the contrary, in this very "Letter on Toleration" 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
corollary which he draws from this proposition is that there ought to
be no toleration for either Papists or Atheists.

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 because their
belief is small; they know that the State had better leave things
alone unless it has a clear knowledge about them; and, with reason,
they suspect that the knowledge of the governing power may stand no
higher than the very low watermark of their own.

[Footnote 1: An English translation has been published under the title
of "Essay on the Sphere and Duties of Government."]

In the second place, men have become largely absorbed in the mere
accumulation of wealth; and as this is a matter in which the plainest
and strongest form of self-interest is intensely concerned, science
(in the shape of Political Economy) has readily demonstrated that
self-interest may be safely left to find the best way of attaining
its ends. Rapidity and certainty of intercourse between different
countries, the enormous development of the powers of machinery, and