♖

“The supreme power [The Common-Wealth] cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own [believe].”

– John Locke, Two Treatises of Government [Select Quotation found in The 5000 Year Leap]

“it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use… Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian’s who hath killed it; it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though before it was the common [God given] right of every one.”

– John Locke, Two Treatises of Government [Select Excerpt Quoted in the 5000 Year Leap]

“

Un­der En­glish com­mon law, a most unique sig­nif­icance was at­tached to the un­alien­able right of pos­sess­ing, de­vel­op­ing, and dis­pos­ing of prop­er­ty. Land and the prod­ucts of the earth were con­sid­ered a gift of God which were to be cul­ti­vat­ed, beau­ti­fied, and brought un­der do­min­ion. As the Psalmist had writ­ten:

“… even the heav­ens are the Lord’s: but the earth hath he giv­en to the chil­dren of men.”

Mankind Giv­en the Earth “In Com­mon”

John Locke point­ed out that the hu­man fam­ily orig­inal­ly re­ceived the plan­et earth as a com­mon gift and that mankind was giv­en the ca­pac­ity and re­spon­si­bil­ity to im­prove it. Said he:

“God, who hath giv­en the world to men in com­mon, hath al­so giv­en them rea­son to make use of it to the best ad­van­tage of life and con­ve­nience.” 166

De­vel­op­ment of the Earth Most­ly by Pri­vate En­deav­or

Then Locke point­ed out that man re­ceived the com­mand­ment from his Cre­ator to “sub­due” the earth and “have do­min­ion” over it. 167

But be­cause do­min­ion means con­trol, and con­trol re­quires ex­clu­sive­ness, pri­vate rights in prop­er­ty be­came an in­escapable ne­ces­si­ty or an in­her­ent as­pect of sub­du­ing the earth and bring­ing it un­der do­min­ion.

It is ob­vi­ous that if there were no such thing as “own­er­ship” in prop­er­ty, which means legal­ly pro­tect­ed ex­clu­sive­ness, there would be no sub­du­ing or ex­ten­sive de­vel­op­ment of the re­sources of the earth. With­out pri­vate “rights” in de­vel­oped or im­proved prop­er­ty, it would be per­fect­ly law­ful for a lazy, cov­etous neigh­bor to move in as soon as the im­prove­ments were com­plet­ed and take pos­ses­sion of the fruits of his in­dus­tri­ous neigh­bor. And even the cov­etous neigh­bor would not be se­cure, be­cause some­one stronger than he could take it away from him.

With­out Prop­er­ty Rights, Four Things Would Oc­cur

Note that if prop­er­ty rights did not ex­ist, four things would oc­cur which would com­plete­ly frus­trate the Cre­ator’s com­mand to mul­ti­ply and re­plen­ish the earth and sub­due it and bring it un­der do­min­ion:

1. One ex­pe­ri­ence like the above would tend to com­plete­ly de­stroy the in­cen­tive of an in­dus­tri­ous per­son to de­vel­op and im­prove any more prop­er­ty.

2. The in­dus­tri­ous in­di­vid­ual would al­so be de­prived of the fruits of his la­bor.

3. Ma­raud­ing bands would even be tempt­ed to go about the coun­try con­fis­cat­ing by force and vi­olence the good things which oth­ers had fru­gal­ly and painstak­ing­ly pro­vid­ed.

4. Mankind would be im­pelled to re­main on a bare sub­sis­tence lev­el of hand-​to-​mouth sur­vival be­cause the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of any­thing would in­vite at­tack.

A Per­son’s Prop­er­ty is a Pro­jec­tion of Life It­self

An­oth­er in­ter­est­ing point made by Locke is the fact that all prop­er­ty is an ex­ten­sion of a per­son’s life, en­er­gy, and in­ge­nu­ity. There­fore, to de­stroy or con­fis­cate such prop­er­ty is, in re­al­ity, an at­tack on the essence of life it­self.

The per­son who has worked to cul­ti­vate a farm, ob­tained food by hunt­ing, carved a beau­ti­ful stat­ue, or se­cured a wage by his la­bor, has pro­ject­ed his very be­ing — the very essence of his life — in­to that la­bor. This is why Locke main­tained that a threat to that prop­er­ty is a threat to the essence of life it­self. Here is his rea­son­ing:

“Though the earth and all in­fe­ri­or crea­tures be com­mon [as the gift from God] to all men, yet ev­ery man has a ”prop­er­ty“ in his own ”per­son.“ This, no­body has any right to but him­self. The ”la­bor“ of his body and the ”work” of his hands, we may say, are prop­er­ly his. What­so­ev­er, then, he re­moves out of the state that Na­ture hath pro­vid­ed and left it in, he hath mixed his la­bor with it, and joined to it some­thing that is his own, and there­by makes it his prop­er­ty….

