ABSTRACT
In a lecture delivered in Paris in 1819, politician and writer Benjamin Constant
compared the ancient classical notion of liberty with its modern counterpart. He
explained that liberty, and the sense of pleasure and fulfilment it affords,
consisted for the ancients in the ability to participate constantly and actively in
public collective government. This participation came at the expense of exer-
cising individual choice over affairs of personal interest, since these were closely
scrutinised by the same collective government. In contrast, he suggested, the
modern ideal of liberty is concerned with the enjoyment of our private existence.
In the modern state an individual, absorbed within the multitude, can exert very
little public influence. Constant argued that this loss of influence was amply
compensated by a vast increase in the possibilities for individual happiness, and
ultimately for fulfilment in modern private life.1
