How does John Locke's idea of the social contract compare to Thomas Hobbes's ideas?

Both Locke and Hobbes believed that people joined together
to create a society that would have a government to protect them.  However, they had
very different reasons for why people did that and those reasons led to very different
prescriptions for what government should be like.

Hobbes
believed that people are inherently selfish and bad.  Therefore, they have to give a
sovereign complete control over them to keep them from killing one another.  His view of
human nature leads to the idea that an absolute monarchy is
necessary.

Locke believed that people are fundamentally
good.  He said that they join together and consent to be governed to protect themselves
from the few bad people who do exist.  His view of human nature leads to the idea that
government should be based on the consent of the people and should be aimed at
protecting the people's rights.  To Locke, the social contract is a deal between the
government and the people in which the people give up only some of their rights so the
government can protect their most important rights.

Thus,
Locke is a much more optimistic thinker on human nature and his ideas give rise to the
idea of popular government, not of absolute monarchy.