The answer depends, as we indicated in ch. iii., on the difference between bare liberty and a determinate growth. If your liberty is wholly indeterminate, then every restraint is a reduction of it. You cannot increase a quantity which is all of one kind by taking away a part of it. And, in fact, the idea that there was or could have {195} been a previous general liberty, of which a part was given up in exchange for more, is a mere illusion. Liberty has grown up within the positive determinations of life, as they have expanded and come to fit mankind better. But if the quantity to be increased is a determinate growth, of a type whose general character is known, the problem is transformed. It is the commonest of experiences that hindrances can be removed and favourable conditions maintained, if this has to be done, not with a view to every conceivable and inconceivable development, but for a growth the general line of which is known. In this case, as the whole expands, the restraints and the liberty, the room for action, may even increase together. [1] This is not only true in universal theory, but much more important than is always remembered in special theory or practice. The possibility of promoting freedom or well-being by compulsion depends very greatly indeed on the unity of habit and experience which binds together a single community. The more the life has in common, the more definite and automatic arrangements you may safely make in promotion of it. The rules of my household, which inconvenience its members no more than their clothes do, would produce a rebellion if they were enforced by law even throughout our village. [1] See the author’s essay, “Liberty and Legislation,” in _Civilisation of Christendom_ (Sonnenschein).