Two Treatises of Government in the context of "Robert Filmer"

Polybius (/pəˈlɪbiəs/; Ancient Greek: Πολύβιος, Polýbios; c. 200 – c. 118 BC) was an ancient Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his Histories, a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covers the period 264–146, recording in detail events in Italy, Iberia, Greece, Macedonia, Syria, Egypt and Africa, and documents the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars among many others.

Polybius's Histories is important not only for being the only Hellenistic historical work to survive in any substantial form, but also for its analysis of constitutional change and the mixed constitution. Polybius's discussion of the separation of powers in government, of checks and balances to limit power, and his introduction of "the people", all influenced Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government, and the framers of the United States Constitution.

Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration (1660–1688), which corresponds to the last years of Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that centre on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrim's Progress. It saw Locke's Treatises of Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theatres from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news becoming a commodity, the essay developing into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism.

The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention, and they differ markedly from genre to genre. Thus, the "Restoration" in drama may last until 1700, while in poetry it may last only until 1666 (see 1666 in poetry) and the annus mirabilis; and in prose it might end in 1688, with the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or not until 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilized. In general, scholars use the term "Restoration" to denote the literature that began and flourished under Charles II, whether that literature was the laudatory ode that gained a new life with restored aristocracy, the eschatological literature that showed an increasing despair among Puritans, or the literature of rapid communication and trade that followed in the wake of England's mercantile empire.

Two Tracts on Government is a work of political philosophy written from 1660 to 1662 by John Locke. It remained unpublished until 1967, 263 years following the death of Locke in 1704. It bears a similar name to a later, more famous, political philosophy work by Locke, namely Two Treatises of Government. The two works, however, have very different positions.

The book supports authoritarian policies in matters of religious worship, and it was largely written as a refutation to Edward Bagshaw's ideas about religious toleration. Later in life, Locke embraced liberal and anti-authoritarian views.

The labor theory of property, also called the labor theory of appropriation, labor theory of ownership, labor theory of entitlement, and principle of first appropriation, is a theory of natural law that holds that property originally comes about by the exertion of labor upon natural resources. The theory has been used to justify the homestead principle, which holds that one may gain whole permanent ownership of an unowned natural resource by performing an act of original appropriation.

In his Second Treatise on Government, the philosopher John Locke asked by what right an individual can claim to own one part of the world, when, according to the Bible, God gave the world to all humanity in common. He answered that, although persons belong to God, they own the fruits of their labor. When a person works, that labor enters into the object upon which they are working. Thus, the object becomes the property of that person; however, Locke held that one may only appropriate property in this fashion if the Lockean proviso held true, that is, "... there is enough, and as good, left in common for others".