 Shaftesbury does not, however, propose unlimited free speech. While he is in favor of a good-humored ridicule, he also thinks there is a vicious kind of ridicule that does not serve the purposes of truth—although it is not always clear what principled distinction he draws between on the one hand “genteelest Wit” and “true Raillery,” and on the other “scurrilous Buffoonery” and “Malignity hid under Humanity” (C 1.63, 1.65; Klein 1995, 138). The former works as a test of truth, but the latter does not. The latter may thus be subject to legal penalty: “If men are vicious, petulant, or abusive; the Magistrate may correct them” (C 1.10). This raises the question of whether Shaftesbury can produce an account of the right kind of ridicule. He seems to believe that the right kind of ridicule is motivated by a genuine and good-humored concern for truth and public good, while the wrong kind is not. But it is far from clear that this will give us a principled method for determining which speech should be allowed and which should not.