ABSTRACT
Wallas goes on to say that not all human hindrances produce a feeling of unfreedom, but only those inconsistent with ‘normal’ relations in a primitive society; this is in line with his general belief that men are not well adapted except by accident to the ‘great society’. He thus suggests that a man who is denied access to a woman who loves him or from whom a faithful wife is taken feels differently from one who is denied access to a woman who does not love him; that though Ahab and Nathan both had ‘wants’ in connection with the vineyard only Nathan can feel ‘the oppressor’s wrong’; that the Germans invading Belgium were no doubt fulfilling their desires, but were hardly become more free; and that whether the property-less feel unfree or not depends on whether they picture the social environment as ‘human’ or ‘natural’, and on whether they regard their lack of property as due to the working of the ‘normal environment’ or as due to ‘abnormal action of…fellow human beings’.
