Letters concerning toleration Author:John Locke This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1689 Excerpt: ...Force? For I hope where Force is proper to work, thofe who are not wrought on by lower Degrees, may yet be by higher. If you mean fo, then... more » your Anfwer will amount to thus much,Moderate Penalties are fuch as are fufficient to prevail on thofe who are not defperately perverfe and obfiinate. The defperately perverfe and obfiinate are thofe who are incurable, and the Incurable are thofe on whom moderate Penalties are not fufficient to prevail: Whereby at laft we have got a fure Mea W fure Chap. 4. &" f ""3t are m'drte Penalties juft fuch an one, as if bat/VNi ving a Soveraign Univerfal Medicine put into your Hand, which will never fail, if you can hit the right Dofe, which the Inventer tells you mull be moderate: You mould ask him what was the moderate Quantity it is to be given in? and he fliould anfwer, In fuch a Quantity as was ordinarily fufficient to work on common Confthutions, and not defperately perverfe and obfiinate. And to you asking again, who were of defperately perverfe and obfiinate Confthutions? It mould be anfwered, Thofe that were incurable. And who were incurable f Thofe whom a moderate Quantity would not work on. And thus to your Satisfaction, you know the moderate Dofe by the defperately ferverfe and obfiinate; and the defperately pervtrfe and obfiinate by being incurable; and the Incurable by the moderate Dofe. For if, as you fay, Remedies are not provided for the incurable, and none but moderate Penalties are to be provided, is it not plain, that you mean, that all that will not be wrought on by your moderate Penalties, are in your Senfe incurable f Toeafeyou, Sir, of juftifying your felf, and (hewing that I have miftaken you, do but tell us pofitively what in Penalties is the higheft Degree of moderate; who are defpera...« less