etc., etc." We shall perceive that the sceptic
is in a mood not only to murder us but to massacre everybody in the
street. Exactly the same effect which would be produced by the
questions of "What is property?" and "What is life?" is produced by
the question of "What is liberty?" It leaves the questioner free to
disregard any liberty, or in other words to take any liberties. The
very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may
choose to do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in
profane swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his
going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with saying, "After all,
what is liberty? Man is a member of, etc., etc."

That is the problem, and that is why there is now no protection
against Eugenic or any other experiments. If the men who took away
beer as an unlawful pleasure had paused for a moment to define the
lawful pleasures, there might be a different situation. If the men who
had denied one liberty had taken the opportunity to affirm other
liberties, there might be some defence for them. But it never occurs
to them to admit any liberties at all. It never so much as crosses
their minds. Hence the excuse for the last oppression will always
serve as well for the next oppression; and to that tyranny there can
be no end.

Hence the tyranny has taken but a single stride to reach the secret
and sacred places of personal freedom, where no sane man ever dreamed
of seeing it; and especially the sanctuary of sex. It is as easy to
take away a man's wife or baby as to take away his beer when you can
say "What is liberty?"; just as it is as easy to cut off his head as
to cut off his hair if you are free to say "What is life?" There is no
rational philosophy of human rights generally disseminated among the
populace, to which we can appeal in defence even of the most intimate
or individual things that anybody can imagine. For so far as there was
a vague principle in these things, that principle has been wholly
changed. It used to be said that a man could have liberty, so long as
it did not interfere with the liberty of others. This did afford some
rough justification for the ordinary legal view of the man with the
pot of beer. For instance, it was logical to allow some degree of
distinction between beer and tea, on the ground that a man may be
moved by excess of beer to throw the pot at somebody's head. And it
may be said that the spinster is seldom mo