first, set out to disprove it.
Also, from the first pages, it is apparent that Locke is writing in English, and that, anyone who reads philosophy, and usually does so in some kind of foreign language or translation, will find himself pleasantly surprised to have something in English; but also something in a conversational and precise, steady and slow style. His style is rather repetitive, and attempts to be comprehensive; so, when he makes a point, he tends to exhaust all the arguments in its favour; and also to answer some responses which he might imagine would be made to him.
As everyone knows, he asserted, that all human knowledge has its origin in experience, since it cannot have been given to a man at birth. And, his experience provides him alone with the secondary qualities of reality. The things of the senses. The primary qualities of reality are forever hidden. This distinction is not useful, as is also widely known; for, if a primary quality can never be known under any circumstances, then it is improper to call it a quality. Locke seems to have thought of primary qualities as what gives things motion, bulk, and so on, but that nothing more about them can be known. It was obvious to people who read his work at the time, that, motion, bulk, and so on, are also secondary qualities, if we can experience them. I suppose that the distinction he was trying to make, is this: that by contrast to the mind and the spirit, which makes use of ideas and thought, there is a physical world of mere moving and bulky matter, and that we don’t really have any direct access to this, for reasons we do not fully understand, but which have to do with how we were made, as limited intelligent beings. The principle simply sets out, that there are things of mere matter, and there are things of pure spirit.
He was more consistent, when he said, that anything which a man knows and understands, is an idea in his mind; and, his senses deliver these ideas to him. He makes a great deal of conclusions from this simple and true point. For instance, any substance, or what we know to be complex objects in the world, will be known only as a set of ideas, which we join together in the understanding; but, we can never know the true reality of any substance. As an example, we shall know perhaps an infinite number of things about gold; but gold in itself and in full, will never be known. When I have been reading Locke, it has occurred to me, to say something like this: that we know much more about gold than Locke, and so, in the twenty first century, we can lay claim to knowing, exactly what gold is; and that, perhaps, Locke’s scientific interests, which taught him that we know very little about the world, have been more and more completed, so that scepticism about the nature of reality, is no longer justified. However, Locke’s scepticism would still hold true today, and in any future condition of knowledge. Like this:
“We are then quite out of the way, when we think, that things contain within themselves the qualities, that appear to us in them; and we in vain search for that constitution within the body of a fly, or an elephant, upon which depends those qualities and powers we observe in them. For which, perhaps, to understand them aright, we ought to look, not only beyond this our Earth and atmosphere, but even beyond the Sun, or remotest star our eyes have not yet discovered. For how much the being and operation of particular substances in this our globe, depend on causes utterly beyond our view, is impossible for us to determine. We see and perceive some of the motions of grosser operations of things here about us; but whence the streams come that keep all these curious machines in motion and repair, how conveyed and modified, is beyond our notice and apprehension; and the great parts and wheels, as I may so say, of this stupendous structure of the universe, may, for ought we know, have such a connexion and dependence in their influences and operations one upon another, that, perhaps, things in this our mansion, would put on quite another face, and case to be what they are, if some one of the stars, or great bodies incomprehensibly remote from us, should cease to be, or move as it does. This is certain, things, however absolute and entire they seem in themselves, are but retainers to other parts of nature, for that which they are most taken notice of by us.”
(Essay, p. 519-20; Book IV, “Of Universal Propositions, their Truth and Certainty”, Section 11)
But there are pages and pages of this very extreme empirical scepticism, which would make the typical arrogant scientific mind of our time (“trust the science”, “I believe in the science”, and all that) red in the face.
I am fascinated by how Locke was an acquaintance of Isaac Newton, and knew of his work in the Principia; and yet, nevertheless, Locke insisted that all of natural science, was never certain knowledge. What strikes the careful reader of Locke, is that whether by design or unconsciously, he has made of the human subjective consciousness, a timeless, eternal immovable point. For, with this metaphysics of knowledge as mental idea, then the mind of the individual becomes a sovereign point of isolated, transcendence. There is a rather subtle continuous circling around individual consciousness, and that individualistic Christian spirituality, informing how Locke approaches knowledge. Whatever is known, is always known by the Christian individual, alone in the world, and limited and overseen by an omnipotent God. At the same time, and perhaps as consequence, Locke considers Reason to be the voice of God, and what Locke means by Reason, is that kind of thinking and activity, which allows us to come to a compromise and a peaceful life, with other people; Reason gives allows us to come to an agreement with other people, as one of its main qualities. So, Reason is that discursive power in us, which can bring facts, experience, logic, and put them into words, so that other people can consider them, and be convinced by what we say, and vice versa.
Locke could have asked, why it is so, that the mind has this central position; if he had asked, why is the human consciousness at the centre of this enquiry into knolwdge, it might be right to say, that, obviously, since we are discussing knowledge, and the mind is the only thing which can know, then the conscious individual mind, will be the site of most of what goes on. But I don’t think this would answer that question, since it is not exactly proven, that ideas are combined, and exist in the mind, as he says they are, by an individual. Rather, he has by a Christian predisposition, located what matters about knowledge and activity, in the free individual alone with himself. And, the principle that there is a speculative world, beyond our senses, is also questionable. I mean to say, he has chosen to make the individual subjective mind, into the sovereign centre of things.
I find, that this is also his approach to language, and to the gathering of knowledge with other people. Knowledge is held by an individual; and the individual has the task of communicating properly with other people, or not. And, this is the reason that language and its use, attract his attention for the whole of one of the books. It is as it were, a situation, where individual seekers after knowledge, can do so alone; and, face misunderstanding and contention, if they meet with others; but, that the communal pursuit of truth is a decision a man may make.
