John Locke (29 August 1632 - 28 October 1704), widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries.

John Locke, an early Enlightenment philosopher, seeks to bring reason and critical intelligence to the discussion of the origins of civil society.

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."
--- John Locke
Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration
Two Treatises of Civil Government
John LOCKE (1632 - 1704)
The Two Treatises of Civil Government is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise is an extended attack on Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, which argued for a divinely-ordained, hereditary, absolute monarchy. The more influential Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil...