The Notion Of The Perfect Whole, The

Liberty Is Liberty, Not Equality Or Fairness Or Justice Or Human Happiness Or A Quiet Conscience.

Injustice, Poverty, Slavery, Ignorance - These May Be Cured By Reform Or Revolution. But Men Do Not Live Only By Fighting Evils. They Live By Positive Goals, Individual And Collective, A Vast Variety Of Them, Seldom Predictable, At Times Incompatible.

If, As I Believe, The Ends Of Men Are Many, And Not All Of Them Are In Principle Compatible With Each Other, Then The Possibility Of Conflict - And Of Tragedy - Can Never Wholly Be Eliminated From Human Life, Either Personal Or Social. The Necessity Of Choosing Between Absolute Claims Is Then An Inescapable Characteristic Of The Human Condition. This Gives Its Value To Freedom As Acton Conceived Of It - As An End In Itself, And Not As A Temporary Need, Arising Out Of Our Confused Notions And Irrational And Disordered Lives, A Predicament Which A Panacea Could One Day Put Right.

The Notion Of The Perfect Whole, The Ultimate Solution In Which All Good Things Coexist, Seems To Me Not Merely Unobtainable--that Is A Truism--but Conceptually Incoherent. ......some Among The Great Goods Cannot Live Together. That Is A Conceptual Truth. We Are Doomed To Choose, And Every Choice May Entail An Irreparable Loss.

The Fundamental Sense Of Freedom Is Freedom From Chains, From Imprisonment, From Enslavement By Others. The Rest Is Extension Of This Sense, Or Else Metaphor.