There has been long a kind of balance theory prevalent: everything that seems to have to do with the one is put on one side, everything that has to do with the many, on the other, and one side is called individuality and freedom, and the other, society, constraint, authority. Then the balancing begins: how much shall we give up on one side and how much on the other to keep the beautiful equilibrium of our daily life? How artificial such balancing sounds! We are beginning to know now that our freedom depends not on the weakness but on the strength of our government, our government being the expression of a united people. We are freer under our present sanitary laws than without them; we are freer under compulsory education than without it. A highly organized state does not mean restriction of the individual but his greater liberty. The individual is restricted in an unorganized state. A greater degree of social organization means a more complex, a richer, broader life, means more opportunity for individual effort and individual choice and individual initiative. The test of our liberty is not the number of limitations put upon the powers of the state. The state is not an extra-will. If we are the state we welcome Our liberty. But liberty on the popular tongue has always been coupled with equality, and this expression too needs revaluation. The group process shows us that we are equal from two points of view: first, I am equal to every one else as one of the necessary members of the group; secondly, each of these essential parts is the tap from an infinite supply—in every man lives an infinite possibility. But we must remember that there are no mechanical, no quantitative equalities. Democracy in fact insists on what are usually thought of as inequalities. Of course I am not “as good as you”—it would be a pretty poor world if I were, that is if you were no better than I am. Democracy without humility is inconceivable. The hope of democracy is in its inequalities. The only real equality I can ever have is to fill my place in the whole at the same time that every other man is filling his place in the whole. Much of our present class hatred comes from a distorted view of equality. This doctrine means to many that I have as much “right” to things as any one else, and therefore if I see any one having more things than I have, it is proper to feel resentment against that person or class. Much legislation, therefore, is directed to lopping off here and there. But such legislation is a negative and therefore non-constructive interpretation of equality. The trouble with much of our reform is that it is based on the very errors which have brought about the evils it is fighting. The trade-unionists say that the courts give special privileges to employers and that they do not have equal rights. But this is just the complaint of the employers: that the unionists are doing them out of their time-honored equal rights.[64]