Major Works

• Two Treatises of Government

  - Recommended edition: Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
  Excerpt: 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… More

• A Letter Concerning Toleration

  - Recommended edition: A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. James Tully (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983).
  Excerpt: I think indeed there is no nation under heaven, in which so much has already been said upon that subject, as ours. But yet certainly there is no people that stand in more need of having something further both said and done amongst them, in this… More

Other Works

• Two Tracts on Government

  - Recommended edition: Political Essays, ed. Mark Goldie (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 3-78.
  Excerpt: I have chosen to draw a great part of my discourse from the supposition of the magistrate’s power, derived from, or conveyed to him by, the consent of the people, as a way best suited to those patrons of liberty, and most likely to obviate… More

• An Essay on the Poor Law

  - Recommended edition: Political Essays, ed. Mark Goldie (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 182- 198.
  Excerpt: If the cause of this evil be well looked into, we humbly conceive it will be found to have proceeded neither from scarcity of provisions, nor from want of employment for the poor, since the goodness of God has blessed these times with plenty, no less… More

• The Reasonableness of Christianity

  - Recommended Edition: The Reasonableness of Christianity, ed. I. Ramsey (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1958).
  Excerpt: The little satisfaction and consistency that is to be found, in most of the systems of divinity I have met with, made me betake myself to the sole reading of the scriptures (to which they all appeal) for the understanding the Christian Religion.… More

• Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina

  - Recommended edition: Political Essays, ed. Mark Goldie (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 160-181.
  Excerpt: Our sovereign lord the king having, out of his royal grace and bounty, granted unto us the province of Carolina, with all the royalties, properties, jurisdictions, and privileges of a county palatine, as large and ample as the county palatine of… More

• Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money

  - John Locke, "Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money" in The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, Vol. 4 (London: Rivington, 1824).
  Excerpt: The first thing to be considered is, “Whether the price of the hire of money can be regulated by law?” And to that I think, generally speaking, one may say, it is manifest it cannot. For since it is impossible to make a law that shall hinder a… More

• Short Observations On a Printed Paper, Entitled, For Encouraging the Coining Silver Money In England, and After For Keeping It Here

  - John Locke, "Short Observations On a Printed Paper, Entitled, For Encouraging the Coining Silver Money In England, and After For Keeping It Here" in The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, Vol 4 (London: Rivington, 1824).
  Excerpt: The matter in short is this; England sending more consumable commodities to Spain than it receives from thence, the merchants, who manage their trade, bring back the overplus in bullion, which, at their return, they sell as a commodity. The chapmen,… More

• Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman

  - John Locke, "Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman" in The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, Vol. 2 (London: Rivington, 1824).
  Excerpt: The improvement of the understanding is for two ends; first, for our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver and make out that knowledge to others. The latter of these, if it be not the chief end of study in a gentleman; yet it… More

Commentary

• “John Locke and Natural Law”

  - W. von Leyden, "John Locke and Natural Law," Philosophy 31 (1956), 23-35
  Excerpt: The law of nature as it occurs in Locke’s philosophy is not the same as one of Galileo’s or Newton’s so-called laws of nature: it is not concerned with physical phenomena, their motion or regularity. In the sense in which Locke uses… More

• “Locke’s State of Nature in Political Society”

  - Robert Goldwin, "Locke's State of Nature in Political Society," Western Political Quarterly 29 (1976), 126-135.
  Excerpt: “Readers of the Two Treatises of Government have long wondered about the meaning of Locke’s discussion of the state of nature. Did Locke think that the state of nature really existed, or did he present it as an invented or imagined state?… More

• Anarchy, State, and Utopia

  - Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1977).
  Excerpt: “We slow down the dramatic pace of our tale in order to consider Locke’s views on parental ownership of children. Locke must discuss Filmer in detail, not merely to clear the field of some alternative curious view, but to show why that… More

• The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol.II

  - Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
  Excerpt: “With the publication of the major Huguenot treatises of the 1570s, Protestant political theory passes across a crucial conceptual divide. Hitherto even the most radical Calvinists had vindicated the lawfulness of resistance in terms of the… More

