DOES everyone, I wonder, have seasons when his mind is mischievously perverse? When he finds himself painfully sensitive to truth and beauty in convictions he has disapproved, and something rises within, pressing him with disconcerting urgency to burn what he has adored and to adore what he has burned? I suspect most of us have such an experience—or should I say, such a temptation?—now and then. No one should covet it, for it drives us out from the snug little houses we have erected from our assumptions, into buffeting winds. These destroy our slogans. They blow away those comforting myths, for which Georges Sorel, long be-fore the days of Stuart Chase or Thurman Arnold, pointed out that men were ready to die. Such invasions are fraught with peril; they may drive us into the arid No Man's Land of cynical negation. But a person subject to them can hardly help himself, and, making the best of it, may discover that they have value. For they can perform a great feat, they can startle us into real thinking. 

We are all inclined to cling so stubbornly and mechanically to our dogmas that these become desiccated. To use my pet quotation from Milton, a man may be a heretic in the truth. Servile sub-mission to one's own past convictions is a peculiarly insidious type of idolatry. It is a sobering thought that one may quite possibly profess a true doctrine which is not a truth to one, but a fetish. Suddenly to find yourself within your opponent's mind, sharing his thoughts, feeling his emotions! It is a grand method of making one's own mind more flexible, more gentle; it may even be worth cultivating as a habit helping toward the difficult attainment of unity with one's fellows. Yet the dangers are as patent as the advantages; they are partly those of the proverbial donkey, starving between two bundles of equally attractive hay. After all, one must select some nourishing opinions on which to feed. 

The sort of inner conflict I have in mind was probably never so common as today. Issues be-fore us are rarely clear-cut (I am thinking less of fundamentals than of applications). My little way, while arguing vigorously on one side, of finding myself suddenly changing places with my adversary, causes amusement to my friends; but I fear it may become more usual. For where is escape into certitude offered? If western civilization is to survive—the "if" is more than rhetorical —it will become both inwardly and outwardly not more simple but more intricate. We were brought up in the nineteenth-century colleges on an old formula of Herbert Spencer's: Life moves from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the simple to the complex. I have observed that it behaves in just that way. 

Shuffling my morning mail, examples of perplexities are under my fingers. Do I or do I not approve as a Christian of a blockade on Japan? Am I an isolationist or an adherent of collective security, with Roosevelt and the Communists? Should a pacifist endorse sanctions? I can argue forcefully on both sides. Should the Civil Liberties Union denounce the NRA for limiting the free speech of the employer? Let these instances suffice. Which side shall I take, in many a question, when I perform the duty incumbent on every free American citizen, and write to my Representative? 

"Free": the word brings me to my subject. Of late I am experiencing a vehement distaste for freedom. This distresses and surprises me. Have I not all my life sung "Sweet Land of Liberty" with emotion? Am I not on the National Committee of the aforesaid Civil Liberties Union? Has my heart not leaped at Vergil's word to Cato as Dante and he emerge from Hell on the shores of the Purgatorial Mount? 

"Liberty va cercando, ch'e si cara 

Come sa chi per Lei vita refiuta,"— 

a passage in which Dante rather curiously aligns spiritual with political liberty. I have deplored Fascism and political Communism with the best, giving thanks that I was neither German nor Russian. I have in younger years disseminated among Italian immigrants a translation of the Declaration of Independence, with faith in its almost magic power. What is this queer revulsion? 

It is partly the fault of Stuart Chase ("The Tyranny of Words") and Thurman Arnold ("The Folk-lore of Capitalism") , who are forcing me to take down my cherished formulae and give them a shaking. Surely never was a more tyrannous, a more evasive word than "freedom," and many are the crimes committed in its sacred name. But still more responsible is my own experience. I am hating with intense hatred the necessity upon me to make constant decisions. In earlier professional years, tight held to a schedule, I chafed restlessly; now that scheduled days are over, I chafe worse. How I dislike planning the use of my time, how I loathe managing my own affairs! True, I resent having anyone else try to manage them for me; and there you are! Free as air, I feel myself floating in a void, I want to be in a metaphorical train, auto, airplane, carried in one direction. I have plenty of time now to revise my old ideas, but I preferred taking them for granted. Oh, for a routine relentlessly imposed! 

