pleasure. Of such a character is
punishment by "administrative" process in Russia at the present day;
imprisonment by _lettre de cachet_ in France under the _ancien regime_;
all executions by so-called martial law in times of rebellion, and the
suspension of various ordinary guarantees of immediate and fair trial in
Ireland. Arbitrary government in this form was one of the first objects
of attack by the English Parliament in the seventeenth century, and this
first liberty of the subject was vindicated by the Petition of Right,
and again by the Habeas Corpus Act. It is significant of much that this
first step in liberty should be in reality nothing more nor less than a
demand for law. "Freedom of men under government," says Locke, summing
up one whole chapter of seventeenth-century controversy, "is to have a
standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made
by the legislative power erected in it."

The first condition of universal freedom, that is to say, is a measure
of universal restraint. Without such restraint some men may be free but
others will be unfree. One man may be able to do all his will, but the
rest will have no will except that which he sees fit to allow them. To
put the same point from another side, the first condition of free
government is government not by the arbitrary determination of the
ruler, but by fixed rules of law, to which the ruler himself is subject.
We draw the important inference that there is no essential antithesis
between liberty and law. On the contrary, law is essential to liberty.
Law, of course, restrains the individual; it is therefore opposed to his
liberty at a given moment and in a given direction. But, equally, law
restrains others from doing with him as they will. It liberates him
from the fear of arbitrary aggression or coercion, and this is the only
way, indeed, the only sense, in which liberty _for an entire community_
is attainable.

There is one point tacitly postulated in this argument which should not
be overlooked. In assuming that the reign of law guarantees liberty to
the whole community, we are assuming that it is impartial. If there is
one law for the Government and another for its subjects, one for noble
and another for commoner, one for rich and another for poor, the law
does not guarantee liberty for all. Liberty in this respect implies
equality. Hence the demand of Liberalism for such a procedure as will
ensure the impartial application o