this same liberty can and should be accorded with safety to the state and
the magisterial authority - in fact, that it cannot be withheld without
great danger to peace and detriment to the community.

(48) In order to establish my point, I start from the natural rights of the
individual, which are co-extensive with his desires and power, and from the
fact that no one is bound to live as another pleases, but is the guardian of
his own liberty. (49) I show that these rights can only be transferred to
those whom we depute to defend us, who acquire with the duties of defence
the power of ordering our lives, and I thence infer that rulers possess
rights only limited by their power, that they are the sole guardians of
justice and liberty, and that their subjects should act in all things as
they dictate: nevertheless, since no one can so utterly abdicate his own
power of self-defence as to cease to be a man, I conclude that no one can be
deprived of his natural rights absolutely, but that subjects, either by
tacit agreement, or by social contract, retain a certain number, which
cannot be taken from them without great danger to the state.

(50) From these considerations I pass on to the Hebrew State, which I
describe at some length, in order to trace the manner in which Religion
acquired the force of law, and to touch on other noteworthy points. (51) I
then prove, that the holders of sovereign power are the depositories and
interpreters of religious no less than of civil ordinances, and that they
alone have the right to decide what is just or unjust, pious or impious;
lastly, I conclude by showing, that they best retain this right and secure
safety to their state by allowing every man to think what he likes, and say
what he thinks.

(52) Such, Philosophical Reader, are the questions I submit to your notice,
counting on your approval, for the subject matter of the whole book and of