ce, not, as is commonly supposed, "to his instincts,"
meaning by the word "instincts" those designated as animal instincts.
We are so accustomed to; treat children like dogs and other domestic
animals, that a "free child" makes us think of a dog, barking,
jumping, and stealing dainties. And so accustomed are we to regard as
manifestations of evil instincts the _rebellions_ of the child treated
as a beast, his obscure protests and desperations, or the protective
devices he has to invent to save himself from such a humiliating
situation, that, by way of elevating him, we first compare him to
plants and flowers, and then actually try to keep him as far as
possible in the state of physical immobility of vegetables, subjecting
him to the same sensations, reducing him to slavery. But he never
becomes the "plant with angelic perfume" we would fain believe him to
be; rather do signs of corruption gradually manifest themselves as his
"human substance" mortifies and dies.

But when we leave the child "free as a man" in the palestra of his own
intelligence, his type changes entirely. It is of this type we must
form new conceptions in discussing the question of "liberty."

That of intelligence should also, I believe, be the key to the problem
of the social liberty of man. We have heard much talk of late years,
of a very superficial kind, concerning "liberty of thought." The issue
being obscured by prejudices akin to those prevalent concerning
children, it has been supposed that man would be "liberated" were he
"abandoned" to his own thoughts. But was he capable of "thinking"? Was
not the epoch of such "freedom" also that of cerebral neurasthenia?
Was it not also that epoch when laws for extending social rights to
illiterates were under discussion?

Now let us take an example: if we told a sick person to choose between
disease and health, would this make him free to do so? If we offer an
uneducated peasant good and bad paper money, leaving him "free to
choose" which he will take, and he chooses the bad notes, he is not
free, he is cheated; if he chooses the good, he is not free, he is
lucky. He will be free when he has sufficient knowledge not only to
distinguish the good from the bad, but to understand the social
utility of each. It is the giving of this "internal formation" which
makes a man free, irrespective of a "social sanction" which is merely
an external conquest of liberty. If the liberty of man were such a
simple proble