Excerpt from A History of Modern Liberty, Vol. 1

I Purpose in this work to trace the history of liberty throughout is called the modern use.

Liberty throughout what is called the modern age. Liberty in the general sense I take to be the free development of man, subject of course to the limits of such development inseparable from human life. Absolute liberty is the prerogative of no mortal. Man is subject to the conditions of his being. He derives his existence from another. He is dependent on others as well as himself for its maintenance. Its span is short and uncertain at the best. Looking at human life merely from the material standpoint, man's insufficiency, dependence are patent enough. They are equally patent from the spiritual point of view. The human spirit is instinctively conscious of subjection to an intelligence infinitely superior to it, and this feeling of subjection is expressed in one form or another in its religious beliefs and usages. Again, as a political and social unit, the individual is conscious of restraints as well as rights. In whatever relation we regard him - material, moral, political, social - limitation, subjection is the law of his life.

So much granted as a matter of course, it is nevertheless true that liberty, within certain limits, is also a law of human life. The human will is free, to a certain extent at least, as is evidenced by our consciousness of the fact, and exemplified in countless acts of volition. A great part of my experience is a matter of my own volition, for which I must hold myself, as well as circumstances, responsible. Man is not a mere machine driven by the motor force of necessity. He has, to a certain extent, his destiny in his own hands. If it were not so, to speak of liberty, far less to attempt to write a history of it, would be an utter delusion.

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