It is in the traditional concept of the calling that the key to Locke's moral vision lies. In examining his treatment of this notion it is possible to grasp the scope and limitations of his moral thought, that precarious balance of conservatism and innovation which gives it its distinctive quality. It is also perhaps possible to understand why the historical individual, John Locke, came to think in this way. His analysis of the calling takes as a datum the intractability and oppressive ideological sanction of existing social structures. The liberties which he struggles to vindicate are not the socially unavailable and in his eyes morally perilous liberties of unrestricted physical indulgence, but those freedoms which are necessary for executing the responsibilities of the calling. Prevailing social moralities might often be strikingly corrupt in detail and the legal structures of societies might reflect this corruption with some accuracy. That was how the human world was due to be ever since the Fall of Man. Men are above all else proud. In their cradles they cry for dominion, and throughout their life ambition and covetousness, ‘amor sceleratus habendi’, drive them towards the ‘bogs and precipices’ of sin. The passions of corrupt human nature demand restraint and social existence does at times provide such restraints, though it also and perhaps equally often creates its own distinctive temptations.