40 pages • 1 hour read
The First Treatise of Government
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Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Of Fatherhood and Property considered together as Fountains of Sovereignty”
Locke then examines contradictions in Filmer’s assertion that monarchical power derives from the combination of fatherhood and property, which Filmer calls the “natural and private dominion of Adam” (86). If Adam exercised dominion over Eve, for instance, as Filmer claims, then neither fatherhood nor property could account for his authority in that case. Furthermore, heirs might inherit property, but they cannot inherit fatherhood. Locke shows that both of Adam’s sons, Cain and Abel, inherited property, yet the inheritance did not give one brother dominion over the other. The same was true of Noah’s three sons. Locke thus concludes that fatherhood and property together cannot confer monarchical power.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Of the Conveyance of Adam’s Sovereign Monarchical Power”
In this brief chapter, which is less than four pages in length, Locke presents a series of quotations in which Filmer offers conflicting answers to the question of how Adam’s original monarchical power descended to posterity. In one passage of Patriarcha, Filmer argues that the method by which kings acquire their crowns is irrelevant, for all that matters is that they wield supreme power. Locke notes that by Filmer’s reckoning, which Locke labels “so strange a doctrine” (96), there would be no such thing as a usurper. Finally, notwithstanding Filmer’s contradictory statements, Locke promises to address the question of how kings might derive monarchical power from Adam through inheritance, grant, usurpation, or election.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Of Monarchy by Inheritance from Adam”
Here Locke addresses Filmer’s assertion that all monarchy represents an inheritance from Adam. Filmer grounds Adam’s presumptive sovereignty in property and fatherhood. Having addressed fatherhood in previous chapters, Locke devotes the bulk of this chapter to the questions of property and inheritance. He argues that children derive their right to inherit their parents’ property from nature, the same source that obliges parents to provide for their children’s sustenance. Property, however, does not convey sovereignty. Whereas property exists for its owner’s use, government exists for the good of the governed. It makes no difference how a monarch acquired power, as consent of the governed, rather than inheritance, determines both form and succession. Likewise, paternal power cannot be transferred. Therefore, even if Adam possessed monarchical power, his sons did not inherit that power by way of property or fatherhood.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
In Chapters 7-9, Locke builds on arguments established in the previous section while also laying the foundation for his concluding chapter on the question of inheritance.
Having addressed Filmer’s arguments for Adam’s property by donation from God (i.e. private dominion over the world) in Chapter 4 and for Adam’s claim to absolute authority by fatherhood in Chapter 6, Locke combines these analyses in Chapter 7. The key takeaway from Locke’s analysis of property and fatherhood is that these two qualities cannot descend together to one’s heirs. A monarch might convey property to an heir and a father might do the same, but neither a monarch nor an ordinary father can convey fatherly authority through inheritance. In short, the problem of inheritance shows that fatherhood either signifies everything politically or it signifies nothing. If it signifies everything politically, then “there will be as many kings as there are fathers” (83). If it signifies nothing, then Filmer’s divine-right monarchy based on Adam’s fatherhood crumbles into chaos. In Chapter 1, Locke referred to divine-right doctrine as a dangerous novelty. Here he amplifies that description by dismissing “this new nothing” in government, “this fatherhood” (85).
Furthermore, as Locke points out in Chapter 8, Filmer’s evasive and contradictory answers as to how Adam’s status of original absolute monarch passed down to his heirs creates a new logical conundrum for the divine-right theorist. In claiming that what matters most is not how a king acquires absolute power but the very fact that the king possesses and exercises that absolute power, Filmer creates a serious problem of political legitimacy, as usurpation is now an impossibility. Filmer’s reasoning suggests that “might makes right,” with the wielding of power being enough to legitimize the possession and use of that power over others. Such reasoning can lead to political chaos, in which any man could vie for the throne and proclaim himself king regardless of his descent or how he rises to power. Such potential chaos thereby undermines the very ideas of tradition, legitimacy, and stability which Filmer and the other divine-rights theorists credit absolute monarchy as representing.
Analyzing property and fatherhood together also allows Locke to transition from his earlier examination of Filmer’s claim for Adam’s absolute fatherly authority to the more practical, yet equally important, problem of inheritance. While Locke reserves for Chapter 11 the question of finding Adam's one true heir in the Old Testament, in Chapter 9 Locke considers the general problem of deriving monarchical succession from Adam. This constitutes a critical problem indeed, for “[i]t is in vain then to talk of subjection and obedience without telling us whom we are to obey” (97). Chapter 9 also builds upon Chapters 4 and 7 by highlighting the differences between the inheritance of property and the inheritance of political authority: Children do not inherit property by the same principles that allow some men to govern others.
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