Preferences vary according to race,
time, place and circumstance. Among the possessions which are ever
desirable and the privation of which is ever dreaded, there is one,
however, which, directly desired, and for itself, becomes, through the
progress of civilization, more and more cherished, and of which the
privation becomes, through the progress of civilization, more and more
grievous. That is the disposition of one's self, the full ownership
of one's body and property, the faculty of thinking, believing and
worshipping as one pleases, of associating with others, of acting
separately or along with others, in all senses and without hindrance;
in short, one's liberty. That this liberty may as extensive as
possible is, in all times, one of man's great needs, and, in our days,
it is his greatest need. There are two reasons for this, one natural
and the other historical. -
By nature Man is an individual, that is to say a small distinct world
in himself, a center apart in an enclosed circle, a detached organism
complete in itself and which suffers when his spontaneous inclinations
are frustrated by the intervention of an outside force.
The passage of time has made him a complicated organism, upon which
three or four religions, five or six civilizations, thirty centuries
of rich culture have left their imprint; in which its acquisitions are
combined together, wherein inherited qualities are crossbred, wherein
special traits have accumulated in such a way as to produce the most
original and the most sensitive of beings.
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