Locke’s Latent Sovereign

There is perhaps only one circumstance in which the neglect of a political treatise by later generations can be considered as a compliment to its author. When a philosopher so thoroughly routs his opponent’s position that the issue effectively dies with his refutation, then the debate’s ultimate obsolescence can be considered the debater’s triumph. By 1690, when Locke published his Two Treatises the case for a monarch’s pretensions to rule according to divine sanction may have already been a feeble opponent, taking its last gasp.1 But Locke’s refutation of divine right and defense of natural rights delivered the one-two punch that amounted to its deathblow. Today, for all the enduring interest in Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, few political philosophers pay serious attention to the First Treatise. Locke’s triumph, however, is by no means absolute. The myriad difficulties in his Second Treatise of Government—for Lockean scholars a seemingly endless source of consternation or delight, depending on their disposition—illustrate what has long been a truism for debaters: It is far easier to demolish an opponent’s theory than to develop a plausible alternative. It is one thing to divest a king of his sovereignty; it is quite another to know what to do with that sovereignty once it has been thus abstracted.