In the 17th century, a period that included a Russian famine, the death of Elizabeth I, the assassination of the French king Henry IV, the Siege of Osaka, the Thirty Years War (and the English Civil War, and 15 others), the Jamestown Massacre, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the Trial of Galileo, the Great Plague of Seville, the execution of King Charles I, the French famine and numerous other delights – the great danger to the world order was a skinny, 50-year-old bookworm.
Fleeing his English homeland for the Netherlands in 1683, this beak-nosed bookworm had no military skills, no political aspirations and was certainly no leader of men. But he struck terror into the heart of his monarch, King Charles II.
He was suspected of having been part of a conspiracy to assassinate the king, but that wasn’t the source of the king’s fear; the danger of John Locke was his mind. He was a genius. And his ideas were a threat, not just to Charles II, but to every monarch.
Sailing for the safety of the Netherlands, Locke clutched to his bosom the deadly weapon he had crafted: a book he had written, as-yet-unpublished; a book that would bring down the mighty, not just in Europe, but the world over, for centuries to come – Two Treatises of Government.
This seminal work of political philosophy was a watershed in literary history. It was a systematic refutation of the divine right of kings, methodically dismantling the scriptural proofs upon which numerous monarchs had built their authority. It proceeded to outline a firmly-supported theory of civil society, emphasizing equality and the natural man in a manner that put the lie to the work of Thomas Hobbes, whose take on humanity was more every-man-for-himself. Locke’s work presaged the movement toward liberty, proposing that the only legitimate governance must have the consent of the governed.
Dangerous stuff, to kings and tyrants alike!
Locke escaped the wrath of the king. His compatriot Algernon Sidney was not so lucky; Charles II had him executed for his Discourses Concerning Government, which was considered treasonous.
Locke first published his Treatises anonymously six years later, when James II, successor to Charles II, was deposed. He denied the work, still fearing the retribution of those in power, until his death in 1704. His final acknowledgment of authorship was in his will.
The second Treatise, the one outlining a plan for governance with the consent of the governed, became the blueprint for the American Revolution more than 60 years later. It is the foundation of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In turn, these documents – the greatest innovations in the history of human government – made Locke a worldwide hero. He remains so to this day, a chief architect in the quest for universal liberty and freedom from tyranny.
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