“Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm;”
John Locke’s warning appears in section 202 of his Second Treatise of Government, published in the edition dated 1690. The quotation is the opening clause of a longer sentence, and its spelling and punctuation follow the historical text. Locke is discussing tyranny: authority exercised beyond the purposes and limits for which a community entrusted it to a ruler. His subject is not simply whether officials can make unpopular decisions. It is whether they substitute their private will for the rules that authorize their office. The distinction matters because a government may possess impressive titles, ceremonies, and institutions while allowing particular officers to act as though those restraints do not apply to them.
The qualification about harm keeps the statement from becoming a careless slogan about every technical mistake. Locke describes an official who exceeds lawful authority and uses the force at his disposal to accomplish something the law does not permit. In that circumstance, the officer cannot justify the act merely by pointing to his position. Public authority is a trust with a purpose, rather than a personal possession. Laws should direct power toward protecting the community; force deployed for an official’s own advantage reverses that relationship. This reasoning also explains why Locke extends his argument beyond kings. A subordinate magistrate can cross the same boundary, so changing the identity of the person at the top does not by itself eliminate arbitrary government.
Reading the passage in its surrounding discussion also prevents an exaggerated interpretation of resistance. Locke considers practical questions about appeals, the scope of an unlawful act, and whether injuries threaten the public more generally. He does not present a minor disagreement as automatic permission to overthrow a political system. His argument instead asks how authority can remain legitimate when the people who exercise it abandon its legal foundation. That was a sharp challenge to claims that a ruler’s superior rank could convert an unauthorized injury into a rightful command. At the same time, Locke’s political vocabulary and assumptions belong to his own century; the quotation is not a ready-made answer to every dispute over modern administrative procedure or constitutional interpretation.
For contemporary readers, the useful question is where an official’s permission to act can be found and how an affected person can contest an overreach. Written limits, accessible records, independent review, and workable remedies give the principle practical meaning. A rule that appears only on paper offers little protection if nobody can enforce it against a powerful officeholder. Conversely, lawful discretion is not necessarily tyranny simply because an observer dislikes its result. Locke’s warning directs attention to the relationship between power, authorization, and injury. It asks citizens to examine the conduct of office rather than accept the prestige of office as proof that the conduct must be legitimate.
The excerpt comes from the chapter on tyranny in Locke's Second Treatise. Section 202 distinguishes the authority attached to an office from force exercised outside its lawful boundaries.
The book's title page bears 1690. That publication year identifies the source; February 6 marks this entry's place in the quotation series.
Locke includes the condition that the law is transgressed to another person's harm. Leaving out that qualification can make his argument sound broader and less precise than the passage warrants.
His discussion reaches subordinate officers as well as monarchs. An impressive hierarchy cannot transform an unauthorized injury into a legitimate exercise of public authority.
The passage provides a framework for asking what legal permission supports a government action and what remedy exists when an officer exceeds it.
Its lasting value depends on enforceable limits. Disagreement with a policy and an abuse of authority require different arguments, even when both produce strong political opposition.
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