 Shaftesbury’s commitment to liberty extends to toleration of religious difference (see Carey 2006: 144–5 and Klein 1994: 137). His reasons for this are consonant with his reasons for thinking the best the state can do with regard to personal morality is create the conditions for people to achieve virtue on their own. Just as it is impossible to force people to virtue because virtue essentially involves acting from reasons other than external reward and punishment, so too is it impossible to force people to true religious devotion because true religious devotion essentially involves an inward feeling of love—“the disinterested Love of God” (C 2.271), the “love of God for his own sake” (C 2.58)—and not merely the kind of external behavior that can be enforced. Forcing people to love God is no more possible than forcing someone to romantically love another person (C 1.17–19). In fact, attempts to force religious uniformity—“a hopeful Project!” Shaftesbury sarcastically calls it—are bound to failure, likely resulting only in in the further corruption of people’s characters (C 1.19).