erty, or the police and courts will interfere; we must obey certain rules of the school; we must keep our promises even if it is very inconvenient to do so; we must work when we'd rather not. But as we grow older we are more and more left to decide matters for ourselves. We have to reason things out and see why we cannot interfere with others' rights, and why we must not always do as we prefer. When we control ourselves by reason, instead of following the first impulse, when we remember that we are part of society and so must think of others as well as ourselves, then we are "responsible." That is, we respond to the demands of others; we respond to what is reasonable or "right." We do not try to evade or dodge or squirm out of an unpleasant task, or out of our obligations to others; we stand up to them squarely. And we do it not because any one else is making us do it. We do it because somehow we recognize and feel that we ought to. Now just so far as we do this of our own accord we are free. We are not compelled by any one; we direct ourselves, just as free men make their own laws. Here then is one great idea about life which has come out of the long struggle first to establish order, then to secure liberty. And the second is that if freedom and responsibility are really just another name for acting conscientiously, then all men ought to be free and responsible. All men ought to have a chance to live a noble life. To help the cause of freedom, then, is not merely to gain a benefit for myself, it is part of the real business of living. The state began by setting up a king, and making sharp class lines between gentle and simple; it gave us the idea of the gentleman. The towns taught the dignity of labor and the service of honest trade. The long struggle for liberty gave men an ideal of life as free and responsible-free, "I am the captain of my soul"; responsible, for "no one liveth unto himself "; we are members one of another. Such liberty and responsibility are two of the great factors in democracy. |