It is hardly possible to imagine a nation that has given itself, and is living under, a system of personal liberty, and is at the same time degenerate. A degenerate man fears liberty, he prefers to lean on others; he feels not ashamed to live on charity, and would abuse his liberty in order to satisfy his base instincts. A sound-minded and morally healthy man needs no compulsion to respect the right and liberties of others. He trusts and respects others, because he trusts and respects himself. He would assist no man in his attempts and intrigues to injure others. He would, therefore, uphold his own, as well as the liberty of others. Such bad results as Nordau fears from institutions based on liberty can only arise out of oppression. We have shown how the anti-semitic movement, which he erroneously regards as an outcome of too much liberty, is the result of oppression exercised by the Jewish capitalists and employers in virtue of bad legislation, and no one will deny that the anarchistic tendencies spring from the same cause. From these reasons we may fairly conclude that, if we wish to form an opinion of the intellectual soundness and moral strength of a nation, we cannot do better than examine to what an extent it has attained to good institutions based on personal liberty. If civilized mankind is actually degenerating, we must find a tendency among the people in the countries under examination to give themselves, or to accept under compulsion, laws and institutions which rob them of their personal liberty. In gauging the present epoch by this standard, we might first be inclined to side with Nordau. Those great nations which may fairly be looked upon as the leaders of civilization present spectacles of political corruption and retrogression, which might well suggest the idea that, instead of developing into a race intellectually and morally strong enough to live free, they show a marked willingness to place themselves under control of some kind—to abandon their divine attributes and to assume those of domesticated animals. But a correct opinion about so important a question cannot be formed on a superficial glance. In no branch of knowledge are appearances so deceptive as in sociology. Apparently the same effects are often produced by two opposite causes, and under slightly different circumstances the same cause may produce two opposite effects. Thus, a man may vote for a measure because he is corrupt and selfish, and with the object of benefiting himself at the expense of his fellow-men; while another man may vote for the same measure because he does not happen to be in possession of certain special knowledge which would enable him to understand the nugatory character of his action.