The First Treatise of Government

A compact is a voluntary, binding agreement equivalent to a contract. Locke argues that human beings are born free, so to protect their equal and God-given rights they form a compact—sometimes called a “social contract"—and thus consent to be governed by laws of their own making. First Treatise advances Locke’s compact theory by refuting Filmer’s argument for the divine right of kings.

In political terms, consent is the means by which the governed give legitimacy to those who rule. It constitutes a core principle in all governments based on the sovereignty of the people, such as modern liberal democracy. Consent is the political alternative to obedience and submission. Locke touts consent as a logical and desirable consequence of natural freedom.

In the Old Testament, the Decalogue is another name for the Ten Commandments. Locke uses the commandment “honor thy father and mother” to show that God created man and woman as equals and thus never intended for Adam or his heirs to rule as absolute monarchs.

The divine right of kings is the theory that all monarchical authority comes from God, which means that all monarchical authority is absolute. Furthermore, because it comes from God, absolute monarchy is the only legitimate form of government in the world. This is Filmer’s argument in Patriarcha and elsewhere. Locke First Treatise refutes Filmer and rejects the divine right of kings in favor of natural freedom for all mankind.

Filmer argues that Adam received monarchical authority as a donation—a gift from God—in the form of private dominion (property) over the world. Locke refutes this assertion in Chapter 4.

The English Civil War (1642-51) pitted King Charles I and his royalist supporters, most of whom insisted upon absolutism, against a Puritan-led Parliament and other English Protestants who believed in constitutional restraints upon royal power. The Parliamentarians prevailed and in 1649 King Charles I was executed. Filmer wrote Patriarcha in the years preceding the English Civil War and thus lent intellectual aid to the absolutist king and his supporters.

In the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus describes God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Locke explores the Book of Exodus in Chapter 11 as part of his argument for the impossibility of tracing Adam’s one true heir even through the Bible.

In the Book of Genesis, God floods the Earth as punishment for man’s sins. Among humans, only Noah and his family survive. After the Flood, Noah divides the world equally between his three sons. Locke examines the story of the Flood and finds proof that even if God had made Adam absolute monarch of the world, which God did not, then this absolute monarchical power by divine right would not have survived the Flood because Noah, not God, conveyed dominion to Noah’s three sons.

In the Old Testament, the Book of Genesis details the creation and peopling of the world. It includes the story of Adam and Eve, on which Filmer rests much of his argument for divine-right monarchy. Because of its importance to Filmer, the Book of Genesis also figures prominently in Locke’s analysis.

According to the theory of natural rights, human beings are born free and equal. Contrary to divine-right apologists, who argue that human beings are born into submission and that God granted supreme authority to only one man, natural-rights advocates insist that God granted freedom to all, in which case all possess equal rights as a gift from God. Locke is widely remembered as one of the most effective champions for natural rights. 

Filmer published Observations Concerning the Originall of Government, Etc. in 1652. Locke wrote First Treatise primarily in response to Filmer’s Patriarcha. Finding, however, that Patriarcha suffers from a lack of clarity, Locke also turns to Observations to help provide the most complete description and analysis of Filmer’s argument for divine-right monarchy. First Treatise addresses both Patriarcha and Observations from Chapter 3 onward.

A male head-of-family, the patriarch is invested with fatherly authority in the domestic sphere. Filmer views this fatherly authority as equivalent to monarchical authority, while Locke regards patriarchal power as entirely separate from political power.

Private dominion refers to property, often in land. In the divine-right context, Filmer argues that God granted Adam private dominion over the world and its creatures, and that this grant is consistent with absolute monarchy. Locke insists that God made no such grant to Adam alone.

In the book’s preface, Locke declares that in the Glorious Revolution the English people saved their nation “from the very brink of slavery and ruin” (I). Slavery, in this political context, means submission to tyranny. The term is both real and metaphorical, for while it does not imply the literal ownership of human beings as property, it does mean compelled obedience to the arbitrary will of another. Locke equates divine-right monarchy with slavery.

Sovereignty means supreme authority. By divine right, according to Filmer, sovereignty resides in an absolute monarch. In a republic, however, the people as a whole are sovereign. At its core, Locke’s debate with Filmer amounts to an argument over the source of sovereignty. Six of Locke’s eleven chapters feature the word “sovereign” or “sovereignty” in the title.

In the Book of Genesis, after the Flood, human beings attempt to build a tower to heaven. It becomes known as the Tower of Babel after God alters their speech, prevents them from understanding one another, and scatters them to different parts of the world. This is how the Old Testament explains the origins of nations. Filmer sees both absolute monarchy and the principle of fatherly authority confirmed in this story, whereas Locke regards the Tower of Babel as proof that Adam’s absolute monarchical authority, had it ever existed, could not have survived the dispersal of human beings into different nations speaking different languages.