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Swartbmove Xectuce.

years as a subject to authority which was forcedupon him by arms or tradition. Group life over-shadowed the individual. Liberty as we under-stand it is the outcome of that second wave of theReformation that rose in England and America, from thence to overflow the world. In its wakecame the political philosophy from Milton andLocke to Rousseau.

The fundamental idea of Liberty is the greatconception of Jesus that no outward work is goodfor itself. Before God all depends on the spiritout of which the work is done. Or, as Kant putsit, legality which works under compulsion hasnothing to do with morality which springs fromconviction and is only possible where man is freeto do the evil as well as the good. Human pro-gress consists in widening the field of morality byretrenching the field of legality. Therefore thebattle cry of those reformers who carried theReformation to its last consequences : no com-pulsion, means as little compulsion as iscompatible with the very existence of a socialorder. As man always will sin or err, peace andjustice never can be upheld without a certainamount of compulsion, but the less compulsionthe better.

Of all forms of compulsion the worst is theattempt to force the religious convictions by lawand armed force. " Liberty " therefore meantoriginally Freedom of conscience, i.e. the right toavow openly any religious or irreligious conviction,and to order divine worship in whatever formconscience prescribes or to abstain from it