Second Treatise of Government

A society that has formed a government based on the willing consensus and participation of the public.

A group of people bound by common agreement to support each other.

A political framework that holds the monarch is preordained by God to inherit the crown and rule as sovereign. This doctrine was used to legitimize and uphold the absolute power of monarchies.

The immutable law of the world, stemming from God, which renders all men equal by its effects.

The doctrine that monarchical power stems from the father’s patriarchal or paternal dominion over the family. Robert Filmer uses the theory of patriarchal power to legitimize absolute monarchies in his book Patriarcha. Locke disagreed, arguing that if the basis for absolute monarchy is grounded in the father’s power over his wife and children, then the entire theory is baseless, because the father does not hold such absolute power in reality.

The government that is created by a community to serve as an impartial judge for disputes between parties.

What a person creates with their labor. This is a broad and complex term, and can refer to anything from an actual product of labor—such as a farmer’s crops, an artist’s painting, a worker’s wages—to more abstract concepts, such as someone’s ideas or even their own life.

The theory that a community must consent to governance. In doing so, the people surrender some freedoms in exchange for the protection and social order ensured by the governing entity. A government that fails to fulfill these obligations has voided the contract and is thus illegitimate.

The primary, ideal, and arguably present state of human beings, where all are subject to the laws of nature, and therefore none may assert supremacy over another and live in harmony because of it.

Opposite to the State of Nature, a violent relationship that emerges between human beings when one tries to exercise unfair power or influence over another. This state does not ultimately lead to harmony, like the State of Nature, but instead to mutual destruction.