John Locke

John Locke (1632-1704) is the philosopher of liberal democracy — the thinker whose ideas are encoded in the founding documents of the modern world. His Two Treatises of Government (1689) argued that political authority derives not from divine right but from the consent of the governed, and that individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property that no government may legitimately violate. Thomas Jefferson transplanted Locke's formulation almost word-for-word into the Declaration of Independence. His Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) argued that the human mind at birth is a blank slate upon which experience writes all knowledge, founding modern empiricism. His Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) provided the first rigorous secular argument for religious freedom — still the foundation of liberal political philosophy.