2GO ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM VI 



functions of Government incline to the negative, 

 rather than the positive, side. But a further 

 study of Locke's writings will at once remove 

 this misconception. In the famous " Letter con- 

 cerning Toleration," Locke says : 



' ' The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men con- 

 stituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their 

 own civil interests. 



"Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of 

 body ; and the possession of outward things, such as money, 

 lands, houses, furniture, and the like. 



" It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial 

 execution of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in generaL 

 and to every one of his subjects in particular, the just possession 

 of those things belonging to this life. 



"... The whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only 

 to these civil concernments. . . . All civil power, right, and 

 dominion, is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting 

 these things." 



Elsewhere in the same " Letter," Locke lays 

 down the proposition that if the magistrate 

 understand washing a 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, iu that c 

 he may order it to be done." 



Locke seems to differ most widely from HoLltes 

 by his strongadyocacy of a certain meaux&-oL 

 -i"]r];iticm iu ivliytuus matters. But the reason 

 why the civil magistrate ought to leave religion 

 alone is, according to Locke, simply this, that 

 "true and saving religion consists in the inward 



