Freedom, in its usual acceptation, means the absence of external control. But there must be a power to control some where. If it be not in the will and understanding of the man himself, it must be in the will and understanding of some one else; if not in one or the other, after some fashion, then society perishes. In other words, men or nations who can not govern themselves must be governed. A perverted will or an imbecile understanding, at certain stages, works the forfeit of freedom in the freest communities on earth. Prisons and penitentiaries are for the one; lunatic asylums for the other. Children, wanting the power of self-direction, are kept under control for a period more than half as long as the average duration of human life. With regard to servitude, there are various degrees of it. In some parts of Europe _serfdom_ exists, with its usages more or less restrictive. In all the kingdoms of Europe there are subordinations of ranks, by which some classes are constituted superior and others are kept in subjection. There is but one principle running through all these gradations. Control on the one hand; obedience on the other; these are the correlatives. In whatever forms, modes, customs, institutions or laws, these relations may be reduced to actual operation; whether the terms to denote them be king and subject, lord and vassal, upper classes and lower classes, or master and slave, the ideas of command and subjugation, in some form or other, are still presented. The question then is of _more_ or _less_ freedom. For if _Freedom_ be used to denote a positive definite thing, or, in the slang of metaphysics, an _abstract right_, where is the standard to be fixed to measure it by? Shall we look to England, and take the half starved operative as the type of this impalpable entity--the half starved operative, with freedom only to choose whether he shall be a drudge or a pauper, and often saved the trouble of deciding by finding himself both? The English operative! part and parcel of the machinery which fills the markets of the world with British manufactures--a working anatomy of bone and muscle, animated by a vital principle instead of steam, and thereby differing from the other works and running gear of the mills!