“He that is nour­ished by the acorns he picked up un­der an oak, or the ap­ples he gath­ered from the trees in the wood, has cer­tain­ly ap­pro­pri­at­ed them to him­self. No­body can de­ny but the nour­ish­ment is his. I ask, then, when did they be­gin to be his? When he di­gest­ed? or when he ate? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? And it is plain, if the first gath­er­ing made them not his, noth­ing else could.”

”

– The 5,000 Year Leap [The Fourteenth Principle]

“The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property… [therefore,] whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they [the officials of government] put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands… and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security”

–

John Locke Two Treatises of Govt. 

Most enfluential Enlightenment Thinker upon the Founding Fathers.

“

Ci­cero de­fines Nat­ural Law as “true law.” Then he says:

“True law is right rea­son in agree­ment with na­ture; it is of uni­ver­sal ap­pli­ca­tion, un­chang­ing and ev­er­last­ing; it sum­mons to du­ty by its com­mands, and averts from wrong­do­ing by its pro­hi­bi­tions…. It is a sin to try to al­ter this law, nor is it al­low­able to re­peal any part of it, and it is im­pos­si­ble to abol­ish en­tire­ly. We can­not be freed from its obli­ga­tions by sen­ate or peo­ple, and we need not look out­side our­selves for an ex­pounder or in­ter­preter of it. And there will not be dif­fer­ent laws at Rome and Athens, or dif­fer­ent laws now and in the fu­ture, but one eter­nal and un­change­able law will be valid for all na­tions and all times, and there will be one mas­ter and ruler, that is God, over us all, for he is the au­thor of this law, its pro­mul­ga­tor, and its en­forc­ing judge. Who­ev­er is dis­obe­di­ent is flee­ing from him­self and deny­ing his hu­man na­ture, and by rea­son of this very fact he will suf­fer the worst pun­ish­ment.” 22

In these few lines the stu­dent en­coun­ters con­cepts which were re­peat­ed by the Amer­ican Founders a thou­sand times. The Law of Na­ture or Na­ture’s God is eter­nal in its ba­sic good­ness; it is uni­ver­sal in its ap­pli­ca­tion. It is a code of “right rea­son” from the Cre­ator him­self. It can­not be al­tered. It can­not be re­pealed. It can­not be aban­doned by leg­is­la­tors or the peo­ple them­selves, even though they may pre­tend to do so. In Nat­ural Law we are deal­ing with fac­tors of ab­so­lute re­al­ity. It is ba­sic in its prin­ci­ples, com­pre­hen­si­ble to the hu­man mind, and to­tal­ly cor­rect and moral­ly right in its gen­er­al op­er­ation.

To the Found­ing Fa­thers as well as to Black­stone, John Locke, Mon­tesquieu, and Ci­cero, this was a mon­umen­tal dis­cov­ery.

”

– The 5,000 Year Leap: Nat­ural Law Is Eter­nal and Uni­ver­sal

“

So if sec­ular En­light­en­ment writ­ers were not a pri­ma­ry force in shap­ing Jef­fer­son’s think­ing, then who was? Jef­fer­son him­self an­swered that ques­tion, declar­ing that “Ba­con, New­ton and Locke … [are] my trin­ity of the three great­est men the world had ev­er pro­duced.”30

Fran­cis Ba­con, a British philoso­pher, at­tor­ney, and states­man, called the“Fa­ther of Mod­ern Sci­ence,”31 is known for de­vel­op­ing the pro­cess of in­duc­tive think­ing and cre­at­ing the sci­en­tif­ic method. His­to­ri­ans have de­clared that “[T]he in­tel­lect of Ba­con was one of the most pow­er­ful and search­ing ev­er pos­sessed by man.”32 Ba­con was by no means sec­ular; rather, he was quite the op­po­site. In his not­ed work De In­ter­pre­ta­tione Nat­urae Prooemi­um (1603), he de­clared that his three­fold goal was to dis­cov­er truth, serve his coun­try, and serve the church. He as­sert­ed that the vig­or­ous pur­suit of truth would al­ways lead one di­rect­ly to God:

[A] lit­tle phi­los­ophy in­clineth man’s mind to athe­ism; but depth in phi­los­ophy bringeth men’s minds about to re­li­gion.33

Ba­con was fa­mous for pen­ning many re­li­gious works, in­clud­ing Es­says, Ten in Num­ber, Com­bined with Sa­cred Med­ita­tions and the Col­ors of Good and Evil (1597); The Pro­fi­cien­cies and Ad­vance­ment of Learn­ing, Di­vine and Hu­man (1605); On the Uni­ty in Re­li­gion (1612); On Athe­ism (1612); Of Praise (1612); as well as a trans­la­tion of some of the psalms (1625). This out­spo­ken and fa­mous Chris­tian writ­er and philoso­pher who nev­er sep­arat­ed God or re­li­gion from sci­ence or gov­ern­ment was the first of Jef­fer­son’s tri­umvi­rate of the world’s great­est in­di­vid­uals.

