SOMETHING NEW IN "FREEWILL" 345 



SOMETHING NEW IN "FKEEWILL" 



Br Professor GEORGE STUART FULLERTON 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



IT has been maintained that all men are born free and equal. Shall 

 we accept this very broad statement as it stands? or shall we 

 repudiate it as a palpable untruth, an absurd exaggeration of the 

 actual state of things? 



There can be no doubt that from certain points of view, abundant 

 objection can be brought against it. Is a baby free to go where it 

 pleases? Or a child of five to discipline its parents, and control the 

 key to the pantry? Is a boy free to vote? Or to raise money on a 

 note ? Is a lady free to play poker on the curb-stone ? Or a clergy- 

 man to supplement his insufficient salary by serving during the week 

 as end-man in the performances of a minstrel troupe? Is a banker 

 free to close his establishment every time that there is a football game 

 between Yale and Harvard ? Freedom ! Where is freedom ? We are 

 all of us hedged about by restrictions of a thousand sorts, and we are 

 not hedged about by the same restrictions. What I am free to do, an- 

 other is not free to do; and what he may do is forbidden to a third. 

 Where is this freedom attributed to all men? Some men incarcerated 

 in cells by legal process appear to be conscious that they are not free. 

 The larger number not thus provided for talk much about their free- 

 dom, especially at certain seasons of the year, but when we subject 

 them to critical inspection, we find that they only seem to be free to 

 do certain things determined by such circumstances as age, character, 

 sex, station in life, official position, and a multitude of others. Each 

 human being is certainly not free to do what every other is free to 

 do. What a droll world it would be if he were ! 



And as for equality — talk not of it ! Would any man in his senses 

 maintain that a baby not yet " shortened " is equal in size, weight and 

 intelligence to a senator or a college president? Is a boy equal in 

 foresight and power of self-restraint to a man of forty ? Are all school- 

 children equal in mathematical ability or in artistic skill? Are all 

 women equally beautiful and equally talkative? The man who really 

 believed in the equality of human beings would make the candidates 

 for the presidency of the United States pull straws, or would toss up a 

 copper to decide whom he should marry. Even if we confine ourselves 

 to men as "born," as still in the cradle, we can not regard them as 