Locke is more likely to submit, that men can never know the absolute reality of things, because he also implicitly and explicitly claims, that men are created beings, who have been allotted a certain amount of power, and just enough understanding, to get by in their lives as men. Men are the creation of God, and are by nature, confined by their created limits; he frequently refers to spirits, pure spirits, angels, and so on.
There are times in the book, when one feels, that if Locke had known about the periodic table, or DNA, or chemical bonding, and the like, then his claim, that we cannot know the truth nature of physical reality, would have changed. He would have revised his thought about nature and reality. For instance, if he were talking of gold, and asked the question, which was not known in his time, why gold is not magnetic, and what precisely entirely distinguishes gold from other metals, we can claim to know the answer, today. But, I think that the additional knowledge of atomic bonding which is known today, would not have changed his mind. For, it remains unknown to us, why atomic bonding is taking place at all. It is as if, only God knows why the world is, and what it is for. And, as in my long quotation above, which is preceded and followed by comprehensive and touchingly thorough, attractively candid exposition, the universe is apparently infinite, and there are influences taking place, which could be crucial to the existence of any single item, about which we have not the remotest idea.
I think it is commonly thought, that Locke was religious only in a formal sense; that his contemporaries were beginning to become Deists, and that they held a theory that God had created the world, and then stood aside from it. This view is a direct contradiction of the Old and New Testaments, of course, and Christianity itself, in which it is said that God interacts with human beings. And, I think that Locke was not a Deist; by his references to the angelic spirits, and by the theory that man was a special creation, at the centre of all experience, he has eschewed all theories of a clockwork universe without God’s involvement. He believed that the mind and the freedom of action of the mind and human soul, does affect what goes on in the world at large, although, he points out that how this happens, remains and probably will forever be, a mystery.
“How any thought should produce a motion in body is as remote from the nature of our ideas, as how any body should produce any thought in the mind. That it is so, if experience did not convince us, the consideration of things themselves, would never be able, in the least, to discover to us.”
(Essay, Book IV, Chapter III “Of the Extent of Human Knowledge”, Section 28; p. 495)
It is true, however, that Locke does refer twice in the work, to the possibility of a science of morals, by which men would know in a practical way, how to achieve good and evil. That gives the impression that he had in mind, some supersession of religious belief, with some kind of calculus of robotic human behaviour. I think this has been a temptation of English thinkers ever since. Otherwise, Locke has little interest in moral matters. What is good, is what pleases us; and what pleases us, depends on the amount of thought and discipline we put into being pleased by worthwhile and God-pleasing things. And that appears to be as much effort that the study of morality requires. We must, that is, study the Scriptures to know what is right for men, and then cultivate in ourselves, the correct feelings and character, which will find happiness in those things; Locke seems to imply, that it would be a good thing, if people were educated to enjoy what the Scriptures say is good.
To conclude, I have already spoken or referred to Locke’s theory of the self, as the central point of all interest. I do not want to belabour this point. What I have said in this short essay, can be summarised by what Locke himself has listed, as the three types of certainty that the human understanding can attain to. Atheists and those who want to deny that our philosopher was a true Christian, ought to be disappointed.
In a very concise almost absent minded summary of the entire work, delivered without any great fanfare, he lists the things which we may know, and how we may know them, in Book IV, Chapter 3. He says that the only thing about which we may be absolutely certain, is that one is, oneself, alive. This alone is known with absolute certainty: the immediate self-presence of a man to himself. Slightly lower down in terms of certainty, is the certainty that God exists, as a conscious intelligent being; Locke says that it is logically necessary that God exists, and that he exists as an intelligent being, a person. The proofs for this are by deduction of various other, basic facts; since I am alive, then I must have been created; and since I have been created intelligent, then the creator must be intelligent. The final level of certainty consists of the ideas derived from experience, connecting which into a picture of reality, must always subject to doubt, and can only at best be said to give us an incomplete knowledge; and this is the sphere or the natural sciences, and of our interaction with the empirical world. This realm of knowledge is always only probable, and requires our assent, rather than our conviction, and only in degree. I add, that Locke also does not discount the possibility of direct communication with God, via ‘enthusiasm’, to which he devotes a chapter in the fourth book, but this is naturally to be controlled or impartially adjudicated by Reason. I suppose it would be possible to claim, that if God speaks to a man, then he has been given the highest possible sort of truth; and yet, since there is no way of verifying that it was God who spoke, then any such communication, must always be accompanied by Reason, if they are brought into the public sphere.
I will conclude with a quotation which summarises his approach to knowledge, which can belong to men, according to ‘human understanding’:
“Therefore as God has set some things in broad daylight; as he has given us some certain knowledge, though limited to a few things in comparison, probably, as a taste of what intellectual creatures are capable of, to excite in us a desire and endeavour after a better state: so in the greatest part of our concernment, he has afforded us only the twilight, as I may so say, of probability, suitable, I presume, to that state of mediocrity and probationership, he has been pleased to place us in here; wherein to check our over-confidence and presumption, we might by every day’s experience be made sensible of our short-sightedness and liableness to error; the sense whereof might be a constant admonition to us, to spend the days of this our pilgrimage with industry and care, in the search, and following of that way, which might lead us to a state of greater perfection. It being highly rational to think, even were revelation silent in the case, that as men employ those talents, God has given them here, they shall accordingly receive their rewards at the close of the day, when their Sun shall set, and night shall put an end to their labours.”
