ABSTRACT
The history of the more pretentious writings on liberty, from the time of Plato to the present day, amply substantiates this charge, within our present limits all we can do is to point out the nature of the more persistent and frequent misconceptions. The commonest form of error is that which rests on the simple antithesis of the realm of liberty and the realm of law; one the “free” life of man in nature or in nonpolitical society and the other the coercive order of the State. Many writers on liberty have been content with this untenable antithesis. When men define liberty as the absence of restraint, the trouble frequently is that they at once think of some kinds of restraint and forget others altogether. The demand for liberty is a most powerful incentive when it is directed against a particular oppressor or a particular oppression. But those who win liberty for their own cause often refuse it to others.
