duals employ
terms quite as hazy and silly as those which I have indicated.

We have gone very far in the direction of scientific discovery, and we
have a large number of facts at our disposal; but some of us have quite
forgotten that true liberty comes only from submitting to wise guidance.
Old Sandy Mackay, in Alton Locke, declared that he would never bow down
to a bit of brains: and this highly-independent attitude is copied by
persons who fail to see that bowing to the bit of brains is the only
mode of securing genuine freedom. If our daring logicians would grant
that every man should have liberty to lead his life as he chooses, so
long as he hurts neither himself nor any other individual nor the State,
then one might follow their argument; but a plain homespun proposal like
that of mine is not enough for your advanced thinker. In England he
says, "Let us have deliverance from all restrictions;" in Russia he
says, "Anarchy is the only cure for existing evils." For centuries past
the earth has been deluged with blood and the children of men have been
scourged by miseries unspeakable, merely because powerful men and
powerful bodies of men have not chosen to learn the meaning of the word
"liberty." "How miserable you make the world for one another, O feeble
race of men!" So said our own melancholy English cynic; and he had
singularly good reason for his plaint. Rapid generalization is nearly
always mischievous; unless we learn to form correct and swift judgments
on every faculty of life as it comes before us, we merely stumble from
error to error. No cut-and-dried maxim ever yet was fit to guide men
through their mysterious existence; the formalist always ends by
becoming a bungler, and the most highly-developed man, if he is content
to be no more than a thinking-machine, is harmful to himself and harmful
to the community which has the ill-luck to harbour him. If we take cases
from history, we ought to find it easy enough to distinguish between the
men who sought liberty wisely and those who were restive and turbulent.
A wise man or a wise nation knows the kind of restraint which is good;
the fool, with his feather-brained theories, never knows what is good
for him--he mistakes eternal justice for tyranny, he rebels against
facts that are too solid for him--and we know what kind of an end he
meets. Some peculiarly daring personages carry their spirit of
resistance beyond the bounds of our poor little earth. Only lately