(An Essay, Book IV, Chapter XIV “Of Judgement”, Section 2; p. 576)
I would also finish this part of my brief account of Locke, by adverting to the easy, slow, friendly, and soothing way in which Locke wrote; his style, which I have already tried to describe, is the work of a man who is gentle, careful not to offend, by which I mean, he has manners and is polite; it is a sociable style, expressing a personality which means well, and who wishes to convince you, by giving arguments, and finally, frequently asks the reader, to supply his own objections and arguments, if he can. Indeed, I think that Locke revised his text, so it went through a few editions, and that it took around a decade to complete, after suggestions, and arguments from its readers. That it is not systematic, but rather piecemeal, and sprawling, is something which Locke probably thought was a virtue, since systematic and dogmatic thinking, was what he wished to avoid.
The Essay was published in 1689, and in the same year, the Two Treatises of Government, to which I will now turn.
I have no great or encyclopaedic knowledge of English and British history, but I note in the preface to the Essay, by Penguin, something which is significant and obvious about the Two Treatises, and Locke’s political views: he was in favour of the overthrow of the House of Stewart, which occurred in 1688. His early patron, after he had left teaching at the university, was the Earl of Shaftsbury, who was exiled in 1683, after being discovered to have planned a coup against the government, in order to stop the accession of James II, who was a Catholic. And this is, in part what dominates Locke’s interest in the theory of knowledge, namely, to prevent scholastic and Catholic forms of knowledge. And it is clearly on his mind, in the two separate treatises concerned with proper government.
I should point out from the start, what my question is about Locke’s political work, and what I expected to find; and then here at the start, what I do in fact find. I had expected to read the basis for political liberty in England, and some kind of laborious effort to explain the ancient constitutional arrangements, which would describe them in terms which, I imagined, Locke would give the name of ‘Liberalism’. And, it has been my understanding, that Locke is the father of ‘classical liberalism’. But there is none of that. And I do want to try to answer the question to my own satisfaction, in my own terms, what is the name of this political theory, which Locke has produced in his 1689 work?
The first treatise was written, I think, some ten or twenty years prior to the second. It is has the same quality as the Essay on Human Understanding, of basically exhausting every possible way of thinking about, a simple proposition, which was made by a certain Sir Richard Filmer, whose work was at that time popular, and with which, Locke took serious issue. Filmer had claimed in various places, that absolute monarchy was justified and the only proper government of a land, in this case England, because absolute monarchy is God’s will. Locke’s first treatise proves that absolute monarchy is not God’s will. What interest can be found in the first part, is the variety of ways, in which he mocks this idea and the author. He goes to great length, to discover what proofs there are for the notion, that God designed mankind to be ruled by a hereditary king, and then to show that they are not sufficient. In brief, Filmer’s arguments are neither good, nor even very clear; and his chief piece of evidence that the monarch must rule unimpeded, is that Adam was created alone, and that God gave him possession of all creation. This is obviously not a good foundation for a political theory of government, and Locke exhausts more or less every way of refuting it. There is a part of this first treatise, where Locke breaks away from the demolition work, and provides us with what he sees as a more sane account of the reason for government, and what it should look like, which prefigures the second treatise, written years later, and in a completely different spirit.
“For the desire, strong desire of Preserving his Life and Being having been Planted in him, as a Principle of Action by God himself, Reason, which was the Voice of God in him, could not but teach him and assure him, that pursuing that natural Inclination he had to preserve his Being, he followed the Will of his Maker, and therefore had a right to make use of those Creatures, which by his Reason or Senses he could discover would be serviceable thereunto. And thus Man’s Property in the Creatures, was founded upon the right he had, to make use of those things, that were necessary or useful to his Being.” (First Treatise, “Monarchy by Inheritance”, Section 86).
And:
“The first and strongest desire God Planted in Men, and wrought into the very Principles of their Nature being that of Self-preservation, that is the Foundation of a right to the Creatures, for the particular support and use of each individual Person himself. But next to this, God Planted in Men a strong desire also of propagating their Kind, and continuing themselves in their Posterity, and this gives Children a Title, to share in the Property of their Parents, and a Right to Inherit their Possessions.”
(ibid. Section 88).
These brief statements of a position on his fundamental beliefs are short, and only taken up again in the Second Treatise. Filmer had offended Locke so deeply, because the argument of his book, was to prove that kings rule by divine right, and that all men are slaves to the king; and this had been said, to justify the Stewart monarchs, and to prevent any further civil wars against them.
What is remarkable about that second treatise, is the fundamental importance, which Locke gives, with relatively little justification, for the theory, that all law and thus, all government, derives from the imperative, that an individual’s property must be protected. There are justifiable reasons for this theory, namely, that if a man does not have any property, then he will die. But, the incredible importance of these two principles: self-preservation, and property ownership, probably seems to me to have demanded a bit more explanation and introduction.
What is also novel, in our minds, is that property is more important as a concept, than life, to a man. For, the law of nature, as Locke understands it, requires that a man preserve his life, and protect himself, with the use of property. But, he has no choice about this, because he is not the ultimate owner of his own life; rather, his life is ultimately God’s property. And in this way, property is metaphysically the notion which underpins everything else. One must survive, in order to obey the law, and the commands of reason; and not for the sake of life itself; rather, staying alive and self-preservation is a divine command, issued by God, as the fundamental law of nature.
Further, notice how Locke has presented the reader, with law, as something which exists beyond man and his own ideas of himself. The law is something he lives under, from the moment of his birth. And, it is the law which he knows by use of his reason; that is, his reason tells him to survive.
