"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, 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 magistrate 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