I suspect it may be good for me to have my old supports removed. But it is an acid test, and I am surer and surer that freedom is a discipline rather than a privilege. After all, that is what Dante learned. He, as I said, seemed to align the political and the spiritual. But I wish in the rest of these reflections to avoid the political aspects of the matter, and to consider the personal only; if the two will consent not to get mixed up. If I can keep control, not an allusion to capitalism, Communism or Fascism shall enter the ensuing paragraphs. For what I am vitally concerned with is my own unreasonable state of mind. 

The popular cry is against me. Progressive Schools assert the right of the kindergarten child to follow untrammeled his own sweet impulses. The Small Employer, rioting at Washington, snarls his distaste for a controlling government; and the "Intellectual" (save the mark!) habitually dismisses loyalty to any creedal authority as beneath contempt. Within me, in each case, some-thing sympathizes, responds; to be met, in hurtling clash almost audible to the spirit's ear, by this craving for something to obey. There is nothing for it but to call a halt, and betake me to examining what Stuart Chase calls my "referents." To analyze my formulae: I sigh; that is always a task to avoid when possible. 

Is this craving for authority a temperamental peculiarity of mine? I doubt it. You may say what you like about coercion; unrestricted free-dom is a devastating nuisance. Envisage a society without any external controls, and you envisage an anarchist hell. How young people resent restraint! But the post-war generation, as Aldous Huxley is telling us, tried out self-expression to the limit and found themselves plunged in helpless misery. 

One day last October, I lay on sun-baked slopes in a mountain wood, looking up into delicate white birches, swaying with exquisite grace in a gentle wind. Silently the golden leaves detached them-selves, and with soft erratic waverings floated down to the waiting earth. I watched them find that freedom toward which they had always strained, tugging at their restraining twigs when-ever breezes blew. Liberty theirs at last—but liberty to die. For living freedom is that of the leaf tight fastened, with the sap of the tree of which it is a product and a part vibrating through it, controlling it, till it reaches its mature being, its perfect form. Here is experience, not theory. "The sun has no liberty; a dead leaf has much. Its liberty will come—with its corruption," says Ruskin. "Free because imbound," is a good phrase of Wordsworth's. Poets of course have always known the weariness of "uncharted freedom." Yet curiously enough they have loved freedom with a consuming passion. Always the paradox, always the conflict! 

I am led to consider the social scene, with a view to ascertaining when liberty really obtains, or should obtain. I feel the need of a surrounding social order that shall, like the atmosphere, exert on me pressure so even that I shall not be conscious it exists. Is it because our present order is breaking up, and we consequently feel maladjustment of such pressure, that we are all restless? I suspect in any case that we need readjustment rather than removal. 

Considering further, I perceive large areas in which pressure is still even; areas in which freedom does not exist. They tend to increase. Progressive civilization imposes more and more restrictions. When I was a child I could cross a street pretty much when I chose; now I wait for a green light. Liberty is driven from one region after another; the workman becomes a cog in a machine, the corporation salaries the once independent employer. Whether we like it or not, social control is bound to increase all along the line. And taking the long view, such control is the only reasonable guarantee of our well-being. I shall be able to govern my actions less and less. 

