The great social heritage of the past has been the evolution of law and order. There has been through the ages a sweep of collective forces that has taught men self-control, and has constantly raised the ethical standard. A damnosa hereditas of ferocity, selfishness, and brutality, has been a part of the heritage ; but there has been enough of salt in the general character to rescue liberty and justice even in the most reactionary times. The Democratic Ideal is based upon the three great principles

146 NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIOX.

of libert}-, equality of rights and opportunities, and justice. In spite of indolence, apathy, inveterate conservatism, superstition, ignorance, out of these principles has flashed the day-star which the path of civilization has followed. Liberty is no longer a vagrant. " The love of liberty is simply the instinct in man for expansion," says ^latthew Arnold. That instinct is always operative. Yet liberty is not an entity ; it is only a state. Unregulated, discharged from the ethical obligations which we owe to each other, liberty is lost in anarchy, which is only consummate egoism. " The most aggravated forms of tyranny and slavery arise out of the most extreme form of liberty," says Plato. " If you enthrone it (liberty) alone as means and end, it will lead society first to anarchy, afterward to the despotism which you fear," says ]\Iazzini, one of the shining liberators of the last century.

"' If every man has all the liberty he wants, no man has any liberty," says Goethe. In other words, the rights of man must be articulat*»d with the duties of man. Freedom cannot exist without order. They are concentric. \\'ithout the recognition of the sanctity of obligation to others, the age-long aspiration of the race for libert}- is an impotent endeavor.