Freedom In Service: Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government — John Shaqi
Freedom In Service: Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good GovernmentHearnshaw, F. J. C. (Fossey John Cobb)
History
Freedom In Service: Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government
Hearnshaw, F. J. C. (Fossey John Cobb)
Draft; Great Britain -- Defenses; Great Britain -- Politics and government
[33] Shelley. _Ode to Liberty_, Canto 2. Compare the description of
_Huriyeh_ (Liberty) given by Sir Mark Sykes in _The Caliphs' Last
Heritage_. I quote the following from a review in _The Spectator_, of
November 27th, 1915: Sir Mark Sykes saw _Huriyeh_ (Liberty) at work in
the distant provinces of the Empire. "What, O father of Mahmud," he said
to an old Arab acquaintance, "is this _Huriyeh_?" The "father of Mahmud"
replied without hesitation "that there is no law and each one can do all
he likes." Neither was this lawless interpretation of liberty confined
to Moslems. The Greek Christians in the neighbourhood of Hebron were
"armed to the teeth and glad of _Huriyeh_, for they say they can now
raid as well as other men." In Anatolia, a muleteer who had been
discharged from Sir Mark Sykes's service "spent all his time singing
'Liberty--Equality--Fraternity,' the reason being that the Committee at
Smyrna released him from prison, where he was undergoing sentence for
his third murder."
[34] Blackstone. _Commentaries_, i, 140.
[35] Austin. _Jurisprudence_, p. 274.
[36] Montesquieu. _Esprit des Lois_, p. 420.
[37] _Cf._ Philip Snowden, _Socialism and Syndicalism_, p. 175. "When
all submit to law imposed by the common will for the common good, the
law is not slavery, but true liberty."
VI. LIBERTY AS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE
Liberty as absence of restraint is, however, a merely negative thing; it
is a "being let alone." Some great writers, John Stuart Mill for
example, treat it as though it had only this negative character, and as
though to be let alone were necessarily and in itself a good thing. But
others have truly and forcefully shown, first, that to be let alone may
sometimes be a doubtful blessing, and, secondly, that liberty has a
further and positive aspect not less important than the negative. Sir J.
F. Stephen, in his _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity_, vigorously
criticizes Mill's negative theory. Matthew Arnold in _Culture and
Anarchy_ (a work which well repays perusal at the present time) pours
delightful but destructive ridicule upon "our prevalent notion that it
is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as
he likes." Thomas Carlyle, in _Past and Present_ and elsewhere,
vehemently expounds a positive ideal of liberty which involves strenuous
work for the good of man and for social advancement. "If liberty be not
that," he concludes, "I for one have small care about liberty." But
first in eminence among the exponents of the positive aspect of liberty
stands Thomas Hill Green, of Oxford. In his works he contends that
liberty is more than absence of restraint, just as beauty is more than
absence of ugliness.[38] He holds that it includes also "a positive
power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or
enjoying." He agrees with Mazzini that complete freedom is "found only
in that satisfying fulfilment of civic duties to which rights, however
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