A sad prospect; yet already over nearly the whole surface of life, we take conformity for granted. Chesterton somewhere gravely recommended sitting on the floor to eat one's dinner; he said he often did it, and it gave him a delightful feeling. Now obviously to eat on the floor would be an assertion of freedom; but somehow I don't yearn to do it. It would be the worst kind ty. I have deplored Fascism and political Communism with the best, giving thanks that I was neither German nor Russian. I have in younger years disseminated among Italian immigrants a translation of the Declaration of Independence, with faith in its almost magic power. What is this queer revulsion? It is partly the fault of Stuart Chase ("The Tyranny of Words") and Thurman Arnold ("The Folk-lore of Capitalism") , who are forcing me to take down my cherished formulae and give them a shaking. Surely never was a more tyrannous, a more evasive word than "freedom," and many are the crimes committed in its sacred name. But still more responsible is my own experience. I am hating with intense hatred the necessity upon me to make constant decisions. In earlier professional years, tight held to a schedule, I chafed restlessly; now that scheduled days are over, I chafe worse. How I dislike planning the use of my time, how I loathe managing my own affairs! True, I resent having anyone else try to manage them for me; and there you are! Free as air, I feel myself floating in a void, I want to be in a metaphorical train, auto, airplane, carried in one direction. I have plenty of time now to revise my old ideas, but I preferred taking them for granted. Oh, for a routine relentlessly imposed! I suspect it may be good for me to have my old supports removed. But it is an acid test, and I am surer and surer that freedom is a discipline rather than a privilege. After all, that is what Dante learned. He, as I said, seemed to align the political and the spiritual. But I wish in the rest of these reflections to avoid the political aspects of the matter, and to consider the personal only; if the two will consent not to get mixed up. If I can keep control, not an allusion to capitalism, Communism or Fascism shall enter the ensuing paragraphs. For what I am vitally concerned with is my own unreasonable state of mind. The popular cry is against me. Progressive Schools assert the right of the kindergarten child to follow untrammeled his own sweet impulses. The Small Employer, rioting at Washington, snarls his distaste for a controlling government; and the "Intellectual" (save the mark!) habitually dismisses loyalty to any creedal authority as beneath contempt. Within me, in each case, some-thing sympathizes, responds; to be met, in hurtling clash almost audible to the spirit's ear, by this craving for something to obey. There is nothing for it but to call a halt, and betake me to examining what Stuart Chase calls my "referents." To analyze my formulae: I sigh; that is always a task to avoid when possible. Is this craving for authority a temperamental peculiarity of mine? I doubt it. You may say what you like about coercion; unrestricted free-dom is a devastating nuisance. Envisage a society without any external controls, and you envisage an anarchist hell. How young people resent restraint ! But the post-war generation, as Aldous Huxley is telling us, tried out self-expression to the limit and found themselves plunged in helpless misery. One day last October, I lay on sun-baked slopes in a mountain wood, looking up into delicate white birches, swaying with exquisite grace in a gentle wind. Silently the golden leaves detached them-selves, and with soft erratic waverings floated down to the waiting earth. I watched them find that freedom toward which they had always strained, tugging at their restraining twigs when-ever breezes blew. Liberty theirs at last—but liberty to die. For living freedom is that of the leaf tight fastened, with the sap of the tree of which it is a product and a part vibrating through it, controlling it, till it reaches its mature being, its perfect form. Here is experience, not theory. "The sun has no liberty; a dead leaf has much. Its liberty will come—with its corruption," says Ruskin. "Free because imbound," is a good phrase of Wordsworth's. Poets of course have always known the weariness of "uncharted freedom." Yet curiously enough they have loved freedom with a consuming passion. Always the paradox, always the conflict! I am led to consider the social scene, with a view to ascertaining when liberty really obtains, or should obtain. I feel the need of a surrounding social order that shall, like the atmosphere, exert on me pressure so even that I shall not be conscious it exists. Is it because our present order is breaking up, and we consequently feel maladjustment of such pressure, that we are all restless? I suspect in any case that we need readjustment rather than removal. Considering further, I perceive large areas in which pressure is still even; areas in which freedom does not exist. They tend to increase. Progressive civilization imposes more and more restrictions. When I was a child I could cross a street pretty much when I chose; now I wait for a green light. Liberty is driven from one region after another; the workman becomes a cog in a machine, the corporation salaries the once independent employer. Whether we like it or not, social control is bound to increase all along the line. And taking the long view, such control is the only reasonable guarantee of our well-being. I shall be able to govern my actions less and less. A sad prospect; yet already over nearly the whole surface of life, we take conformity for granted. Chesterton somewhere gravely recommended sitting on the floor to eat one's dinner; he said he often did it, and it gave him a delightful feeling. Now obviously to eat on the floor would be an assertion of freedom; but somehow I don't yearn to do it. It would be the worst kind of bondage for it would enslave me to a foolish impulse, and divert my attention to trivialities. I am well content within the etiquette enclosing me in an invisible prison. Often—not always—rebellion may be cheap and deceptive business. 

