Introduction

Unlike Hobbes, Locke holds that the state of nature is not a state of war: all men are born free and equal under the law of nature, with natural rights to life, liberty and property, and by their labour they make the things of nature their own. To protect these rights better they consent to form a political society and set up a government, whose power therefore rests on the consent of the governed and whose end is the preservation of the people's property and liberty. The legislative is the supreme power, yet it too is held in trust; if a government breaks that trust and invades the people's rights, the people may resist and establish a new one. Written in defence of the Glorious Revolution, the book deeply influenced the American and French Revolutions and is a classic of modern liberal and constitutional thought.