What the craving for freedom has always come to has been the desire for
a _particular_ freedom, _e. g._ freedom of faith; _i. e._, the believing
man wanted to be free and independent; of what? of faith perhaps? no!
but of the inquisitors of faith. So now "political or civil" freedom.
The citizen wants to become free not from citizenhood, but from
bureaucracy, the arbitrariness of princes, and the like. Prince
Metternich once said he had "found a way that was adapted to guide men
in the path of _genuine_ freedom for all the future." The Count of
Provence ran away from France precisely at the time when she was
preparing the "reign of freedom," and said: "My imprisonment had become
intolerable to me; I had only one passion, the desire for--_freedom_; I
thought only of it."
The craving for a _particular_ freedom always includes the purpose of a
new _dominion_, as it was with the Revolution, which indeed "could give
its defenders the uplifting feeling that they were fighting for
freedom," but in truth only because they were after a particular
freedom, therefore a new _dominion_, the "dominion of the law."
Freedom you all want, you want _freedom_. Why then do you higgle
over a more or less? _Freedom_ can only be the whole of freedom; a
piece of freedom is not _freedom_. You despair of the possibility of
obtaining the whole of freedom, freedom from everything,--yes, you
consider it insanity even to wish this?--Well, then leave off chasing
after the phantom, and spend your pains on something better than
the--_unattainable_.
"Ah, but there is nothing better than freedom!"
What have you then when you have freedom, _viz._,--for I will not speak
here of your piecemeal bits of freedom,--complete freedom? Then you are
rid of everything that embarrasses you, everything, and there is
probably nothing that does not once in your life embarrass you and cause
you inconvenience. And for whose sake, then, did you want to be rid of
it? Doubtless _for your sake_, because it is in _your_ way! But, if
something were not inconvenient to you; if, on the contrary, it were
quite to your mind (_e. g._ the gently but _irresistibly commanding_
look of your loved one),--then you would not want to be rid of it and
free from it. Why not? _For your sake_ again! So you take _yourselves_
as measure and judge over all. You gladly let freedom go when unfreedom,
the "sweet _service_ of love," suits _you_; and you take up your freedom
again on occasion when it begins to suit _you_ better,--that is,
supposing, which is not the point here, that you are not afraid of such
a Repeal of the Union for other (perhaps religious) reasons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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