". (Locke p.9-10) .
What I feel Locke is trying to express is the idea that God is the only one, other then that person himself, who can do any harm to that person. Meaning that you have a natural freedom to be free and nobody has the right to harm your life, health, liberty, or possessions. Therefore when you give up these rights to the government you do so with the believe that the government will be given these rights to you as well. Because of this the government must focus on doing only what is good for the public since by the State of Nature it cannot harm them. Locke does vary on this idea slightly by going into the subject of punishment. But that I believe does not effect the principles he lays down because punishment aries from the fact that, that individual enters into that society with the knowledge that he is giving up his personal individual freedoms, for those freedoms and rules given to him by the government. And if he breaks these rules and abuses the freedoms of what I call his fellow citizens he must be punished accordingly.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his book called The Social Contract and Discourses demonstrates this basic principle very clearly. He talks about the state or government being what he calls "the Sovereign" when it is active. He says " the Sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members.".(Rousseau p.194) Rousseau does state that this does not mean that an individual might not have a will that is contrary to that of the sovereign, but the sovereign will not have a will that will hurt the public. Therefore supporting the basic principle that all the powers of government should be focused on providing for the public good.
.
The next are that I will address is the differences that arise in their concrete meanings of the basic principle or idea.