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Natural rights, Two Treatises of Government, father of liberalism
Locke held that the mind at birth is a blank slate (tabula rasa) and that all knowledge comes from sensory experience, not innate ideas. Politically, he argued individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty and property even before government exists, and that government is a trust that can legitimately be overthrown if it fails to protect those rights.
English physician and philosopher whose ideas on government directly influenced the American Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.