John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government, part of the larger work Two Treatises of Government, which Locke published anonymously in 1690, is an important text in the history of theories of natural law and the social contract and thus stands as a key document in the history of Western political thought. In fact, the Second Treatise on Civil Government provided an intellectual foundation for the future rejection of absolute monarchies—a process that began in Western culture in the eighteenth century, most notably with the French and American revolutions, and continued into the nineteenth century.