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'Tis Reasonable to Think that the Cause is Natural: Human History and National Law in Locke's Two Treatises
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not to be charged upon him who defends his own right, but on him that invades his
neighbor’s” (T II.228). But Locke only makes this point in passing.
Instead, his main response consists of historical observations. He does not begin by
engaging this question with theory, but instead approaches it through human history.
However, he uses these historical observations to make a moral point, ultimately bringing
the argument back around to the theoretical level.
Locke provides three responses to the objection. The first is that people will rebel
against tyrants regardless of what political theory you throw at them:
But it will be said this hypothesis lays a ferment for frequent rebellion. To
which I answer: First: no more than any other hypothesis. For when the people are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors as much as you will for sons of Jupiter, let them be sacred and divine, descended or authorized from Heaven; give them out for whom or what you please, the same will happen. The people generally ill treated, and contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that sits heavy upon them. They will wish and seek for the opportunity, which in the change, weakness, and accidents of human affairs, seldom delays long to offer itself. He must have lived but a little while in the world, who has not seen examples of this in his time; and he must have read very little who cannot produce examples of it in all sorts of governments in the world. (T II.224; emphasis added)
His second response is that people will put up with a merely bad government without
taking the extreme step of rebelling. Only genuine, intentional tyranny oppressing the
whole people altogether will prompt rebellion:
Secondly: I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little
mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going, it is not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavor to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected, and without which, ancient names and specious forms are so far from being better, that they are much worse than the state of nature or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult. (T II.225; emphasis added)
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not to be charged upon him who defends his own right, but on him that invades his
neighbor’s” (T II.228). But Locke only makes this point in passing.
Instead, his main response consists of historical observations. He does not begin by
engaging this question with theory, but instead approaches it through human history.
However, he uses these historical observations to make a moral point, ultimately bringing
the argument back around to the theoretical level.
Locke provides three responses to the objection. The first is that people will rebel
against tyrants regardless of what political theory you throw at them:
But it will be said this hypothesis lays a ferment for frequent rebellion. To
which I answer: First: no more than any other hypothesis. For when the people are
made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill usage of arbitrary power,
cry up their governors as much as you will for sons of Jupiter, let them be sacred
and divine, descended or authorized from Heaven; give them out for whom or
what you please, the same will happen. The people generally ill treated, and
contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden
that sits heavy upon them. They will wish and seek for the opportunity, which in
the change, weakness, and accidents of human affairs, seldom delays long to offer
itself. He must have lived but a little while in the world, who has not seen
examples of this in his time; and he must have read very little who cannot produce
examples of it in all sorts of governments in the world. (T II.224; emphasis added)
His second response is that people will put up with a merely bad government without
taking the extreme step of rebelling. Only genuine, intentional tyranny oppressing the
whole people altogether will prompt rebellion:
Secondly: I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little
mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong
and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be borne by the
people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications,
and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and
they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going, it is not
to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavor to put the
rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government
was at first erected, and without which, ancient names and specious forms are so
far from being better, that they are much worse than the state of nature or pure
anarchy; the inconveniencies being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther
off and more difficult. (T II.225; emphasis added)
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