• “On the Political Character of Property in Locke”

  - Harvey Mansfield, “On the Political Character of Property in Locke,” in Powers, Possessions and Freedom: Essays in Honour of C.B. MacPherson. Ed. A. Kontos (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 23-38.
  Excerpt: It is a curious fact that Marx, who elaborated the labor theory of value, had little to say of Locke, who originated it. Only in the manuscript called Theories of Surplus Value does he comment on Locke’s theory…”Locke’s view… More

• Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development

  - Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
  This book shows how political argument in terms of rights and natural rights began in medieval Europe, and how the theory of natural rights was developed in the seventeenth century after a period of neglect in the Renaissance. Dr Tuck provides a new… More

• The Political Thought of John Locke

  - John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
  This study provides a comprehensive reinterpretation of the meaning of Locke’s political thought. John Dunn restores Locke’s ideas to their exact context, and so stresses the historical question of what Locke in the Two Treatises of Government was… More

• A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries

  - James Tully, A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1980).
  John Locke’s theory of property is perhaps the most distinctive and the most influential aspect of his political theory. In this book James Tully uses an hermeneutical and analytical approach to offer a revolutionary revision of early modern theories of… More

• “The Forms and Formalities of Liberty”

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., "The Forms and Formalities of Liberty" The Public Interest 70 (1983), 121-131.
  Excerpt: “The populism I have described as aggressive informality is fundamentally opposed to constitutionalism, which promotes respect for forms above all. Governing in a constitutional manner is governing regularly, that is, formally. Locke wrote… More

• The Politics of Locke’s Philosophy: A Social Study of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

  - Neal Wood, The Politics of Locke's Philosophy: A Social Study of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
  Among scholars working in the history of ideas, Neal and Ellen Wood hold a special place. For more than a decade, working jointly and alone, they have been discovering the social contexts of philosophical thought. … As Neal Wood summarizes in this… More

• Property and Political Theory

  - Alan Ryan, Property and Political Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985).
  A philosophical analysis (not a history of ideas) of the relationship between work and property among a number of key western thinkers, concentrating upon how property is justified or criticized, and how it has been related to notions of citizenship. Ryan… More

• Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government”

  - Richard Ashcraft, Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
  Richard Ashcraft offers a new interpretation of the political thought of John Locke by viewing his ideas, especially those in the Two Treatises of Government, in the context of his political activity. Linking the implications of Locke’s political… More

• The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England

  - Gordon Schochet, The Authoritarian Family and Political Attitudes in 17th Century England (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988).
  This classic study of the relationship between paternal and political authority identifies patriachalism as a leitmotif of western social and political thought since the time of Plato and Aristotle. Gordon Schochet shows that patriarchal doctrines can be… More

• “Constitutional Government: The Soul of Modern Democracy”

  - Harvey Mansfield, "Constitutional Government: The Soul of Modern Democracy," The Public Interest 86 (1987), 53-64.
  Excerpt: How did it come about that virtue is not required but somehow expected under our Constitution? To explain our embarrassment with the notion of “virtue,” we must see why modern democracy is unhappy with the word “soul.” For… More

• John Locke’s Liberalism

  - Ruth Grant, John Locke’s Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
  In this work, Ruth W. Grant presents a new approach to John Locke’s familiar works. Taking the unusual step of relating Locke’s Two Treatises to his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Grant establishes the unity and coherence of… More

• “John Locke”

  - Robert Goldwin, "John Locke" in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
  Excerpt: The theme of human freedom characterizes those of Locke’s works which are most important for an understanding of his political thought: in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), he wrote of religious freedom; in the Two Treatises of Government… More

• “Locke and the Legislative Principle”

  - Walter Berns, "Locke and the Legislative Principle," The Public Interest 100 (1990), 147-156.
  Excerpt: Like so many of our political principles, this idea of legislative superiority (but not supremacy) derives from John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government. Locke began, as did his predecessor Thomas Hobbes, with an analysis of the condition… More

