uppose, for the sake of argument,
that I say that to take away a poor man's pot of beer is to take away
a poor man's personal liberty, it is very vital to note what is the
usual or almost universal reply. People hardly ever do reply, for some
reason or other, by saying that a man's liberty consists of such and
such things, but that beer is an exception that cannot be classed
among them, for such and such reasons. What they almost invariably do
say is something like this: "After all, what is liberty? Man must live
as a member of a society, and must obey those laws which, etc., etc."
In other words, they collapse into a complete confession that they
_are_ attacking all liberty and any liberty; that they _do_ deny the
very existence or the very possibility of liberty. In the very form of
the answer they admit the full scope of the accusation against them.
In trying to rebut the smaller accusation, they plead guilty to the
larger one.

This distinction is very important, as can be seen from any practical
parallel. Suppose we wake up in the middle of the night and find that
a neighbour has entered the house not by the front-door but by the
skylight; we may suspect that he has come after the fine old family
jewellery. We may be reassured if he can refer it to a really
exceptional event; as that he fell on to the roof out of an aeroplane,
or climbed on to the roof to escape from a mad dog. Short of the
incredible, the stranger the story the better the excuse; for an
extraordinary event requires an extraordinary excuse. But we shall
hardly be reassured if he merely gazes at us in a dreamy and wistful
fashion and says, "After all, what is property? Why should material
objects be thus artificially attached, etc., etc.?" We shall merely
realise that his attitude allows of his taking the jewellery and
everything else. Or if the neighbour approaches us carrying a large
knife dripping with blood, we may be convinced by his story that he
killed another neighbour in self-defence, that the quiet gentleman
next door was really a homicidal maniac. We shall know that homicidal
mania is exceptional and that we ourselves are so happy as not to
suffer from it; and being free from the disease may be free from the
danger. But it will not soothe us for the man with the gory knife to
say softly and pensively "After all, what is human life? Why should we
cling to it? Brief at the best, sad at the brightest, it is itself but
a disease from which,