Persecution was one among many forms of mischievous meddling. Locke, in arguing for toleration in 1689, was obliged to take the ground that "The whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only" to securing unto all the people "life, liberty, health," and also "outward things such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like." "Government," he said, "hath no end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subject." Clearer language was used by those French patriots who declared in the Constitution of 1791 that liberty consists in ability to do everything which brings no harm to others; and, two years afterwards, that the liberty of each citizen should extend to where that of some other citizen begins. Nearly fifty years later, a theory very like Spencer's was published by Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of the great naturalist. Among the many writers who have held that government ought not to be merely limited but repudiated totally was Thoreau. It was in 1854 that this zealous abolitionist publicly renounced his allegiance to a great anti-slavery commonwealth, and that he asserted, in _Walden_, the necessity of preserving individual liberty by conforming as little as possible to any social usages, even that of working regularly in order to support one's self and family in comfort. That same year, Spencer showed in his essay on _Manners and Fashion_ the difference between a regulation by which public opinion tries to prevent rude people from making themselves unnecessarily disagreeable to their neighbours, and one which encourages dissipation by arbitrarily check-ing innocent amusement. Even in the latter case, however, there is, as he says, but little gain from any solitary nonconformity. Reform must be carried on in co-operation.