Two Treatises Government John Locke - Faculty of Social Sciences ...

20/John Lockehas properly worded it, “Adam was made general lord of all things,”one may very clearly understand him, that he means nothing to be grantedto Adam here but property, and therefore he says not one word of Adam’smonarchy. But our author says, “Adam was hereby monarch of theworld,” which, properly speaking, signifies Sovereign ruler of all themen in the world; and so Adam, by this grant, must be constituted sucha ruler. If our author means otherwise, he might with much clearnesshave said, that “Adam was hereby proprietor of the whole world.” Buthe begs your pardon in that point: clear distinct speaking not servingevery where to his purpose, you must not expect it in him, as in Mr.Selden, or other such writers.§24. In opposition, therefore, to our author’s doctrine, that “Adamwas monarch of the whole world,” founded on this place, I shall show1. That by this grant, Gen. i. 28, God gave no immediate power toAdam over men, over his children, over those of his own species; and sohe was not made ruler, or monarch, by this charter.2. That by this grant God gave him not private dominion over theinferior creatures, but right in common with all mankind; so neither washe monarch upon the account of the property here given him.§25. 1. That this donation, Gen. i. 28, gave Adam no power overmen, will appear if we consider the words of it: for since all positivegrants convey no more than the express words they are made in willcarry, let us see which of them here will comprehend mankind or Adam’sposterity; and those I imagine, if any, must be these, “every living thingthat moveth:” the words in Hebrew are ;:/9%%h( i.e., bestiamreptantem, of which words the Scripture itself is the best interpreter:God having created the fishes and fowls the 5th day, the beginning of the6th, he creates the irrational inhabitants of the dry land, which, ver. 24,are described in these words, “Let the earth bring forth the living creatureafter his kind; cattle and creeping thins, and beasts of the earth,after his kind; and ver. 2, and God made the beasts of the earth after hiskind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth on theearth after his kind:” here, in the creation of the brute inhabitants of theearth, he first speaks of them all under one general name, of living creatures,and then afterwards divides them into three ranks, 1. Cattle, orsuch creatures as were or might be tame, and so be the private possessionof particular men; 2. %g( which, ver. 24, 25, in our Bible, is translatedbeasts, and by the Septuagint qhr…a, wild beasts, and is the sameword, that here in our text, ver. 28, where we have this great charter to