Major Works

• A Letter Concerning Toleration

  - Recommended edition: Locke, John. A Letter Concerning Toleration. Edited by James Tully. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 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… 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

• Essays on the Law of Nature

  - Recommended edition: Political Essays, ed. Mark Goldie (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 79-133.
  Excerpt: Since God shows Himself to us as present everywhere and, as it were, forces Himself upon the eyes of men as much in the fixed course of nature now as by the  frequent evidence of miracles in time past, I assume there will be no one to deny the… 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

• A Discourse of Miracles

  - John Locke, "A Discourse of Miracles" in The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, Vol. 8 (London: Rivington, 1824).
  Excerpt: It is to be considered, that divine revelation receives testimony from no other miracles, but such as are wrought to witness his mission from God who delivers the revelation. All other miracles that are done in the world, how many or great soever,… More

Commentary

• Natural Right and History

  - Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953).
  In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss’s birth, and the fiftieth… More

• “John Locke as ‘Authoritarian'”

  - Leo Strauss, "John Locke as 'Authoritarian,'" review of John Locke: Two Tracts on Government, by Philip Abrams, Intercollegiate Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (November-December 1967).
  Excerpt: The question regarding the Hobbianism of the young Locke may be said to be of sonic importance with a view to the fundamental question regarding the political philosophy of the mature or old Locke, to the question which would have to be stated as… More

• Locke and the Way of Ideas

  - John Yolton, Locke and the Way of Ideas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956).
  Summary: Without in any way denying that Locke’s philosophy was influenced by Continental movements of thought, Dr. Yolton in this excellent study argues, and indeed establishes the point,t hat Locke in writing the Essay had in mind the many debates… 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

• 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

• “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 and the Theological Foundation of Liberal Toleration”

  - Joshua Mitchell, “John Locke and the Theological Foundation of Liberal Toleration,” Review of Politics 52 (1990), 64-83.
  Locke’s doctrine of toleration is best understood in the context of his larger argument about the political significance of Christ. Christ, Locke argues, separated the spiritual and political realm. His argument for separating the two realms, his basis… 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

• An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts

  - James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1993).
  An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts brings together Professor Tully’s most important and innovative statements on Locke in a systematic treatment of the latter’s thought that is at once contextual and critical. Each essay has… 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

• “John Locke and the Foundations of Toleration”

  - Nathan Tarcov, "John Locke and the Foundations of Toleration," in Early Modern Skepticism and the Origins of Toleration, ed. Alan Levine (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999).
  Excerpt: “There is another sense in which Locke is an advocate for more than toleration… If toleration is taken, as it is historically with reference to the controversies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as meaning specifically… More

• “Natural Law, Theology, and Morality in Locke”

  - Steven Forde, "Natural Law, Theology, and Morality in Locke," American Journal of Political Science, 45 (2001), 396-409.
  Liberal theorists have always been confronted with the criticism that liberalism lacks a moral foundation adequate to the needs of society. I undertake a reading of Locke that agrees with those scholars who have found greater moral resources in his philosophy… 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

• 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

• John Locke: Problems and Perspectives

  - John Locke: Problems and Perspectives, ed. John Yolton (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
  Originally published in 1969, the impetus for this collection came from a conference on the Thought of John Locke held at York University, Toronto in 1966. Written in the co-operative spirit of the conference, the essays collected here were intended to… More