men's beliefs, this would not conduce to the salvation of souls. Would more men be saved if all blindly resigned themselves to the will of their rulers and accepted the religion of their country? For as the princes of the world are divided in religion, one country alone would be in the right, and all the rest of the world would have to follow their princes to destruction; "and that which heightens the absurdity, and very ill suits the notion of a deity, men would owe their eternal happiness or their eternal misery to the places of their nativity." This is a principle on which Locke repeatedly insists. If a State is justified in imposing a creed, it follows that in all the lands, except the one or few in which the true faith prevails, it is the duty of the subjects to embrace a false religion. If Protestantism is promoted in England, Popery by the same rule will be promoted in France. "What is true and good in England will be true and good at Rome too, in China, or Geneva." Toleration is the principle which gives to the true faith the best chance of prevailing.
Locke would concede full liberty to idolaters, by whom he means the Indians of North America, and he makes some scathing remarks on the ecclesiastical zeal which forced these "innocent pagans" to forsake