As with the metaphysics of knowledge and reality, the individual is the principle rule against which everything else is to be understood. So, by virtue of his creation as a man, created by God, the first unit of measurement and understanding in politics, is the individual. The individual belongs to God, and the law is on him, which he must obey, to survive; and, secondly, he will do so, by gathering property from the creatures, in the form of food, land, and so on. And, land and property also includes that form of them which is imperishable, namely money. It shortly is explained, that if he give rise to children, then it is his responsibility, to raise them and tend to them, by sharing with them his property. And, if he should die, then that property which he has gained and raised his children in, should be by force of nature, be passed on to them, since this is fair. They have been raised from birth to expect a certain kind of life, and they are entitled to live in that way, when their parents die.
Locke calls this situation, the reign of the law of nature. It is the state of nature. And, in that state, if any other man attempts to take his property, and thereby endanger his survival, and he has no other means of defending his property, or to defend the life which God has given him, then he is entitled by the law of nature, to murder the thief. For, if the thief succeeds, then he himself will die; therefore, in order to prevent the thief and theft in general, he must carry out the death sentence on any thief. The urgency of this demand to kill the thief, can be understood, when we call to mind, that in a state of nature, is man is alone; he cannot call for help from anyone else, so that if, for example, he loses the food for the day, then he will go hungry for that day, and that if this continues for two or so weeks, he will certainly die.
Whether this is the real state of nature, or whether this is the law is given by God, and whether men really are isolated individuals at any time, or whether Reason is the law of God speaking to man, are questions which Locke has no interest in examining. Like Filmer, he starts from Genesis, and, examining the behaviour of the Jews through the Old Testament, one must conclude, that preservation and survival are what God wants from man. Describing man as an individual first and foremost, only bound by nature, survival, the rules of property, with the inherent power and even the demand that he kill his enemies, and an obligation to look after any children, is a simple and drastic, theory of what a man is, and what his existential situation in life, is. We can see that this is the condition describing the life of, for instance, Abraham, or Jacob. In this scheme, Locke accounts for marriage, as the means of procreating and continuing the race. And, with some natural scientific observation, he says that man is unusual in nature among other animals, in being monogamous, and unusual in living indefinitely in a marriage– because, he says, human young take such a long time to develop, that they need almost whole life care, and the cooperation of both parents.
It is an indication of the place which Loyalty to the state must play in this scheme of extreme individualism, that Locke also says, that a child does not become an adult or a citizen until he is twenty-one, because he is not capable of understanding the need for loyalty, and what it is that he must commit himself to in a society, until that age; until that time, the child must be loyal only to his family. Certainly, there is no idea here, of the state having any responsibility for the child. But I will return to loyalty, which seems to be what, behind all of this, holds such a society together. “[A] Child is born a subject of no Country or Government” (Second Treatise, Section 118); when he reaches the ‘age of discretion’, he must pledge himself, in loyalty, to a certain society. I would point out here, as soon as possible, the rather rare idea, that it is because a man is intrinsically an individual with responsibility for himself and his eternal life, and is free, and that the state of nature is a lonely one, that the change which takes place when he joins a society, is one of strict loyalty to it, since it is so easy for him to fall back into a state of nature, and isolation, that betrayal of the community would be almost a certainty, if he had not given an oath, a promise, of dedication and loyalty to the government and the nation he choses to join.
In a time when ‘ethno-nationalism’ and ‘civic-nationalism’, are in debate, it is something to see what Locke has to say; a child, when he breaks free of his parents, can chose his country. But, if he lives in a country, having not been born there, he remains a foreigner. So:
“And thus we see, that Foreigners, by living all their Lives under another Government, and enjoying the Privileges and Protection of it, though they are bound, even in Conscience, to submit to its Administration, as far forth as any Denison; yet do not thereby come to be Subjects or Members of that Commonwealth. Nothing can make any Man so, but his actually entering into it by positive Engagement, and express Promise and Compact. This is that, which I think, concerning the beginning of Political Societies, and that Consent which makes any one a Member of any Commonwealth” (S122).
This idea of the promise which must be made by a citizen of any given nation, is an act of loyalty, which could be said, rarely to take place in our country, as an example. You would ask: precisely when do British people swear or promise to belong to the nation, forsaking all others? And the answer is, I suppose, perpetually. They renew their oath, automatically, and prove it by the way they act toward the nation and each other. They do so, I think, if Locke is right, often without knowing the obligation they are under. And, I would say, that it is precisely because it is not widely known that loyalty among the people is necessary, that it has been almost comically easy, to bring among the British, vast quantities of foreigners, who are not loyal and, as time passes, become more and more dangerous to the survival of our nation and government. But, in simple terms, nature and God has made us into individuals; and if we are to form a civil government, then each individual compromises himself, and gives up his individual identity, replacing it with a national identity, and this change and relation to the nation, is an act of loyalty. A half hearted relationship to the nation, is a kind of treason, and should be punished, since it leads to the dissolution of the government.
I suppose I would call this a theory of human life a pure individualism. On this basis, there does not seem to be a need for any civic society, and that civil government is something people freely chose, or reject, but that there are no halfway measures. The natural state of men, is that they have no civil government. I would say, that a state populated by people without loyalty, is in a state of nature.
Locke does not make many references to the West Indes, and the colonies in the Americas, but both his Essay and the Treatise, do show that he is aware of the nature of what was going on, in the form of settlement, colonies, and the behaviour of the natives found there.
