Locke’s view was more positive. He argued that the state of nature was a place of perfect freedom. Liberty was not a modern development, the product of rebellious minds. It was the starting condition of the species. Humans were ‘by nature all free, equal and independent.’ They could ‘order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit.’ There was law, but it was not enforced from above. Everyone regulated it themselves, rationally and equally. ‘All the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal,’ Locke said, ‘no-one having more than any other.’