• The Spirit of Modern Republicanism

  - Thomas Pangle, The Spirit of Modern Republicanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
  The Spirit of Modern Republicanism sets forth a radical reinterpretation of the foundations on which the American regime was constructed. Thomas L. Pangle argues that the Founders had a dramatically new vision of civic virtue, religious faith, and… More

• The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn

  - Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).
  The leaders of the American Revolution, writes the distinguished historian Bernard Bailyn, were radicals. But their concern was not to correct inequalities of class or income, not to remake the social order, but to “purify a corrupt constitution and… More

• America’s Constitutional Soul

  - Harvey Mansfield, America's Constitutional Soul (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).
  Excerpt: The institutional political science of our day, with its studies of constituted groups and accidental eddies of interaction in politics, is part of, and heir to, a grand movement in modern political science dating from Hobbes and Locke of which it… More

• The Cambridge Companion to Locke

  - The Cambridge Companion to Locke, ed. Vere Chappell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
  The essays in this volume provide a systematic survey of Locke’s philosophy informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover Locke’s theory of ideas, his philosophies of body, mind, language, and religion, his theory of knowledge, his ethics,… More

• John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility

  - John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
  This book provides a major new historical account of the development of the political, religious, social and moral thought of the political theorist and philosopher John Locke. It offers reinterpretations of several of his most important works, particularly… More

• Our Only Star and Compass: Locke and the Struggle for Political Rationality

  - Peter C. Myers, Our Only Star and Compass: Locke and the Struggle for Political Rationality (Lexington, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999)
  In Our Only Star and Compass: Locke and the Struggle for Political Rationality, Peter C. Myers reexamines the role of Locke in liberal political philosophy. Myers considers Locke’s philosophy in relation both to contemporary liberalism and to the great… More

• Launching Liberalism: On Lockean Political Philosophy

  - Michael Zuckert, Launching Liberalism: On Lockean Political Philosophy (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2002).
  In this volume, prominent political theorist Michael Zuckert presents an important and pathbreaking set of meditations on the thought of John Locke. In more than a dozen provocative essays, many appearing in print for the first time, Zuckert explores the… More

• God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought

  - Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke's Political Thought. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.)
  Jeremy Waldron looks at the principle of equality in the thought of John Locke, and the extent to which this is grounded in Christian principles. Throughout the text, Waldron discusses contemporary approaches to equality and rival interpretations of Locke,… More

• The Machiavellian Moment

  - JGA Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).
  Excerpt: “At this point is it appropriate to bring in the name of Locke. In the Two Treatises of Government, published if not written nine or so years before this debate, he had argued that societies formed by the simple occupation and cultivation of… More

• Duty Bound

  - Mark Blitz, Duty Bound: Responsibility and American Public Life, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
  From the publisher: In this timely and enlightening new work, Mark Blitz explores the link between character and politics in liberal democracies, focusing on the importance of responsibility in American public and professional life. He begins by analyzing the… More

• Politics and Vision

  - Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
  Sheldon Wolin’s Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. It culminates in Wolin’s remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form,… More

• The Lockean Commonwealth

  - Ross Corbett, The Lockean Commonwealth (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009).
  The tension between executive prerogative in times of emergency and the importance of maintaining and preserving the rule of law has been a perennial concern for modern democratic states. The Lockean Commonwealth reappraises John Locke’s contribution to… More

• The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke

  - C.B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).
  This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson was first published by the Clarendon Press in 1962, and remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the chief difficulty of… More

Multimedia

• Steven Smith: Lectures on the Second Treatise

  - Steven Smith, "Introduction to Political Philosophy," Yale Open Courses, Autumn 2006.
  Professor Steven Smith’s lectures on Locke’s Second Treatise from Yale’s “Introduction to Political Philosophy,” available through Yale Open Courses. Autumn 2006. Constitutional Government: Locke, Second Treatise (1-5)… More