(On A Letter Concerning Toleration:) A milestone in the coming Enlightenment's gradual delineation of Church, State, & their mutual separation. But this work also has a great deal to say about the philosophy of Locke himself. Much of his claim rests on his scrupulous delimitation of a) certainty of knowledge, & b) coercive power - themes far from unrelated to his other main works.

Locke's argument here is simple enough: if, as he asserts, certainty & coercive power have little solid ground to stand on in matters of religion & "conscience", they must limit themselves strictly to things worldly, where we know more, not least about the consequences of certain actions.

Crucially, if a physical action (say, eating a particular food or making a specific gesture) is permitted & harmless in the temporal sphere, it cannot be prohibited by any worldly authority (this includes church leaders vis-à-vis other communities) on religious grounds, merely because it has acquired some spiritual significance in that sphere. The physical act of eating the food or making the gesture remains exactly the same, the claimed certainty (by some) of its spiritual significance is in fact accessible only to God: so, toleration from citizens & authorities must also be exactly the same - whether the action enters a ritual context or is performed, with no religious content whatsoever, by an artisan in his workshop or a family at the dinner table.

Many old books on liberty or freedom of conscience are now dusted off as useful in today's debate of Western vs non-Western values, & many may indeed be so. But this one surely has a place among them. ( )

Uiteraard een basiswerk in de opbouw van het democratische Westen. Niet altijd even helder. en niet altijd even consequent (vb tolerantie voor iedereen, behalve katholieken)

Come on, it's John Locke. Enough said. Read it.