The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.

Locke makes this claim in his Second Treatise of Government (published anonymously in 1689, dated 1690), in the wake of England’s Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution. Writing against absolutist theories of monarchy (notably Filmer), Locke argues that legitimate political authority arises from consent to protect natural rights. In his account, people leave the state of nature not to surrender liberty wholesale but to secure it more reliably through known, standing laws and impartial judges. The line appears in his discussion of legislative power and the purpose of law within a commonwealth: law is meant to guide free agents toward the public good and safeguard their rights, not to impose arbitrary domination.

The quotation reframes law as a condition of freedom rather than its opposite. For Locke, “freedom” is not license to do anything whatsoever; it is security from arbitrary power and the ability to act under stable, publicly known rules that apply equally. Law “preserves and enlarges” freedom by protecting persons and property, setting predictable boundaries, and enabling cooperation among rational agents. The second sentence sharpens the point: where there is no law, power defaults to force, uncertainty, and private retaliation—conditions in which the weak are not free. Locke thus links liberty to constitutionalism: freedom flourishes when government is limited, rule-bound, and oriented to the common good.

1) “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”
2) “For in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom.”
3) “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom; for where there is no law, there is no freedom.”