i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 15 



child " to be profitable to the curing or preventing any 

 disease that children are subject unto, and esteem the 

 matter weighty enough to be taken care of by a law, in 

 that case he may order it to be done." 



Locke seems to differ most widely from Hobbes by his 

 strong advocacy of a certain measure of toleration in 

 religious matters. But the reason why the civil magis- 

 trate ought to leave religion alone is, according to Locke, 

 simply this, that " true and saving religion consists in the 

 inward persuasion of the mind." And since " such is the 

 nature of the understanding that it cannot be compelled 

 to the belief of anything by outward force," it is absurd 

 to attempt to make men religious by compulsion. I 

 cannot discover that Locke fathers the pet doctrine of 

 modern Liberalism, that the toleration of error is a- good 

 thing in itself, and to be reckoned among the cardinal 

 virtues ; on the contrary, in this very " Letter on Tolera- 

 tion " he states in the clearest language that " No opinion 

 contrary to human society, or to those moral rules which 

 are necessary to the preservation of civil society, are to 

 be tolerated by the magistrate." And the practical corol- 

 lary which he draws from this proposition is that there 

 ought to be no toleration for either Papists or Atheis ts. 



After Locke's time the negative view of the functions 

 of Government gradually grew in strength, until it 

 obtained systematic and able expression in Wilhelm von 

 Humboldt's " Ideen," 1 the essence of which is the 

 denial that the State has a right to be anything more 

 than chief policeman. And, of late years, the belief in 

 the efficacy of doing nothing, thus formulated, has 

 acquired considerable popularity for several reasons. 

 In the first place, men's speculative convictions have 

 become less and less real ; their tolerance is large 



1 An English translation has been published under the title of " Essay on the 

 Sphere and Duties of Government." 



