CH. VII THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE 249

might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible. There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.

In one of the noblest poems¹ for its imagery and its music belonging to the recent school of our literature, the writer has sought in the aspect of inanimate nature the expression of that Liberty which, having once loved, he has seen among men in its true dyes of darkness. But with what strange fallacy of interpretation! since in one noble line of his invocation he has contradicted the assumptions of the rest, and acknowledged the presence of a subjection, surely not less severe because eternal. How could be otherwise? since if there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom, of the visible creation, that principle is not Liberty, but Law.

§ 2. The enthusiast would reply that by Liberty he meant the Law of Liberty. Then why use the single and misunderstood word? If by liberty you mean chastisement of the passions, discipline of the intellect, subjection of the will; if you mean the fear of inflicting, the shame of committing a wrong; if you mean respect for all who are in authority, and consideration for all who are in dependence; veneration for the good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with the weak; if you mean watchfulness over all thoughts, temperance in all pleasures, and perseverance in all toils; if you mean, in a word, that Service which is defined in the liturgy of the English Church to be perfect Freedom,² why do you name this by the same word by which the luxurious mean license,³

¹ [See author’s note below, at end of the text, p. 271.]

² [The Second Collect, for Peace, in the Order for Morning Prayer.]

³ [So Milton in the second of his sonnets, “On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises:”-

“That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,

And still revolt when Truth would set them free.

Licence they mean when they cry Liberty;

For who loves that must first be wise and good.”

[Version 0.04: March 2008]