I would make a side reference to another work I have come across recently, by David Graeber, in which he makes the striking claim, typically from outside the mainstream of scholarship and understanding of history, that the interaction between these non-European Americans, had affected and contributed to, the European enlightenment, which Locke represents. Travels around the world, and the awareness of other ways of life, had begun to affect and alter how men in London viewed their own society and form of government. Graeber’s thesis being, that perhaps the idea of the individual, the notion of individual freedom, became so important to men like Locke, because it was so strongly evidenced in the Americas, and their state of nature. However, I perhaps misread Graeber when he said this, since, I gave some thought to the notion of the self-sufficient and self-conscious individual, after reading his rather rebellious and unconventional assertion about our tradition of political thinking, and now reflect that the self-understanding that Western man has had of himself as an individual agent, with freedom, is hard wired, deeply ingrained into the Western religious and political tradition. Christ was the supreme individual, he is the supreme human individual; and the Italian Renaissance, which derived from studies of Roman law, and Greek culture, valorised individuality and freedom, long before the discovery of the Americas. What Graeber was interested in saying, rather relates to the idea, that the Americans showed Europe, the captivating idea of Equality, a rather new idea in Europe. With this, I find it harder, and even, not necessary to argue. Equality is not something which Europe and England have thought of as a value. Men in a state of nature, Locke says, are equal, in that each of them has only one command: to survive, and each of them is equally entitled to survive. But that they are equal in their property, and in their activity, is clearly untrue. I would interpret Locke to mean, that God owns each man; but that each man owns his property as a result of his labour. And since men are different one from another, then their property will never be equal, but will vary. And, if they do not have property, then they will die. Hence, inequality of property is necessary to survival, and is the natural law.
But, in Locke’s time, particularly in Rousseau, but in many others in France, among men who made the Revolution more likely, equality in property, or the idea that property is not needed, came to seem as the original situation of men. It became a commonplace, around this time, that before the advent of civilisation, all men were equally rich and equally poor, in that they did not own anything. Now, in Locke, from the first, in the origin story, which for him is Genesis, a man was entitled to work the land, and claim the work as his own. As he points out in proof of the notion, that once a man has worked the land, then it is his own, he goes so far as to point out that uncultivated land in the Americas, is literally worthless; while cultivated land, has a value, and must be considered the property of the man who worked it. Basically, when a man works, he gains property, and the means to survive. And, he is entitled to defend it against anyone else who wants to take it from him.
In a similar spirit, expanding this practical idea of property ownership, he says that in a state of nature, when a man is in danger of dying, and prefers to live, by becoming beholden to another man for his food and work, then in this way, by choosing to live rather than die, he becomes the slave of the land owner. It is later on a major principle which is called on when discussing revolution, that men can never voluntarily give themselves up to slavery; and, I think that when, early in the work, Locke says that some men have made themselves slaves, rather than die, he is there referring to men who cannot be members of the society, or government. They are without property, and have fallen below the level for being considered anything but men in a state of nature, and cannot be thought of as taking part in civil life; although, they do take part in the natural condition of a relationship with God And, this is in the nature of things, it is the state of nature. I suppose that Locke would say, that a slave does have other options, if he does not like his slavery; he can escape and find his own land, and work it for himself. Or, being in a state of nature as he is, he can attempt to kill his master. But, the proper form of slavery, has taken place during war, and after the war, when a fight for resources and property has been engaged in.
The origin of civil society, which takes up roughly the second part of the second treatise, discusses how men come to form such a society, and the role of the government. By Locke’s theory, which is intended to be a description of civil government as he found it in England, civil government is a single step away from the state of nature. The step from nature to society is performed by an act of voluntary loyalty to a nation, and, by submission to a legislated law. From the isolated single individual’s condition of being guided only by imperative to survive and protect yourself against thieves, and by the voice of God; to the condition of being subject to law, and part of the corporate identity of a nation, where the imperative to survive, and to protect your property still applies, but you are now assisted by the entire community of the nation, in this life and death struggle.
Civil society differs from the state of nature, in this alone: that the members have voluntarily, and indefinitely, in every one of the members, submitted to rule by a government, so that their property (which includes their lives) can be protected by an impersonal rule of law, rather than by the direct retributive law of nature. In effect, when a thief attacks the property of the man in a civil society, then the government forces will kill or punish the offender on behalf of the victim; while in a state of nature, a man has to do it for himself. And, a civil society is preferable to a state of nature, for this reason only: that when once a cycle of violence has begun, then it is hard to stop. So, civil government is preferable, because it puts an end to perpetual violence, and yet retains the same basic character: that property always belongs to the individual, and the individual is bound by law to defend his property.
The ideal form of society, has an executive, by which he means the king; a legislative, which should consist of members of the society, by which he means parliament; and finally it should consist of a house representing the main property owners.
Locke concludes his book, after showing the narrow gap between nature and civil society, by showing the various ways in which it can fail to be civil, in the case of usurpers, the degeneration into a tyranny; in the case of a war with another society; and finally, the situation which will make it necessary to dissolve the government, or in other words, when it is necessary by the law of reason, to disband and destroy the civil government. Civil war or rebellion is necessary above all, when the government has made the citizens into slaves, that is, people who have no representation, and whose property is being freely and arbitrarily taken by the legislative or executive. There is only one justification for destroying the government, which is that it no longer serves to protect the property of the members; when a sufficiently large number of people are aware that by malice or incompetence, the law makers are making laws which contradict the laws of nature, and which endanger their property, they will inevitably break the government up.
I suppose there is something missing from this account, which is to mention what to Locke, is central to the civil government. Namely, that for the sake of protecting the property of individual members of the society, the highest power in the land, is the law, which in England, is the House of Commons, the Lords, and the monarch. The Legislative must be made up of representatives from the individuals who form the society. In this way, just as an individual in a state of nature, is governed by the law of nature; just so, in a civil society, he is willingly governed and loyal to the laws issued by the legislative. And, the executive, who carries out the instructions of the law, is similarly bound. There ought to be, a division between the king, and the people who draft and approve the laws.
