Published in 1689, John Locke's pioneering investigation into the origins, certainty, and extent of human knowledge set the groundwork for modern philosophy and influenced psychology, literature, political theory, and other areas of human thought and expression.

J. R. and Philip Milton present the first critical edition of John Locke's Essay concerning Toleration and a number of other writings on law and politics composed between 1667 and 1683. Although Locke never published any of these works himself they are of very great interest for students of his intellectual development because they are markedly different from the early works he wrote while at Oxford and show him working out ideas that were to appear in his mature political writings, the Two Treatises of Government and the Epistola de Tolerantia. The Essay concerning Toleration was written in 1667, shortly after Locke had taken up residence in the household of his patron Lord Ashley, subsequently Earl of Shaftesbury. It has been in print since the nineteenth century, but this volume contains the first critical edition based on all the extant manuscripts; it also contains a detailed account of Locke's arguments and of the contemporary debates on comprehension and toleration. Also included are a number of shorter writings on church and state, including a short set of queries on Scottish church government (1668), Locke's notes on Samuel Parker (1669), and 'Excommunication' (1674). The other two main works contained in this volume are rather different in character . One is a short tract on jury selection which was written at the time of Shaftesbury's imprisonment in 1681. The other is 'A Letter from a Person of Quality', a political pamphlet written by or for Shaftesbury in 1675 as part of his campaign against the Earl of Danby. This was published anonymously and is of disputed authorship; it was first attributed to Locke in 1720 and since then has occupied an uncertain position in the Locke canon. This volume contains the first critical edition based on contemporary printed editions and manuscripts and it includes a detailed account of the Letter's composition, authorship, and subsequent history. This volume will be an invaluable resource for all historians of early modern philosophy, of legal, political, and religious thought, and of 17th century Britain.

John Locke's theory of property is perhaps the most distinctive and the most influential aspect of his political theory. In this book James Tully uses an hermeneutical and analytical approach to offer a revolutionary revision of early modern theories of property, focusing particularly on that of Locke. Setting his analysis within the intellectual context of the seventeenth century, Professor Tully overturns the standard interpretations of Locke's theory, showing that it is not a justification of private property. Instead he shows it to be a theory of individual use rights within a framework of inclusive claim rights. He links Locke's conception of rights not merely to his ethical theory, but to the central arguments of his epistemology, and illuminates the way in which Locke's theory is tied to his metaphysical views of God and man, his theory of revolution and his account of a legitimate polity.