Locke and the Tensions of Liberalism

A discussion of the influence Locke’s ideas exercised upon later political thinkers would involve nothing less than a history of political thought since the seventeenth century. Even if the subject were limited to the eighteenth century, the names of Burke, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham, Paine, Jefferson, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau indicate the scope of the problem. Besides these well-known political thinkers, there were countless journalists, academics, clerics and other members of the intellectual strata who helped to shape the political consciousness of eighteenth-century France, England and America. Their writings are filled with references to Locke. Indeed, Daniel Defoe’s writings alone extend to more than 500 titles, and Locke’s arguments, often reproduced verbatim, figure prominently in these books, pamphlets and novels. Mention of Defoe, to whose name others could be added, opens up the broad area of literature and reminds us that Lockean ideas also flowed through this cultural medium. Locke was not merely an important political theorist; his writings on philosophy, religion, economics and education made him a cultural force to be reckoned with for virtually every thinker in the eighteenth century. It can be argued that Lockean thought supplied the intellectual framework for an emerging bourgeois society. Be that as it may, what is clear is that a historical account of the development of Lockean ideas during the three centuries following the publication of Locke’s writings is beyond the scope of this book.