The First Treatise of Government

John Locke’s First Treatise of Government argues against the divine right of kings to rule and in support of mankind’s natural freedom. Locke combined the First Treatise with his Second Treatise of Government and then published them together as Two Treatises of Government in 1689. While Second Treatise builds Locke’s case for natural rights and the compact theory of government-by-consent, First Treatise offers a direct response to Sir Robert Filmer, seventeenth-century England’s most influential advocate for the Divine Right of Kings theory. In First Treatise, Locke analyzes excerpts from Filmer’s famous Patriarcha (1680), as well as Observations Concerning the Originall of Government, Etc. (1652), one of Filmer’s lesser-known publications. Locke concludes that, contrary to Filmer’s claims, the divine right of kings has no foundation in the Old Testament, that monarchical authority is not derived from fatherly authority, and that man is naturally born free.

This guide refers to the 1764 edition of Two Treatises, wherein First Treatise appears on pages 1-191.

Summary

First Treatise is best understood from two perspectives. First, it is a timeless contribution to political philosophy. It lays the foundation for Locke’s Second Treatise, and together the Two Treatises have exerted a powerful influence over Anglo-American political thought since 1689. Second, First Treatise is also a piece of political advocacy with an immediate, contemporaneous objective. In the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 (See: Background), English Protestants deposed the Catholic King James II and replaced him with William of Orange, a Dutch prince who became William III, King of England. Locke wrote First Treatise to refute the Divine Right of Kings theory (See: Index of Terms), which the deposed king’s supporters advanced in defense of James II. Although Locke probably began and finished the book in the early 1680s, there is no doubt that he published it in 1689 in large part to justify William’s title to the throne on the principle of government-by-consent.  

In First Treatise, Locke uses Biblical Scripture to argue against the divine right of kings and for The Natural Freedom of Mankind. Filmer grounds divine-right monarchy in Scripture, specifically the Old Testament, so Locke refutes him on the basis of Filmer’s own evidence. Throughout First Treatise, Locke pulls Biblical passages from Filmer’s writings, analyzes these passages, and concludes that they do not support Filmer’s case for divine-right monarchy.

Filmer bases his divine-right argument on the assertion, drawn from the Book of Genesis, that God made Adam the absolute monarch of the world. In Patriarcha, Filmer claims that men are naturally born unfree because they live in subjection to their parents, so he equates fatherly authority with monarchical authority. Locke responds to this in two ways. First, he follows Filmer’s argument through the Book of Genesis and beyond—a task that occupies Locke for the duration of First Treatise. Second, Locke tries to understand what Filmer means by “fatherly authority” and how it relates to Adam. Finding that Patriarcha provides no clear explanation, Locke turns to Observations, wherein Filmer insists that by creating Adam and giving him dominion over Eve, their children, and all inferior creatures, God in fact made Adam a monarch. Locke introduces all of these issues—Filmer’s claim for mankind’s natural slavery; the question of Adam as the world’s first absolute monarch; the problem of fatherly authority; and the importance of reading Patriarcha in conjunction with Observations—in the first two chapters of First Treatise.

In Chapters 3-6, Locke builds his case for Fatherhood as Irrelevant to Political Authority. He does this by analyzing the above-mentioned passage from Filmer’s Observations, which contains “the sum of all his arguments, for Adam’s sovereignty” (16), and then devoting one chapter to each of Filmer’s assertions. First, Locke refutes the claim that God vested absolute monarchical authority in Adam at the moment of creation. By Filmer’s own standard, this was impossible, for at creation Adam was not yet a father. Next, Locke argues that God never gave Adam private dominion over the world. Scripture shows, in fact, that God granted dominion to Adam and Eve together and by extension to all mankind. Then, having introduced Eve into the discussion, Locke cites Biblical passages suggesting that God gave Adam no authority over Eve. Her subjection, and the subjection of all women who followed her, stemmed from God’s punishment in the Garden of Eden and the woman’s curse of childbirth, but it conferred no dominion upon Adam. Finally, Locke shows that Filmer repeatedly excludes the phrase “and mother” from his analysis of the Decalogue’s commandment to “honor thy father and mother.” This, Locke concludes, constitutes powerful evidence against Filmer’s assertion that God made Adam absolute monarch of the world by right of fatherhood.

Having dispensed with Filmer’s arguments for Adam’s particular sovereignty, Locke transitions into a discussion of two broader topics. First, in Chapter 7, he considers whether or not the combination of fatherhood and property—independent of their original investiture in Adam—might constitute a sound basis for political authority. He concludes that fatherhood and property have no meaningful connection to one another or to legitimate government, for they do not descend together from generation to generation and thus cannot be conveyed together. Property, of course, can pass from father to son, but fatherly authority cannot descend; it appears only when a son has a child of his own. This leads Locke into his second broad topic: the problem of inheritance. In Chapters 8 and 9 he examines whether or not any of Adam’s descendants could have inherited his original power. Locke concludes that Adam’s absolute monarchical authority, had it existed, could not have descended in the same way that property descends from parents to children. This introduces a new element into the discussion: If Filmer is correct, then God vested all power in Adam, and this is the only legitimate authority in the world. If this authority cannot descend, however, then it is useless, and all governments in the world are illegitimate. Hence Locke’s argument for Divine-Right Monarchy as Chaos.

Finally, in Chapters 10 and 11, Locke turns to the impossible task of finding Adam’s one true heir in the modern world. Here Locke follows Filmer through the pages of the Old Testament. Locke begins with Cain and Abel, two eldest sons of Adam and Eve. Locke proceeds through the Book of Genesis, highlighted by the story of Noah and the Flood, and then examines the Book of Exodus, which tells of the Israelites’ deliverance from Egyptian slavery. Nowhere in these first two books does Locke find evidence of an heir to Adam’s absolute monarchy. This is significant, for if the stories of people who lived closest in time to Adam reveal nothing about Adam’s power or the identity of his heir, then there is no hope of finding his heir in ages more remote from creation. Locke nonetheless considers passages from other Old Testament books, including Judges, Samuel, and Psalms. On the whole, Locke concludes that the Old Testament invalidates divine-right monarchy and supports the doctrine of natural freedom.