At this point I make an important discovery. Freedom is not a good in itself. Because we assume it to be, we talk a lot of claptrap. Freedom is at best only a condition and a means, and to mistake means for ends is a mischievous though popular pastime. Reasons for liking or disliking liberty vary. You may long to live under authority because you have a servile nature, or are lazy—my case, I fear. Or you may so long because you know that, for you at least, authority protects the only sort of freedom that you value. 

"Make me a captive, Lord, and so I shall be free," sings the hymn. Liberty must be scrutinized in the light of the end to be gained by it. Its sweetness and its ultimate worth are not in escape from restraint but in power bestowed for self-realization. To speak intimately, I can never be sure that I am free so long as I am in any sense dependent on circumstance. Let me then welcome the pressure of poverty, illness or age, that so I may realize the buoyancy of the unchained spirit. Inwardly victorious over these, I am within hailing distance of the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Here, as always, sacrifice is the cost of achievement. Does not the same law apply, with discrimination, to the willing acceptance, indeed to the furthering, of effective social control? I think so. Shelley did not agree with me. In "Prometheus Unbound" he stated that man could only be "king over himself" when he should become "equal, unclassed, tribeless and nationless." I think Shelley was mistaken. 

Aware of the weight of the atmosphere, we should perish. The truth seems to be that extension of the areas in which conduct is purely automatic is the law of advance. The savage, unhampered by our restrictions, was much less free than the modern man. True freedom is a fine and subtle matter, incompatible with concentration of energy on the external plane. The college teacher may rightly covet a share in the government of his institution; but he serves committees at sacrifice just so far of his vocation as a scholar. I cannot resist alluding to the picture of life in the Soviet Republic as presented in the Webbs' big book on Russia. From present accounts, there would seem to be little enough freedom in Soviet land, but the picture stands, as a picture. And when I hear people decrying the regimentation under Communism, my mind reverts to it, with pity. For these miserable citizens, according to the Webbs, spend all their spare time in what we call self-government—or in other words, in arranging their affairs so that they might live. As a consumer, a man ran his cooperative; as a trade-unionist, his industry. Decisions on local affairs, on national affairs, claimed his vote, his presence; his every interest was represented in a meeting. Sometimes the city in which I live seems a little like that, but things are not quite so bad. That would have been a nation of slaves. Luckily it seems to have existed in the Webbs' imagination. 

Might we then, I repeat, describe progress as the gradual surrender to automatic control, of activities which once had to be self-regulating? Is here, perhaps, the road to freedom? It be-hooves me to be careful, for in spite of myself I see a political implication, but I turn away my eyes. I do not mean acceptance of a dictator; such progress should be voluntary; but might it not be communal as well as personal? I do not think H. G. Wells a very profound person, but a phrase of his has always lingered with me, in which he speaks of "those spendthrift liberties which waste Liberty." 

I however am speaking personally. And I dare to hope that my reaction from freedom is not due to cowardice or ignorance. I believe that we invoke the Goddess of Liberty quite too casually, and our appeals to her often sound hollow in my ears. Worth-while freedom can be gained only by progressive surrender of prerogatives and privilege. And I know "for sure," as the children say, that such freedom when won is less a pleasure than a discipline. It implies stern duty; that is why I must jealously defend it against dictators. 

One of two concepts governs our attitude: that of Rousseau, who viewed liberty as an innate right, or that of Dante, who knew it as an achievement. I stand with Dante. The motto of his great poem (shall I add, of the Church and the Scriptures?) is "Cercando Liberta." On the summit of the Mount of Purgatory, after disciplines prolonged, comes a great moment. Vergil, dolcissimo patre, says to him: "Henceforth take thine own pleasure for guide. . . . Free upright and whole is thy will; over thyself I crown and miter thee." Soon Vergil departs, and Dante mourns; but he is not left without authority. For here comes Beatrice, and through her eyes shines compelling power to sweep him upward among the circling spheres. In what sense is Dante free in Paradise? I wonder; I am not sure. I was never there. 

These reflections need have nothing to do with the New Deal or with social planning, but they have I think a great deal to do with my queer revulsion against uncontrolled freedom. I sup-pose we shall never attain true liberty till we have climbed to a recaptured Eden; and when we are there we shall realize the boon, in abandoning our-selves to pure adoration. I said that I would not be political, but I perceive that I am becoming mystical. It is time to end these random broodings. Alas! I must decide what to do next!