are supermen for the same reason that contemporary dukes are dukes-by grace and not by merit.

He

The creator of Romanticism was Rousseau. was a democrat. The first sentence of his Contrat Sociale" says: "Man is born free and he finds himself everywhere in chains." This sentence made the French Revolution. The French Revolution was excellent in so far as it destroyed the subjective rights of the nobility and clergy. Classes that in general did not fulfil any useful social function had not the right to such rights. But the Revolution attempted to substitute for the subjective rights of the few the subjective rights of all, as if an error became a truth by multiplication. It founded them on the principle that "man is born free." But is it true that man is born free? The poor baby! Is not the enigma the Sphinx set Edipus more true: What is the animal that first walks on four legs, then on two, then on three? And will you tell me what “to be free" or "to be born free" means?. For to be free from headaches means only not to have headaches. And there are many, many men who cannot find in the word "freedom more than a negative meaning.

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There are now thinkers who make of "personal liberties " an alogical and axiomatic bedrock " and decline" to waste time in discussing it." am sorry. Only on two "absolute alogical bedrocks can be based the "relative alogical bedrock" of liberty. First, on a theory of law and the State founded on the person, as the fountain of rights. Second, on a theory of Ethics, looking to the interior of consciousness as the exclusive source of morality. This subjective theory of Ethics has been upset by a teacher of Cambridge, Mr. G. E. Moore. Now we see the foundations of Ethics not in man but in the good of the good things that our

fathers did for us and in the bad of the bad things that our fathers did not remove, but that we ought to replace for our sons. As for the personal theory of right, it has been superseded by a professor of Bordeaux, M. Léon Duguit, by another theory based on solidarity, according to which there are no other rights than the rights annexed to the social functions of every man. No functions, no rights Mr. Moore is well known in England, M. Duguit is the first name of France in matters of the theory of law, and both are in earnest.

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Kant, hallucinated by Rousseau, tried to find a positive theory. To him to be free meant to fulfil the moral law; and he did not deduce this moral law from the property of goodness possessed by some things and some actions, but he drew it complete out of his own head, and he felt, as he found it there, the same trembling wonder produced in him by the contemplation of the starry heavens above him. He often made us weep, he shook our hearts like an earthquake, he liberated our spirits often from the chains of selfish hedonism up to the self-consciousness of the pure freedom of the will," wrote his pupil Jachman as he recalled his student years. And it is easy to understand that one can weep with pride on imagining oneself the bearer within of the moral law, autonomous, sovereign, absolute, without need of appeal to history, to example, or to results, but, on the contrary, suppressing every matter and thinking only in the pure form of our practical reason. But it was not so that Plato taught Ethics. For he sought Ethics in good things, actual or desirable; and to show what virtue is he sketched the Constitution of an ideal republic, and to show a good man he described the death of Socrates.

The romantic spirit begins by persuading us that we are kings. Then it perceives that we have no

throne. Then it seeks for the cause of our lack, and it finds it in external obstacles-society, the human body, the nature of the world-and it ends by throwing us against the obstacles. It begins by making us weep in admiration of our own greatness; it ends by making us weep out of spite at our littleness. It begins by filling us with joy at the discovery of our right to the throne; it ends by filling us with hatred of our usurpers-Nature, our own pity, or other men. And this is why Romanticism begins in the Humanism of the Renaissance and ends in universal conflagration. For what can men do, if filled with pride, but exterminate one another?

Classicism, like Romanticism, acknowledges that man is the king of creation. But Classicism adds that man is a servant-the servant of God, the highest good, the highest truth, the highest beauty. As king of creation, man is superior to all other things and to all other animals; but, on the other hand, he is inferior to the good, the true, and the beautiful. He may use things and animals for his satisfaction; he ought to serve absolute values. The consciousness of his superiority over things can help man to cure himself of lust. The consciousness of his inferiority with respect to absolute values can help him to cure himself of pride. Lust and pride are the two aspects of original sin. But that has already been said by Pascal, and, before Pascal, by the Fathers of the Church. Classicism is already very old; but for some centuries it was a class without intelligent pupils. Now Romanticism is dead; and there are curious souls returning to the class.

THE FAILURE OF LIBERTY

LIBERTY is defended on the pretext that men are happier when they do what they wish. But against that must be said, first, that it is doubtful whether men are happy when they do what they wish; and, secondly, that we cannot conceive any society which allows men to do what they wish, for it is in the nature of men to wish for impossibilities. The magic of liberty does not belong properly to liberty itself, but to its associations. If the Pope were to prohibit Catholics from reading the Bible to-morrow, or from studying theology for fear that they might become heretics, the faithful would revolt in the name of liberty; but the sacredness of their revolt would be founded, not upon liberty but upon thought. If the English Government prohibited the exploitation of some of the country's natural resources, the population would revolt in the name of liberty; but the justification for their revolt would lie, not in liberty but in the fact that the increase of wealth is a good thing. If the Government of any European country, decreed that its women should bind up their feet so as to make them smaller, as Chinese women once did, the women would revolt, again in the name of liberty; but the real reason for their revolt would not be liberty but health or grace.

As man is not an automaton, to deprive him in normal circumstances of the freedom of finding his own vocation or calling among the professions or

trades considered as necessary would be to destroy him, and it would also lead to his destruction if he were obliged to fulfil his function in an automatic manner. It is in these two senses only that personal liberty is not merely legitimate but necessary; for no society can subsist for long if it does not adjust itself to the nature of man, which is incompatible with automatism. By that we only declare that all laws must take into account the fact that man is not a machine but a free agent. But it is necessary to be clear on one point, and equally necessary to emphasize it: that when we defend liberty of thought we are really defending thought itself and not liberty; for, if we were defending only the principle of liberty, we might find ourselves upholding the cause of not thinking at all. Liberty is not in itself a positive principle of social organization. To speak of a society whose members are at liberty to do as they please is a contradiction in terms. Liberty in this sense would constitute no society at all. The rules of all kinds of societies prescribe that members shall do certain things and shall refrain from doing others. The good that has sometimes been attained in the name of liberty, such as the restriction of authority or the promotion of thought, trade, etc., would have been better attained had we fought straightway for the restriction of authority and for the promotion of thought and trade as such; and we should have avoided this strange superstition that makes so many men believe that liberty gives them a legitimate right to refuse to fulfil any function necessary to the society to which they belong.