The sec­ond in his list was Isaac New­ton, an En­glish states­man, math­emati­cian, and sci­en­tist, cred­it­ed with birthing mod­ern cal­cu­lus and dis­cov­er­ing the laws of uni­ver­sal grav­ita­tion. New­ton did ex­ten­sive work in physics, as­tron­omy, and op­tics and was the first sci­en­tist to be knight­ed for his work. Strik­ing­ly, how­ev­er:

He spent more time on the­ol­ogy than on sci­ence; in­deed, he wrote about 1.3 mil­lion words on Bib­li­cal sub­jects… . New­ton’s un­der­stand­ing of God came pri­mar­ily from the Bible, which he stud­ied for days and weeks at a time… . New­ton’s the­ol­ogy pro­found­ly in­flu­enced his sci­en­tif­ic method… . His God was not mere­ly a philoso­pher’s im­per­son­al First Cause; He was the God in the Bible Who freely cre­ates and rules the world, Who speaks and acts in his­to­ry.34

Among New­ton’s many the­olog­ical works were his Ob­ser­va­tions Up­on the Prophe­cies of Daniel and the Apoc­alypse of St. John (1733) and Notes on Ear­ly Church His­to­ry (c. 1680) among many oth­ers. And through­out his sci­en­tif­ic works, New­ton al­so main­tained a dis­tinct­ly Bib­li­cal Cre­ation­ist view—such as in his 1687 Prin­cip­ia (con­sid­ered “the great­est sci­en­tif­ic book ev­er writ­ten”35) in which he stat­ed:

“This most beau­ti­ful sys­tem of the sun, plan­ets, and comets could on­ly pro­ceed from the coun­sel and do­min­ion of an in­tel­li­gent and pow­er­ful Be­ing. And if the fixed stars are the cen­tres of oth­er like sys­tems, these, be­ing formed by the like wise coun­sel, must be all sub­ject to the do­min­ion of One.”36

This Chris­tian the­olo­gian and philoso­pher was the sec­ond of Jef­fer­son’s trin­ity of per­son­al heroes.

The third was En­glish philoso­pher and po­lit­ical the­orist John Locke. Locke was in­ti­mate­ly in­volved with pol­itics in Eng­land and al­so played a large role in shap­ing Amer­ica, in­clud­ing writ­ing the 1669 con­sti­tu­tion for the Car­oli­na Colony.37 He al­so penned nu­mer­ous works on ed­uca­tion, phi­los­ophy, gov­ern­ment, em­piri­cism, and re­li­gion.

To­day’s writ­ers fre­quent­ly de­scribe Locke as a deist (or at least a fol­low­er of an ear­ly form of deism),38 but his­to­ri­ans of ear­li­er gen­er­ations de­scribed him as a Chris­tian the­olo­gian.39 Af­ter all, Locke wrote a verse-​by-​verse com­men­tary on Paul’s Epis­tles40 and al­so com­piled a top­ical Bible, called a Com­mon Place-​Book to the Holy Bible,41 that list­ed vers­es by sub­ject for easy study ref­er­ence. And when an­tire­li­gion­ists at­tacked Chris­tian­ity, Locke de­fend­ed it in his book The Rea­son­able­ness of Chris­tian­ity as De­liv­ered in the Scrip­tures (1695).42 When at­tacks con­tin­ued, Locke re­spond­ed with A Vin­di­ca­tion of the Rea­son­able­ness of Chris­tian­ity (1695)43 and then with A Sec­ond Vin­di­ca­tion of the Rea­son­able­ness of Chris­tian­ity (1697).44 Fur­ther­more, in his Two Trea­tis­es of Gov­ern­ment (1689)—the work specif­ical­ly re­lied up­on by Jef­fer­son and the oth­er Founders as they draft­ed the Dec­la­ra­tion45—Locke in­voked the Bible over 1,500 times.46

Jef­fer­son stud­ied not on­ly Locke’s gov­ern­men­tal and le­gal writ­ings but al­so his the­olog­ical texts. His own per­son­al sum­ma­tion of Locke’s view of Chris­tian­ity clear­ly shows that he def­inite­ly did not con­sid­er Locke to be a deist. Ac­cord­ing to Jef­fer­son:

