INTRODUCTION
The liberal is concerned with aspects of freedom that
have come to be important only in the modern age
that begins with the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Not that his idea of freedom is unrelated to older ones,
for its emergence in the West was no sharp break with
the past. The causes of the emergence are as much
cultural and intellectual as they are social and eco-
nomic. An idea—or, as in this case, a family of ideas—
has its ideological ancestry as well as social circum-
stances propitious to its birth.
The liberal idea (or ideas) of freedom emerged in
a part of the world deeply affected by Greek philoso-
phy, by Roman conceptions of law, and by a religion
affirming the closeness of man's relations with God.
How far there were, outside the West, philosophies
of the Greek type (concerned to dissect and define
man's ideas about himself, his mental processes, his
moral ideals and social practices), or conceptions of
law like the Roman ones, or religions as intimately
personal as Christianity, we do not know; but that these
things—to speak for the moment only of things ideo-
logical—have had a deep influence on how we think
about freedom in the West cannot be denied. These
ways of thinking are common to us all, and they are—
as we shall try to show later—essentially liberal, even
though there are now many people who think in these
ways and refuse to call themselves liberals. Liberal
ideas of freedom are far more widespread than the
readiness to admit that one's ideas of freedom are
liberal; which does not mean, of course, that the re
pudiator of liberalism does not also hold ideas incon-
sistent with his ideas of freedom.
The liberal idea of freedom, though it emerged in
a society deeply influenced by Greek philosophy,
Roman law, and Christianity, is not to be found in
ancient Greece or Rome, or in Christian countries
before the Reformation. No doubt, the consistent lib-
eral (the man who understands the implications of his
liberal faith) sets great store by much that the Greeks
or Romans or early and medieval Christians valued
highly, as, for example, by self-knowledge and self-
discipline, or the impartial administration of law and
the integrity of officials, or sincerity of belief. He sets
store by them because they are closely connected with
the freedom precious to him. But, though indispensable
to that freedom, they are distinct from it.
The modern or liberal idea of freedom emerges with
the attribution of rights of the mere individual against
those in authority over him. By the mere individual
we mean the individual considered apart from any
specific social role. The rights of the priest against the
civil magistrate, rights often asserted in the Middle
Ages, are his by virtue of his office. So, too, are the
rights of inferiors against their superiors in a hierarchy,
unless the rights are claimed for them merely on the
ground that they are men, without reference to any
service or duty expected of them. But the rights whose
exercise constitutes freedom, as the liberal conceives
of it, are held to be universal and important. To have
them, it is enough to be a man—or to have specifically
human capacities. This is the essence of the liberal
claim for man; though the claim, as soon as it is made,
is qualified in a variety of ways. It is admitted that
these rights are not to be exercised to the injury of
others, or that in practice not everyone can exercise
them, or that their universal exercise is a gradual
achievement. These and other qualifications we shall
consider later, both in the context of the times they
were made and more generally.
Political philosophers have differed considerably in
their explanations of these rights, and also about the
limits to be placed on them. Yet they all have, in some
measure, the liberal idea of freedom if they claim for
man, by reason of his humanity, the right, within limits
strictly or loosely defined, to order his life as seems
good to him. This is not to say that whoever makes
this claim must be called a liberal or aspires to the
name. For he may make the claim and then qualify
it in such a way that, in practice, it comes to very
little. There are differences of opinion as to whether,
say, Hegel was a liberal. But, even if we refuse to call
him one, we cannot deny that he made for the human
being, on the mere ground of his capacity to reason
and to form purposes, claims of a kind that Aristotle,
Aquinas, and Machiavelli never made. The modern or
liberal idea of freedom is prominent in his political
philosophy, no matter how well founded the complaint
that that philosophy is dangerous to freedom. Indeed,
he makes much more of the idea than, for example,
does Montesquieu, though Montesquieu has the better
claim to be reckoned a liberal.
It is not always the more liberal thinker who con-
tributes most to explain or justify or refine upon the
liberal conception of freedom. Locke, Kant, and Mill
had much to say about freedom, and their right to be
called liberal thinkers is seldom contested; and yet, in
what they say about freedom and its conditions, psy-
chological and social, they are no more perceptive and
original than is Rousseau, whom it would be odd and
misleading to call a liberal. A writer with moving, and
even profound, things to say about freedom may speak
with two voices, one liberal and the other not.
Individualism, in the sense of concern for the quality
of the individual's life, is much older than liberalism.
Plato had an elaborate conception of a good life to
be lived by those capable of it, and he valued that
life for itself and not only as a means to political
stability and social harmony. So too did Aristotle.
Though it is quite often said of a political thinker that
he “sacrifices” the individual to the state or to society,
not even Plato or Rousseau cared primarily for the
character of the social or political order and only
secondarily for the quality of the individual's life.
The Christian political thinker is often more of an
individualist in this sense than either Plato or Aristotle,
without being noticeably liberal. He cares little or
nothing for the social or political order except as it
affects the individual, and is concerned above all for
his relations with God. If to be an individualist is to
attach supreme importance to how the individual lives,
to his feelings, intentions, and capacities, and to his
welfare, and almost no importance to the social and
political order, except as it affects him, then some of
the most passionate individualists are not liberals. A
liberal, no doubt, is always, in this sense, an individ-
ualist, but not necessarily more so than the man who
rejects his idea of freedom or has not heard of it.
In the Renaissance many writers, among them
Machiavelli, admired the self-assertive man who knows
what he wants and acts resolutely and intelligently in
the endeavor to get it. They admired him even when
he did not allow conventional morality and fear of
public opinion to deter him from the pursuit of his
aims. They admired self-reliance and independence of
mind as much as John Stuart Mill did, though they
expressed their admiration differently and with a
greater desire to shock. The man who, in the pursuit
of what he wants, especially when what he wants is
to prove his “worth” to himself and to others, is not
deterred by ordinary scruples, and who dares do what
most men dare not, has been admired in societies far
more remote culturally from ours than was Renaissance
Italy. He has been admired when successful, or when
close to success in some spectacular or moving way,
as a hero. The hero is free, or freer at least than the
ordinary run of men; and the cult of the hero is com-
mon to many societies in which freedom, as the liberal
thinks of it, means nothing.
