Liberty is not to-day the watchword that it was a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, or thirty years ago. Though there may be much doubt as to the causes of the change, it must be admitted as a fact that the feeling that liberty is in itself one of the prime objects of human desire, a precious thing to be struggled for when denied and to be jealously defended when possessed, has not so strong a hold on men's minds at this time as it had in former generations. Some of the chief reasons for this change are not, however, far to seek. In the tremendous movement, political and economic, that has marked the past hundred years, three ideas have been dominant--democracy, efficiency, humanitarianism. None of these three ideas is inherently bound up with the idea of liberty; and indeed each one of the three contains the seed of marked hostility to the idea of liberty. This is more true, and more obviously true, of efficiency and of humanitarianism than it is of democracy; but it is true in no small measure of democracy also. For people intent upon the idea that government must be democratic that is, must reflect the will of the majority naturally concentrate upon the effort to organize the majority and increase its power; a process which throws into the shade regard for individual rights and liberties, and even tends to put them somewhat in the light of obstacles to the great aim. Furthermore, the democratic movement has set for itself objects beyond the sphere of government; and in the domain of economic control, democracy if that is the right word for it must strive for collective power, as distinguished from individual liberty, even more intently than in the field of government. However, in the case of democracy, there is at least no _inherent opposition_ to liberty; such opposition as develops out of it may be regarded as comparatively accidental. Not so with efficiency or humanitarianism. Even here, however, I feel that a word of warning is necessary. I am not speaking of the highest and truest efficiency, or of the most far-sighted and most beneficent humanitarianism. I am speaking of efficiency as understood in the common use of the term as a label; and I am speaking of humanitarianism as represented by the attitude and the mental temper of nearly all of the excellent men and women who actually represent that cause and who devote their lives to the problems of social betterment.