Chapter 18:  Of Tyranny
Chapter 19: Of the Dissolution of Government

Chapter 18:

Some questions.  If you can answer these by finding and understanding appropriate passages in the text, you’ll have a good handle on this chapter.

Can only kings by tyrannical?  What about other executive bodies?  What is the essential feature—the definition—of tyranny?
In 205-208 Locke explains why frequent revolutions are unlikely, including
a) respect for the exalted or sacred rank of the ruler (205);
b)  the hindrance placed by the law on "the king and his men" (206);
c) our right to appeal to the law (207); and
d) can you explain what he says in 208?

You should be able to summarize the conclusion to this line of thought (209).  210 is a complicated statement:
 

210. But if all the world shall observe pretences of one kind, and actions
of another, arts used to elude the law, and the trust of prerogative (which
is an arbitrary power in some things left in the prince's hand to do good,
not harm, to the people) employed contrary to the end for which it was
given; if the people shall find the ministers and subordinate magistrates
chosen, suitable to such ends, and favoured or laid by proportionably as
they promote or oppose them; if they see several experiments made of
arbitrary power, and that religion underhand favoured, though publicly
proclaimed against, which is readiest to introduce it, and the operators in
it supported as much as may be; and when that cannot be done, yet approved
still, and liked the better, and a long train of acting show the counsels
all tending that way, how can a man any more hinder himself from being
persuaded in his own mind which way things are going; or, from casting about
how to save himself, than he could from believing the captain of a ship he
was in was carrying him and the rest of the company to Algiers, when he
found him always steering that course, though cross winds, leaks in his
ship, and want of men and provisions did often force him to turn his course
another way for some time, which he steadily returned to again as soon as
the wind, weather, and other circumstances would let him?

I’m not going to hold you responsible for this paragraph, but you should notice, if you try to isolate the main thought, that it is the question:
 

how can a man any more hinder himself from being persuaded in his own mind which way things are going than he could from believing the captain of a ship he was in was carrying him and the rest of the company to Algiers, when he…?

The other point to make about this paragraph is the reference to religion: this is the Roman Catholicism of James II, something that made him suspect in anti-Catholic England of the 1680s.

Chapter 19  Of the Dissolution of Government

Your first task here is to look up "dissolution."    Try using the Merriam-Webster dictionary at:

How is "dissolution" different from "revolution"?

211. dissolution of society brings dissolution of government

212. or:

First.  The legislature is improperly changed  (212)

Legislature normally is:
 

First, a single hereditary person having the constant, supreme, executive power, …

Secondly, an assembly of hereditary nobility.

Thirdly, an assembly of representatives chosen by the people.

Now:  can you list the ways in which such a government can be dissolved (214ff) and who (218) is responsible?

At 223 Locke turns to the "people," arguing that they are not inclined to frequent change of governments.  Can you list some of the reasons he gives?

Using your search or find software, look up the uses of "rebel," "rebellion" and "revolution" in 225-228.  Who are the rebels, in Locke’s view of things?  Who is being compared to "robbers or pirates"?  (In 228, Polyphemus is the Cyclops who threatens to eat Ulysses and his crew in Homer’s Odyssey.)

Do not bother to read:  Sections 231-242,  a further detailed account of the right to resist and commentary on Barclay.

You should read the final summing up, in  243

Phrases you should remember and be able to find, use and explain:
 

"no more justifiable in a king than a constable"

"it being safer for the body that some few private men should be sometimes in danger to suffer than that the head of the republic
should be easily and upon slight occasions exposed."

Do you have questions on this chapter?  Click here to send the teacher a note.