284 SOCIAL PROGRESS 







Ideas of liberty are, indeed, always striving to 

 unloose the fastenings whether selfish or un- 

 selfish wherewith society is bound together. 

 According to the theory of human behaviour 

 which we are endeavouring to maintain, liberty 

 means little more than opportunities for change. 

 None the less is the desire for it a fundamental 

 impulse of human nature, which in the majority 

 of men is restrained by habits of mind or body, 

 but leads others violently to attack established 

 ideas and customs. Through the shrine of Liberty 

 one may pass sometimes to a promised land, 

 sometimes into the wilderness, often, indeed, 

 only from one walled labyrinth into another. The 

 soaring ideals of the French Revolution accepted 

 their accomplishment in a military despotism : 

 the liberty of combining so precious to workmen 

 reconciles them to such a tyranny, at the hands 

 of their union, as no monarch would dare to 

 impose. We may, in fact, conclude that, generally, 

 liberty means little more than freedom to choose 

 one's master. 



Not infrequently, moreover, the ideas of enthu- 

 siasts may be demonstrably pernicious. Yet 

 they are none the less strongly urged against the 

 established bulwarks of society. What wonder, 

 then, that the guardians of these ramparts, 

 whether kings, priests or lawyers, should have 

 regarded reformers as the enemies of mankind, 

 and have striven to repress their propaganda by 

 ostracism, persecution, and martyrdom ! They 

 have erred erred cruelly but not altogether so 

 selfishly as is sometimes imagined. For, until 

 reason has been trained and knowledge dissemi- 

 nated, the quack has as great a vogue as the 

 qualified doctor, and it may reasonably appear 

 safer to stand still than to advance in complete 



