http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV
Digitized by Dave Gowan (dgowan@tfn.net). John Locke's "Second Treatise of
Government" was published in 1690. The complete unabridged text has been republished several times in edited commentaries. This text is recovered entire from the paperback book, "John Locke Second Treatise of Government", Edited, with an Introduction, By C.B. McPherson, Hackett Publishing Company,
Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1980. None of the McPherson edition is included in the Etext below; only the original words contained in the
1690 Locke text is included. The 1690 edition text is free of copyright.
TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT
BY IOHN LOCKE
SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX ESTO
LONDON PRINTED MDCLXXXVIII
REPRINTED, THE SIXTH TIME, BY A. MILLAR, H. WOODFALL, 1. WHISTON AND B. WHITE, 1.
RIVINGTON, L. DAVIS AND C. REYMERS, R. BALDWIN, HAWES CLARKE AND COLLINS; W.
IOHNSTON, W. OWEN, 1. RICHARDSON, S. CROWDER, T. LONGMAN, B. LAW, C. RIVINGTON, E.
DILLY, R. WITHY, C. AND R. WARE, S. BAKER, T. PAYNE, A. SHUCKBURGH, 1. HINXMAN
MDCCLXIII
TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT. IN THE FORMER THE FALSE PRINCIPLES AND FOUNDATION
OF SIR ROBERT FILMER AND HIS FOLLOWERS ARE DETECTED AND OVERTHROWN. THE LATTER
IS AN ESSAY CONCERNING THE TRUE ORIGINAL EXTENT AND END OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
1764 EDITOR'S NOTE The present Edition of this Book has not only been collated with the first three Editions, which were published during the Author's Life, but also has the Advantage of his last Corrections and
Improvements, from a Copy delivered by him to Mr. Peter Coste, communicated to the Editor, and now lodged in
Christ College, Cambridge.
OF SLAVERY.
Sect. 22. THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV the trust put in it. Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us,
Observations, A. 55. a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws: but freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature.