ABSTRACT
The fundamental principle which will help us to introduce order into this semantic chaos, to eliminate fictitious uses of the word, and to define it clearly and consistently, is that we have to look for freedom in the realities of human action and to analyze them in their cultural contexts. Freedom from law and freedom through law seem contradictions in terms. In reality they are nothing of the sort and our argument will lead us to the affirmation that new types of freedom are obtained through submission to rule, while such submission obviously imposes restraints on freedom previously enjoyed. Freedom is referred either to the spirit alone, or to the spirit controlling the body, or else to the spirit escaping the trammels of the body and of matter. The real denials of freedom come also from culture. Over and above the rules imposed by nature, by technique, and by concerted action, there exist in all human societies rules and laws which result from the abuses of social power.
