proxy, limiting the average power of personal expression, must set up idols of exaggerated personality, which act as public reservoirs from which all may drink. The average man of to-day drinks long draughts from these reservoirs and is not appeased. Is it possible that he is wrong in accepting what is public instead of what is intimate? I am inclined to think so, and, whilst not wishing to underestimate the undeniable importance of a lively and jolly public life, it would seem that personality at its best needs other means of expression. It is far better, for instance, to know a man by his work than by his habits, for in your valuation of that you arrive at your true destination. An approval, an appreciation, adds something to your personality, by the very act of stating a preference. It not only tells you where you are, it tells others. Nevertheless, curiosity about our fellows does indicate that we are awake; but curiosity is not an end in itself; it is a means, an experience, building character, which is power, or destroying it. And any inquisitiveness about others, be they artists or mechanics, craftsmen or drudges, which does not refresh us by a new point of view, give a new sense of wonder, or act as a tonic to the soul, is so much waste energy.

M

LORDS OF WHIM

ODERN society is a curious tangle of conflicting ideas, sentiments and interests; and for that reason it gains in rapidity of movement what it loses in old-fashioned dignity. It possesses, for instance, none of that high serenity we associate with the Greek spirit. The aim of the Greeks was to connect ideas with common affairs. That was the meaning of all their great discussions. Athens at its best was a discussion towards such an end. No thought, not even the most sublime, is complete in itself, and the value of an idea can only be determined by the test of practice. The aim of the modern world should be the marriage of idea and action. The worship of abstract ideas, be they never so beautiful, must end. The day of the pedant is over. We are tired of his chatter. He is barren. Beauty, Freedom, Love, Art, have all withered in his hands; they have faded not for lack of argument-they have had abundance of that but for lack of exercise. Let us rescue what remains from the pernicious influence before it is too late.

The evils of this separation of ideas from life are nowhere more apparent than in the use, or rather abuse, of the idea of Freedom. We are all devotees

of Freedom: it is a dominant word in our literature. It is waved like a banner from a thousand political platforms every year, to the thunderous acclamation of hundreds of thousands of people who firmly believe themselves to be free. It is a word that thrills us like new love; it is a word for which we have made great sacrifice; it is a word over which we have broken heads and spilt blood. But tattered and torn though it be, like a flag which has been through many battles, dabbled with blood though it be and stained with tears, it still remains merely a word, a great mystical word nevertheless, yet hardly of any value to those who have it flaunted before them on so many occasions. It is like a fire-balloon, admirable and beautiful in the air, but incapable of descending to earth. Freedom has become a fetish; a thing to be praised, to be patted on the back, to be adored, but not to be practised. You may burst into song about Freedom, but you may not be free.

But even worse things than lip service have happened to Freedom. Things have been called free which are not free. There are innumerable people who imagine Freedom to be synonymous with political liberty. Such people are blind or stupid. What else can we say of those who take the chaff and throw away the golden grain? Political liberty is but one of the instruments of Freedom; it can never be anything more. Real Freedom begins deep down in the consciousness of the individual; it is the stuff of variation and growth, the fuel of life. "Freedom is

the will to be responsible for oneself," and anyone who interferes with that responsibility is an enemy of Freedom.

More than a generation ago John Stuart Mill, in a noble essay, set forth the uses of Freedom. His essay was both a lesson and a warning, but it is doubtful whether we have learnt the one, and certain that we have ignored the other. He saw clearly that constant interference with the desire for individual expression would inevitably lead to the destruction of the principle of growth in society; and, although he laid considerable stress upon political despotism and the need for its removal, he was even more emphatic when he came to what Henry Thomas Buckle called "the despotism of custom." It is in that direction that we have ignored his gospel. We have claimed and attained more political liberty than we know how to use. But we are still warped and checked by the despotism of custom. Kings and elected persons are no longer the real enemies of society. The real enemies of society are custom and precedent. These are laughing in their impotent, cynical way at every effort towards Freedom. They have enthroned themselves on the seats of government. They dictate the laws and punish the defaulters. They have actually become the State, and under their rule society is losing its gaiety, its charm, its vitality; and the loss of these things means the loss of the only treasures known to man. The despots of custom have substituted boredom for gaiety; loudness and vulgarity

for charm; and, for vitality, feverishness and morbidity.

Nobody likes this change, but few are free to announce their dislikes, and those who are free are not brave. It requires something like religious valour to follow your inner consciousness to its last whim and eccentricity; for that is what Freedom means. It is easy to do the thing everybody is doing; it requires no thought, no faith, no effort. And here I beg of you not to misunderstand me: I do not want to rob people of the freedom to do what others are doing. Everybody requires that Freedom, and many will require no other. The Freedom I advocate includes that Freedom as well. It is necessary that everybody shall be free to do as they like, to follow their own inclinations in whatsoever direction they please, in so far as their action does not interfere with a like Freedom in others.

Mill denied the right of society, whether acting by legislative influence or by the influence of public opinion, to interfere with the conduct of any individual for the sake of his own good. But what is one man's meat is another's poison; there is no rule for correcting the appetites of man. He must learn by experience. Society, then, may interfere with him for its own good, but not for his. "If his actions hurt them, he is, under certain circumstances, amenable to their authority; if they only hurt himself, he is never amenable."

That is the only way to preserve those precious and