John Locke was an English philosopher who lived through one of the most turbulent periods in his country’s history. He lived through the English Civil War, the execution of a king, and the later Glorious Revolution,all which unsettled traditional notions of authority. Out of that upheaval came Locke’s conviction that power must be limited and that liberty required both the rule of law and the protection of individual rights.

Locke, who lived from 1632 to 1704,wrote not from ivory-tower detachment but in the shadow of civil strife, religious conflict, and the struggle to secure stable government after decades of upheaval.

In his Two Treatises of Government (published in 1689), Locke directly challenged the divine right of kings. He argued that legitimate authority rests on the consent of the governed and that rulers are merely trustees of the public good. If they betray that trust, he argued,people have the right to alter or abolish their government. These ideas gave intellectual force to the Glorious Revolution (the Glorious Revolution was the overthrow of King James II in 1689, this event shifted power from the monarchy to Parliament)and later crossed the Atlantic, shaping the American Declaration of Independence and the constitutional order that followed.

Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, written against the backdrop of religious wars that ravaged Europe, was equally groundbreaking. He insisted that conscience cannot be coerced, and that the state has no right to dictate faith. This was a radical stance in an era when dissenters could face persecution or exile. By defending tolerance, Locke laid the groundwork for the pluralism that remains central to Western life.

He also tied property rights to human dignity, arguing that when individuals mix their labour with the world, the results become their own. Security of property was therefore not a privilege but a natural right. This insight linked liberty with economic growth and anticipated the prosperity that would flow from societies grounded in voluntary exchange.

Locke wrote in an age scarred by absolutism and religious violence. His response was to elevate the individual above the state, to demand that government rest on consent, and to insist that freedom of conscience is inviolable. These remain the cornerstones of Western civilisation. At a time when collectivist ideologies again tempt societies to trade liberty for control, Locke’s lesson endures: only by protecting the rights of each person can nations secure both justice and prosperity.