There are exceptions, such as in times of war, when the executive can act arbitrarily, but if either the executive or the legislative, act in such a way as to endanger or to wilfully betray the people, then the government must be dissolved, or overthrown. This is to offer their safety up to the chances only guaranteed by heaven; and in that situation, heaven or God as it were, approves of the rebellion. There is no doubt that Locke was in this way, referring to the justice of the rebellion of 1688, and the Glorious Revolution, against James II. And also perhaps to the rebellion against Charles I, in which his father fought for the parliamentary forces. It is remarkable to me, that he also makes few other historical references, other than to William I, saying that, the rule of William I returned England to a state of nature, and the people became slaves. But that, it is possible after a conquest, for the people to willingly submit to the new rule, and when they do so, that the ruler ceases to be a tyrant, and they cease to be slaves. Which is what happened in England in that case. I would say, that this is how most civil governments are formed: an initial conquest, followed by a reasonable accommodation between the ruled and ruler, over a period of time.
I have two remaining questions. Firstly, is Locke’s description of government, the basis for a political movement, or a party. You could say, if a man believes this theory of government, is he a liberal? Or, equally, should this theory be accepted as a description of actual political situation in England? Is it true? Can it be made to be true in some sense?
If we accept the grounds for Locke’s arguments, then we must accept the consequences. So, if the state of nature is what he says, and the reason for the origin of nations is as he says, then similarly, there must be acceptance of the consequence: namely, that the legislative must do the work of the people, or face being dissolved. Locke asks, in his typically unbothered, pragmatic way, whether an executive, or a king, could live with a situation where he is continually in danger of being overthrown, when the individuals of the nation, can do so by right. But Locke says, that in practice, by his psychological insight, he believes that the dissolution of government will only ever take place, when the evil of the government is so obvious, and so intentional, that the greater part of a nation can see it, and are as a result able to band together. Where there is no intentional harm to them, there will in practice, be a greater number of people, who would prefer that their government continue, than allow a usurper and trouble maker, to succeed in a revolution.
This philosophy could only with great anachronistic use of a word, be called ‘liberalism’. In our time, liberalism means a kind of totalitarian government, working on behalf of a technocratic elite, with an imperial attitude toward the people, and a rather hostile attitude toward the law of nature. So the word ‘liberalism’, no longer means what it might have meant, when it was used to mean individual freedom, within a lightly regulated nation, where the entire force of the collective is brought to bear on an offender against an individual, and where the only demands on a man, are that he have loyalty to the nation, and not engage in theft or arbitrary violence. For which, Government has no other end, but the preservation of property (S 93).
What Locke has written is clearly a kind of aspiration, or, a description of what he sees as, the underlying powers and forces, and motivations, for society in England. The main power of the state, is that it takes from all of its members, the right to murder, except in cases of immediate danger to life. For, once that has been surrendered, the government has the duty to exact punishment at a later date, whether in the death sentence or some other punishment. So, basically, a civil society is one in which property can be defended by appeal to an objective independent law, rather than to the immediate law of nature; and, a man loses the right to use force to protect his property, and hands it over to government.
And, where government no longer protects his property for him, or, actively sets out to destroy or steal his property, and it does this on a widespread scale, then it must in the nature of things, be dissolved. It no longer has the right to act as a government, and dissolves back to a state of nature, where men must take the law into their own hands. As happened in 1688.
Those who approve of this kind of society, which is little better than state of nature, but regulated by an impersonal legal authority, where the individuals remain more or less ‘every man for himself’ in economic terms, would still think of this as a ‘liberal’ society, or perhaps ‘ultra-liberal’. It is a trivial matter to give a name to it, so let us continue to call it classical liberalism. If there is one distinction between this classical liberalism, and the contemporary liberalism, it is this: classical liberalism is also ultra-nationalistic and patriotic, while contemporary liberalism appears not to by loyal to any nation, and hence, in Locke’s terms, is driving mankind back to a state of nature. It is, that is to say, illogical and destructive of law and order, and if contemporary liberals are in power, they should be thought of as dangerous destructive forces.
Classical liberalism, the only form of civic government with which Locke is concerned, differs from tyranny or absolute monarchy, because the executive has to abide by laws created by the legislative. And, the ultimate ruler, is the law; and the law drafted by representatives of the members of the society. But we should also say it differs quite a bit, from the situation in England today, since the executive in England, for various reasons, currently has control of approaching 50% of all the disposable property of the nation. And, the difference between the executive and legislative is today only nominal. The dominant party in the House of Commons both makes the laws, and also sees that they are carried out, which is something which in past times, led to civil wars, due to the temptation to arbitrary power.
What Locke has said, which represents an aspiration, as much as a description of England, seems to me to be still in existence. It has been in existence since at least 1688, and in a more debased form, for some time before that, because the three elements which were necessary for it, namely, the executive, the legislative, and the property owning class:
“Let us suppose then the Legislative place in the Concurrence of three distinct Persons.
1. A single hereditary Person having the constant, supream, executive Power, and with it the Power of Convoking and Dissolving the other two within Periods of Time.
