Rather, we can explain the temptation by referring to the consequences of this great transformation. The concept of tolerance that emerged—the one familiar to readers of Bayle5s Commentary and Lessing5s Nathan一is indeed quite different from its medieval antecedent, which is to say nothing more than that our lists of actions and things tolerable and intolerable contain items that they could not imagine, could not endorse. Might we nevertheless speak (as most do) of medieval intolerance? Certainly, but only as we resist the temptation to confuse substantial transformation of the concept for its utterly novel emergence and only as we forsake the assumption that the societies of medieval Christendom should have shared our version, our lists. Better to begin with humility about the sources of our own moral concepts and charity about the substance of theirs. Better to assume that, for the most part, the judgments that give our concepts substance have causes that outstrip our control—history lurching this way and that, customs and practices that we inherit, the unexpected appearance of moral geniuses, prophets, and reformers, and so on. No doubt we want the effects of those causes—our judgments, lists, and concepts in use—to be justified by reasons that warrant our commitment to them, reasons that take into account the strengths and weaknesses of alternative judgments, lists, and uses. And yet the reasons available to us and the alternatives we might consider are also accidents of history, circumstance, and inheritance. What follows (or at least, ought to) is not skepticism about all reasons and effects but, as I said, humility about those we happen to have.