296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which rests upon it now ? Shall we any of us return into serfdom, 

 because it is proved that our ancestors were emancipated under a 

 delusion or a superstition ? 



On the other hand, it is when we turn to the present and the 

 future that the rectification of the dogma becomes all-important. 

 The anarchists of to-day have pushed the old dogma of natural 

 liberty to the extremest form of abstract deduction, and they pro- 

 pose to make it a programme of action. They therefore make of 

 it a principle of endless revolution. If, however, the basis on 

 which it once rested is gone, it is impossible that we should hold 

 and use it any more. With our present knowledge of history, we 

 know that no men on earth ever have had liberty in the sense of 

 unrestrainedness of action. The very conception is elusive. It is 

 impossible to reduce it to such form that it could be verified, for 

 the reason that it is non-human, non-earthly. It never could exist 

 on this earth and among these men. The notion of liberty, and 

 of the things to which it pertains, has changed from age to age 

 even in modern history. Never in the history of the world has 

 military service weighed on large bodies of men as it does now on 

 the men of the European continent. It is doubtful if it would 

 ever have been endured. Yet the present victims of it do not 

 appear to consider it inconsistent with liberty. Sumptuary laws 

 about dress would raise a riot in any American State ; a prohibi- 

 tory law would have raised a riot among people who did not 

 directly resist sumptuary laws. A civil officer in France, before 

 the Revolution, who had bought or inherited his office, had a degree 

 of independence and liberty in it which the nineteenth-century 

 official never dreams of. On the contrary, the more this nine- 

 teenth-century civil and political liberty is perfected, the more it 

 appears that under it an official has freedom of opinion and inde- 

 pendence of action only at the peril of his livelihood. 



So far our task has been comparatively easy. It requires only 

 industry to follow out the history of what men have thought 

 about anything. To find out how things have actually taken 

 place in the life of the human race is a task which can never be 

 more than approximately performed, in spite of all our talk about 

 history. To interpret the history is still another task, of a much 

 more difficult character.* 



Liberty in History and Institutions. — We are blinded by 

 the common use of language to the fact that all social actions are 

 attended by reactions. To take the commonest and often noticed 



* The Emperor Paul, of Russia, showed what may be done in the interpretation of his- 

 tory. When he heard of the excesses of the French Revolution, he turned to his sons and 

 said, " Now you see that it is necessary to treat men like dogs " (Masson, " Memoires sur 

 la Russie," 219). It is true that he was crazy, but we all have our personal limitations, 

 which are most important when we undertake interpretation. 