2. An Assembly of Hereditary Nobles.
3. An Assembly of Representatives chosen pro tempore, by the People: Such a Form of Government supposed, it is evident.”
(S. 213)
What perhaps is missing from our time, is the following:
“Though in a Constituted Commonwealth, standing upon its own Basis, and acting according to its own Nature, that is, acting for the preservation of the Community, there can be but one Supream Power, which is the Legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the Legislative being only a Fiduciary Power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the People a Supream Power to remove or alter the Legislative, when they find the Legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. For all Power given with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the Power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security. And thus the Community perpetually retains a Supream Power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of any Body, even of their Legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish, or so wicked, as to lay and carry on designs against the Liberties and Properties of the Subject. For no Man, or Society of Men, having a Power to deliver up their Preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the Absolute Will and arbitrary Dominion of another; whenever any one shall go about to bring them into such a Slavish Condition, they will always have a right to preserve what they have no a Power to part with; and to rid themselves of those who invade this Fundamental, Sacred, and unalterable Law of Self-Preservation, for which they enter’d into Society. And thus the Community may be said in this respect to be always the Supream Power, but not as considered under any Form of Government, because this Power of the People can never take place till the Government be dissolved.”
(Second Treatise, Chapter XIII, Section 149; pp. 366-7)
In this way, we are reminded, that the supreme power of the people does not take the form of a political party, or a set of members of the government, but rather, the power of destroying the government in a rebellion. So, it is not a political force, nor has any political form, but is the supreme right of a people to overthrow the government in an act of apolitical violence or force. This is the realistically highest power and authority of the English or British society.
The reason that the Executive and Legislative are separate, is because the temptation of those who have the power, to make laws to suit themselves, is likely a grave temptation among any kind of man or class. It would be my suspicion, that the legislative class, have been acting in confederation with other national governments around Europe, so that the legislative of England, is the same thing as the executive, and that the people have no recourse except to dissolve the government.
We could say, that the government, which is not respecting the people of Britain, but has the aim of confederating with the EU, a plan which is shared among almost all the legislative, is ignorant of the supreme power of the people, to overthrow the government. Meanwhile, it is acting in what could be called an imperial way, or a tyrannical way, so that the people are made slaves, rather than voluntary members of the community. A slave is defined by Locke as the situation of suspended death sentence, in that, they would rather go on living, in a way which deprives them of their natural freedom temporarily, rather than die.
What concerns us today, when the society is on the verge of being overthrown, and dissolved, is that England was, as envisaged and described by Locke, a single entity, of voluntary and free members. The members owed it loyalty, and were either part of it, or not. Foreigners remained foreigners until they had given a promise of loyalty to no other society. The land of Britain belongs to the people whose parents brought them into the world, as children, and passed the land they had worked onto them, as their right by the natural law. And no government should ever break that law, although it has, by taking the land and the civilisation from them, and given it to any number of foreign people.
“I will not dispute now whether Princes are exempt from the Laws of their Countrey: but this I am sure, they owe subjection to the Laws of God and Nature. No Body, no Power can exempt them from the Obligations of that Eternal Law. Those are so great, and so strong, in the case of Promises, that Ominipotency it self can be tyed by them. Grants, Promises, and Oaths are Bonds that hold the Almighty: Whatever some Flatterers say to Princes of the World who all together, with all their People joined to them, are in comparison of the great God, but as a Drop of the Bucket, or a Dust on the Balance, inconsiderable nothing!” (S195)
It is largely because of an uncontrolled immigration, that there is no unity in the nation now, but rather factionalism and polar factionalism, so that in their ideas, the two parts of the society are enemies in every detail. There is also a degradation or downgrading of the people, who are voluntary members, by a new influx of a new type of people, who are only recently members of another state. And, the people are forced to share their property, handed on to them in general by their parents and ancestors, with new comers, who are unaccountable considered almost immediately to be members. And, the other problem, is the hardness of hearing, the poor governmental practice of the legislative class, who are one of the factions, a mere group, rather than the government.
It only needs to be pointed out, in our time, that the executive and legislative, which are dangerously the same thing, and have been consistently for several decades, that they exert power over the people of Britain, as if they were governing an imperial province. The people are simply managed, and shifted about, and replaced where necessary. But there is a simple explanation for this, and a good one, namely, that many of Britain’s problems, in particular, the Northern Ireland problem, but as the problem of Britain’s imperial decline, could have been solved by the creation of a European superstate. A European state, to which both Ireland and Britain, as well as Germany and Britain, could belong, would put aside all strife of the kind which has happened in the last century. It has been the sometimes obvious policy of the government to hand the nation over, without its consent, to a different government. Does this need to be referred to Locke, as a crime, and a reason for dissolution of government?
“The People’s Right is equally invaded, and their Liberty lost, whether they are made Slaves to any of their own, or a Foreign Nation; and in this lies the injury, and against this only have they the Right of Defence. And there are instances to be found in all Countries, which shew that ‘tis not the change of Nations in the Person of their Governours, but the change of Government, that gives the Offence” (S239).
When he describes the origin of states, with the need to defend property, and to avoid the state of war, which quickly follows on the state of nature, he also recounts the origin story of the origin of money, as a non-perishable store of goods, so that men can share their labour, and exchange it in a form which will not need to be spent or used up immediately.
But we know what Locke would have thought of this, for he saw it in the time of James II. But as for me, I leaf through the book, and notice that, as a result of his set of basic principles, which I have described, there are dozens of interesting conclusions and results of those principles when put together, which it is not my business to list here.
Earlier on in my book, I had noticed, in what appeared to me at the time to be an inadequate and embarrassing way, the rather obvious fact, that the external world is real. I now feel better able to explain what I meant by this. I had meant, that what matters to anyone, is what he gives serious attention to. What he wants to understand, and what he wants to find meaning in, is what, effectively, alone really exists for him. This strange situation applies only to the individual life, and is in the nature of individual existence, which is the condition everyone is in. If a man is to attempt to deny to anyone else, that the external world is real, then he would be foolish; but in the way he leads his own inner life, he is entirely entitled to live in this way. This is due to the subjective way in which we live. In this perspective, other people generally don’t need to exist, if one is a hermit. It is known, surely, by any hermit, that in an objective but distant way, other people are real. But it is a matter of degree, when that man then considers them to have at best, an indifferent existence relative to the other things which count toward his sense of reality and being alive.