“Locke’s sys­tem of Chris­tian­ity is this: Adam was cre­at­ed hap­py and im­mor­tal… . By sin he lost this so that he be­came sub­ject to to­tal death (like that of brutes [an­imals]) to the cross­es and un­hap­pi­ness of this life. At the in­ter­ces­sion how­ev­er of the Son of God this sen­tence was in part re­mit­ted… . And more­over to them who be­lieved their faith was to be count­ed for righ­teous­ness [Ro­mans 4:3, 5]. Not that faith with­out works was to save them; St. James, chap­ter 2 says ex­press­ly the con­trary [v. 14–26]… . So that a ref­or­ma­tion of life (in­clud­ed un­der re­pen­tance) was es­sen­tial, and de­fects in this would be made up by their faith; i.e. their faith should be count­ed for righ­teous­ness [Ro­mans 4:3, 5]… . [A]dding a faith in God and His at­tributes that on their re­pen­tance He would par­don them [1 John 1:9]; they al­so would be jus­ti­fied [Ro­mans 3:24]. This then ex­plains the text “there is no oth­er name un­der heav­en by which a man may be saved” [Acts 4:12], i.e., the de­fects in good works shall not be sup­plied by a faith in Ma­homet, Fo [i.e., Bud­dha], or any oth­er ex­cept Christ.47

Fran­cis Ba­con, Is­sac New­ton, and John Locke—each an out­spo­ken Chris­tian thinker and philoso­pher—were de­scribed by Jef­fer­son as “the three great­est men the world has ev­er pro­duced.”48

”

–

Jefferson Lies by David Barton - “Ba­con, New­ton and Locke … [are] my trin­ity of the three great­est men the world had ev­er pro­duced.” -Thomas Jefferson

“[A] lit­tle phi­los­ophy in­clineth man’s mind to athe­ism; but depth in phi­los­ophy bringeth men’s minds about to re­li­gion.“-Francis Bacon

“This most beau­ti­ful sys­tem of the sun, plan­ets, and comets could on­ly pro­ceed from the coun­sel and do­min­ion of an in­tel­li­gent and pow­er­ful Be­ing. And if the fixed stars are the cen­tres of oth­er like sys­tems, these, be­ing formed by the like wise coun­sel, must be all sub­ject to the do­min­ion of One.” -Isaac Newton

I was going to split this into three posts, but meh.~

“I imagine any one will easily grant that it would be impertinent to suppose the ideas of colours innate in a creature to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from external objects: and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them as if they were originally imprinted on the mind.”

– John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him. Our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct. If we can find out those measures, whereby a rational creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need not to be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.”

– John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“Our Capacity suited to our State and Concerns. For though the comprehension of our understandings comes exceeding short of the vast extent of things, yet we shall have cause enough to magnify the bountiful Author of our being, for that proportion and degree of knowledge he has bestowed on us, so far above all the rest of the inhabitants of this our mansion. Men have reason to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given them (as St. Peter says) [words in Greek], whatsoever is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great concernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything. We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us; for of that they are very capable. And it will be an unpardonable, as well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends for which it was given us, because there are some things that are set out of the reach of it. It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant, who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us shines bright enough for all our purposes. The discoveries we can make with this ought to satisfy us; and we shall then use our understandings right, when we entertain all objects in that way and proportion that they are suited to our faculties, and upon those grounds they are capable of being proposed to us; and not peremptorily or intemperately require demonstration, and demand certainty, where probability only is to be had, and which is sufficient to govern all our concernments. If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.”

– John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“it is not every one, nor perhaps any one, who is so careful of his language as to use no word till he views in his mind the precise determined idea which he resolves to make it the sign of. The want of this is the cause of no small obscurity and confusion in men’s thoughts and discourses.”

– John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“This I cannot forbear to acknowledge to the world with as much freedom and readiness; as I at first published what then seemed to me to be right; thinking myself more concerned to quit and renounce any opinion of my own, than oppose that of another, when truth appears against it. For it is truth alone I seek, and that will always be welcome to me, when or from whencesoever it comes.
But what forwardness soever I have to resign any opinion I have, or to recede from anything I have writ, upon the first evidence of any error in it; yet this I must own, that I have not had the good luck to receive any light from those exceptions I have met with in print against any part of my book, nor have, from anything that has been urged against it, found reason to alter my sense in any of the points that have been questioned.
Whether the subject I have in hand requires often more thought and attention than cursory readers, at least such as are prepossessed, are willing to allow; or whether any obscurity in my expressions casts a cloud over it, and these notions are made difficult to others’ apprehensions in my way of treating them; so it is, that my meaning, I find, is often mistaken, and I have not the good luck to be everywhere rightly understood.”

– John Lock, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“The imputation of Novelty is a terrible charge amongst those who judge of men’s heads, as they do of their perukes [powdered wig], by the fashion, and can allow none to be right but the received doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine. It is trial and examination must give it price, and not any antique fashion; and though it be not yet current by the public stamp, yet it may, for all that, be as old as nature, and is certainly not the less genuine.”

– John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding