for ever the myth of our freedom in the modern state. In the old democracy the state had become an intolerable power and the freedom it left untouched, rapidly diminishing, was almost exclusively devoted to the exploitation of the poor in spirit. The communist state which is its only rival has all the tyranny of humanitarianism. Between them the individual who cherishes life when it is free and subjects himself with a glad heart only to the unalterable law of Nature, is in a quandary. His relation to the state is undefined and, as far as he is conscious of it, unacceptable.
Within the state the individual is torn among conflicting loyalties; his wife, his parents, his children, his union, his lodge, his political party, his city or county, his religion, set forth claims upon him. Outside the state rises the new international order, which is not universal like the Catholic church, nor cosmopolitan like culture, but a structural combination of powers, with no community of policy or of ideals. This new order is, like the smaller groups, founded with the purpose of giving security. One may well wonder whether it be not destined to sum up the power of all the others to corrupt and limit the freedom of humanity.
For the international system, as it was before the war, as it will be under the League of Nations, has not even proposed to itself the task of inquiring what the relations of a man to his community must be; it is no part of that system to ensure freedom or to correct abuse. The common man, all of his rights forfeit long ago, stands chilled and lonely in the presence of this System and vaguely, behind it, imagines that he sees an ideal, humanity. He would like to live, if not for humanity, at least in harmony with its deepest purpose. And he condemns the whole social structure, from his street to the international system, because he knows that no society has yet expressed that purpose, and he fears that none ever will.
It will be strange, but it will be logical, that in this stress and intensification of tyranny the individual will reassert himself. If he is of sufficient intellectual courage he will try to work out his own problem of the state, and if he sees that any process is beginning to undermine the concentrated power of the state, he will further it. He will ask for devolution, and if social schemes come to his notice he will accept that one in which the state is reduced, that one in which it has the least power to interfere with the lives of its citizens. The life of such a man will be difficult; for he will meet the