When one says, that the outside world and other people exist, in a meaningful way, then in my case, I mean this: that for religious reasons, I have taken no real interest in politics and the general society. Rather, my focus of interest and meaning, has been concerned with my eternal life. When I now find meaning and existence in the community or society, or the world of other people, then this is to say, that I have become involved in political thinking, and have begun to meditate on my loyalty to the civil government, such as it is.
I notice in Locke’s work, that, in the cross over from the state of nature, to the state of civil government, the cross over is effected by a change of loyalty. As Locke has said, when a criminal attempts to steal property from a man who is a member of a civil community, then the entire nation’s power draws itself up, to punish the criminal. In this sense, a member of a civil society, has lost his individuality, and become a part of a greater body. He has changed his way of existing, and his relationship to himself. His individuality and freedom, is now retained, but has the character of something shared with everyone else. The relationship to the state has the name of ‘loyalty’. A man in a civil society, is loyal, and devoted to the state. We can see this in the way in which Locke is also concerned to say, that foreigners remain foreign, and that even if a man has consented to the civil society of one land, he yet remains outside another, which is to say: a civil society is always a distinct one, among possible others. And the relationship to the one he has chosen, is loyalty, bound by oath.
This is what makes membership of a civil society perilous for a man’s soul, as well as his property, since, the fate of his country, which he has chosen to submit to, and to give up part of his individual freedom and his individual existence for, draws him along with it, in an emotional way, a real way, so that its fate is tied up with his soul’s composure. A person who is part of a social contract with a nation, should find himself, by virtue of the necessary loyalty, personally distraught when that nation is badly ruled or under threat from other nations. You could say, that by being part of a nation, his integrity is compromised; the state of nature is to be an individual, while the condition of a man in a civil government, depends on the success and welfare of that society. A man feels it personally, when things beyond his control occur. This is a feature of loyalty to a nation, and it seems to me that Locke believed that this sacrifice of individual identity, so as to assume the identity of the nation, is a difficult thing to explain or understand, but is nonetheless what happens to a man in the state: his welfare is its welfare; and we would call this relationship one of patriotism. The country in which a man belongs, literally must become his country, over which he has some claim, to ownership.
And, hence, the distress which will arise, when the country becomes defaced, and ruined, by for instance, mass migration of foreigners, who share its life, without the loyalty. This kind of thing is an existential crisis for a true member of the society. It is little different from a hostile invasion and dissolution of the state, as far as he can see; and he feels it as a personal attack.
I also, finally, notice that Locke has not said, but implies in his theory of the state, that Christianity, or the individual self-relationship, the religion of individual life before God, continues, inside the state, as he has described it in the Second Treatise. There is a great yawning gap in his description of the civil government, which is in our time filled with socialist organisation of the economy, and management of the population and its property. This, I think, was left empty by Locke, since he believed that Christians, as he assumed each man must be in a society, are free to organise their public interactions, as they see fit, in freedom, rather than by being managed by the government. I see it that Locke thought that a man gives up his individuality for his nation; he gives up his freedom; but, he regains it, in a limited wise, or perhaps just as fully he regains it, by being an individual before God. He remains in a state of nature before God.
I would conclude with some remarks on Bertrand Russell’s understanding of Locke, as brief as possible. His analysis of Locke’s metaphysics, or rather, his theory of knowledge, is quite good, and better than mine, as an explanation of details of Locke’s work. And we do not significantly disagree. But on politics, Russell makes embarrassing mistakes and oversights; and even seems to be hostile, which makes him an inattentive reader. Russell does not understand, that the state of nature has a law, and that Locke has said over and over, that the law of nature has only one command: to survive. The state of nature is also lonely, and involves only one man. Not understanding this, Russell frequently asks inappropriate questions, such as asking, what the law of nature can possibly be, as if he had been unable to hear Locke repeat, that the law of nature is survival. And, Russell also complicates matters with inappropriate questions, asking how men in a state of nature interact with each other, unless they had some kind of common law. In these questions, he has misunderstood, that the state of nature involves only one man, and that he is isolated and looking after himself; the condition of nature is not a social one at all, since, as soon as a social relationship arises, it does so either as war, or as civil society, but the default condition is simply isolated individualism.
There are reasons why Russell was rather hostile to Locke, so that he did not sympathise enough to be able to follow the Second Treatise; namely, Russell, as he hints here and there in the discussion, in his 1944 book, was hoping for a world where men did not have property, and where the state would organise the nation’s activity in a totalistic and probably non-consensual way; and, even worse, where there would be a single world government, so as to put an end to the state of nature which exists between the various free nations.
“A new international Social Contract is necessary before we can enjoy the promised benefits of government. When once an international government has been created, much of Locke’s political philosophy will again become applicable, though not the part of it which deals with private property” (History, p. 616).
What Russell did not understand about the origin of governments and such international contracts, is that they require loyalty from the individuals who submit to compose them. Hence, an international government, must somehow demand loyalty and submission; and, that for all we know, most governments come about by force and war, since the ruling authority of any state always gains legitimacy, by demanding that submission, after a proof of power and victory on the battlefield. This is how loyalty and submission are always won, for a nation state. It follows, that a world government would require decades or I would say, centuries, of war; for this reason, I think it is preferable that this objective is set aside indefinitely, and that it is preferable, that nations continue to exist in a state of nature relative to each other.
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