John Locke: Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690)
About the Author
Locke was born in Wrington, England, on August 29, 1632, to Puritan parents. During the English Civil War in the 1640s his father fought for the Parliamentarians. He attended the Westminster School in London and was made a King's Scholar. In 1652 he entered the Christ Church college at Oxford University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1656 and a master's in 1658. He discovered, however, that his interest lay less with the classical subjects taught at Oxford and more with newly emerging experimental sciences and medicine. Inspired by the empirical views of such thinkers as Sir Francis Bacon and René Descartes, he began to investigate natural science subjects, eventually joining England's Royal Society in 1668. In the 1660s he collaborated on experiments with Robert Boyle, considered the father of modern chemistry. In his journals and correspondence between 1656 and 1666 are repeated references to his interests in natural science and in the study of society,...
