f the Knights
of St. John on their rocks at Rhodes or Malta, a religious and military
confraternity encamped around a church.--Liberty, under such conditions,
is out of the question: public convictions are too imperious; public
danger is too great. With this pressure upon him, and thus hampered,
the individual gives himself up to the community, which takes full
possession of him, because, to maintain its own existence, it needs the
whole man. Henceforth, no one may develop apart and for himself; no
one may act or think except within fixed lines. The type of Man
is distinctly and clearly marked out, if not logically at least
traditionally; each life, as well as each portion of each life must
conform to this type; otherwise public security is compromised: any
falling off in gymnastic education weakens the army; passing the images
of the gods and neglecting the usual libation draws down celestial
vengeance on the city. Consequently, to prevent all deviations, the
State, absolute master, exercises unlimited jurisdiction; no freedom
whatever is left to the individual, no portion of himself is reserved
to himself, no sheltered corner against the strong hand of public force,
neither his possessions, his children, his personality, his opinions or
his conscience.[2203] If, on voting days, he shares in the sovereignty,
he is subject all the rest of the year, even to his private sentiments.
Rome, to serve these ends, had two censors. One of the archons of Athens
was inquisitor of the faith. Socrates was put to death for not believing
in the gods in which the city believed.[2204]--In reality, not only
in Greece and in Rome, but in Egypt, in China, in India, in Persia,
in Judea, in Mexico, in Peru, during the first stages of
civilization,[2205] the principle of human communities is still that of
gregarious animals: the individual belongs to his community the same as
the bee to its hive and the ant to its ant-hill; he is simply an
organ within an organism. Under a variety of structures and in diverse
applications authoritative socialism alone prevails.

Just the opposite in modern society; what was once the rule has now
become the exception; the antique system survives only in temporary
associations, like that of an army, or in special associations, as in
a convent. Gradually, the individual has liberated himself, and century
after century, he has extended his domain and the two chains which once
bound him fast to the community, have