ABSTRACT
This conclusion present some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. In the development of his ideas on toleration, and in his debate with Jonas Proast, John Locke advanced principles for dealing with difference and diversity which were profoundly influential for at least one form of contemporary liberalism. In the England that Locke knew, individuals were willing to kill, and to die, in the name of religion. Locke was fully aware of this, and from the time of the Two Tracts on Government onwards, was concerned to find a means to ensure civil peace in the midst of such ultimate commitments, thereby avoiding such violence. The Charlie Hebdo shooting, with which this book began, is only one of a number of recent tragic examples where the religious commitments of some individuals within liberal democracies have culminated in bloodshed and murder.
